The Latest Edition War

[souran]

From a marketing perspective, I think it would be a good idea to avoid contributing to the next edition war. I may be wrong, but planned obsolenscance tends to aggravate the fan base and if handled poorly, can also alienate people from the hobby.

Actaully, I think that this has more to do with previous edition war than most people think.

2E had been around a LONG time when 3E came out. There had been other games that got to be very popular in the time between 2E and 3E like vampire that had totally different ideas about how rules should work. Further, D&D had been purchased by WOTC from TSR and there was a generally feeling that something different OUGHT to be done with the rules.


I am not saying that there were not 3E detractors. There were Shadzar's comming out of the woodwork when 3E launched or even when they began doing the system previews.

However, the idea that the game could, or likely SHOUlD change quite a bit was not not thought of as a negative. So big changes occured, 3E has basically NO backwards compatibility to 2E and people played 3E instead.

People didn't think that it was a money grab, or the the game had planned to make 2E obsolete, or that changes were just being made to suite whoever was in charge of the games tastes.

Now consider 3.5. 3.5 has as many changes from 3.0 as different editions of games like gurps/champions/runequest do for a "full" edition change. 3.5 is really D&D 4.

However, even though people generally felt that the rules needed some cleaning up, there were lots of people who bitched and moaned about it being a money grab. There were people who felt like the moment they bought a PHB WOTC was trying to figure out how to sell them another one.

3.5 is also the first edition of D&D with anything like REAL backward compatibility. 1E and 2E don't mix well, D&D and AD&D don't either. 3.5 basically works, but can be quite frustrating.

Generally, however, the game moved on. The changes were accepted because even though lots of the changes were head scratchers it was still the same game that WOTC was selling them before.

4E came out at a time when people were still not totally over having shelled out another 100 bucks to buy 3.5. Futher, the game was another BIG CHANGE instead of small change edition.

4E is the LEAST backwards compatible D&D there has ever been. Futher, it became clear to people that unless WOTC was lying they began developing the game less than a YEAR after they publshed 3.5 D&D. This means that the cost haters get double sour grapes, and people who felt like 3.5 was done for changes sake felt even MORE like WOTC was just out to get them.
The game was to different from their old product and to a lot of people that seemed like it was planned.

The planned obsolesence angle is really interesting. I really do agree that it turns and did turn people off to roleplaying.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Selective memory much? A few people complained about 3e multiclassing. Many more people complained about 3e multiclassing going away. The only real problem with 3e multiclassing was the way that it encouraged dips, so people would end up with conglomarations of like 6 classes to make certain concepts work.

1) People say shit like 'don't frontload classes' but that just contributes to the 'pwned by housecat'/'low levels are boring' problem. If you don't give enough abilities at the beginning of the game then the classes feel too similar to each other. People don't actually want to gain four levels of fighter before they start feeling sufficiently fightery, they want it NOW. If 4E D&D didn't frontload classes we'd be complaining even more about monotony than we did now.

2) The other problem is that a 'balanced' open-multiclassing system fucks over the concept of backloading. So you might also be asking 'then why have backloading either?' the answer is that a lot of people like the idea of people becoming more powerful than a great-than-linear rate. For example, spells. We know that spells are a failure in 3E multiclassing because shit doesn't advance. The only method that works is by dividing the classes into equal and discrete units--which is something that should be done anyway but 3E didn't and a future edition will have to fix. Going from level 7 of fighter to level 8 of fighter should give you the same power increase as going from level 7 of wizard to level 8 of wizard, but it didn't.

3) The open-multiclassing experiment could NOT have been fixed for 20 levels of play because that's too much goddamn stuff to write and keep track of on a character sheet even if you control the bonuses. I think that Tome Fighters are too complicated to run. Seriously, how many one-line abilities does a level 11 fighter have? Open-multiclassing only works if each level is equal to each other. Meaning that you can't have blank levels in the game or levels that provide less or more advancement than another or levels that advance different things at different rates.

4) No one actually really wants that fiddling level of granularity for their classes. When describing a multiclass character, no one except for sperglords actually likes going 'Yeah I'm 53% fighter, 17% rogue, 12% wizard, and 18% cleric'. Basically, here are the broad categories of multiclassing that people support for classes A/B/C.

Someone is all A, B, or C.
Someone is half A, half of B or C.
Someone is mostly A, a little bit of B or C.
Someone is about equal ratios A/B/C

That's it. The open-multiclassing experience was interesting but it doesn't jive with how people define their characters. Unless your class system is really narrow you shouldn't need more than three broad archetypes to define a character's ability set.

Making multiclassing something that comes automatically, or via talents, or whatever other bullshit is stupid. It was a major area where 4e stepped wrong and made a lot of people cry about the lack of versatility.

That's not why people were unhappy with 4E multiclassing.

1.) 4E Multiclassing only took people so deep into classes and it wasn't a ratio that people were comfortable with. If I as a fighter at the beginning of the edition took every possible wizard multiclassing expansion option (including that woefully underpowered paragon multiclassing) I would still only feel like 30% wizard at best.

2.) 4E Multiclassing usually made you underpowered unless you were taking a crazy feat like Battle Awareness or snagging some crazy power. Now granted a lot of people will use multiclassing as a way to snag synergies and that's what happened at first, but see caveat four. The cost for multiclassing was too high after the initial 'Source Power' books came out.

