Since Friday's AD&D game (my first in over 20 yrs.) I've been thinking about racial limits to class and levels. When later editions came out, I remember thinking cool, they got rid of that. It never made any sense. Now, looking back, I think it made sense from a certain perspective. After getting back into the literary roots of the game, and reading a bit about where certain aspects of the game came from, I think I get and appreciate the class and level limits a bit better.
Basically, the bottom line reason, is that Gygax wanted humans to be the predominant race, and the other races were somehow lesser. Also, even though they looked human, they were different creatures. Elves weren't humans with pointy ears. They were physiologically, and more importantly, mentally different than humans. Hell, they didn't even have a soul. They were a part of nature/faerie world. The physical similarities didn't make up for the fundamental differences in the way their brains were wired.
I think one of the reasons that the limits were excised was that it is not politically correct to say that someone is inferior to another in certain ways. It leads to all sorts of accusations of racism and hate crimes. So as not to engender that, and to recover from the early bad rep of D&D as satanic, all aspects of that were wiped out.
Also, players wanted the ability to make their elves Uber, goddamnit, and why do the rules say we can't? In all the novels I've read they are Uber. I wanna be Uber! Whhaaaa!! Coming from a different literary background latter-day gamers didn't recognize the base of where D&D came from, me included.
For example, personally speaking, I cannot do higher forms of math--as in anything beyond pre-algebra. My mind is not wired for it. No matter how much I was taught, over and over, I never grasped it in the slightest. I could memorize steps to do basic pre-algebra equations, but I really had no understanding of what I was doing. On the other hand, in areas like reading comprehension and analysis, I test very high. It's a breeze. My brain is just wired that way. Within the human race we have very wide degrees of separation between people. Though it's politically incorrect to say so, not everyone is created equally. But within the human race, there are measurable norms and variations from that norm.
Now imagine an entirely different race of beings, which only superficially look human, but are as different from you or I both spiritually and mentally as we are from kangaroos, but who are highly evolved and very intelligent, and are able to communicate with us verbally. That's what gnomes, dwarves, elves, and halflings are.
With that in mind it is completely understandable that they would have racial level and class limits. Their minds can only mimic the human world's classes and abilities to a certain extent, the extent to which their brains are wired for it.
On the flip-side, something which was not explored but would have been cool if it had been, what are the classes that the demi-humans are naturally wired for? What spells or spell-like magical abilities would they have had? What inherent racial traits, other than ones in the context of a human-centric point of view or the ones useful for adventuring, would they possess?
It's interesting to think about.
Quote from: Joethelawyer;341609On the flip-side, something which was not explored but would have been cool if it had been, what are the classes that the demi-humans are naturally wired for? What spells or spell-like magical abilities would they have had? What inherent racial traits, other than ones in the context of a human-centric point of view or the ones useful for adventuring, would they possess?
Well, this was somewhat explored in the new demi-human subraces presented in
Unearthed Arcana.
I think level limits were left out of later editions because they were widely ignored in earlier editions anyway, not because of political correctness.
This is kind of a tanget, but I think it says a lot about dominant privilege in the main RPG demographic that this subject line could appear and not cause embarrassment. "Race and Class in America" could be the title of a sociology essay. It reminds me of when, on RPG.net, someone started a thread, "What race do you hate?" The first thing that popped in my mind was not, "Gosh darn those kender, they just annoy me to no find."
I think there are/were two groups of people against level limits for demihumans:
a) The people who want to have their cake and eat it.
b) The people for whom it is troubling that elves and dwarves live many years longer than a human but can never approach the most experienced humans in terms of power.
The first group are whiny and annoying and can be dismissed. The second have a certain point.
Where it breaks down is in its assumptions about the nature of elves and dwarves. If they were just long-lived humans I'd have no problem with removing level limits. But the point is that elves and dwarves are supposed to have radically different priorities and natures to human beings; humans are movers and shakers where elves and dwarves are arch-conservatives. Humans are "young" and elves and dwarves are "old". When you conceptualise it like that, level limits make perfect sense.
I think political correctness comes into it a little, inasmuch as a lot of people on the Left like to attribute everything to nurture and nothing to nature, and RPG designers tend to be politically of the Left on average.
Quote from: noisms;341616I think political correctness comes into it a little, inasmuch as a lot of people on the Left like to attribute everything to nurture and nothing to nature, and RPG designers tend to be politically of the Left on average.
You do know that eugenics came out of early 20th century leftism, yes?
Quote from: pawsplay;341618You do know that eugenics came out of early 20th century leftism, yes?
Citation please.
Quote from: Aos;341621Citation please.
Sure.
Quote from: Wikipedia article on Eugenics, posted because your mouse finger is brokenEugenics is the study and practice of selective breeding applied to humans, with the aim of improving the species. Widely popular in the early decades of the 20th century, it has largely fallen into disrepute after having become associated with the Holocaust....
Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals....
The article also mentions Margaret Sanger (birth control activist) and Theodore Roosevelt. Also, although Nazism is hard to classify, the National Socialist Party took its name from a pro-labor movement, making Hitler, at least in theory, part leftist.
Well, I've been schooled.
Quote from: pawsplay;341618You do know that eugenics came out of early 20th century leftism, yes?
Yeah, but seeing as how most RPG designers don't live in the 1920s or 30s I'm not sure why it's relevant.
I was talking about the contemporary Left, who believe in the exact opposite of eugenics. And by contemporary I mean since around the time D&D 3e came out to now.
Level caps for humanoids were never wholly removed in D&D, just made less visible. Level adjustment in 3rd edition effectively meant that as the rest of your party progresses 20 levels, you only get to progress 17 levels (sometimes even less). That's effectively a level cap, and a less palatable one given that you experience it at the onset of your campaign and not at its conclusion (which, for all you know, may never come about anyway).
I'm currently playing a centaur druid in a 2E campaign, and I think he can only go up to level 7. Do I mind? No. I'm happy to have a blast playing him from level 1, without any hampering. Hey, I'm not even sure he will survive until the rest of the party hits level 8 or so, nor do I feel any need to change (let alone rationalize) this restriction right now. Stay tuned when I start whining in a couple of months. ;)
Quote from: Joethelawyer;341609With that in mind it is completely understandable that they would have racial level and class limits. Their minds can only mimic the human world's classes and abilities to a certain extent, the extent to which their brains are wired for it.
I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the bolded part. I thought most Tolkien-esque fantasy settings try to make a case for elves being better at yielding swords and magic than humans.
Quote from: Aos;341625Well, I've been schooled.
Not really, it's takes a rather wilful interpretation to call it leftist, plus they made the mistake of calling the Nazi racial nonsense eugenics and of equating them with the left.
Ha.
Quote from: Windjammer;341666I have a hard time wrapping my brain around the bolded part. I thought most Tolkien-esque fantasy settings try to make a case for elves being better at yielding swords and magic than humans.
Tolkien wasn't the primary stylistic influence for Gygax though. He stole hobbits and rangers, certainly. But the pulp influences listed in the back of the DMG were a lot stronger than Tolkien in terms of style of game and other classes. I think a lot of people were in the same position as me, when it came to reading the books in that appendix, in that Tolkien was the only author available at the library. I couldn't find any of the other ones. And since the authors of the 80's onwards followed Tolkien's pattern, and TSR went from adventure gaming to storytelling gaming with second edition, people think that elves were meant to be more powerful than humans in 1e AD&D. Gygax wanted a human-centric world, where demihumans were considered lesser races. Hence the arbitrary level and class limits.
