I can handle Wolverine or Cyclops with CoC, and old D&D provides for similar figures right out of the box: Ring of Regeneration and Magic Daggers, or Wand of Lightning Bolts respectively! (Fine tune to taste.)

Quote from: Haffrung;776058D&D was not designed to emulate any genre. It's a game. 'It's FANTASY so anything goes' is one of the most tiresome memes in RPG forums. Call of Cthulhu is 'fantastic'. But I don't hear about people pouting because they can't play Wolverine or Cyclops in CoC.

You realize now that you have said this, somewhere there is a CoC Keeper who is now going to have a conversation about why a player can't play Wolverine in CoC...and it's all your fault!


EDIT: OK, I was wrong. It's not a problem. Hey Keeper person where ever your are, just send Wolverine guy to Phillip here on the RPGsite. He's let him run that.

Heh.  Superheroes and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;776055I'm not familiar with Final Fantasy so I'll take your word on that front.

What I am familiar with, is the role of fighters in early TSR D&D. The role is quite simple- combat.

Not tanking, not as front line meat shields, not only as melee combatants, but ALL ASPECTS OF COMBAT.

Clerics served as 2nd tier fighters but fighting man did it all. A master of weapons, he/she fought in the front line, fought with spear in the second rank, used missile fire and flaming oil when the situation demanded it, scouted ahead and skirmished as required.

Mind you this is before game designers decided the game should be all about fighting for ALL classes and kind of turned everyone into a fighter more or less.




The fantasy genre certainly doesn't. D&D is not the fantasy genre in general and it certainly does- at least until the PC's gain power and reach higher levels. The whole D&D concept is starting out weak and reaching ever higher for more wealth and power, and getting more powerful & influential as you go.

Starting out as fully formed awesome and riding the awesome train across a flat plane to awesome town just doesn't feel like D&D.

Not that I disagree with your conclusions but as usual you ignore that it's way to you. You always forget two important things.

1.1979 was a generation ago accept that things evolve, games and people included.
2. In your opinion that's critical given Dnd means many different things to many different people.

CoC has as its basic premise that nobody knows the limits of the weirdness out there. And whatever they may be, the D&D multiverse eats them for a snack.

That's an old-timer's view, anyhow. Of course, neither are we obligated to include all possibilities; the referee has final say in all matters concerning his or her campaign.

The point, though, is that whatever arbitrary limits may be fashionable in some circles are not inherently definitive of the game.

In D&D, an appropiately equipped Lord is close enough to Superman for most purposes, a Wizard to Green Lantern or even the Spectre.

Quote from: Marleycat;776068Not that I disagree with your conclusions but as usual you ignore that it's way to you. You always forget two important things.

1.1979 was a generation ago accept that things evolve, games and people included.
2. In your opinion that's critical given Dnd means many different things to many different people.

I realize that many things change over time. Its the nature of the beast. I realize the coke I drank as a kid isn't today's coke with high fructose corn syrup, and so I prefer coke bottled today in Mexico.

I realize that D&D as it designed today is not the D&D I played as a kid so I prefer to play older editions.

Quote from: Saplatt;776065Heh.  Superheroes and the Cthulhu Mythos.

Clashed in San Francisco, in a scenario in Different Worlds magazine decades ago.

Like most D&D players in the 80s (I suspect), we use D&D rules for other genre games.  I remember one night we watched Predator and Platoon and used AD&D rules to play a game set in those settings.  But also like most players, we soon discovered the system wasn't really set up to support that.  Before you knew it, you had a dozen rules modifiers and changes.

By early the next morning, we looked at each other, looked at our 2 dozen pages of rules, and said, "We created our first RPG!"  

Quote from: Exploderwizard;776073I realize that many things change over time. Its the nature of the beast. I realize the coke I drank as a kid isn't today's coke with high fructose corn syrup, and so I prefer coke bottled today in Mexico.

I realize that D&D as it designed today is not the D&D I played as a kid so I prefer to play older editions.

Which is fine. Even I prefer 2/3e over 4e because it fits what I think Dnd is better. But it doesn't mean I'm doing it the accepted or correct way by many other people's definitions. But what can I do? Nothing I would guess, so why would I care?

Besides back in those days we did like most other people and played Dnd with a mashup of 1/2e books and sources to our particular tastes.

Sometimes new stuff is bad.

Soda is better with sugar, not corn syrup. And I'm not anti-HFCS or anything, it just... doesn't taste as good.

Quote from: Will;776082Sometimes new stuff is bad.