3.) There was no guarantee that your multiclass synergized with your main class. 3E had this problem too but 4E exacerbated it with the addition of implements and non-universal stat powers.

4.) As the edition went on, people were too punitive with class restrictions for further expansion options. If you as a wizard took up a druid summoning paragon path, chances are it had some 'only works with primal/druid powers' clause. This was an attempt to limit synergies but the hilarious thing is that there was so much material that it created self-synergy. Rangers, Warlords, Wizards, and Clerics used to still benefit from multiclassing but nowadays they don't even need to. Both because they have enough 'good' options in their class but also because the game locks other classes out of synergizing with their own stuff. This just made multiclassing pointless again.

No. The system 4e uses is "everyone has exactly 3 or 4 encounter powers and a few daily powers", so you burn through your powers very quickly, and there is nothing at all to encourage resource management. Having encounter based limitations is NOT the same as having a very small list of encounter powers you can only use once. The fact that you can't see the difference.....

Here's what you posted:

2) All classes would have some form of encounter based limits. Their individual abilities may also be limited per day, or unlimited use, depending on power source, but each sub-system would have some sort of encounter based limitation. Simply put even the strongest heroes will tire eventually if going all out. Some sub systems may have more longevity than others, but everyone has some sort of limit. This helps solve the 5 minute work day, because even if the mage goes all out, after he rests a couple minutes, he'll be okay to go again.

Despite what you're insisting, that is pretty much the same system. Yes, some characters in your system presumably won't have At-Wills or Dailies.

1) How does your daily shit help? 15-Minute Workdays, despite how people behave, are a disadvantage both from a mechanical and plot perspective. People actually want to avoid them. So if you have daily powers you have two 'choices'.

A) Make the classes that have dailies more powerful in some discrete or general fashion than classes that don't have it. ... which encourages the 15-minute workday to make the party more overall powerful.

B) Make the classes that have dailies equal in power to people who have encounter powers. Because the 15-minute workday is actually a disadvantage and they're not getting compensated for them you make those classes gimp and no one picks them.

You're right here in that 4E doesn't use the same daily system as yours. In fact your system is flat-out worse than theirs because it creates inter-character imbalance. At least 4E characters are equally helped/gimped by having daily powers. Great jaerb there, Homestar.

2) The reason why 4E characters spam At-Wills after going through their encounters is--get this--there are more rounds in an encounter than encounter powers. It makes me wonder what people do in your system when they burn through encounter powers. 4E could have 'fixed' this by shortening the rounds in a combat encounter without changing anything else. Or they could've handed out more encounter powers.

Shortening the length of encounters wasn't done because people complained about Rocket Launcher Tag where encounters were too short. However, handing out too many powers of generic equalness at once creates option paralysis. People can evaluate a list of five abilities of generic equal utility fairly quickly but when it gets to twelve it slows the game down and demotivates the player. You could of course 'help' the selection process by assigning an effectiveness hierarchy, such as levels, but then that just creates the Five Moves of Doom scripting problem.

Also, seriously, D&D's main demographic is nerds who are more than capable of simple math. We're not talking about calculus here, we're talking simple division.

Who gives a shit whether they're capable of it? I'm capable of doing a push-up or reciting a random amendment from the Bill of Rights, but if I had to do that shit to calculate a basic operation it'd get old really fast.

How about asking whether it's capable of being simplified more? Division is just straight up harder than multiplication, which is harder than subtraction, which is harder than addition, which is harder than counting. If you don't need to divide then don't put that garbage in the game. And trust me, you don't need to because there are systems that do the basic thing that you want (have soak AND dodge) but don't require that operation.

Like I said, not sure. 2d10 or 3d6 would probably be good. Maybe implementing an entirely different system. But regardless, d20 makes skill progression pretty retarded. In order to make something impossible for an untrained person to do, you basically have to make the DC so high it takes a level 6-10 person to do. A 3d6 system would probably would so that while you wouldn't make it impossible, it would be much more improbable earlier.

But on the other hand, a 3d6 requires more modifiers in order to regularly achieve extreme results--and since Dungeons and Dragons is based on exponential power growth the base number can get out of hand very quickly. Moreover, a layman interested in probability can easily extrapolate a 5% sliding scale, but not a bell curve.

Bell Curve rolling does have its advantages, don't get me wrong, but they pretty much balance out the disadvantages. Why did you advocate for it specifically? I mean it's a pretty big damn change to the system.

Yes. And yes, some of those were so broken they would need to be revised to be balanced even in a higher power environment. However losing a lot of those options is one of the things that turned people off from 4e, because despite it all they WANTED those options. So yes, reintroducing them has some problems. It doesn't mean doing so is doomed to fail.

And this attitude is why I took you to task. It's really easy to say 'oh, I want more options AND I want them to be more balanced AND I want them to be similar to old D&D mechanics'. I mean you introduced some new clunky shit of your own like that horrible AC/DR crap but your 'tweaks' didn't fix a whole lot. But you don't seem to understand why systems in 3E failed and why fixes in Pathfinder/4E/Tome also fail.

And I'm doubly contemptuous because even though you said that what you showed was just the tip of the iceberg they're all still pretty big changes. So assuming that's not all you want to change, what guarantee is there that:

A) You understand the major problems that people had with 3E D&D and know how to fix them?
B) That you're actually going to fix them and not just leave them in the game because it's too hard to fix or you think that people prefer the brokenness such that it can't be meaningfully tweaked?
C) You won't just end up changing a bunch of shit around past some kind of circularly-defined 'this doesn't feel like D&D I knew and loved' limit anyway? Look how quickly Pathfinder got out of control.