Quote from: GRIM;341668Not really, it's takes a rather wilful interpretation to call it leftist, plus they made the mistake of calling the Nazi racial nonsense eugenics and of equating them with the left.
Ha.
Generally, once someone cites wikipedia, I quit the field.
Quote from: Joethelawyer;341675Tolkien wasn't the primary stylistic influence for Gygax though. He stole hobbits and rangers, certainly. But the pulp influences listed in the back of the DMG were a lot stronger than Tolkien in terms of style of game and other classes. I think a lot of people were in the same position as me, when it came to reading the books in that appendix, in that Tolkien was the only author available at the library. I couldn't find any of the other ones. And since the authors of the 80's onwards followed Tolkien's pattern, and TSR went from adventure gaming to storytelling gaming with second edition, people think that elves were meant to be more powerful than humans in 1e AD&D. Gygax wanted a human-centric world, where demihumans were considered lesser races. Hence the arbitrary level and class limits.
I understand your stance, and their is certainly plenty of evidence to lend it validity- however, I think where it falls apart for me is that there seems to be an underlying assumption that EGG's built the rules in a consistent manner.I don't think he did. I think he came up with a lot of stuff on the fly, and I think the dem human stuff is, perhaps, the most outstanding example of that. Look at the way elves are handled in 0e, for example- and then let me know what its supposed to mean.
Gamers dumped level limits long before WotC. It all came down to "I want to play a Race X and I don't want him to stop leveling"
It was probably the most common house-rule in AD&D.
Nothing political about it.
In a recently-uncovered fanzine article (http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/09/gygax-in-europa.html) from 1975, Gygax talks a bit about some of the design decisions in D&D, and one of the interesting things he mentions is that the actual game-purpose of including demi-humans was to give more options to players with bad ability score rolls -- the various racial abilities compensate for the low stats, and the level limits aren't such a hardship because such a mediocre character wasn't likely to make it to high levels as a human anyway. Puts an interesting new perspective on it. (Of course, since AFAIK Gygax never repeated this claim anywhere else, it could well be that he just made this rationale up on the spot when writing this article and quickly forgot about it thereafter...)
Level limits were frankly bullshit. Most AD&D games tapped out at around 9th level and it didn't prevent those who reached the cap from accruing advancement in other ways (territory, wishes, magic items, etc).
My only issue with demi-human level limts as written is that they don't really reinforce the stereotype of each race. If I were to run 1e
AD&D again, I would break it down thus:
- Dwarves are unlimited in fighter instead of thief
- Elves are unlimited in magic-user instead of thief
- Gnomes are unlimited in illusionist instead of thief
- Half-elves remain unlimited in druid (subject to the maximum highest level for the class) and thief
- Halflings remain unlimited in thief
- Half-orcs remain unlimited in assassin (subject to the maximum highest level for the class)
We never had a demi-human 'max out' in our games because almost every demi-human was multi-classed and was still gaining levels alongside the humans throughout the game. Single-class demi-humans were extremely rare in our group.
Quote from: noisms;341633Yeah, but seeing as how most RPG designers don't live in the 1920s or 30s I'm not sure why it's relevant.
I was talking about the contemporary Left, who believe in the exact opposite of eugenics. And by contemporary I mean since around the time D&D 3e came out to now.
I'm not sure who this "contemporary left" is, but scientism and utilitarian ethics remain well and alive in sociology. In any case, the reason not to believe in meaningful racial differences is that, on the whole, there aren't any. Races, as a scientific concept, are strictly 19th century concept mostly discredited amonst scentists apart from James Watson.
Quote from: Aos;341679Generally, once someone cites wikipedia, I quit the field.
Useful to know.
Quote from: pawsplay;341706I'm not sure who this "contemporary left" is, but scientism and utilitarian ethics remain well and alive in sociology. In any case, the reason not to believe in meaningful racial differences is that, on the whole, there aren't any. Races, as a scientific concept, are strictly 19th century concept mostly discredited amonst scentists apart from James Watson.
Certain sub-populations do exhibit adaptations not shared by the general population, which every sociology text I've seen claims do not exist within the human species, but which have been born out in repeated testing. Eskimo phenotype tolerance to wet hands in sub-0°F weather (frostbite taking more than an hour rather than 5-10 minutes). Negroid phenotype tolerance to heat.
Many scientists willfully ignore the studies because it's socially unacceptable to differentiate phenotypical sub-subspecies divergences in humans because most correlate to an ethnic minority.
(Note that Ethnic Eskimo as opposed to phenotypic Eskimo is not actually identical; Ethnic Eskimo include a great many partially Russian-Caucasian individuals, and those individuals as a clade are not the ones the US Army tested in the 1950's; partially caucasian Eskimos were specifically excluded from the study, even when legally considered pure eskimo. The control group was caucasian volunteer soldiers.)
I'm in the school of "It seems fairly asinine that an Elf is going to top out on magic WAY before a human will" and so on.
If nothing else, then they should have at least switched multiclass and dual-class distinctions.
I.e....Elathar the Elven Wizard hits level 12 (arbitrary number out of my head, I don't recall the actual limits) as a Magic User...he decides he's QUITE bored...so he decides to become a Thief for 8 levels...now he's QUITE bored...TO THE PRIESTHOOD!
And anytime he falls back on the old teachings, he doesn't get any XP for the encounter or whatever the penalty was for that.
Quote from: pawsplay;341706I'm not sure who this "contemporary left" is, but scientism and utilitarian ethics remain well and alive in sociology. In any case, the reason not to believe in meaningful racial differences is that, on the whole, there aren't any. Races, as a scientific concept, are strictly 19th century concept mostly discredited amonst scentists apart from James Watson.
Why are you trying to have an argument with me about this? I wasn't making any kind of point about the veracity of theories about racial difference. My statement was that Left-leaning people these days tend to deny racial differences, most RPG designers tend to be Left-leaning, and that is bound to have some, albeit small, impact on the matter.
Whether you or I believe in this or that is neither here nor there.
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;341719I'm in the school of "It seems fairly asinine that an Elf is going to top out on magic WAY before a human will" and so on.
If nothing else, then they should have at least switched multiclass and dual-class distinctions.
I.e....Elathar the Elven Wizard hits level 12 (arbitrary number out of my head, I don't recall the actual limits) as a Magic User...he decides he's QUITE bored...so he decides to become a Thief for 8 levels...now he's QUITE bored...TO THE PRIESTHOOD!
And anytime he falls back on the old teachings, he doesn't get any XP for the encounter or whatever the penalty was for that.
The real irony is that OED&D "multiclassing" for elves became AD&D dual-classing for Humans in AD&D... and new multiclassing was used for demihumans.
Me, I preferred the "blended class" approach of BXCMI... especially with the Hollow World option of magic learned later in life for warrior-elves.
I always assumed the level limits were a very crude tool to apply game balance.
