Quote from: BenoistAbsolutely. When you write "resource management mechanics, by their nature, are balance mechanics", you are informed by loads of obsessive-compulsive BS that infected game design since 2000. I agree.

Running out of spells rubbed me the wrong way the first time I saw it. Immediately it looked like they gave magic a handicap to prevent it from getting out of hand. I can say it's a balance mechanic and be influenced by theory discussion, I can say they nerfed that shit and you can say I'm a Magic or Wow nerd (I'm neither), I can say it plenty of ways and you can assume plenty of things by my vocabulary.

Likewise, hit points are a big deal. Players can get close to death without dying and it isn't stupid random / hard to track like a pure random wound system would be. I wouldn't totally scrap them, but they can control the pace of the game.

QuoteThey are not, if you choose not to look at them from a metagame point of view. In my games, spells that are cast in a Vancian way are the result of magic users basically imprinting the occult patterns of spells in their minds during their preparations, and releasing them through their gestures, vocals etc if need be (whereas spells may be cast straight from books and other sources without being imprinted on the mind, in which case it takes much longer to cast them). Touching the Middle World/Eidos/Dreamlands during sleep erases the patterns imprinted on someone's mind, and requires new preparations to make these spells readily available to release.

It's all a question of point of view.

Level-limits function the same way. In my campaign world, humans are the center of the cosmos, the ultimate pawns and prize of the ongoing fight between forces of Law and Chaos. Their potential is limitless. Other sentient beings in the world are reflections of some aspects of the world itself, and though they may experience life and learn new things as well, there will always be some point at which they basically reach their full potential and are set in their place in the world.

Once again. Question of point of view.

As a rule, I'd rather the system fit the setting than the other way. I'd rather devote my time to dreaming up interesting NPCs and monsters that might see some use in game than have to make excuses for why higher level characters are harder to heal, for example

QuoteThen you've got to choose whichever argument you're trying to make, from my POV. It sounds like you're saying that some resource management like Vancian casting break verisimilitude for you, which I just addressed in my previous paragraphs, but then, you turn around to tell me it's all because they're problematic in the game. Which is it?

If you mean the latter, you'll have to explain to me how problematic Vancian casting is to your particular games. When you say the limits can potentially become meaningless, it sounds to me that you're thinking about a theoretical problem, an argument in a vacuum, rather than a concrete game problem you encountered in actual play.

I'm saying as a rule that I can forgive a rule that does one or the other (being good for gameplay or verisimilitude), but not one that does neither.

And I say potentially because I do occasionally run dungeons and I play them to the hilt. Therefore it is a potential problem. It is a problem only when and if I try to run a different kind of game.

QuoteIf I am misunderstanding your argument, give me actual examples of the problems you encountered in actual play. Not in theory. Then maybe we'll find a solution/explanation to them.

Okay.... the party figured out that the so-called path of light were bandits hired by someone to hand out bread and soup tainted to turn those who consumed it into ghouls.

PCs go to the PoL headquarters and entangle the PoL all down while they sleep in their tents. Then the PCs burn all the PoL people to death with a flaming sphere. This was all just the druid. Everybody else used arrows.

Next fight the party went to attack a soup kitchen in a famine in the middle of town. Between obscuring mist or fog (can't remember), some area damage spells, etc. two fights in the same day with what was more or less a small army of close in level NPCs were both cakewalks. Nevermind the sanctuary impasse that occurred at the end of the second fight. I really really don't like sanctuary.

Quote from: beejazz;387382Running out of spells rubbed me the wrong way the first time I saw it. Immediately it looked like they gave magic a handicap to prevent it from getting out of hand. I can say it's a balance mechanic and be influenced by theory discussion, I can say they nerfed that shit and you can say I'm a Magic or Wow nerd (I'm neither), I can say it plenty of ways and you can assume plenty of things by my vocabulary.

Likewise, hit points are a big deal. Players can get close to death without dying and it isn't stupid random / hard to track like a pure random wound system would be. I wouldn't totally scrap them, but they can control the pace of the game.

I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in purely theoretical arguments. That's why I'm asking for examples in actual play. Thanks for providing them at the end of your post.