[Seerow]

Selective memory much? A few people complained about 3e multiclassing. Many more people complained about 3e multiclassing going away. The only real problem with 3e multiclassing was the way that it encouraged dips, so people would end up with conglomarations of like 6 classes to make certain concepts work.

1) People say shit like 'don't frontload classes' but that just contributes to the 'pwned by housecat'/'low levels are boring' problem. *snip*

You can give characters more at low level and still have other class features at higher levels. In 4e you literally only get class abilities at first level. Alternatively I seem to recall you advocating "low levels are for losers" and simply have the system outright state most characters start at X level. It's a little counter intuitive, but either one works.

4) No one actually really wants that fiddling level of granularity for their classes. When describing a multiclass character, no one except for sperglords actually likes going 'Yeah I'm 53% fighter, 17% rogue, 12% wizard, and 18% cleric'. Basically, here are the broad categories of multiclassing that people support for classes A/B/C.

Saying "nobody wants this" or "nobody wants that" as fact, is silly. There ARE people who want that level of granularity. As for people don't describe their characters as 58% fighter or whatever, well no shit! You describe your character as what he is, not by his class. Classes are metagame constructs. You don't literally say "I'm a Bard/Cleric/Ur Priest/Sublime Chord/Mystic Theurge" or whatever other nonsense, you would describe the character as he sees himself.

Really I wouldn't have expected anyone on this forum to fall into the trap of classes out of game are what a character is in game.

That's not why people were unhappy with 4E multiclassing.

1.) 4E Multiclassing only took people so deep into classes and it wasn't a ratio that people were comfortable with. If I as a fighter at the beginning of the edition took every possible wizard multiclassing expansion option (including that woefully underpowered paragon multiclassing) I would still only feel like 30% wizard at best.

Except you could Paragon Path into Wizard, and end up with equal numbers of Wizard and Fighter powers. You're still weaker, but at least it's 50/50. The problem is, it was still weak. And it severely limited customization. The biggest benefit you got out of multiclassing was access to the other class's unique feats, which is bullshit.

Despite what you're insisting, that is pretty much the same system. Yes, some characters in your system presumably won't have At-Wills or Dailies.

1) The point was to vastly increase the number of daily abilities available. So a wizard rather than having 4 spells of each spell level might have something like 6-8 of his top level of spells, and enough of the lower level spells that they can be used pretty much as you like. Then with the encounter based limit, you might be able to burn through 20% of your resources if you pushed hard. More likely less. But you're still capable of doing something interesting every round, because you can ration your usage and instead of blowing through 3 9th level spells and being done use 1 9th level spell and a bunch of mid level spells to contribute for the whole encounter.

You could pretty much remove the daily limitation and still have it be balanced, but leaving the daily limitation keeps the feel of older editions, even if the mechanic has shifted away from the 15 minute workday.

Also, as to there being imbalances, there are other tuning knobs that can be used. For example, if one class has stronger combat powers, the other class might have more encounter based stamina. If one class has stronger out of combat utility, that could be tied into their resource system.

Who gives a shit whether they're capable of it? I'm capable of doing a push-up or reciting a random amendment from the Bill of Rights, but if I had to do that shit to calculate a basic operation it'd get old really fast.

How about asking whether it's capable of being simplified more? Division is just straight up harder than multiplication, which is harder than subtraction, which is harder than addition, which is harder than counting. If you don't need to divide then don't put that garbage in the game. And trust me, you don't need to because there are systems that do the basic thing that you want (have soak AND dodge) but don't require that operation.

You're right, let's drop all mechanics down to a counting mechanism, because that is easier.

As for other systems doing the same thing without division, I've seen systems that act similarly, but not exactly the same. I can think of few systems where a character with 12 armor is actually twice as tough as one with 6 armor (for example in Shadowrun, that's only the difference of 2 less damage per attack, not half the damage per attack my system would give).

But on the other hand, a 3d6 requires more modifiers in order to regularly achieve extreme results--and since Dungeons and Dragons is based on exponential power growth the base number can get out of hand very quickly. Moreover, a layman interested in probability can easily extrapolate a 5% sliding scale, but not a bell curve.

Bell Curve rolling does have its advantages, don't get me wrong, but they pretty much balance out the disadvantages. Why did you advocate for it specifically? I mean it's a pretty big damn change to the system.

My big problem is that a 5% increment per bonus isn't enough. It could perhaps be solved while remaining d20 by allowing a difference of more than +1 per level. If every level you gained you could invest 4-5 skill ranks per skill, for example, it would allow for a more diverse array of what's possible at various levels, as each level would be a significant increase, as opposed to now it takes 5-10 levels to break into anything new.

The reason I was thinking that 3d6 might be a good alternative is because every +1 bonus would mean significantly more. Getting +5 to the skill rather than moving you from 25% to 50%, would be something closer to going from 33% to 80% (numbers not accurate, didn't feel like figuring the actual odds. You are right in saying that 3d6 is harder to calculate the probability, and d20 is more intuitive. However I don't think being able to calculate exact probability is necessarily required at the game table)

And this attitude is why I took you to task. It's really easy to say 'oh, I want more options AND I want them to be more balanced AND I want them to be similar to old D&D mechanics'. I mean you introduced some new clunky shit of your own like that horrible AC/DR crap but your 'tweaks' didn't fix a whole lot. But you don't seem to understand why systems in 3E failed and why fixes in Pathfinder/4E/Tome also fail.