Be an elf get these extra abilities but you can't level past 8th. Be a Dwarf and you get these extra abilities abut .. etc.
The racial benefits are huge especially in early editions where a +1 was a real advantage and the whole detect traps , imunity to sleep and charm detect sloping passages etc etc ...
The obvious fix would an xp penalty. Elves get 50% of XP earned. It provides the "balance" and it is explicable in terms of psychology, creatures that live thousands of years take longer to change and adapt. With the old XP level progression where you need double xp to go up each level it would only mean that the elf was a level less than the Human most of the time and that seems a reasonable trade for the special abiliites and bonuses.
I really don't think that any one thinks D&D is plagued by any sort of PC (Political Correctness not PCs obviously) zealots who suggest that giving an elf a level cap is somehow insulting to elves....
Quote from: pawsplay;341706I'm not sure who this "contemporary left" is, but scientism and utilitarian ethics remain well and alive in sociology. In any case, the reason not to believe in meaningful racial differences is that, on the whole, there aren't any. Races, as a scientific concept, are strictly 19th century concept mostly discredited amonst scentists apart from James Watson.
Quote from: noisms;341721Why are you trying to have an argument with me about this?
Seriously, on any number of topics, I am probably batting .500 on agree/disagree with noisms, but I agree and disagree on the topic at hand.
Pawsplay: No one fucking cares. Shut the fuck up and get back to race and class as presented in AD&D (or whatever older edition) and shut your fucking gob about eugenics, crazy scientists or what the hell ever you are on about.
In AD&D, there is a mechanical difference between races on a number of levels. Take it from there.
Quote from: aramis;341723The real irony is that OED&D "multiclassing" for elves became AD&D dual-classing for Humans in AD&D... and new multiclassing was used for demihumans.
Me, I preferred the "blended class" approach of BXCMI... especially with the Hollow World option of magic learned later in life for warrior-elves.
So elves basically had what I mentioned, then? Sounds like they got it right the first time, IMHO.
Refresh my memory...what was the "blended class" approach?
Quote from: noisms;341721Why are you trying to have an argument with me about this? I wasn't making any kind of point about the veracity of theories about racial difference. My statement was that Left-leaning people these days tend to deny racial differences, most RPG designers tend to be Left-leaning, and that is bound to have some, albeit small, impact on the matter.
Whether you or I believe in this or that is neither here nor there.
I disagree with premise
A) left-leaning people tend to deny racial differences
because it is general and misleading, since educated people in general tend to deny racial differences and premise
B) RPG designers tend to be left-leaning
because it lacks both definition and evidence.
If you wish to declare there is a correlation between between being an RPG designer and being left-leaning by some operational definition, and between being left-leaning and de-emphasizing racial differences, then you still cannot say RPG designer predicts racial differences, because we can safely assume that RPG designers do not have the same characteristics as the general public, and hence whether they are left-leaning or not may be affected by different factors.
On the other hand, it is a known fact that people with education tend to de-emphasize racial differences, and there is a known probable causality: scientific and academic research has generally concluded that "racial differences" are rarely significant, and rarely meaningful when they are significant. In fact, the mainstream opinion is that a "race" is primarily a social construct that coincides to some degree with geography and ancestry, but is generally a stand-in for "color."
So if a game designer were to include "racial differences" within humans that did not posit some kind of cultural basis, they would be arguing upstream against the prevailing opinion of educated, rational people with knowledge of the subject. Which they are, of course, free to do. The racialists might even be right, but I wouldn't count on it.
Quote from: aramis;341716Certain sub-populations do exhibit adaptations not shared by the general population, which every sociology text I've seen claims do not exist within the human species, but which have been born out in repeated testing. Eskimo phenotype tolerance to wet hands in sub-0°F weather (frostbite taking more than an hour rather than 5-10 minutes). Negroid phenotype tolerance to heat.
Sure, sounds plausible.
QuoteMany scientists willfully ignore the studies because it's socially unacceptable to differentiate phenotypical sub-subspecies divergences in humans because most correlate to an ethnic minority.
Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.
The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.
The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.
Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.
Quote from: The Shaman;341703My only issue with demi-human level limts as written is that they don't really reinforce the stereotype of each race. If I were to run 1e AD&D again, I would break it down thus:- Dwarves are unlimited in fighter instead of thief
- Elves are unlimited in magic-user instead of thief
- Gnomes are unlimited in illusionist instead of thief
- Half-elves remain unlimited in druid (subject to the maximum highest level for the class) and thief
- Halflings remain unlimited in thief
- Half-orcs remain unlimited in assassin (subject to the maximum highest level for the class)
We never had a demi-human 'max out' in our games because almost every demi-human was multi-classed and was still gaining levels alongside the humans throughout the game. Single-class demi-humans were extremely rare in our group.
I like your list!
However, it would make elves pretty much the ubermenschen of the fantasy world. Given that they live for 1000+ years, you likely would have several hundred (perhaps more) elven archmages (with levels in fighter and/or thief as well) as the most powerful NPCs around. One of the reasons why demi-humans could advance 'U' as thieves in 1e, according to Gygax, was that thieves were unlikely to ever become the major 'movers and shakers' of the world. So allowing demi-humans to rise to any level as theives did not undermine Gygax's concern with ensuring a 'human-as-dominant' swords & sorcery ethos for AD&D.
Quote from: jibbajibba;341728...
The obvious fix would an xp penalty. Elves get 50% of XP earned. It provides the "balance" and it is explicable in terms of psychology, creatures that live thousands of years take longer to change and adapt. With the old XP level progression where you need double xp to go up each level it would only mean that the elf was a level less than the Human most of the time and that seems a reasonable trade for the special abiliites and bonuses.
....
Yes, something like this is far preferable, IMO.
Alternatively, I like the approach taken by
Swords & Wizardry: above a certain level, the experience point requirements for a demi-human are always 'one level greater' than they are for a human character (e.g., in order to advance from 8th level to 9th level as a magic-user, an elf would need the same amount of experience points as a 10th level human magic-user, and thereafter would 'lag' one level behind a comparable human magic-user).
The optional 'alternative' experience charts for non-human races/classes in the appendix of the D&D RC book also tries to 'balance' things out via additional experience point requirements for elves, dwarves, and halflings.
Quote from: pawsplay;341760Sure, sounds plausible.
Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.
The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.
The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.
Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.
There are some genetic variations in localised population groups. These variations vary from improved spatial memory (amongst Aboriginal Australians for example) and physical body shape (Congonese Pygmies versus Samoan Islanders for example).
To suggest that populations will not adpat to localised geographic conditions over time is to contradict the fundamental essence of natural selection and evolution. You expect Siberiean tigers to be adpated so you should expect Inuit populations to adapt.
However, the vast majority of hominid populations are newcomers. Population migration from east Africa is a relatively new phemonema being limited to the last 100,000 years. The degre of genetic adaption you get over such a short time frame is very small. This is evidenced by the fact that Homo Sapiens have yet to split into distinct sub-species.
It is totally scientifically likely that given an additional Million years or so with no interlinking between population clusters hominid evolution would proceed and the development of distinct sub-species would be the net result. However, such isolation is now, under current global conditions, impossible.
The main isuse with academic study in this area is the study of intelligence.
