HERESY THREAD: Sacred cows that you think D&D would be better without.

[Exploderwizard]

From 1e I'd kill the segment initiative system with fire then nuke it from orbit in order to be sure.  Then I'd viciously prune the spell list.  Also, good-bye to the thief, because the thief and his skills were the first steps on the road of, "If it's not explicitly permitted, it's forbidden."  Likewise, the paladin, the ranger, the druid, the monk, the illusionist, the assassin, the barbarian and the cavalier.  You have a fighter.  Want him to be an incorruptible knight of Good?  Play him that way.  Want him to be a tracker woodsman?  Have a subsystem for tracking and a trait system that lets you tap into that (not unlike Next's backgrounds).  You have a cleric.  Want a cleric of nature?  Play him that way.  Want to play a Shaolin monk?  Have decent unarmed combat rules and play him that way.  Want an illusionist?  Pick illusion spells.  Want an assassin?  Kill people for money.  Want a barbarian?  Play your fighter that way.  Want a cavalier?  Buy a horse.

Yeah. I have removed the thief class from my own version of B/X. Thief and ranger (among others) are background options available to any class.

From 0e/Classic D&D, I'd jettison the XP system and just have characters level up on an adventure schedule, or include rules for leveling up with age.

No way. Treasure for XP is part of the soul of D&D.  The game was designed around exploring dangerous places in search of fabulous treasures in order to become wealthy and more powerful.

Take that away and you change the game to storytelling (2E) or fight-quest (WOTC).

[Imp]

Bullshit; that's reductio ad absurdem.  There's a lot of flexibility in D&D and then there's throwing D&D out.  "No more stats!  No more alignment!  No more hit points!  No more spell system!"  When does the cutting stop?

REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM

VS.

THE SLIPPERY SLOPE


In this battle of logic, only physical comedy can emerge victorious!

[Bobloblah]

Bullshit; that's reductio ad absurdem.  There's a lot of flexibility in D&D and then there's throwing D&D out.

One of the only people I see engaging in reductio ad absurdem in this thread is you...

None of you people engaging in this want to play D&D.

Call it D&D but when the players get there tell them you've eliminated the six stats, the alignment, vancian casting, levels and classes.

"No more stats!  No more alignment!  No more hit points!  No more spell system!"  When does the cutting stop?  When do you just fucking rewrite it and say "This completely different game is D&D, despite having no relation back to any other version of D&D ever."?

If I want a points-buy more granular system with no levels or classes...there's a half-dozen games out there I can try.

If I need a car I don't drive my lawn mower to the store.

Many people suggested individual or a couple changes to the system. Many of those changes are things that have, in fact, changed from one TSR edition to another (never mind under WotC), or have long been amongst the most commonly houseruled parts of the game. You saying that someone suggesting they would do away with alignments or vancian casting doesn't want to play D&D doesn't make it so. As you just acknowledged the game is hugely flexible, and can support an enourmous amount of houserules without breaking under the strain, or even losing the feel that person came to D&D for in the first place.

None of this is to say that some suggestions haven't been what sounds like a virtual replacement of everything but the name on the outside. But the point at which that line is crossed is indistinct and fuzzy, with different people placing the line in a different spot. That would be the entire point of this thread.

For myself, ACKS has become my go-to "version of D&D," even though I'd argue it's not a retro-clone, but some sort of neo-clone in the same camp as DCC, AD&D 3rd, AS&SH, and similar. But if I ever tried to tell my regular group, "No, no...we're not playing D&D tonight, 'cause we're playing ACKS!" they'd laugh me out of the room.

[Iosue]

No way. Treasure for XP is part of the soul of D&D.  The game was designed around exploring dangerous places in search of fabulous treasures in order to become wealthy and more powerful.

Take that away and you change the game to storytelling (2E) or fight-quest (WOTC).

I hear you on this, but where I'm coming from is that I don't think the XP system works that way.  Or at least, it hasn't been successful in working that way.  The idea behind XP in OD&D is it provides a method to measure character advancement, and with the fractional level rules is an incentive to explore dungeon levels equal to or higher than one's own.  But the real reward of the game was the exploration itself.  But ever since they were introduced, they've become the goal of play, rather than a by-product.  So instead of awesome exploration, the game gets distorted in the drive to get more XP and higher levels.  And this has led to many of the changes in the game that took it away from its exploration roots.  When it's GP = XP, people say, "I get XP for killing monsters.  And I get XP for gold.  So if I kill the monsters, I get XP for the monsters and XP from the gold I loot from their dead bodies!"  So, no exploration, just hack-and-slash and "murder-hobos".