And I'm doubly contemptuous because even though you said that what you showed was just the tip of the iceberg they're all still pretty big changes. So assuming that's not all you want to change, what guarantee is there that:

Well for one, you can rest easy, because I'm not exactly WotC's first pick to take lead on designing D&D5e. And yes, I can understand the skepticism as far as the ability to fix those problems. Many have attempted to tackle them, and it is frequently left either bland and useless, or overpowered. Finding the balance among them is not easy. If it were, I'd have already published a system doing so. For the most part, the things I put forth were design goals, and trying to keep those spells in the game in a manageable for would be pretty high on the list of things I would want to make sure get done.




On the other hand, the biggest problem I had with you is you really really sound like you just never liked playing D&D. You got to know it because it was the most popular system, but seem to have hated every minute of it. There are certain things that are a part of D&D. I'm no grognard, I've played through 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4e, and found good in all of them. I adapt quickly to most games, and find things I like in almost all of them. I'm not opposed to change. However, I strongly feel the direction D&D needs to go is finding the best parts of what it has had in the past, mix, match, and polish. It may not be 100% feasible to do it perfectly, but I feel going that route is a surer way to a popular game than scrapping everything AGAIN and going to another system that is totally alien to everyone who enjoys any edition of the game.



As an aside, in the other topic, in a post just under the one you've been dissecting, I made another point for changing magic items, what are your thoughts on that? Because that was one of your suggestions that really stood out as wrong to me: Magic items running out of juice and picking up new ones as random loot. The hero with a single magic sword that he carries his whole career is a trope as old as civilization, and while other D&D systems never modeled it too well, yours just does it worst, and as mentioned before really makes me think more WoW or Diablo than anything else.

[Swordslinger]

3.5 is also the first edition of D&D with anything like REAL backward compatibility. 1E and 2E don't mix well, D&D and AD&D don't either. 3.5 basically works, but can be quite frustrating.

Huh? 1E and 2E were almost identical rules wise. You could take a 1E module and easily run it in 2E with almost no conversion at all.

[shadzar]

From a marketing perspective, I think it would be a good idea to avoid contributing to the next edition war. I may be wrong, but planned obsolenscance tends to aggravate the fan base and if handled poorly, can also alienate people from the hobby.

Actaully, I think that this has more to do with previous edition war than most people think.

2E had been around a LONG time when 3E came out. There had been other games that got to be very popular in the time between 2E and 3E like vampire that had totally different ideas about how rules should work. Further, D&D had been purchased by WOTC from TSR and there was a generally feeling that something different OUGHT to be done with the rules.


I am not saying that there were not 3E detractors. There were Shadzar's comming out of the woodwork when 3E launched or even when they began doing the system previews.

no...you are wrong. I didnt come into the fray until forced into it by people at local gaming stores. i didnt mind selling them what they wanted to buy, but wasnt going to sit and listen to their bullshit and stupidity about 3rd being so good. it came about and i came into the fray after 3.5 came out.

many people left each other alone until this vocal minority jsut started coming out to tell people how it wa, when they had never played anything prior to 3rd and was jsut regurgitating hearsay form others about past play.

dragonsfoot kept to itself and shut down discussion of 3rd, because it didnt want to include it as that is not the focus of it. dragonsfoot was a place for AD&D sicne they ARE compatible so damn close that the differences can be overlooked, save for the people bitching over demons and devils as named. like you couldnt call a Baatzu whatever you wanted to in the game....

there were people form 2nd at the beginning on WotC and other sites when the 3rd previews came out. i just canceled my subscription to Dragon and ignored it all when 2nd edition material stopped coming.

this is what i am talking about that pisses me, and many "grognards" off, is the revisionist history. people that dont know what they are talking about and acting like they know everything without experience. its braggarts and blowhards that should be keeping their mouths shut, but instead want to start an argument cause they have nothing better to do with their time.

like WotC itself in regards to 4th.

but hey, 2nd was around for a long time, and a reason people got mad at 4th was they realized what was done to 2nd was done to 3rd in a much shorter time.

did any single 3rd edition play apologize to the 2nd edition players for acting like 3rd was the god edition to be around forever? nope.

but those 3rd edition players too became obsolete in the world of D&D.

when 2nd came out they didnt have a lot of "this was done wrong before" attitude, but 3rd came out on the attack from the beginning in Dragon and other places.

the wars were started and fanned by WotC and Paizo through marketing and Dragon. what better publicity than a fight right?

the war between 1st and 2nd was pretty small and laughable. but as 3rd came out there was the whole internet, not jsut private talk and usenet and IRC, but personal websites, blogs as it were, and forums where it was forced down your throat.

TSR v White Wolf didnt happen as a war, because they didnt associate with each other. only those wanting to be asses went from one group to the other to start a fight.

so yes planned obsolescnce is a problem in the case of where it wasnt made for.

it works for washers and driers because molds change and you dont want to mill another to make the old parts again. the machines to make the parts no longer work and have been replaced with ones that make the new parts, etc.

for a game, it doesnt exist. printing technologies in no way hamper the ability to print anything form the past. maybe it cant be printed the exact same font because an old one has been abandoned, but you planned obsolescence doesnt work for the written word and books and they last a LOT longer than appliances and machinery.

the "new edition" doesnt work and Gary foresaw it as such when he made the statement along the lines of: "the thing we need to make sure not to let DMs figure out, is they dont even need our books to play."