There have been several tests that seem to indicate intelligence variations in 'racial' population groups. The problem with these tests however is two fold. They are used by various right wing groups to indicate White supremacy (interesting in these tests Semitic populations tend to out perform Caucasian populations by 3-5% which these right wing groups tend to ignore) as negroid population tend to do poorly, 10% less than Caucasian is not uncommon. However the test parameters and content are often set by White middle class academics and so white middle class children have an inherent advantage. The tests have been further undermined by the apodtion of sociobiology by right wing groups to 'prove' the primacy of white population because of their social predominance. This can be directly tied to the Eugenics movement in which the poor were deemed to be inferior genetically because they were poor and therefore their antecedents were less intelligent or hardworking or dynamic than the antecedents of the rich who obviously made something of their lives thus making more money.
Today the whole issue is moot as population mixing is so great and there are c. 100 genes that they believe may be linked to 'intelligence' (which itself has many definitions) that finding populations where there has been sufficient isolation to be worth measuring is almost impossible.
Quote from: pawsplay;341756since educated people in general tend to deny racial differences and premise
I think is an extremely valid point and really can't emphasized enough.
Quote from: Spinachcat;341692Nothing political about it.
Yeah. I doubt there's anything political about it. It seems to me that it's more a matter of fun, or lack thereof.
Seanchai
Quote from: Tommy Brownell;341744So elves basically had what I mentioned, then? Sounds like they got it right the first time, IMHO.
Refresh my memory...what was the "blended class" approach?
From BXCMI type:
Elf: TH as fighter, spells as wizard, armor up to chain, shield allowed. XP 4000/8000/15000 etc. HD d6
Warrior Elf: XP as fighter, same as elf but no spells.
Treekeeper: as elf, but with extra (clerical) spells available. Additional restrictions, however.
Halfling: As fighter, but HD d6, add rogue's HIS and MS.
Quote from: pawsplay;341760Sure, sounds plausible.
Not that I'm aware of. Scientists generally do not willfully ignore studies, although it must admitted that social bias exists in science. Nonetheless, I don't know of any scientists, personally, who ignore such studies, although I do know a number of scientists.
The Eskimo group is a small population, not a "race." Comparing them to Caucasoids is fine as a control, but then claiming a racial difference is a fallacy, because Caucasoids are not the same kind of small population with common ancestry. You could compare Eskimos to people of German descent living in Western Pennsylvania if you wanted, and the comparison might have more validity.
The existence of genetic variation within a population is a known. Similarly, they are almost certainly variations between groups. That does not mean there are systematic variations that are meaningful. Certainly not "Ability Score" meaningful.
Nothing to do with political correctness, more to do with the ordinary kind of correctness.
Negroid phenotypic endurance is probably to the point of a +1 Con on a 3-18 scale. (Army found that healthy-weight african-americans had a significant difference in average endurance. Again, 1950's.)
On non-linguistic tasks of intelligence*, Orientals and Semitics score higher than other populations, 3-5%.
* the language based tests are strongly biased towards the developing and norming group.
And quite a few social scientists flat out DENY such exist, even when presented the studies. Bruno Kappes, PhD, Psychologist, was doing research on adaptation to cold weather. He flat out refused at one point to consider doing phenotypical analysis of his data on the grounds that it might support racial superiority and would thus be politically incorrect. Working experimental researcher. Was my Psych prof, and my mom's as well.
Several of his colleagues also refused to analyze by ethnicity and/or phenotypical difference for the same reason: political correctness, and a desire to not be seen as racist.
Quite a few scientists ignore data they find uncomfortable. It's so common that it has a name: confirmation bias. People tend to ignore data during a literature search that doesn't support their initial premises.
And then there are issues with Sociology as a whole. 3/4ths of the sociologists I've met (6 of 8) outright rejected the study of infantile facial expressions (study finding that infantile facial expression is uniform trans-culture to age 3 mo, published in Psychology Today) on the simple basis that Sociology axiomatically says humans are free of instinctual behaviors. Citing that article, and providing access to it, got me tossed out of class; tossing me out of class over it got the professor fired.
My degree is in history; confirmation bias is exceptionally strong in the historical discipline. Sociology is just as bad, but has the "color of science" to it's observational and analytical process....
Quote from: aramis;341790Negroid phenotypic endurance is probably to the point of a +1 Con on a 3-18 scale. (Army found that healthy-weight african-americans had a significant difference in average endurance. Again, 1950's.)
On non-linguistic tasks of intelligence*, Orientals and Semitics score higher than other populations, 3-5%.
* the language based tests are strongly biased towards the developing and norming group.
And quite a few social scientists flat out DENY such exist, even when presented the studies. Bruno Kappes, PhD, Psychologist, was doing research on adaptation to cold weather. He flat out refused at one point to consider doing phenotypical analysis of his data on the grounds that it might support racial superiority and would thus be politically incorrect. Working experimental researcher. Was my Psych prof, and my mom's as well.
Several of his colleagues also refused to analyze by ethnicity and/or phenotypical difference for the same reason: political correctness, and a desire to not be seen as racist.
Quite a few scientists ignore data they find uncomfortable. It's so common that it has a name: confirmation bias. People tend to ignore data during a literature search that doesn't support their initial premises.
And then there are issues with Sociology as a whole. 3/4ths of the sociologists I've met (6 of 8) outright rejected the study of infantile facial expressions (study finding that infantile facial expression is uniform trans-culture to age 3 mo, published in Psychology Today) on the simple basis that Sociology axiomatically says humans are free of instinctual behaviors. Citing that article, and providing access to it, got me tossed out of class; tossing me out of class over it got the professor fired.
My degree is in history; confirmation bias is exceptionally strong in the historical discipline. Sociology is just as bad, but has the "color of science" to it's observational and analytical process....
My degree was anthropology so these discussions are remarkably familiar. :)
You are of course right but ... my earlier post still holds that variations are not 'racial' in the sense that most people would use it but limited to isolated population sub-groups that may exhibit other more obvious physical similarities.
It has been racist misuse of the data that has scared academics off open discussion.
If you take the Kalahari Bushmen as a population their average endurance levels are astonishing. They hunt antelope by running after them until the creatures collapse from exhaustion which takes hours and hours and hours. But if you openly acknowledge that that you open up the probability that someone will turn round and say 'similarly in this IQ test poor Irish immigrants scored 10% less than everyone else they should all be sterilised'.
Nothing to do with politics or racial attitudes. It's quite simple:
* Few characters made it to 9th level anway, so players would just make up their Dwarf Fighter and worry about the level cap another day.
* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?
Quote from: Haffrung;341809...
* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?
IME, when I played a lot of 1e during the 1980s, we all adhered to racial level limits.
However,
every thief character was a multi-class demi-human, so that the character would continue to progress as a thief even when his/her limit as a fighter, magic-user, or whatever, was reached. In all of my years of playing 1e, I can't remember anyone who played a single-classed thief, let alone a human one.
I also recall that half-elf druids were quite popular (it was their 'niche', since elves were a better option for pretty much everything else).
Quote from: Haffrung;341809* On a practical level, what happens when a group has been playing together for two years and the two humans in the party can keep progressing, but the halfling and elf stop levelling because they hit the cap? Well, you can either ignore the cap or you can shut down the campaign and start again with 1st level PCs. Which do you think most groups decided to do?