Quote from: beejazz;387382As a rule, I'd rather the system fit the setting than the other way. I'd rather devote my time to dreaming up interesting NPCs and monsters that might see some use in game than have to make excuses for why higher level characters are harder to heal, for example

Then find another game system that fits the world you want to emulate better? It sounds to me like you want to have a design issue with Vancian magic or Level limits, while in fact what you might not like is the implied setting of the D&D game. Which is all fine and good, mind you, but then... why just not play another game that fits your setting better?

Quote from: beejazz;387382I'm saying as a rule that I can forgive a rule that does one or the other (being good for gameplay or verisimilitude), but not one that does neither.

Well Vancian casting works great as far as game play and verisimilitude are concerned, from my POV, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong by your book, if anything. If I'm not doing anything wrong, then maybe the problem isn't so much with the rule as the way you choose to look at it? I don't know.

Quote from: beejazz;387382And I say potentially because I do occasionally run dungeons and I play them to the hilt. Therefore it is a potential problem. It is a problem only when and if I try to run a different kind of game.

Okay.... the party figured out that the so-called path of light were bandits hired by someone to hand out bread and soup tainted to turn those who consumed it into ghouls.

PCs go to the PoL headquarters and entangle the PoL all down while they sleep in their tents. Then the PCs burn all the PoL people to death with a flaming sphere. This was all just the druid. Everybody else used arrows.

Next fight the party went to attack a soup kitchen in a famine in the middle of town. Between obscuring mist or fog (can't remember), some area damage spells, etc. two fights in the same day with what was more or less a small army of close in level NPCs were both cakewalks. Nevermind the sanctuary impasse that occurred at the end of the second fight. I really really don't like sanctuary.

Cool examples. Thanks.

What game system were you using? For instance in 3.5, you got actually some very neat advice on this sort of thing in Ptolus. That is, how to scale encounters according to the urban setting surrounding the characters as opposed to the dungeon, with resurrection available a few blocks away, rare fights and so on.

It sounds to me like you didn't challenge the PCs enough, didn't acknowledge their level of power while preparing your adventure, and/or didn't think about the context while preparing said adventure.

What system were you using?

Quote from: beejazz;387382Next fight the party went to attack a soup kitchen in a famine in the middle of town. Between obscuring mist or fog (can't remember), some area damage spells, etc. two fights in the same day with what was more or less a small army of close in level NPCs were both cakewalks. Nevermind the sanctuary impasse that occurred at the end of the second fight. I really really don't like sanctuary.

Sounds like the PC's did exactly what they should have done and did it in a smart way using the tools at hand.  I fail to see what the problem was?  Where they not supposed to defeat the PoL, was it supposed to be harder, were they supposed to get beaten up etc...

Sounds more like you got out smarted and are bitter about it because the PC's won.  Why the sour grapes and bemoaning about resource management when they worked perfectly within their means.

Quote from: beejazz;387382the so-called path of light were bandits

Path of Light, you say?

I see what you did there.

Quote from: BenThen find another game system that fits the world you want to emulate better? It sounds to me like you want to have a design issue with Vancian magic or Level limits, while in fact what you might not like is the implied setting of the D&D game. Which is all fine and good, mind you, but then... why just not play another game that fits your setting better?

I think it comes down to this, Beej.  
I have always listed Vreeg's first rule of setting design exhaustively, so I won't go down that path.

However, most mechanics CAN be looked at through the lens of Resource Management, but the ones that you are mentioning in specific are certainly more specific.  Your problem seems to be with the mechanics with less conditional affects.  Vancian magic is a great example.  There is very little interplay with other factors, or conditions that may affect or complicate the very simple management.

So it does not look like your actual problem is with the existence of resource management.  It looks like your problem is with simple resource management compared to more complicated resource management.

Quote from: BenoistThen find another game system that fits the world you want to emulate better? It sounds to me like you want to have a design issue with Vancian magic or Level limits, while in fact what you might not like is the implied setting of the D&D game. Which is all fine and good, mind you, but then... why just not play another game that fits your setting better?