[Lago PARANOIA]

You can give characters more at low level and still have other class features at higher levels. In 4e you literally only get class abilities at first level. Alternatively I seem to recall you advocating "low levels are for losers" and simply have the system outright state most characters start at X level. It's a little counter intuitive, but either one works.

I'm not particularly attached to any number. I have a problem with games always starting me off at 'peasant' level because games, regardless of genre, have a hard-on for particular numbers for no reason other than '1' feels more like a beginning than '4' even if it's not appropriate for all stories. If the bottom end of the scale for PCs is 'hero' level then it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned.

And your system doesn't work with D&D's exponential power growth. Imagine that level 1 is 'cannon fodder' level, level 4 is 'hero' level, level 8 is 'superhero' level. Fighter 5 is more powerful than Fighter 4 / Monk 1 under this system. That's not what happened in 3E D&D obviously because of Linear Warriors / Quadratic Wizards, but if you want to have 3E's multiclassing system and exponential power growth it's not going to happen in a balanced way.

Saying "nobody wants this" or "nobody wants that" as fact, is silly. There ARE people who want that level of granularity.

Then they have to make a case as to why the game should be more complicated. Granularity isn't just a free thing you can add; even if it's balanced, which often isn't the case because more rules to write means more spots to fuck up, they take up some combination of page space and game time. The question I have to ask of them is 'what do you get out of being Class A 55% / Class B 45%? instead of a Class A 50% / Class B 50%?'

As for people don't describe their characters as 58% fighter or whatever, well no shit! You describe your character as what he is, not by his class. Classes are metagame constructs. You don't literally say "I'm a Bard/Cleric/Ur Priest/Sublime Chord/Mystic Theurge" or whatever other nonsense, you would describe the character as he sees himself.

This is equivocation. Of course people don't literally introduce themselves to the NPC king as a Fighter 8 / Rogue 2, but they do say things like 'She has mixed the power of necromacy into her kung fu training' or 'my assassin picked up a couple of magical tricks from his wizard lover'. A weighted triple-class system is enough to catch almost all these archetypes; there's no story-based need for further definition than that and IMO from a gameplay perspective the mild increase in player choice isn't worth the extra number-crunching and the increased chance of fucking things up.

Except you could Paragon Path into Wizard, and end up with equal numbers of Wizard and Fighter powers. You're still weaker, but at least it's 50/50.

1) You don't get 'wizard powers' (generally, there are a couple of rare exceptions like Pack Summoner), you get a PP-specific power. If there was a wizard power you wanted then tough cookiepuss.
2) And that's after HOW many levels of play? 11th level is 1/3rd of the game and most games don't get to be that long. Hell, you need to be 10th level in 4E before you can even pick up a wizard daily. Before you could even advance in the direction of playing a fighter/wizard you needed to play for about a month. That's bullshit.

The problem is, it was still weak. And it severely limited customization.

Repeat after me: 4th Edition D&D Multiclasssing Being Shit Does Not Mean That 3E Multiclassing Was Not.

Also, as to there being imbalances, there are other tuning knobs that can be used. For example, if one class has stronger combat powers, the other class might have more encounter based stamina. If one class has stronger out of combat utility, that could be tied into their resource system.

1.) The tuning knobs idea you have is retarded without even reading further. Let's try this one more time:
If you have a fiften-minute workday class that is generically equal at the starting point of the day relative to other classes but degrades over time then you actually have a gimp class. Because then the party could boot the class to the curb and enjoy not having their effectiveness degenerate as the day goes on.

If you have a fifteen-minute workday class that is better initially than other classes at the cost of losing effectiveness over time then that reinforces the 15-minute workday problem. From an optimization perspective, parties don't give a shit about the power level between characters, they care about the aggregate power level of the PARTY. Only someone extremely envious would force someone to operate at gimp effectiveness solely so they can have their time in the spotlight.

2.) Did you seriously just say that a class should be able to trade out-of-combat utility for in-combat utility? Not only was this something that was bitterly complained about in other contexts but our non-solution just makes the 15-minute workday problem WORSE.

You're right, let's drop all mechanics down to a counting mechanism, because that is easier.

If you can do that, great! You have a game that can be played much faster and also while someone is drunk or eating pizza. Why is that a problem, not enough nerd snobbery? Angry that plebes can play your game? Get bent.

So why doesn't D&D use accounting? The problem is that counting is not always faster than addition or subtraction. Counting 6 bones that came up 5 or 6 is faster than calculating 1d20+11, but rolling and counting 16 dice is slower than 1d20+43--which is why counting dicepools works great in Shadowrun but sucks ass in Exalted. So while counting base a 'minimal' level of time and mental energy lower than the minimum for addition and subtraction, it rises faster.

The same applies for multiplication and division. Multiplication by 2/5/10 is pretty easy. Repeated addition/subtraction operations eventually end up harder and slower than one division operation, even if it's by a crazy number like 6--but what the hell system are you using whether that's true?

As for other systems doing the same thing without division, I've seen systems that act similarly, but not exactly the same. I can think of few systems where a character with 12 armor is actually twice as tough as one with 6 armor (for example in Shadowrun, that's only the difference of 2 less damage per attack, not half the damage per attack my system would give).