Wait a second, where is that third option that I was just standing on? It seems to have been whipped out from under my feet!
We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?
Quote from: pawsplay;341756I disagree with premise
A) left-leaning people tend to deny racial differences
because it is general and misleading, since educated people in general tend to deny racial differences and premise
B) RPG designers tend to be left-leaning
because it lacks both definition and evidence.
If you wish to declare there is a correlation between between being an RPG designer and being left-leaning by some operational definition, and between being left-leaning and de-emphasizing racial differences, then you still cannot say RPG designer predicts racial differences, because we can safely assume that RPG designers do not have the same characteristics as the general public, and hence whether they are left-leaning or not may be affected by different factors.
On the other hand, it is a known fact that people with education tend to de-emphasize racial differences, and there is a known probable causality: scientific and academic research has generally concluded that "racial differences" are rarely significant, and rarely meaningful when they are significant. In fact, the mainstream opinion is that a "race" is primarily a social construct that coincides to some degree with geography and ancestry, but is generally a stand-in for "color."
So if a game designer were to include "racial differences" within humans that did not posit some kind of cultural basis, they would be arguing upstream against the prevailing opinion of educated, rational people with knowledge of the subject. Which they are, of course, free to do. The racialists might even be right, but I wouldn't count on it.
Mental note: don't bring up the issue of racial difference when pawsplay is around.
Quote from: noisms;341858Wait a second, where is that third option that I was just standing on? It seems to have been whipped out from under my feet!
We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?
Indeed. My first AD&D character was a dwarf fighter who maxed out at 8th level (17 Str) and I continued to play him -- between his racial abilities (saving throw bonuses, AC bonus against large humanoids) and his arsenal of magic items he was able to continue holding his own in parties otherwise made up of 10-11th level characters, even as he gradually went from being a "star" character to more of a "supporting" character to the higher-level humans, exactly as Gygax intended.
Quote from: noisms;341858We neither ignored the cap nor shut down the campaign but just carried on. By the time you get beyond 10th level the differences between the levels gets less and less, and if the game is still fun who gives a shit if you're a couple of levels below the humans anyway?
Same here. We even used the weapon vs armour type tables too!
We must have been brain-damaged fools.
Quote from: Aos;341614I think level limits were left out of later editions because they were widely ignored in earlier editions anyway, not because of political correctness.
Quite.
When we abandoned them, in the early 1980s, I don't think we'd even heard of political correctness. Certainly we wouldn't have cared.
We just thought they were stupid. In particular, we couldn't buy immortal elves not being able to become powerful archmagi, or dwarves not becoming puissant warriors.
It just made no sense to us. I think our reaction was common, and that's why they were dropped. It was a lousy rule that people ignored anyway.
Another thing: in those early days it was assumed that the most active players (i.e. the ones likeliest to get a high level character in the first place) would have more than one character, so unless they're all level-limited demi-humans, you just gradually retire the level-limited characters and focus on your non-limited characters instead. That's what I did -- my first two successful characters were the aforementioned dwarf and a half-elf ranger who also maxed out at 8th level. Those guys both saw a ton of play in the early years, but once they'd maxed out they faded into the background and were overshadowed by my two human characters -- a fighter (who eventually got up to 13th, my all-time highest-level character) and a bard (F5/T9/Bard, uhh 3 or so -- unfortunately he finally hit actual Bard levels almost simultaneously with when I pretty much quit playing and became a full-time DM so I never got to take full advantage of that shallow XP table and all those extra hit dice :().
Quote from: The Shaman;341703My only issue with demi-human level limts as written is that they don't really reinforce the stereotype of each race. If I were to run 1e AD&D again, I would break it down thus:- Dwarves are unlimited in fighter instead of thief
- Elves are unlimited in magic-user instead of thief
- Gnomes are unlimited in illusionist instead of thief
- Half-elves remain unlimited in druid (subject to the maximum highest level for the class) and thief
- Halflings remain unlimited in thief
- Half-orcs remain unlimited in assassin (subject to the maximum highest level for the class)
We never had a demi-human 'max out' in our games because almost every demi-human was multi-classed and was still gaining levels alongside the humans throughout the game. Single-class demi-humans were extremely rare in our group.
That would have been fine. Everyone unlimited in Thief just made no sense to us at all, it was too blatantly a game mechanic, too blatant even for D&D where we were pretty tolerant of mechanics we couldn't make much sense of.
Edit: And why exactly is there a discussion of nature versus nurture and eugenics history in a thread about made up species in a fantasy world where evolution may never have happened?
You know why elves are how they are? It's not a question of nature versus nurture, it's how the gods created them. It's not our universe, our principles don't carry over.
Quote from: Akrasia;341764I like your list!
However, it would make elves pretty much the ubermenschen of the fantasy world. Given that they live for 1000+ years, you likely would have several hundred (perhaps more) elven archmages (with levels in fighter and/or thief as well) as the most powerful NPCs around.
Yeah, I would have to includes something about elves 'leaving for the West' or some such to account for that.
Still, not every human reaches maximum levels and many elves would probably leave off gaining even in the course of a millenial lifetime. Doesn't seem like an insurmountable hurdle.
Quote from: The Shaman;341900Yeah, I would have to includes something about elves 'leaving for the West' or some such to account for that.
Still, not every human reaches maximum levels and many elves would probably leave off gaining even in the course of a millenial lifetime. Doesn't seem like an insurmountable hurdle.
I think the general idea was that the longer lived races simply got bored with whatever it was they were doing and wandered off to do something else.
Quote from: Balbinus;341872That would have been fine. Everyone unlimited in Thief just made no sense to us at all, it was too blatantly a game mechanic, too blatant even for D&D where we were pretty tolerant of mechanics we couldn't make much sense of.
Edit: And why exactly is there a discussion of nature versus nurture and eugenics history in a thread about made up species in a fantasy world where evolution may never have happened?
You know why elves are how they are? It's not a question of nature versus nurture, it's how the gods created them. It's not our universe, our principles don't carry over.
I don't know about anybody else, but my point was that these days it's less acceptable (or, let's say, more controversial) to talk about things like "racial difference" openly. The entire concept sounds outmoded to most people, especially those who consider themselves liberals or leftists, and the D&D designers are no exception. That's bound to be one
small factor in its removal from the game. The fact that it's fantasy isn't an issue; the point is merely that "racial difference" generally speaking isn't a concept you hear people talking about in any context anymore.
Of course there are bigger factors, e.g. lots of whiny annoying people complaining that their elf character couldn't become a 20th level mage (the pain!).
Quote from: noisms;341931I don't know about anybody else, but my point was that these days it's less acceptable (or, let's say, more controversial) to talk about things like "racial difference" openly. The entire concept sounds outmoded to most people, especially those who consider themselves liberals or leftists, and the D&D designers are no exception. That's bound to be one small factor in its removal from the game. The fact that it's fantasy isn't an issue; the point is merely that "racial difference" generally speaking isn't a concept you hear people talking about in any context anymore.
Of course there are bigger factors, e.g. lots of whiny annoying people complaining that their elf character couldn't become a 20th level mage (the pain!).