I do houserule to improve the breadth of situations the game can handle well, and I am writing my own game to deal with some of these issues. As to the implied setting... I came to the game expecting a standard fantasy kitchen sink. Mythic hodge-podge I love. Tolkeinian stuff (or the parts of it D&D uses) I love. Knights and wizards and dragons and feudal stuff I love. It's really just one or two things that bug me.

As for why not play another game... mainly 'cause this is what everyone plays/knows how to play, which is a huge asset when finding players. And I know the game's flaws well enough to compensate most of the time... well enough to keep a summer game going every now and again anyway. That and I like feats and leveling.  As far as I know the popular alternatives that address my concerns contain neither.

QuoteWell Vancian casting works great as far as game play and verisimilitude are concerned, from my POV, so I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong by your book, if anything. If I'm not doing anything wrong, then maybe the problem isn't so much with the rule as the way you choose to look at it? I don't know.

It can feel right for you maybe because you read older / less mainstream / just more similar to D&D fantasy. You're not doing anything wrong. And it can work right in many situations. Again, your game just has a different pace. You're not doing anything wrong.

What I'm saying isn't that you're wrong for liking D&D or that D&D is wrong for supporting your style of play. Just that resource management has a more direct influence on how the game is played than other things might. I've tried alternate hp mechanics and the 3.5 warlock could cast what it cast infinitely and worked pretty consistently regardless of game and pace.

QuoteCool examples. Thanks.

What game system were you using? For instance in 3.5, you got actually some very neat advice on this sort of thing in Ptolus. That is, how to scale encounters according to the urban setting surrounding the characters as opposed to the dungeon, with resurrection available a few blocks away, rare fights and so on.

It sounds to me like you didn't challenge the PCs enough, didn't acknowledge their level of power while preparing your adventure, and/or didn't think about the context while preparing said adventure.

What system were you using?

It was 3.5. I have heard good things about Ptolus.

There wasn't a player above level 4, most were 3, it was a low on magic loot game (as far as weapons, armor, wands go anyway... most magic items were potions, scrolls, and wondrous) and most baddies were 3rd level rogue types (maybe multiclassed? it's been a while) built to flank or feint better or to get sneak when they wouldn't otherwise (my standard solution is damage-dealing builds). The PoL leader was multiclassed fighter/rogue in armor, built to feint and use a heavy flail for a large character. So a hit from him really could kill a PC (hence the annoying sanctuary). Then there was the militia... huge crowd of low level fighters and warriors.

Quote from: kryyst;387385Sounds like the PC's did exactly what they should have done and did it in a smart way using the tools at hand.  I fail to see what the problem was?  Where they not supposed to defeat the PoL, was it supposed to be harder, were they supposed to get beaten up etc...

Sounds more like you got out smarted and are bitter about it because the PC's won.  Why the sour grapes and bemoaning about resource management when they worked perfectly within their means.

I'm cool with smart PCs murdering foes in their tents while they sleep. That's awesome.

I'm not cool with how there's nothing wrong with a frontal assault EVER, even when you are surrounded by the town militia and bandits. It's not the players' decisions that bug me... given the situation/system it was the smart thing to do.

Quote from: beejazz;387382Running out of spells rubbed me the wrong way the first time I saw it. Immediately it looked like they gave magic a handicap to prevent it from getting out of hand. I can say it's a balance mechanic and be influenced by theory discussion, I can say they nerfed that shit and you can say I'm a Magic or Wow nerd (I'm neither), I can say it plenty of ways and you can assume plenty of things by my vocabulary.

There are games which have magic points without it getting too out of hand - you can have recovery of points per hour instead of all back at dawn. 2nd Ed. psionics let characters replentish PSPs during the day (depending on activity), and so tremendously strong powers were very expensive.

Likewise, Tunnels and Trolls wizards (5th edition and earlier) fuelled spells with Strength points; they recovered per hour, but when casting a spell a wizard had to consider if he'd be likely to find a resting spot before the next wandering monster attack, and consider the combat/encumberance penalties he'd suffer in the interim for being exhausted.