That's a problem with the game construction phase, not the actual, you know, playing face. There are systems where the increase in AC (Both internally and when ran through other systems) is linear, less than linear, and greater than linear when it comes to affecting damage and the question of how to get this to behave is a complicated one that deserves its own thread.

But you know what? I as a game designer would rather do differential equations (if I know how to do them) in my office than do one-digit division by 3/4/6-9 when I'm actually at the table and I'm waiting for Drunken McHipster to figure out one of 30 damage rolls. I think 5 is a suspect number, too, because most people do it by two division operations. But whatever. Additional math operations at a table better goddamn well be justified by something better than 'aw, you can do it, just don't be an idiot!'.

The reason I was thinking that 3d6 might be a good alternative is because every +1 bonus would mean significantly more.

That's true... when you're in the middle of the bell curve. When you're away from the middle penalties and bonuses mean exponentially less/more depending on what direction of the RNG you're going. There are advantages to this system like letting orcs go from 'speedbump' to 'modest threat' just by putting them on rocks and mitigating the effects of bonus accumulation so that a boss monster doesn't go from 'hard to hit' to 'completely unhittable' just because he ducked behind some cover. But if you want every +1/-1 to mean more in a game with an exponential power curve you want a linear RNG.

I like both systems in theory about equally. I prefer to go with a linear RNG because we have a lot more experience with those.

But still, there's the question: if both systems are about equally good, why did you pick one that had a major departure from what D&D is then accuse me of not staying true to D&D's roots?

As an aside, in the other topic, in a post just under the one you've been dissecting, I made another point for changing magic items, what are your thoughts on that? Because that was one of your suggestions that really stood out as wrong to me: Magic items running out of juice and picking up new ones as random loot. The hero with a single magic sword that he carries his whole career is a trope as old as civilization, and while other D&D systems never modeled it too well, yours just does it worst, and as mentioned before really makes me think more WoW or Diablo than anything else.

I'm not going to go on much about the 'magic sword the hero has forever' trope (because that's just a subset of the first problem I outline), but if it's really that important to the story then make it an artifact.

But anyway, the system I outlined is a reaction to the combination of several desires that people have, combined with fighting some misconceptions.

1) The biggest problem is that people (both game designers and players) overvalue the value of 'permanent' and 'always available' in a game that revolves around exponential growth of vertical and horizontal power AND manipulation of the tactical situation to the player's advantage. Which is understandable because human beings are risk-averse. Regardless, this isn't necessarily the case. If you are gaining magical items at a greater-than-replacement rate then there's really no such thing as having a 'permanent' item. We all know that you're going to upgrade your magic sword eventually and once that happens it doesn't matter how many charges you have left on that old sword, it generally may as well not even exist. This effect was most pronounced in 3rd Edition D&D; most people, even optimizers, would consider spending 2000 gold pieces for +2 Bracers of Armor a steal. ... even though the game tells us that there is a finite range of encounters from when +2 Bracers of Armor becomes available to when they become worthless. Even though that with a minimal amount of encounter manipulation you could just sink that 2000 gold pieces into 40 potions of mage armor and get a better armor bonus. There is always a risk of ninjas in the night or whatever the fuck, but the increased risk is not consummate with the increased gain.

2) Even if you precisely calculate the actual value of an always-on item versus a temporary item, people hesitate to use a temporary item. TvTropes, back when it was awesome, had a trope named 'Too Awesome To Use' where players hoard things but then refuse to use them... then they don't get used. This demotivates players and makes the power curve harder to calculate.

3) People want magical items to be special. Not just 'rare' but also to feel like they make a real and tangible difference. And while people will appreciate the fact that their sword speaks in rhyming verse lets them teleport without error 1/day, they get more excited with cynical manipulations to stuff they're already good at. I mean, what's the most persistent complaint that people have with magical items in 3rd and 4th Edition? That they're not cool, they just feel like advancement landmarks then something that is a gamechanger for the power. This means boosting the power level.

4) Getting exactly the magical items you expect when you want to spoils the surprise of finding them. 'Oh, wow, that +3 Frost Wounding Longsword that I wanted, just in time to replace the +2 Frost Wounding Longsword I had. Just 6 more levels until a +4 Frost Wounding Longsword Bliss.' If you don't put some kind of limit on player selection you're going to have people putting up wishlists for crap they want 15 levels in advance.

5) While some people are excited by the idea of their characters being blinged up to the gills with 12 different kinds of doodads, the impression I get from here and in fiction is that people would rather have one or two 'big' things (big as in an affect on a character sheet, not a smorgasbord of combo platter powers that's compressed into one object like the Sword of Omens or Keyblade) than a bunch of little things that added up in overall to a big thing. Both because it's easier to remember and pimp out a big effect but also because it's less space on a character sheet.

6) Finally, Keeping Up With The Joneses is a real thing and what's worse is that after the initial period of excitement the big screen TV that the Joneses have just doesn't matter much. Envy endures a lot longer than gratitude; while initially Dave's enjoyment of his Hackmaster +12 makes up for the envy it inspires in other players, eventually he just starts taking it for granted while the other players get tired of him stealing the spotlight. And if you want magical items to be rare and have a significant effect then if someone unexpectedly beats the odds and rolls a Holy Avenger at level 2 then they can't
hang onto it forever, otherwise people won't get the spotlight when it comes to THEIR turn to get a shiny new item.