In my group we dropped level limits, even though I think all the PCs were in fact human. It just didn't work for us from the perspective of the game world making any sense.
So I don't think it's a whiny annoying people issue, I think it's a it made no sense to anyone issue.
I disagree on the racial difference point, I don't think it's an issue in this context at all. I think it was just a bad rule that didn't get applied, and so then got dropped. I don't see any need to wedge contemporary politics into that.
Quote from: Balbinus;341983In my group we dropped level limits, even though I think all the PCs were in fact human. It just didn't work for us from the perspective of the game world making any sense.
So I don't think it's a whiny annoying people issue, I think it's a it made no sense to anyone issue.
I disagree on the racial difference point, I don't think it's an issue in this context at all. I think it was just a bad rule that didn't get applied, and so then got dropped. I don't see any need to wedge contemporary politics into that.
Fair enough.
Quote from: pawsplay;341623Sure.
The article also mentions Margaret Sanger (birth control activist) and Theodore Roosevelt. Also, although Nazism is hard to classify, the National Socialist Party took its name from a pro-labor movement, making Hitler, at least in theory, part leftist.
Jesus Christ - the number of times I have heard that sort of idiocy.
Just go away and read a proper book about fascism that isn't by Jonah Goldberg.
You want a reading list? - pick up anything by Ian Kershaw or Richard Evans or Michael Burleigh that has a picture of Hitler or swastikas on the cover.
They'll all give you a pretty exhaustive account of how Nazi ideology was formed and that its most fundamental enemy - the one that they defined themselves in polar opposition to and the one whose T-34s and Katyushas and Stormoviks actually destroyed Nazism in 1945 - was always what they called 'Marxism'.
It might also benefit you to read an actual book or two on American history - in which case you might come to understand that neither Teddy Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson were in any way shape or form leftists.
TR was an unabashed admirer of British imperialism and Prussian Militarism.
WW while fond of vague liberal rhetoric only applied it to superior white races and as President launched the most savage and sustained attack on radicals and leftists of all varieties in the whole of American history - executing, imprisoning and deporting tens of thousands.
And eugenics while it did have some left-wing supporters was overwhelmingly a movement of the political right - and it was only in Nazi Germany that it became a central part of any ruling ideology.
Now that's off my chest please go back to discussing half-elven fighter/magic-user/thieves....
In my experience, people tend to act as if their own political view is allowed to pick and choose what it likes from its tradition, but that others can't.
There also seems to be a kind of 'doublethink', where people know that their tradition had dodgy elements, yet act as if they don't know.
For example:
Anarchists generally know that many of the founders of anarchism were committed anti-semites.
Conservatives generally know that the Founding Fathers of the United States were mostly slave-owners and in effect rapists, and that many conservatives of later decades admired Hitler or reviled Martin Luther King as a communist.
Christians generally know that many Christians in olden times were misogynistic to the point of murder.
Atheists generally know that many atheists in the past were in favour of 'scientific' measures such as eugenics.
Liberals generally know that many liberals were in favour of appeasing Hitler.
In each case, politically-committed people tend to act as if the past bad actions of followers of a particular view can be used against that view, with the exception of their own. In that case it's the fault of the times, or of individuals.
Which, I submit, lies behind a lot of the arguments about how "the Nazis were your lot", such as the one which has blighted this thread.
Quote from: noisms;341931I don't know about anybody else, but my point was that these days it's less acceptable (or, let's say, more controversial) to talk about things like "racial difference" openly. The entire concept sounds outmoded to most people, especially those who consider themselves liberals or leftists, and the D&D designers are no exception. That's bound to be one small factor in its removal from the game. The fact that it's fantasy isn't an issue; the point is merely that "racial difference" generally speaking isn't a concept you hear people talking about in any context anymore.
Of course there are bigger factors, e.g. lots of whiny annoying people complaining that their elf character couldn't become a 20th level mage (the pain!).
Didn't someone already point out that Elves, Halfings, dwarves are not races they are species. Races would be the Northern Barbarians vs the dessert nomads, or the Drow vs the Sindar, etc.
So if it eases any racial PC feeling you are having this is discussion is more like who makes better wizards Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Homo Erectus or Chimps than who makes a better wizard Jews, Bushmen, Orientals or Hispanics.
Quote from: Hubert Farnsworth;342064Jesus Christ - the number of times I have heard that sort of idiocy.
blah blah blah Hubert substituting the conclusions drawn from his own prejudices for knowledge of facts
I just want to point out how unaccountably rude and predjudicial this post is. You have no idea what I have or have not read. Despite your apparent feeling that you can divine my reading list, I suspect you do not realize I have a passion for Hitler biographies. Also, your understanding of the history of eugenics is flawed if you believe it was a right-wing phenomenon.
Also, I assume you already realize this, but for the benefit of others, I feel I should observe that leftism is not equivalent to Marxism. In fact, notable social democrat JFK was anti-communist.
Quote from: jibbajibba;342099Didn't someone already point out that Elves, Halfings, dwarves are not races they are species. Races would be the Northern Barbarians vs the dessert nomads, or the Drow vs the Sindar, etc.
So if it eases any racial PC feeling you are having this is discussion is more like who makes better wizards Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals, Homo Erectus or Chimps than who makes a better wizard Jews, Bushmen, Orientals or Hispanics.
It's funny how easy it is to misread people's posts on internet forums.
I'm not having any "racial PC feeling". I haven't even talked about my feelings. I was talking about society in general and RPG designers in particular.
My "feeling" is that I couldn't give a flying fuck about the racial difference issue in humans either way. I just think racial level limits in D&D are a nice idea (see earlier posts for reasons why).
Quote from: noisms;342255It's funny how easy it is to misread people's posts on internet forums.
I'm not having any "racial PC feeling". I haven't even talked about my feelings. I was talking about society in general and RPG designers in particular.
My "feeling" is that I couldn't give a flying fuck about the racial difference issue in humans either way. I just think racial level limits in D&D are a nice idea (see earlier posts for reasons why).
I think it would have been a better idea if guidelines were presented to bring any particular race a group preferred to the forefront. One group may be quite keen on dwarves, for instance, so it would make more sense for a world dominated by them to have level limits on other races instead.
That said, I don't recall having any particular discussions regarding dissatisfaction with level limits in my old group. One guy played a Halfling Thief, so no hassle there, and one other guy rotated characters on a fairly regular basis, so the level caps weren't reached. I guess I don't see the psychic trauma of not having a 15th level Elf Magic User or whatever.
You know, I'd consider on a case-by-case basis letting a demi-human character surpass their level limit if, in exchange for doing so, they were willing to give up all their racial bonuses in combat, to saving throws, infravision, dropped all but one of their classes, etc. So you've got your 14th level magic-user who you call an "elf" and he acts like an elf and looks like an elf, but he doesn't have infravision, 90% resistance to sleep & charm, immunity to ghoul paralysis, bonus to find secret doors, surprise bonus, +1 to hit w/ swords & bows, and can't multiclass (and if he was multiclassed previously he loses all abilities in his other class). I wonder how many players would take that bargain -- I suspect most of them would still complain and want to have it both ways -- all the cool racial bonuses and unlimited levels.