Since the very first rules, D&D has said, "Only one level per adventure session."  No matter how much you explore or how much swag you get.  I think they should just go that extra step and say, "You level up after X many adventure sessions."  The way to avoid fight-quest is to not put granular combat rules and XP for monsters in the game.  The way to avoid storytelling games is you only have hard rules for exploration, random tables, and you make sandbox modules.  The XP system has historically done a terrible job at promoting exploratory play.  People who want to explore will explore.  People who don't, won't.  All the XP system has done is encourage people who don't want to explore to lobby the game to reward the stuff they want to do.

[KenHR]

I hear you on this, but where I'm coming from is that I don't think the XP system works that way.  Or at least, it hasn't been successful in working that way.  The idea behind XP in OD&D is it provides a method to measure character advancement, and with the fractional level rules is an incentive to explore dungeon levels equal to or higher than one's own.  But the real reward of the game was the exploration itself.  But ever since they were introduced, they've become the goal of play, rather than a by-product.  So instead of awesome exploration, the game gets distorted in the drive to get more XP and higher levels.  And this has led to many of the changes in the game that took it away from its exploration roots.  When it's GP = XP, people say, "I get XP for killing monsters.  And I get XP for gold.  So if I kill the monsters, I get XP for the monsters and XP from the gold I loot from their dead bodies!"  So, no exploration, just hack-and-slash and "murder-hobos".

No.

My players - and this is true of almost every player I've had since I started playing when my age was in the single digits - said, "I get XP for monsters, but it's shit compared to the XP I get for gold, plus there's the danger of being killed by the ugly fuckers.  How can I bypass the monsters and get the gold?"

And LOL @ "XP took the game away from its roots."

[Imp]

Wouldn't "you level up after X adventure sessions" wind up rewarding running away and hiding from everything though?

Test everyone's patience as each character does the absolute minimum possible to hold the interest of the players!

I'm not sure there really is a great solution to that issue. Quest XP makes the most sense, mostly, but it is not organic and highly arbitrary. Levels per X sessions take away all XP incentive and make things so predictable in terms of character advancement. XP for kills and XP for GP tilts things towards hack and slash. Advancement for practicing skills rewards grinding, though it is more realistic up to a point. (That point being, applying a skill to a new situation or opponent can be much more enlightening IRL than repeating it over and over in the same context.)

I suppose XP for challenges, 3e style, can be good but it's a middle ground between XP-for-kill hack and arbitrary quest XP.

Arguably, a tilt towards hack and slash, without requiring it, is one of the sacred cows of D&D though, and I like a good hack and slash.

[J Arcane]

XP/Level is literally the single most iconic mechanic in all of D&D, and the one most often co-opted by other games. It is perhaps one of the most influential mechanics ever designed, and it continues to be wildly popular despite so many tabletop designers and gamers alike swearing it to be the most awful thing since Hitler.

Removing the XP system is, literally, killing what makes D&D what it is. It would be an idiocy that makes 4e look conservative.

[deadDMwalking]

Bullshit; that's reductio ad absurdem.  There's a lot of flexibility in D&D and then there's throwing D&D out.  "No more stats!  No more alignment!  No more hit points!  No more spell system!"  When does the cutting stop?  When do you just fucking rewrite it and say "This completely different game is D&D, despite having no relation back to any other version of D&D ever."?

Spoken like a member of the 'Cult of RAW'.  

Some of these things are routinely tossed out by different groups, and they still play 'D&D'.  Sure, if six different posters each pick different things and you get rid of all of them, you're probably moving pretty far from D&D...  But discussing the merits of any particular 'excisement' seems valuable.

I'm in favor of ditching alignment as it stands now.  And any setting (like Forgotten Realms) that has meddling gods.

[deadDMwalking]

XP/Level is literally the single most iconic mechanic in all of D&D, and the one most often co-opted by other games. It is perhaps one of the most influential mechanics ever designed, and it continues to be wildly popular despite so many tabletop designers and gamers alike swearing it to be the most awful thing since Hitler.

Removing the XP system is, literally, killing what makes D&D what it is. It would be an idiocy that makes 4e look conservative.

Sorry for the doublepost.  You can keep XP/level and still change how you acquire it.  Rather than getting XP for killing monsters and/or gathering treasure, you can simply award XP for successful Quest completion.

In a computer game like 'Eye of the Beholder', I would 'grind' the kenku level.  They were worth decent XP, and it wasn't difficult to set up spots to rather safely take them out in large numbers.  The game could have instead given XP for acquiring the gate keys, rescuing NPCs (including resurrecting the dead) and the various missions (rescuing the captured Dwarven Prince - etc).  