So if you want to have a system that A) Surprises people B) rotates the spotlight C) makes them feel like their magical doodad has a real and tangible effect. D) won't just hoard and forget

For the most part, the things I put forth were design goals, and trying to keep those spells in the game in a manageable for would be pretty high on the list of things I would want to make sure get done.

I don't think that the general sentiment behind them is bad, I just have a hard time believing that you or anyone could achieve them in an applicable fashion while still having something that feels like D&D.

Firstly because the definition borders on circular. Even when specifics are provided it always end up being an empty appeal to tradition rather than something that can stand on its own merits. 'I want to feel like I'm playing a sweaty, scarred warrior in bloodied armor who stands up against creatures much tougher and larger than anything seen in real life and come up on top by a piece of steel in my hands and long hours of pain and exercise and THAT'S what D&D should have to feel like D&D' is defensible. 'D&D should have a Fighter class because they've always had fighters is not'.

Secondly because I don't think that it's actually possible. There are some things you can tweak in the 3E/4E game engine that still feels like business as usual. But seriously, here is a list of things people had complaints about in 3rd Edition D&D:

Magic Item Christmas Tree Effect
Custom magical item creation totally broken
Wealth-by-Level totally broken
Spellcasters too much of a 'do anything' class
You fuck yourself over by picking up non-combat options
Extra token options and abilities totally broken
Changing into an ugly greenscreen monster totally broken
Unbalanced Multiclass System: Punished people for getting in too late,
Players not within sight of each other in combat
People having a limited range of non-combat schticks
Certain classes or roles being mandatory for the party to function, like skill monkey or healbitch.
Increasing amounts of rocket-launcher tag at high levels
Damage expressions became so inflated (1d8+20) that it was pointless to roll dice.
People diverge too much in skill ability as the game goes on.
Crafting a spellcaster at high level is way too hard
Creating your own monster is way too hard and is nothing like balanced
Monster PCs are not available in a balanced fashion
Too much micromanaging of player position--WTF is an AoO?
Empty levels, even if balanced in aggregate, is totally boring
Stats are unbalanced among each other (CON owns your face, CHA makes you cry) and fuck over multiclassing

Etc. Etc..

I mean once you line up all of the complaints, what concrete mechanics do you actually have left that you can leave as-is or would be fine with just a little bit of tweaking?

[shadzar]

I'm not particularly attached to any number. I have a problem with games always starting me off at 'peasant' level because games, regardless of genre, have a hard-on for particular numbers for no reason other than '1' feels more like a beginning than '4' even if it's not appropriate for all stories. If the bottom end of the scale for PCs is 'hero' level then it doesn't matter as far as I'm concerned.

but that isnt the bottom end of the scale for EVERYONE as hero... that is the problem

the fact that the range given begins with 1 is easy. humans count starting with 1. if there is zero of something, you have nothing to count.

if you dont want to start at 1, even though that is the lowest part of the range, YOU DONT HAEV TO START THERE.

start at 4 if you want.

if the problem is YOUR GROUP, wants to start at 1 and YOU want to start at 4, that isnt a problem of the game, but YOU AND YOUR GROUP. you have a group/playstyle conflict, not a game design flaw.

[Username17]

Saying that people didn't complain about 3e multiclassing is pretty much insane. They did. Constantly. They complained about:

• Multicasters sucking ass.
  and
• People having more than 3 classes by 8th level.
  and
• People having more than one Prestige Class by 11th level.

All of these things deeply offend people. And all of them are essentially caused by the same thing: while 3e promised level equality between the 4th level of Ranger, the 3rd level of Rogue, the 5th level of Wizard, and the 2nd level of Archmage, it did not deliver on that promise. At all. Classes in reality were front loaded, back loaded, full of dead levels, given worthless (or broken) capstones, and otherwise full of reasons to either abandon a class at a particular level or hang in there for the juicy parts later on.

There are several ways to address this problem. You could make it so that being a 5th level Fighter / 3rd level Wizard made sense by evening out levels. Or you could make people get levels evenly like AD&D. Or you could let people buy whatever abilities they wanted and have a singular class "template" that they qualify for based on what abilities they have.

In short: you can either fix 3e's multiclassing system by balancing levels within and across or you can scrap it and do something that requires a smaller number of combinatorial comparisons in order to balance. AD&D multiclassing allows you to have classes ramp up (or down, if you'd prefer) in power over time and still have multiclassing be a balanced alternative (you just need to balance all classes at level X to two classes at level X-N). The "everyone is a pile of feats and maneuvers" version requires only balancing feats and maneuvers to their levels (something you'd have to do anyway), and balancing the bonus class templates within their expected tiers.

But while people loved the promises of 3e multiclassing, they were deeply and perpetually offended by that fact that 3e did not deliver on those promises.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

4e's clarity and balance with 3e's perceived customization and AD&D's flavor would be the ideal for me.

[Zinegata]

One major thing to consider about the resurgence of boardgames / wargames is that companies like FFG, GMT, and Rio Grande have finally grasped the concept that tabletop games should have a relatively fast playing time. An old wargame like World in Flames could literally take months to play and finish. Twilight Struggle by contrast can be finished in around 2 hours - and sometimes far less with experienced players. Most good Euros can be finished in under 90 minutes.