Quote from: beejazz;387406I do houserule to improve the breadth of situations the game can handle well, and I am writing my own game to deal with some of these issues. As to the implied setting... I came to the game expecting a standard fantasy kitchen sink. Mythic hodge-podge I love. Tolkeinian stuff (or the parts of it D&D uses) I love. Knights and wizards and dragons and feudal stuff I love. It's really just one or two things that bug me.

As for why not play another game... mainly 'cause this is what everyone plays/knows how to play, which is a huge asset when finding players. And I know the game's flaws well enough to compensate most of the time... well enough to keep a summer game going every now and again anyway. That and I like feats and leveling.  As far as I know the popular alternatives that address my concerns contain neither.

It can feel right for you maybe because you read older / less mainstream / just more similar to D&D fantasy. You're not doing anything wrong. And it can work right in many situations. Again, your game just has a different pace. You're not doing anything wrong.

What I'm saying isn't that you're wrong for liking D&D or that D&D is wrong for supporting your style of play. Just that resource management has a more direct influence on how the game is played than other things might. I've tried alternate hp mechanics and the 3.5 warlock could cast what it cast infinitely and worked pretty consistently regardless of game and pace.

OK Cool. I understand better.

Quote from: beejazz;387406It was 3.5. I have heard good things about Ptolus.

There wasn't a player above level 4, most were 3, it was a low on magic loot game (as far as weapons, armor, wands go anyway... most magic items were potions, scrolls, and wondrous) and most baddies were 3rd level rogue types (maybe multiclassed? it's been a while) built to flank or feint better or to get sneak when they wouldn't otherwise (my standard solution is damage-dealing builds). The PoL leader was multiclassed fighter/rogue in armor, built to feint and use a heavy flail for a large character. So a hit from him really could kill a PC (hence the annoying sanctuary). Then there was the militia... huge crowd of low level fighters and warriors.

Yeah. It doesn't sound it was much of an opposition. Here's the thing. When you're adventuring in a 3.5 urban setting, assume that the PCs can take APL+4 CRs much more easily than they would in a succession of encounters in some dungeon. If PCs die in the process, churches are nearby to bring them back from the dead, which will make them burn gold, which means you give them valuables to be able to do so in the first place. Basically assume that the party's average level is 2 level higher, if not more. It's a system of trials and errors. Adjust the ELs to match the PCs capacities and makeup. Don't use a lot of little 3rd level guys exclusively. Use for instance a CR 8 Advanced Ogre and his Thieves level 3 underlings. The Thieves will try the flank the PCs, and the Ogre will basically dish out huge amounts of damage. If you play such a group well, you could end up in a TPK. If the last surviving PCs don't flee, that's they're fault if they're stupid.

Quote from: beejazz;387406I'm not cool with how there's nothing wrong with a frontal assault EVER, even when you are surrounded by the town militia and bandits. It's not the players' decisions that bug me... given the situation/system it was the smart thing to do.

Then put on your Viking hat and have a BBEG for them that is a level 10 Wizard with advanced Bugbear Barbarian bodyguards or something. In other words, give them ample warnings about how tough the opposition is. If they decide to go for the frontal assault, then do not hesitate to fucking destroy the party. Then you tell them "you were warned. These were really powerful foes and you chose what you should *not* have done at this level." Grow balls of brass, do this to them a few times, and they'll start to search for more information about their enemies before confronting them. They'll try to blackmail, set up enemies, and so on. If they don't learn their lessons or give up, they're just stupid.

It's a teaching experience.

One of the reasons I continue to like D&D so much is it is infinitely modifiable. You can mix old and new... rules variants from different editions, to create just the effects you want for your game.

Case in point. With your example, For magic, i'd run a game with a mana point pool. While the cover art of Unearth Arcana for 3.x will remain forever atrocious and detestable, many of the variants contained within are quite good and can be individually or collectively included in almost any game of D&D.

You can go with spell points, and completely do away with the prepared spell lists, and you can also include a point recharge rate, which would allow mages to regain spells at more or less regular intervals throughout the day.

You could also go with recharge magic, where any spells memorized are automatically available again after a short semi-random duration.

You could go with spell recharge times where individual spells become recharged and available again after a fixed duration that depends on the nature of the spell.

