Quote from: VisionStorm on June 02, 2022, 10:01:04 AM
Stuff like this is why some critics say that D&D incoherent—it can't keep up with what its focus is supposed to be.

You mean Forge/GNS cultists, Storygamer fanatics and Pundits's Swine? They still spout this nonsense even now.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 02, 2022, 11:14:34 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 02, 2022, 10:01:04 AM
Stuff like this is why some critics say that D&D incoherent—it can't keep up with what its focus is supposed to be.

  I don't know that I'd say it's incoherent, but long years of observation and research have convinced me that the end for which people have generally been using (A)D&D since the explosion in popularity in the early 80s is not the purpose for which the game was designed.

   The game as designed is meant to be a mix of dungeon-delving, wargaming, and domain management in an open-ended, continuously evolving, multipolar world. The game as played has typically focused on the dungeon-delving or fantasy adventure centered around a fixed band of characters.

I think that the game as played has typically focused on that because that's the ultimate conclusion of what tabletop ROLE PLAYING games are really all about. They're about the characters (the people we "roleplay") and their adventures. Everything else is secondary, even to the extent that it might be a valid option or viable possibility.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 02, 2022, 11:14:34 AMThere are two erroneous conclusions I've seen drawn from this:

    1. D&D is a badly designed game and not worth playing;
    2. D&D is a good game, so everyone who wants something else out of it should either change their minds and embrace the Gygaxian method, or get out of the hobby altogether.

I prefer conclusion 3. Take what works and change the shit out of what doesn't!

Quote from: Persimmon on June 02, 2022, 11:37:47 AM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 01, 2022, 04:06:04 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on June 01, 2022, 02:22:16 PM
Another thing to keep in mind is that IIRC Arneson created HP because people got attached to their PCs.

Arneson apparently proposed about 10 HP for starting PCs with no additional HPs later on, but Pcs getting harder to hit.

http://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/2021/10/arnesons-hit-points-for-characters.html

If you want PCs to be truly disposable, you might give each a single 'hit"...

So, it's shades of gray, not black and white.

And even the people that love old-school HP the most might agree that it is strange to imagine 1st level PCs being killed by house cats, or from a 10' fall...

Fixed HP at level 1 (perhaps based on your stats?) and being harder to hit as you went up in level would have been better. Also having skills, which apparently Arneson's version had. Instead we got no skills and a miserable amount of HP at level 1, then HP bloat as you reached mid to higher levels.

An interesting alternative is offered by the new game Against the Darkmaster..  You get a bunch of starting hit points based on kin (race), culture, and vocation (class).  Then you might get more as you level up, or not, unless you buy development points in that area.  So you could start with 85 hp (as a warrior) or 55 (as an animist) at 1st level, but you'll gain fewer in comparison to D&D as you level up.  Of course they have lethal critical tables, but this still offers a bit more of a buffer at low levels.  Once we play this game a few times, I'll have a better sense of how it works in practice.

That sounds like it could work, though, 85 HP at level 1 sounds a bit too high, but I suppose it depends on how the other options play out.

Quote from: Omega on June 02, 2022, 02:31:34 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 02, 2022, 10:01:04 AM
Stuff like this is why some critics say that D&D incoherent—it can't keep up with what its focus is supposed to be.

You mean Forge/GNS cultists, Storygamer fanatics and Pundits's Swine? They still spout this nonsense even now.

Yeah, that's where I got that "D&D is incoherent" expression.

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 02, 2022, 10:01:04 AM
One of the problems with this is that D&D and most TTRPGs in general are not about large scale battles, but individual confrontations, so this starts off with the wrong set of assumptions right from the start.

As I mentioned n my post, I tested this against Appendix A. The dungeon encounter tables do not use the mass number appearing that the monster manual does. It is for your typical ragtag band of wandering psychopaths getting caught up in wacky adventures. I referenced Tenser crawling through dungeons solo and in small parties. I am clearly not assuming the things that you assume I'm assuming. And nothing I said rests upon the assumptions you assume I'm making.

QuoteI get that the game started out being derived from war games, but creating your own individual character and going into the micro level is about the complete opposite of looking at things from a bird's eye view while managing massive numbers of troops.

Who said anything about a bird's eye view?

QuoteGetting rid of individual units as quickly as possible

I never said anything about getting rid of individual units as quickly as possible. My post was refuting the presumed lethality that is the subject here. I'm making the case that those one-hit-kill 1st level characters and 0th level fighting men are actually tough SOBs.