I had a House Rule compromise in my games (although I don't think anyone ever got a demi-human high enough to take advantage of it):
1. Level limits stand as per RAW.
2. The extra levels for high ability scores as per Unearthed Arcana apply.
3. Once the level limit for high ability scores was reached, then a 20% experience point penalty was applied and progression was unlimited.
IIRC, I choose the number of 20% because, let's face it, most all character had a high enough score by that point to earn a 10% bonus for their primary ability score. This way, they would only suffer a 10% penalty after their maximum level is attained under the RAW.
I used to use a 66% XP penalty over listed max.
Quote from: T. Foster;342319You know, I'd consider on a case-by-case basis letting a demi-human character surpass their level limit if, in exchange for doing so, they were willing to give up all their racial bonuses in combat, to saving throws, infravision, dropped all but one of their classes, etc. So you've got your 14th level magic-user who you call an "elf" and he acts like an elf and looks like an elf, but he doesn't have infravision, 90% resistance to sleep & charm, immunity to ghoul paralysis, bonus to find secret doors, surprise bonus, +1 to hit w/ swords & bows, and can't multiclass (and if he was multiclassed previously he loses all abilities in his other class). I wonder how many players would take that bargain -- I suspect most of them would still complain and want to have it both ways -- all the cool racial bonuses and unlimited levels.
I would complain because it doesn't make any sense. It would be like wondering if anyone would complain if you let them play an ogre, but they would be medium-sized, have no ability score modifiers, and be able to advance in all classes to unlimited levels. Also, they would gain automatic proficiency in playing the piccolo. Common ogre names include Pixiewinkle, Dagwood, and Warren Zevon.
No. This hypothetical elf would still be 5' tall, have pointy ears, act like an elf (and use the elf racial reaction chart), speak elf languages, and have elf ability score modifiers. He just wouldn't have all the normal game-mechanical benefits that come with being an elf and make it a better mechanical choice than playing a human. If it's really the flavor of playing an elf that's important to the player he still gets that, he just doesn't get combat bonuses, spell immunities, and so on. The game-level reasoning is obvious. In-milieu you can make up whatever handwave works -- that by devoting himself so fully to a single facet of existence he necessarily loses touch with some portion of his essential elfiness or some such.
This may be interesting (or not :))
My mum used to have this great racial idea she ran. Her world had had 6 races who were epitomes of perfection, like Numenoreans in a LOTR sense . OVer the millenia they had all interbred making mongrel mixes.
There were 8ish (i forget the detail) racial features, skin colour, hair type, height, build, eyes etc etc. Each PC rolled a d6 for each one. This determined what each PC looked like but when PCs got 3 racial features the same they got a bonus, either combat or magical or stat based. If you have 4 the same you got another etc etc ..
Now this works on a science genetic level, it worked very well in her game and it was nice to get these mixed up guys.
She also ran a game where each PC was racially perfect (This was part of a novel she was writing based on game play) and thus had real special powers and some uber quest they were trying to complete.
I might nick this idea and reuse it again now I think of it.
Quote from: noisms;341931I don't know about anybody else, but my point was that these days it's less acceptable (or, let's say, more controversial) to talk about things like "racial difference" openly. The entire concept sounds outmoded to most people, especially those who consider themselves liberals or leftists,
Do we have to talk about the idological purity of the master party
AGAIN?
Levels limits? I ignore them.
Quote from: Malleus Arianorum;342552Do we have to talk about the idological purity of the master party AGAIN?
I dunno, is that supposed to be some sort of jibe at liberals? I'm not one, by the way.
I should point out, as others have, that in most games this never becomes an issue. Its rare for a game of D&D (old style) to get further than 15th level. If you are, you are really talking about some very serious power levels.
Aside from that, well, in "Basic D&D", you can get demihumans gaining "Attack ranks", essentially their combat bonuses keep going up with XP. That resolves most of the issues.
We played a rare 1-36th level D&D campaign, and one of our PCs was a halfling (maxes-out at level 8). He managed to keep being effective and useful in general until the very highest levels of "Master" gaming (levels 26-36 or so) where only there he started to really feel the difference.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;342684We played a rare 1-36th level D&D campaign, and one of our PCs was a halfling (maxes-out at level 8). He managed to keep being effective and useful in general until the very highest levels of "Master" gaming (levels 26-36 or so) where only there he started to really feel the difference.
From a strictly rules perspective, if your game has 36 levels planned out, 8th level is a very bad place to cap a particular race.
Regarding level limits in 1E AD&D, the Githyanki and Githzerai (techinically not PC races, but whatever) had hard level limits. I always liked how there was a justification buit into the races' backstories: their immortal leaders would kill them if they rose over a certain level (11 and 9, respectively, if memory serves).
I feel like level limits were more for world building than real play. In original Dragon Lance, Huma Dragonbane was only 9th level. Tanis only ever reached 12th. You could easily solo an adult black dragon at 7th.
The whole D&D experience could be handled by 10th level, and anything higher is just wankery, in my opinion.
Quote from: StormBringer;342698From a strictly rules perspective, if your game has 36 levels planned out, 8th level is a very bad place to cap a particular race.
Not as it turns out, not if you have things like attack ranks and additional skills and weapon masteries above maximum level.
Effectively speaking, the only thing that stopped changing were saving throws and hit points, and that's not really such a huge deal.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;342841Not as it turns out, not if you have things like attack ranks and additional skills and weapon masteries above maximum level.
Effectively speaking, the only thing that stopped changing were saving throws and hit points, and that's not really such a huge deal.
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I would say hit point can potentially be a game breaker, but if you can advance other skills to more or less keep up, it simply turns into a skill-based game instead of class-and-level after a certain point for those races.
Which might just make for a decent premise in a general game.
Quote from: StormBringer;342870I would say hit point can potentially be a game breaker, but if you can advance other skills to more or less keep up, it simply turns into a skill-based game instead of class-and-level after a certain point for those races.
Which might just make for a decent premise in a general game.
There were a couple of situations for our Halfling where his low HP got him in trouble (and by "in trouble" I mean to say it killed him), but the other PCs would just resurrect him. Generally, since he had wicked-good AC and Saving Throws by then, it wasn't too big a deal.
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Quote from: RPGPundit;343067There were a couple of situations for our Halfling where his low HP got him in trouble (and by "in trouble" I mean to say it killed him), but the other PCs would just resurrect him. Generally, since he had wicked-good AC and Saving Throws by then, it wasn't too big a deal.
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I would expect the cleric would have a resurrect handy at all times for just such an occasion.
Turning the idea over in my head, though, I wonder if that would make for a good set of rules. Start out class-and-level based until about 10th level or something, then transition to a skill based system. Kind of like public education in most places. The first six years or so, your classes are the same as everyone else's, and you have pretty much no choice in the matter. The next two or three years, you have some choice in your class structure, the next four provides even more leeway, then you are wide open in your choices for university.
Quote from: StormBringer;343136...
Turning the idea over in my head, though, I wonder if that would make for a good set of rules. Start out class-and-level based until about 10th level or something, then transition to a skill based system...
That's the basic idea behind 'E6', no? You use the core D&D 3e rules up until level 6. After that, nobody improves in levels, but you can buy additional feats by spending experience points.