You could also go with a saving throw variant where the mages and/or other character classes could actually attempt to cast an extra spell not on the list, and/or get an extra strike in during a melee round, however being required to make a difficult saving throw DC20 or better, with additional mods each successive time this sort of overtaxing occurs with a failure resulting in some sort of catastrophic failure, or a complete shutdown of the ability/magic in question until the character has had an opportunity for a thorough rest measured in days or even weeks...

I guess I just don't see the point of whinging about it.

Quote from: beejazz;387307Now, firstly, as soon as magic-like resource management becomes combat useful, the game starts telling you how many fights to have per day. If I run sessions with too few combats, wizards become stupid powerful because they can blow all their spells in one go. Too many combats and wizards become shit at everything and can't contribute meaningfully.

Or you could see your world as an actual world instead of a gladiator arena or a theme park.  Sometimes the players will have 1 fight a day, sometimes 10.  It depends on the choices they make and how the NPCs respond.  Sometimes the players have an easy fight, sometimes they have a suicidal one, where the only real option is to run, again, it depends on their choices.  Also, older versions of D&D had a spell or two that weren't effective in combat .  Not having a Detect Magic, Knock, or Find Trap spell when you really need one, can cost you the adventure if things are going poorly.

Stop trying to balance on a micro-scale.  As long as not every encounter is too easy or too hard, then you're fine, it will all even out.

beejazz: I think what's important to keep in mind is that D&D-style resource management works best if "how many encounters we're going to face today" is a result of the actions of the PCs rather than the decision of the DM.

What I mean is that if you're in a dungeon the PCs always have a choice between going a bit deeper or making a break for the exit. If they go deeper they can get more treasure but more fights but if they make a break for the exit they'll face less fights but get less treasure (to put it crudely). Also by having resource management that makes the PCs more powerful the fewer fights they've been in you give the PCs a powerful incentive to avoid fights and try to think their way around them (a bit theme in early edition D&D).

D&D works the best if:
A. It involved the PCs making trips into dangerous areas where they'll be cut off from resupply, which requires a trip back to the safe base.
B. Time needs to be an important resource (i.e. the PCs shouldn't be able just clear one room, go back to town and resupply and then clear the next room).
C. There should be important kinds of resources that the PCs are cut off from while adventuring.
D. There should be rewards for risking the dangers of going deeper into the dangerous areas and spending more time there.

If you move away from these assumptions, a lot of D&D (in most editions) starts to break down. What I don't like about 3.* ed is it provides the players with too many tools to break these assumptions (easily resting and resupplying while in the dungeon etc.) and thus puts an onus on the DM to artificially ensure that there are the "right" number of encounters per day.

Quote from: beejazz;387307Time to piss off everybody who likes any edition of D&D.

Resource management mechanics, by their nature, are balance mechanics. You can give someone bigger better powers with the stipulation that they can only use these powers sometimes (Vancian magic, as well as many of its substitutes including mana points) or you can make sure people almost always have a chance to win or lose or at least flee with hit points that get depleted over time (yes I know early D&D had death effects, but if it was for reasons of verisimilitude, getting hit in the head with a mace might've had a save-or-die too... death effects were part of a puzzle game where player decisions had an impact on the outcome).

Now, firstly, as soon as magic-like resource management becomes combat useful, the game starts telling you how many fights to have per day. If I run sessions with too few combats, wizards become stupid powerful because they can blow all their spells in one go. Too many combats and wizards become shit at everything and can't contribute meaningfully.

Secondly, the same applies to hit points. Fewer combats means less or no immediate risk of death if I just fight once in a given day. Too many fights and my guy might get taken down by a pissed-off housecat (the whole minimum one damage thing),

In both cases, the "correct" number of fights per day to make combat interesting might vary by level, but that doesn't change the major problem that it's the system that decides how much violence should probably take place in a given day. Even if it doesn't say so explicitly.

You can say that there's greater verisimilitude in varying challenges and including things that can kill you in one hit/require all your magic in one fight/ whatever, and I get that. Sometimes you gotta spend extra juice on the big bad or save said juice in a fight with mooks in a resource management system, and variable challenges are great for verisimilitude. But a system where any individual fight can potentially have no risk of death seems bad for verisimilitude.