I could slap together a combat system that gives the average person a 70% chance of hitting against the average defense rating. Because I've heard ~70% hit probability is somehow magically more fun. And then give the average person 10 hit points, where the average weapon does d6 damage. And if I do my math right, it's going to take about 4 rounds on average to take someone out.

Or I could just have the average guy die in one hit. But the average chance of hitting is 25% (which it is in 1E--0th level human vs AC 5). And I go and do the math, it comes out to about 4 rounds on average to take someone out. It's neither faster nor slower. It just saves me from having to track damage.

Quoteso you can go to the next and keep a large scale battle moving is the wrong focus for a game centered around individual characters—not nameless "units", but CHARACTERS with hopes and aspirations, personalities and motivations for going out on adventure.

I would say spending more time and effort than is necessary running a combat is the wrong focus for a game centered around individual characters with hopes, aspirations, personalities, and motivations for adventures that involve more than just fighting.

QuoteThis approach to handling the game is at odds with the idea of engaging in immersive play where you get to play the role of a character taking part in an adventure, not a nameless disposable unit in a large scale battlefield.

I would say that spending more time and effort than is necessary running a combat is at odds with the idea of engaging in immersive play where you get to play the role of a character that does something other than swing a sword on a battlefield.

QuoteAnd it doesn't even work long term cuz eventually characters keep piling up HP as they go up in level, so that the game is in conflict with its own core set of assumptions when it comes to progression. First it gives everyone a pitiful amount of HP at level 0 or 1 (which have NO functional difference, by the way) so they can be discarded as quickly as possible, like units in a large scale battle that 99% of the time is not even gonna happen in a TTRPG, then it lets characters pile up an equal amount of HP every time they level up, which serves the opposite function.

Stuff like this is why some critics say that D&D incoherent—it can't keep up with what its focus is supposed to be.

That's just straw-manning the purpose and function of the game mechanics.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on June 02, 2022, 11:14:34 AM
  I don't know that I'd say it's incoherent, but long years of observation and research have convinced me that the end for which people have generally been using (A)D&D since the explosion in popularity in the early 80s is not the purpose for which the game was designed.

   The game as designed is meant to be a mix of dungeon-delving, wargaming, and domain management in an open-ended, continuously evolving, multipolar world. The game as played has typically focused on the dungeon-delving or fantasy adventure centered around a fixed band of characters.

    There are two erroneous conclusions I've seen drawn from this:

    1. D&D is a badly designed game and not worth playing;
    2. D&D is a good game, so everyone who wants something else out of it should either change their minds and embrace the Gygaxian method, or get out of the hobby altogether.

This is a much better understanding of 1E.

The way I put it--and by the way, this was going to be included in my previous post and cut for brevity since I've literally said this hundreds of times--1E was uniquely positioned as being the most popular RPG at a time that time was far enough along in the evolution of RPGs that there was a ton of previous experienced to draw upon but not so far along in the evolution of RPGs that we'd settled upon the one singular playstyle of the ragtag band of wandering psychopaths getting caught up in wacky adventures.

As a consequence, it supports a far broader array of play styles than other RPGs. That's not an incoherent thing. It's an accomplishment.

Not only is it not incoherent, it's genius. Because it doesn't just support a broad away of play styles. It fits them it all together in an over-riding system that allows campaigns to transition and evolve from one style to another seamlessly.

I've actually seen gamers question why the weapons the game incentivized D&D characters to use are such a mismatch for what was actually used. Spears and shit like that. And I point out, go ahead. Put together an army. Outfit it. The costs involved are going to lead you to outfight soldiers with "good enough" weapons. The weapon vs armor and weapon length & speed initiative considerations are going to come into play (they are a lot less significant, even if you use them, for small scale higher level characters). What you're incentivized to go with is going to be as reasonable a match for historical accuracy as you might be able to expect out of the game. For band of heroes type of play, like we're used to, the weapon selection more resembles what mythical heroes might use.

This allows you to play mythical heroes decked out as you might expect mythical heroes to be decked out in, while using a medieval or some other period setting as a backdrop and having the typical NPCs decked out in what you'd expect them to be decked out in, and in both cases, simultaneously, in the same campaign, both sets of choices make perfect sense.

From what I've seen, this is exactly what most peoples games aim at. 1E delivers it.

There's another thing going on here, a standard that D&D is held to that doesn't generally apply to other games:  It's somehow supposed to be exactly what the critic wants, or it's designed wrong.

Maybe it's just not designed for you?  The only really valid line it to criticize D&D (or any game) for not doing what it purports to do, or does it in a way that is sub optimal (e.g. overly complicated, obscure, drags in stuff irrelevant to its purpose, etc.).  In order to do that, you must be able to separate what it is meant to do from what you want it to do, or even think it tries to do.