Soda is better with sugar, not corn syrup. And I'm not anti-HFCS or anything, it just... doesn't taste as good.

You know, I shake my head every time I read or hear someone say how newer games are objectively better than older games because of "improvements".

What improvements?  Layout?  Print quality?

Sure, things like that are, but they are tied to technology.  What makes a game a game is the creativity and imagination put into it.  And people didn't suddenly get more creative in the past 40 years.  The only important part of a game is the experience it gives the players who play it, and that's most assuredly not tied to "advancements in design".  

Imagination is not technology.  Different is not advancement.  People need to stop conflating the two.  5e isn't throwing away years of advancement because 4e wasn't advancement.  It was just a different way of handling the game.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;776092You know, I shake my head every time I read or hear someone say how newer games are objectively better than older games because of "improvements".

What improvements?  Layout?  Print quality?

Sure, things like that are, but they are tied to technology.  What makes a game a game is the creativity and imagination put into it.  And people didn't suddenly get more creative in the past 40 years.  The only important part of a game is the experience it gives the players who play it, and that's most assuredly not tied to "advancements in design".  

Imagination is not technology.  Different is not advancement.  People need to stop conflating the two.  5e isn't throwing away years of advancement because 4e wasn't advancement.  It was just a different way of handling the game.

But....but.....if something isn't objectively improved why does there need to be a NEW one? :rolleyes:

I DO think there is evolution of ideas.

There are clever design ideas that have come out over time that just weren't around earlier. But that doesn't mean new games > old games.

A lot of folks suffer from seeing all sorts of things as linear. Because they are stupid.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;776073I realize the coke I drank as a kid isn't today's coke with high fructose corn syrup, and so I prefer coke bottled today in Mexico.

Mmmmm....Mexican Coca Cola....Mmmmm.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;776100But....but.....if something isn't objectively improved why does there need to be a NEW one? :rolleyes:

When an author I likes writes a book that I feel is below par, I always say "Meh, I guess the author needed a new roof on their house." So the answer is "Meh, guess the game designer needed a new roof on their dog's house."

Quote from: Exploderwizard;776055I'm not familiar with Final Fantasy so I'll take your word on that front.

   The interesting thing is that the original game (not any of the sequels, mind) is a blatant AD&D ripoff. Nearly every monster comes straight out of the MM, as do the PC options. The game does suffer from the limits of 8-bit design, so combat's the only thing really mechanized, and it's heavily abstracted. The combination of those two factors produces results very similar to 'roles' for the character classes.

QuoteMind you this is before game designers decided the game should be all about fighting for ALL classes and kind of turned everyone into a fighter more or less.

  From a certain point of view, it makes sense--if combat's the most dangerous and mechanically defined part of the game, it makes more sense to allow everyone tools to participate rather than trying to rotate spotlight balance in a play environment that's getting more and more diverse or unbalanced in terms of dedication to specific elements.

  I think part of the intent, even if only subconscious, of 4E was to use Classes and Powers to define combat situations and leave noncombat up to skills, rituals, and roleplaying. Unfortunately, the design didn't completely follow through on that point.

QuoteThe fantasy genre certainly doesn't. D&D is not the fantasy genre in general and it certainly does- at least until the PC's gain power and reach higher levels. The whole D&D concept is starting out weak and reaching ever higher for more wealth and power, and getting more powerful & influential as you go.

Quote from: Haffrung;776058D&D was not designed to emulate any genre. It's a game. 'It's FANTASY so anything goes' is one of the most tiresome memes in RPG forums. Call of Cthulhu is 'fantastic'. But I don't hear about people pouting because they can't play Wolverine or Cyclops in CoC.

Quote from: Marleycat;776068Not that I disagree with your conclusions but as usual you ignore that it's way to you. You always forget two important things.

1.1979 was a generation ago accept that things evolve, games and people included.
2. In your opinion that's critical given Dnd means many different things to many different people.

  This is, IMO, one of the big problems. With all due respect to WotC and the OSR, the game has not remained the same, not even in the old days. Heck, there were two or three different major schools of play around by the end of 1975 at the latest, judging from reports by people who were there.

  Now, one can argue that the game should or should not have changed to address different styles. But the fact is, the game has changed, and those of us who came in with Dragonlance, 2nd Edition, 3.X, 4E, or other things have a stake in it just as much as those of you who made the pilgrimage to the Spielomance in Lake Geneva, studied under the Sacred Order of Wargamers, and offered the still-beating heart of an Amateur Thespian or Charopper in sacrifice to the Great Demogygax in order to receive the right to peruse the Sacred Pages of the DMG.