And this is ignoring the ten minute adventuring day, and the wandering monster answer (which changes the world to justify the mechanics instead of the other way around).

4e might be slightly better with encounter powers, but dailies are still pretty vancy and all that extra healing exacerbates the hit point problem (if the game made each and every fight potentially deadly and made healing plentiful but only between fights I would've loved that... a risk of death in every fight and no limit on the most or least fights you could have in a day... but they didn't do that).

I've run plenty of one-fight sessions in my mystery/intrigue/social interaction heavy games, and it just sucks to have the one fight be a cakewalk because it's the end of the session and the party knows they can use all their magic on it and there's almost no chance someone dies unless all NPCs are rogues or spellcasters... or unless every fight is unfair in the NPCs' favor.

EDIT: I forgot to mention NPCs built on PC rules! NPC per day limits don't mean shit because NPCs are usually only in one fight per session even if the party's not. This gives an advantage to NPCs of equal level to PCs.

I agree with most of this but I don't think its stuff that you can't fix and I think a lot of 4e is an attempt to fix some of these effects in play.

Take HP. In older editions HP work becuase the numbers are low. When you are dealling with levels 1 -3 and a tough guy has 15 HP then the system works. If you get hp of 90 then it doesn't work and the reason is that the mechanic doesn't do what it claims to do. It claims that hp don't equate to physical damage but you ability to roll with a wound, turn a cut to scratch or dodge a blow however in old editions it still takes a guy with 90 Hit points 3 months to recover to recover from 0 to max hits whereas a guy with 1 hp is fully recovered in a day a guy with 7 in a week etc. So healing surges are an attempt to fix it but they fix the effect rather than the real issue.
Vancian magic is similar because if you actually use the RAW and make the PCs spend the time to relearn new spells and check chance to learn new spells they find etc then the controls that stop magic being entirely dominant at high levels mean that magic users are severly crippled.

But the strength of D&D is that all these things can easily be houseruled and the game is still D&D. There is a thread to it that remains and I am sure that it even exists in 4e (well maybe).

Quote from: GameDaddyOne of the reasons I continue to like D&D so much is it is infinitely modifiable. You can mix old and new... rules variants from different editions, to create just the effects you want for your game.

Except that I have houseruled. What, I can't discuss the rules because they're distasteful to me? Or talk about why? Seems an odd position to take given what forum we're on.

Anyway, I hadn't thought yet to do recharging spell points or save-based spell failure rules, so already something useful's come out of the discussion.

Quote from: CRKrueger;387430Or you could see your world as an actual world instead of a gladiator arena or a theme park.  Sometimes the players will have 1 fight a day, sometimes 10.  It depends on the choices they make and how the NPCs respond.  Sometimes the players have an easy fight, sometimes they have a suicidal one, where the only real option is to run, again, it depends on their choices.  Also, older versions of D&D had a spell or two that weren't effective in combat .  Not having a Detect Magic, Knock, or Find Trap spell when you really need one, can cost you the adventure if things are going poorly.

Stop trying to balance on a micro-scale.  As long as not every encounter is too easy or too hard, then you're fine, it will all even out.

I'm saying that I'm doing the logical thing (if you're in the city you face mostly human or human-like foes, and the world is not filled with 5 or 6 or 7th level professional killers and physics breakers because that would be stupid) and as long as I do the logical thing, things are pretty much a cakewalk.

I'm saying that my party spends weeks unraveling a mystery to have a fight with an army of bandits and militia and it's anticlimactic. And that it strikes me as silly that how many fights you have in a day should matter more than how tough the individual fights are in terms of your odds of winning/losing, except in extreme cases like when you run out of arrows and members of your party start actually dying.

Quote from: DazturD&D works the best if:
A. It involved the PCs making trips into dangerous areas where they'll be cut off from resupply, which requires a trip back to the safe base.
B. Time needs to be an important resource (i.e. the PCs shouldn't be able just clear one room, go back to town and resupply and then clear the next room).
C. There should be important kinds of resources that the PCs are cut off from while adventuring.
D. There should be rewards for risking the dangers of going deeper into the dangerous areas and spending more time there.