Now, naturally, there is an aspect of most critics to transition into designer or author mode--how I would have done it and why.  Nothing wrong with that so far as it goes, but that is now a somewhat different subject.  Sure, it is going to overlap with the critic role where the game is sub optimal to its intended purpose.  And all this talk on a forum necessarily allows for the missing of tone that can blur line unintentionally.  Which circles back to the big criticism--the design was "wrong", it's goals were chosen poorly.  A much harder case to make, requiring the elaboration of a "philosophy" (to give the concept more weight than it perhaps deserves) of what games can and can't do, should and shouldn't try, and likely to lead to a sometimes useful discussion where real differences in approach in those having the discussion are made clear.  If everyone can keep the different lines of criticism a little separate in their heads. 

As for me, it's not my only line of "this game wasn't quite designed for me", but it's a big one:  I like the approach of early D&D better than later D&D.  However, I've always *wanted* combat to be a slightly bigger part of the game than it designed to be, encouraged a little more than it was intended.  Not to the extent that WotC typically takes it, but edging slightly that way from what Gygax and company designed.  While still retaining a lot of the rest of the early D&D goals.  When we talk old school lethality, and what house rules might be, that's both how lethal it is used as intended and how lethal it is played with more combat than intended and what you might do to bridge that gap.

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Quote from: Lunamancer on June 02, 2022, 10:18:06 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 02, 2022, 10:01:04 AM
One of the problems with this is that D&D and most TTRPGs in general are not about large scale battles, but individual confrontations, so this starts off with the wrong set of assumptions right from the start.

As I mentioned n my post, I tested this against Appendix A. The dungeon encounter tables do not use the mass number appearing that the monster manual does. It is for your typical ragtag band of wandering psychopaths getting caught up in wacky adventures. I referenced Tenser crawling through dungeons solo and in small parties. I am clearly not assuming the things that you assume I'm assuming. And nothing I said rests upon the assumptions you assume I'm making.

I was talking about the game's design assumptions, not claiming that you assumed any of this yourself.

Quote from: Lunamancer on June 02, 2022, 10:18:06 PM

QuoteI get that the game started out being derived from war games, but creating your own individual character and going into the micro level is about the complete opposite of looking at things from a bird's eye view while managing massive numbers of troops.

Who said anything about a bird's eye view?

I did, in reference to the notion that the game's mechanics are intended for handling large scale battles. Looking at things from the perspective of managing a large scale battle would imply looking at things from "bird's eye view", as opposed to getting up close and into the details.

Quote from: Lunamancer on June 02, 2022, 10:18:06 PM

QuoteGetting rid of individual units as quickly as possible

I never said anything about getting rid of individual units as quickly as possible. My post was refuting the presumed lethality that is the subject here. I'm making the case that those one-hit-kill 1st level characters and 0th level fighting men are actually tough SOBs.

I could slap together a combat system that gives the average person a 70% chance of hitting against the average defense rating. Because I've heard ~70% hit probability is somehow magically more fun. And then give the average person 10 hit points, where the average weapon does d6 damage. And if I do my math right, it's going to take about 4 rounds on average to take someone out.

Or I could just have the average guy die in one hit. But the average chance of hitting is 25% (which it is in 1E--0th level human vs AC 5). And I go and do the math, it comes out to about 4 rounds on average to take someone out. It's neither faster nor slower. It just saves me from having to track damage.

The idea that the average guy dies in one hit is at odds with the notion that they're tough SOBs, and does imply "getting rid of individual units as quickly as possible" even if you don't explicitly use those words. That those level 0 guys would only be 25% likely to be hit is an artifact of wearing chainmail armor and being attacked by a level 0 or 1 character without bonuses specifically (neither of which is a guarantee), not an inherent ability they have.

Quote from: Lunamancer on June 02, 2022, 10:18:06 PM

Quoteso you can go to the next and keep a large scale battle moving is the wrong focus for a game centered around individual characters—not nameless "units", but CHARACTERS with hopes and aspirations, personalities and motivations for going out on adventure.

I would say spending more time and effort than is necessary running a combat is the wrong focus for a game centered around individual characters with hopes, aspirations, personalities, and motivations for adventures that involve more than just fighting.

QuoteThis approach to handling the game is at odds with the idea of engaging in immersive play where you get to play the role of a character taking part in an adventure, not a nameless disposable unit in a large scale battlefield.

I would say that spending more time and effort than is necessary running a combat is at odds with the idea of engaging in immersive play where you get to play the role of a character that does something other than swing a sword on a battlefield.