If I were to ever run 3e again (an extremely unlikely event), I would use the E6 rules.
Quote from: Akrasia;343182That's the basic idea behind 'E6', no? You use the core D&D 3e rules up until level 6. After that, nobody improves in levels, but you can buy additional feats by spending experience points.
If I were to ever run 3e again (an extremely unlikely event), I would use the E6 rules.
...I have never heard of 'E6' before. Link?
Quote from: Akrasia;343182That's the basic idea behind 'E6', no? You use the core D&D 3e rules up until level 6. After that, nobody improves in levels, but you can buy additional feats by spending experience points.
If I were to ever run 3e again (an extremely unlikely event), I would use the E6 rules.
I was under the impression that E6 games stopped all progression at 6th level, no further improvement. If you can buy feats after 6th level, it is kind of the idea I was going for, but I was thinking of a strictly class-and-level based, like AD&D, without any skills whatsoever. If the transition is 10th level, then at 8th level or something you can get a few skills and start improving them, maybe some cross class stuff, then at 10th level, all class based progression stops. No more hit points, no more spells, nothing improves automatically after that. Weapon skills are then treated as bonuses for attacks, spells or spell levels are bought individually, or current spells can be improved in a like manner; each skill point grants a bonus to one or more of the spell attributes. Maybe another 'level' of damage, or another 'level' of range. Depending on the distribution of skill points, all level based variables for a spell could be improved.
With the flexibility of a skill based system like that, I would imagine the group could decide the cut-off for level based play. If they decided ahead of time or on the spur of the moment, or even just individually, it wouldn't matter much. The level based portion would need to have an XP scale that matches the skill based part in a more linear fashion. Perhaps 5xp per encounter, more for heroics and quick thinking, less for easy opponents or exceptionally bad plans. Make each 'level' 150 or 200 XP, then the players get a tenth of that as improvement points once they get to the skill-based part. Set the skills as escalating in cost and it should be good to roll.
Example: Everyone makes 10th level, and in the course of several more adventures, gets 150xp. That converts to 15 improvement points, which can be spread around for a minor bonus to several skills, or someone may decide to blow the whole thing to get a +5 on attack rolls with a sword (1+2+3+4+5=15).
This does tend to favour a game with a unified mechanic. Using AD&D as an example again, Thieves use d% for pick locks and such, so a flat +1 would be rather useless, really. Of course, you can set each subsystem to handle the improvement point in its own way. Unified mechanics are not often seen in vintage games, after all. :)
I should probably stop blathering about this and get something written.
What is this E6 and where does it come from?
RPGPundit
Quote from: Narf the Mouse;343201...I have never heard of 'E6' before. Link?
The PDF: http://esix.pbworks.com/f/E6v041.pdf
The website (which has other things by the E6 designer): http://esix.pbworks.com/
Quote from: StormBringer;343218I was under the impression that E6 games stopped all progression at 6th level, no further improvement...
Well, it would hardly be worth talking about in that case, no? It would simply be standard 3e with a cap at level 6. :)
According to the E6 rules you can purchase additional feats for 5000 experience points.
Quote from: Akrasia;343269Well, it would hardly be worth talking about in that case, no? It would simply be standard 3e with a cap at level 6. :)
A good point. You see my initial confusion, then. :)
QuoteAccording to the E6 rules you can purchase additional feats for 5000 experience points.
I was never terribly impressed with feats, to be honest, but that is the general idea. I prefer skills that can be improved in any manner a player desires over feats by a wide margin, so I would focus more on gaining skills or levels in current skills.
Quote from: StormBringer;343282...
I was never terribly impressed with feats, to be honest, but that is the general idea. I prefer skills that can be improved in any manner a player desires over feats by a wide margin, so I would focus more on gaining skills or levels in current skills.
I hate feats with the heat of a thousand burning suns (at least as implemented in 3e/4e). I h
ate, hate, hate the whole 'exception-to-rules' mechanic of most feats.
In contrast, I have no problem with skills, since skills involve consistent mechanics (i.e., they are not 'exception-based').
So yeah, I share your tastes. :)
Still, the power level of E6 makes it the only version of d20 -- well, aside from Microlite20 -- that I would ever consider running again.
Hmm, very interesting.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Akrasia;343317I hate feats with the heat of a thousand burning suns (at least as implemented in 3e/4e). I hate, hate, hate the whole 'exception-to-rules' mechanic of most feats.
In contrast, I have no problem with skills, since skills involve consistent mechanics (i.e., they are not 'exception-based').
So yeah, I share your tastes. :)
Still, the power level of E6 makes it the only version of d20 -- well, aside from Microlite20 -- that I would ever consider running again.
I don't see what your problem is with it.
Everyone gets to try and trip you back if you try to trip them, unless you take improved trip. If you invest in improved trip, you are too good for that to happen to you. What's not to like?
A lot of D&D people love looking up rules, or just knowing them all off hand.
Does it bother you that it is more stuff to remember, or that it just isn't fair?
Quote from: Cranewings;343508I don't see what your problem is with it.
People have different tastes in games.
Quote from: Cranewings;343508A lot of D&D people love looking up rules, or just knowing them all off hand.
Yeah, see, I'm
not one of those people. That's why I prefer older versions of D&D, at least as GM.
Quote from: Cranewings;343508Does it bother you that it is more stuff to remember, or that it just isn't fair?
It has nothing to do with 'fairness'. The 'more stuff to remember'
is irritating. Keeping in mind the special effects of hundreds of feats? Ugh. I'm too old and lazy for that crap.
Ultimately, though, I find the mechanic intrinsically clunky and aesthetically ugly. It is clunky to have a game with the following structure: (a) here are the rules to govern the actions of PCs and NPCs; (b) now here are hundreds of fiddly exceptions to those rules (often with their own 'sub-rules'). Blech!
In contrast, a system like BRP which uses skills is not 'exception-based'. The same rules apply, all the time, without exception. Some PCs/NPCs will be much more skilled at certain things than others, and thus enjoy much greater success rates at those things than others. No need to create 'exceptions' to the rules for those characters. The overall structure is far more parsimonious.
To some extent, the same thing is true of older versions of D&D. Higher level characters will have a greater chance to hit, make their saving rolls, etc., than lower level characters, but the basic mechanic is the same. (I'll concede that there are
some 'exception-based' rules in older D&D, but they are far, far fewer in number than 'feats' in 3e and 4e.)
Phew! It felt good to get that off my chest. :)
Quote from: Cranewings;343508Everyone gets to try and trip you back if you try to trip them, unless you take improved trip. If you invest in improved trip, you are too good for that to happen to you. What's not to like?
As a huge fan of feats, plenty. I'd prefer if maneuvers like tripping, disarming, sundering, etc. all came with a penalty and the feats just nixed the penalty, rather than having all these silly superfluous circumstances surrounding maneuvers (getting tripped back being a perfect example) and four or five different ways to be good at the same task.
EDIT: And more on topic, I'm with those that dislike level limits. They either don't come into play, in which case why have them? Or they're a hard to justify in-world pain in the ass. I'd have less of a problem with xp penalties past a certain level.
I actually agree w/ you two.