If you move away from these assumptions, a lot of D&D (in most editions) starts to break down. What I don't like about 3.* ed is it provides the players with too many tools to break these assumptions (easily resting and resupplying while in the dungeon etc.) and thus puts an onus on the DM to artificially ensure that there are the "right" number of encounters per day.

Yeah, like I said... I do love me some dungeons on occasion, and I do play them more or less like this (plus filled with traps and secret passages, nonlinear when I can manage it, often with time limitations, etc), and D&D rocks for this part of my games. It's just that I don't want to force in-game situations that work for the mechanics every time I feel like running something outside a dungeon. Especially when there are all these cool things you can do in town (crafting, research, recurring NPCs and villains, the "real world" where everything takes place) that just don't work as well in a dungeon.

jibbajibba: I pretty much agree with everything you're saying. I always saw the minigame of learning spells as potentially interesting, but for some reason the rules for it never get used. In 3.x I think wizards auto-learn some spells per level, but can research? But I think there's both a cost and a chance of failure, and if you auto-learn as many spells as you'll probably need it might mitigate the return on investment. I'll have to look at that stuff again.

Quote from: beejazz;387406I'm cool with smart PCs murdering foes in their tents while they sleep. That's awesome.

I'm not cool with how there's nothing wrong with a frontal assault EVER, even when you are surrounded by the town militia and bandits. It's not the players' decisions that bug me... given the situation/system it was the smart thing to do.

So if that's the case why didn't you have the town militia or more bandits step in?  Seems you had ample opportunities to make the outcome more difficult.  To impress upon them that a frontal assault in the middle of the town isn't smart, to do lots of things differently really and you didn't take them.

I'm not trying to defend the system, I don't play D&D.  But your problems don't seem to be stemming from the mechanics so far.

I kinda have to say thinking about it, that I disagree with Op.

Mechanics can also be time management, and Mechanics can also be genre mangement. I think the genre is probably bigger than some people would admit.

That said, How much of this (edition wars, swineology, damn idiot 50+ pages of bickering like two old gay farts over nearly every fucking topic and never getting anywhere), is really just chalked up to genre emulation.

Way back in the Day, Vance was big other's were big, Tolkein was big, and guess what They all feature prominently in various parts of those first editions.

Today, not surprisingly, a whole new crop of fantasy authors has cropped up, I think that Fantasy is probably more popular nowadays then it was backthen (I can't back this up) and there are various strange authors who don't give a fuck about vance or vancian casting.

Why is it some kind of Sin, to incorporate the new? People bitch about miniture and battlemats, but as far as I can tell from looking at old videos, picutres, perserved campeign notes, they used them back then in a lot of the same ways, What people are really bitching about is that my wizard can cast magic missile all day and doesn't end up being the center of the universe past the first few levels, and how dare that fighter consider himself my equal or a demigod even. That's not how Vance wrote it.

But that's okay with me, The stories I read for the most part, features wizards always able to do something, awesome fighter's and rogues that did amazing and quite frankly impossible/implausible feats. Harry Potter and Twillight and the sorcerer's apprentence, and Eragon, and all these books I'm not even considering are going to continue this.

You don't like it, great really. Nothing I can do to stop you there. I wouldn't suggest you catch up on your reading, I certainly don't think I have to read vance to appreciate dnd or read gary to appreciate dnd. I don't think Vance and gary had some magical knowledge or perfect genre or knew something I didn't about dnd.

At the end of the day, I'm perfectly happy with my new sources, my new dnd. And you can call it Not DNd or a video game or whatever you want really, but your just trying to deny other people the same basic joy you had with the game because you have some curmudgeonly instinct of what is or what is not the game, what is bad wrong fun, and what is right and proper and didn't those kids hear, I was here first.  

I just happen to think trying to deny other people fun is just low, the worst sort of person, the only person who would be worst than that sort of person is someone who does it day after day , thread after thread, page after page of bitter and vitrol and what, over whether or not blinding strike should be repeatible ad-nasseum, whether a wizard should be able to cast a fireball every encounter or three times a day.

And lo the pundit on the third day, did build a pig pen to catch all the swine, and was surprised when he was in fact caught with his brothers in said pen.