Except for when those individual characters get killed in one hit in their first battle in the first game session, cuz they're also one of the units that starts with low HP.

My point isn't about spending as much time and effort as possible in combat, but that PCs are also one of the units that would get dispatched quickly in combat (at least a lower levels) when using this kind of approach. And also that a large scale battle focus is the complete opposite of small skirmishes between individuals, which is what adventures of individual characters normally entails.

This isn't a large scale combat game, but a roleplaying game about action adventure. Large scale battlefield mechanics are more conductive to handling disposable units rather than central characters in a game about their daring exploits and adventures.

Quote from: Lunamancer on June 02, 2022, 10:18:06 PM

QuoteAnd it doesn't even work long term cuz eventually characters keep piling up HP as they go up in level, so that the game is in conflict with its own core set of assumptions when it comes to progression. First it gives everyone a pitiful amount of HP at level 0 or 1 (which have NO functional difference, by the way) so they can be discarded as quickly as possible, like units in a large scale battle that 99% of the time is not even gonna happen in a TTRPG, then it lets characters pile up an equal amount of HP every time they level up, which serves the opposite function.

Stuff like this is why some critics say that D&D incoherent—it can't keep up with what its focus is supposed to be.

That's just straw-manning the purpose and function of the game mechanics.

How?

Quote from: VisionStorm on June 03, 2022, 11:23:19 AM
I was talking about the game's design assumptions, not claiming that you assumed any of this yourself.

Well, you quoted me then wrote "the problem with this..." but fair enough. Clarification noted. But that just raises the question, what makes you think you know what the game's design assumptions are? I don't see anything in your posts that would indicate this.

QuoteI did, in reference to the notion that the game's mechanics are intended for handling large scale battles. Looking at things from the perspective of managing a large scale battle would imply looking at things from "bird's eye view", as opposed to getting up close and into the details.

I couldn't help but notice my car comes equipped with some nice soft seats. It certainly seems like they are intended for sitting. But I don't get to then port in all my assumptions about chairs and act as if staying in one place is the intention of the car. It doesn't follow logically. It's not true factually. And it doesn't match play experience. And there is a very simple alternative explanation that does fit experience. Like maybe when I travel, it's also nice to be comfortable.

QuoteThe idea that the average guy dies in one hit is at odds with the notion that they're tough SOBs,

The idea that the average guy dies from one hit that is fatal to the average person is a tautology and not indicative of anything about the guy or the world. Including not being counter-indicative that they're tough SOBs.

Quoteand does imply "getting rid of individual units as quickly as possible" even if you don't explicitly use those words.

Not only does it not imply anything about getting rid of individual units as quickly as possible, what mathed out demonstrates that that doesn't actually happen.

QuoteThat those level 0 guys would only be 25% likely to be hit is an artifact of wearing chainmail armor and being attacked by a level 0 or 1 character without bonuses specifically (neither of which is a guarantee), not an inherent ability they have.

If it's an artifact of wearing chainmail, why is it when I remove the chainmail, that the hit probability does not rise all the way up to the same 70% used in the "control group" I was comparing it to? There is an exchange of whiff factor for hits to kill while holding toughness constant. Among people who hate low level D&D, among the common criticisms are low number of hits you can take and high whiff factor. No one disputes these facts. Taken together, you cannot conclude anything about toughness without doing out the math.

QuoteExcept for when those individual characters get killed in one hit in their first battle in the first game session, cuz they're also one of the units that starts with low HP.

My point isn't about spending as much time and effort as possible in combat, but that PCs are also one of the units that would get dispatched quickly in combat (at least a lower levels) when using this kind of approach.

You don't get dispatched quickly if you don't get hit. If hits are rarer, you live longer.

QuoteAnd also that a large scale battle focus is the complete opposite of small skirmishes between individuals, which is what adventures of individual characters normally entails.

Which is both irrelevant and an assertion without evidence.

QuoteThis isn't a large scale combat game, but a roleplaying game about action adventure. Large scale battlefield mechanics are more conductive to handling disposable units rather than central characters in a game about their daring exploits and adventures.

Yeah, with hopes and dreams and all that other cornball stuff. Where I get to step into the shoes of a heroic character. Just as long as I don't want to become a king by my own hands, or do anything that involves too many people. Or whatever else you doesn't get your Real Roleplay stamp of approval.

Quote
How?

When you mis-characterize something in a way that makes it easy to argue against, if it's intentional, it's straw-manning. The specific language of "incoherent" comes from specific people who actually do have a bone to pick with D&D and so the intent is there. And I think the characterizations of both the design assumptions and the mechanics are pretty far off the mark.