By focusing XP on accomplishing missions, it would have encouraged completing adventures.  Now, a computer game is more limited than a TTRPG, and it did 'respawn' monsters, which a DM might not do in the same way, but it creates an unhealthy focus on 'killing things'.  I'd like a system that rewards accomplishing 'heroic' things without necessary recourse to murder.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

I hear you on this, but where I'm coming from is that I don't think the XP system works that way.  Or at least, it hasn't been successful in working that way.  The idea behind XP in OD&D is it provides a method to measure character advancement, and with the fractional level rules is an incentive to explore dungeon levels equal to or higher than one's own.  But the real reward of the game was the exploration itself.  But ever since they were introduced, they've become the goal of play, rather than a by-product.  So instead of awesome exploration, the game gets distorted in the drive to get more XP and higher levels.  And this has led to many of the changes in the game that took it away from its exploration roots.  When it's GP = XP, people say, "I get XP for killing monsters.  And I get XP for gold.  So if I kill the monsters, I get XP for the monsters and XP from the gold I loot from their dead bodies!"  So, no exploration, just hack-and-slash and "murder-hobos".

No rules can fix a referee who is such an inept lawncrapper they can't make monsters dangerous.  My players don't say "Oh, yay!  A monster!  XP on the hoof!"

Their battle cry before a battle is "Oh FUCK!"

Also, your example ALSO falls down on pure logic; monster XP is tiny dribbles of stinky crap next to treasure XP.

[Gronan of Simmerya]

XP/Level is literally the single most iconic mechanic in all of D&D, and the one most often co-opted by other games. It is perhaps one of the most influential mechanics ever designed, and it continues to be wildly popular despite so many tabletop designers and gamers alike swearing it to be the most awful thing since Hitler.

Removing the XP system is, literally, killing what makes D&D what it is. It would be an idiocy that makes 4e look conservative.

Plus, the "XP for Gold" paradigm was also based on the idea that when you reached Lord, Patriarch, or Wizard, you'd clear out some wilderness and build a stronghold, and you needed FUCKBUCKETLOADS of gold to do that.

[mcbobbo]

I think "XP for accomplishments" is the best concept.  It shouldn't be "loot 1000 gp" but "upgrade your armor", for example.

[Exploderwizard]

I hear you on this, but where I'm coming from is that I don't think the XP system works that way.  Or at least, it hasn't been successful in working that way.  The idea behind XP in OD&D is it provides a method to measure character advancement, and with the fractional level rules is an incentive to explore dungeon levels equal to or higher than one's own.  But the real reward of the game was the exploration itself.  But ever since they were introduced, they've become the goal of play, rather than a by-product.  So instead of awesome exploration, the game gets distorted in the drive to get more XP and higher levels.  And this has led to many of the changes in the game that took it away from its exploration roots.  When it's GP = XP, people say, "I get XP for killing monsters.  And I get XP for gold.  So if I kill the monsters, I get XP for the monsters and XP from the gold I loot from their dead bodies!"  So, no exploration, just hack-and-slash and "murder-hobos".

Since the very first rules, D&D has said, "Only one level per adventure session."  No matter how much you explore or how much swag you get.  I think they should just go that extra step and say, "You level up after X many adventure sessions."  The way to avoid fight-quest is to not put granular combat rules and XP for monsters in the game.  The way to avoid storytelling games is you only have hard rules for exploration, random tables, and you make sandbox modules.  The XP system has historically done a terrible job at promoting exploratory play.  People who want to explore will explore.  People who don't, won't.  All the XP system has done is encourage people who don't want to explore to lobby the game to reward the stuff they want to do.

:huhsign:

First of all. The XP for monsters goes beyond slaughter. Outwitting or overcoming monsters rewards XP. That doesn't mean you need to leave a trail of corpses in your wake to get it. If the PCs fool a merchant "monster" out of some gold then they will get Xp for tricking the monster and more for the treasure won.

Second, treasure XP dwarfs monster xp by a relative fuckton.

The role of treasure as Xp exists primarily to allow players a choice in a risk vs reward fashion. Big balls risks can have bigger payoffs or can get you killed quick. Do you wanna risk it?

Exploration is something that happens as a matter of course when you are searching for the best treasures. Combat is something to avoid unless you can arrange overwhelming odds in your favor.

 We didn't defeat the owlbear in B2 by running in and hoping to get lucky. We scouted the place, saw something that looked like it could wipe us out, made a plan, dug a large covered pit, and pissed it off enough to chase us until we could trap it. Then we pelted it with missiles until it died. Very unheroic but very effective.

The real reward in the game, like any other, is survival and winning. Gold was the way to keep score.

[YourSwordisMine]

We didn't defeat the owlbear in B2 by running in and hoping to get lucky. We scouted the place, saw something that looked like it could wipe us out, made a plan, dug a large covered pit, and pissed it off enough to chase us until we could trap it. Then we pelted it with missiles until it died. Very unheroic but very effective.

Which probably took all of 20 minutes of real time.

That's better than being forced to fight said owlbear, kiting it around while you throw shurikens at it, whittling down its massive hit points for 3 hours of real time...

[Spinachcat]

Pathfinder campaigns have effectively gotten rid of XP. You gain a level after 3 adventures.