I am not really seeing a similar kind of revolution happening in RPGs, at least not without dumbing it down to 4E levels of retardation. The best streamlining I've seen without dumbing it down are indie stuff like Mouse Guard.

Similarly, tabletop miniature wargaming (which is in a seperate category from classic wargaming) still hasn't gone through a streamlining revolution; but their players devote countless hours to painting and modelling to the point that painting and modelling is arguably the main point of that hobby anyway.

[shadzar]

4e still has too many "options". list of crap for people to actually sit and sift through and choose from, rather than coming up with an idea on the spot.

imagine 4e is you only had a few at-wills, and weapon attacks. this would speed combat up greatly because less having to think through which thing do you need now. but most board games have the game inside a single combat. wargames do this too.

take warhammer 40k as an RPG.

ignore the painting and assembly of minis and look at the game. a quick little combat, depending on if you play to 1d6 turns or play kill-em-all.

take those combats and string them together with some story element behind it or added to it, and it is the same as an RPG. the game doesnt go on for hours and hours, but a short time, and you can play again after, or wait until later.

there isnt tracking of little fiddly bits of the units like a PC.

the nature of D&D though and those fiddly bits is the problem, so you have to cut down on the number of them.

compare a character sheet from today with a BD&D one.

Basic


BECM


3.0 (i think)


of course casters in those editions would add complexity and fiddly bits, so no need ot even look at 4th edition sheet, since EVERYONE is a caster pretty much in regards to fiddly bits....

once the number of fiddly bits are cut down, then the play can speed up.

why i so often say those skills and such crap arent needed.

also you cant do like the newest Red Box, and cut to only level 3 or something. you need to give people a decent range of play. it is why BECMI worked. each additional option added more things including levels, but you could stop at anytime.

[fectin]

That's 3.5. You can tell because there is no innuendo skill.

[Korwin]

All of these things deeply offend some people.
-Username17

fixed.

[A Man In Black]

[In 40K,] there isnt tracking of little fiddly bits of the units like a PC.

40K is a clusterfuck of little options to customize every unit, in every edition. Any character-style unit sheet that covered even the common unit options would be hopelessly complicated, and combat is hardly pick-up-and-play because you'll need to fiddle with a bunch of stupidass 6-point modifications to a unit that costs between 100 and 300 points, in an army composed of 500-2000 points worth of troops. Even for units which are only one game piece (like a tank or a hero), you have multiple pages of fiddly bits options.

Stop talking out your ass about games you don't know a damned thing about.

fixed.

No shit it doesn't deeply offend everyone. I'm glad we have you here to point out blindingly obvious things in the douchiest way possible.

[OgreBattle]

take warhammer 40k as an RPG.

ignore the painting and assembly of minis and look at the game. a quick little combat, depending on if you play to 1d6 turns or play kill-em-all.

take those combats and string them together with some story element behind it or added to it, and it is the same as an RPG. the game doesnt go on for hours and hours, but a short time, and you can play again after, or wait until later.

there isnt tracking of little fiddly bits of the units like a PC.

Hahah, I've thought the exact same thing before.
That's pretty much what Mordheim is, though I've never had the opportunity to play it.

Warhammer does get into various subsystems, a chart to look up, rules for movement and such... but somehow the presentation just makes it flow very quickly.

The minigame "Kill Team" is pretty much D&D scale conflict of a half dozen elite guys fighting an equal value enemy, and it resolves in less than an hour.

I've been thinking about how to make a tabletop RPG using the d6 as the main conflict resolver, with the same quick flow yet immersion of Warhammer.

[OgreBattle]

take warhammer 40k as an RPG.

ignore the painting and assembly of minis and look at the game. a quick little combat, depending on if you play to 1d6 turns or play kill-em-all.

take those combats and string them together with some story element behind it or added to it, and it is the same as an RPG. the game doesnt go on for hours and hours, but a short time, and you can play again after, or wait until later.

there isnt tracking of little fiddly bits of the units like a PC.

Hahah, I've thought the exact same thing before.
That's pretty much what Mordheim is, though I've never had the opportunity to play it.

Warhammer does get into various subsystems, a chart to look up, rules for movement and such... but somehow the presentation just makes it flow very quickly.

The minigame "Kill Team" is pretty much D&D scale conflict of a half dozen elite guys fighting an equal value enemy, and it resolves in less than an hour.

I've been thinking about how to make a tabletop RPG using the d6 as the main conflict resolver, with the same quick flow yet immersion of Warhammer.

[shadzar]

[In 40K,] there isnt tracking of little fiddly bits of the units like a PC.

40K is a clusterfuck of little options to customize every unit, in every edition. Any character-style unit sheet that covered even the common unit options would be hopelessly complicated, and combat is hardly pick-up-and-play because you'll need to fiddle with a bunch of stupidass 6-point modifications to a unit that costs between 100 and 300 points, in an army composed of 500-2000 points worth of troops. Even for units which are only one game piece (like a tank or a hero), you have multiple pages of fiddly bits options.

Stop talking out your ass about games you don't know a damned thing about.

no a unit from game to game doesnt require tracking anything. it starts again fresh and new. you dont have to count how many melta rounds it fired last game [combat], nor do you have to heal your WOUNDS...etc.

there is no fiddly bits between the combats.

[fectin]

That's great and all, but in both cases you still have to track fiddly bits (have I thrown the grenades?) for the entire length of a game.

[A Man In Black]

no a unit from game to game doesnt require tracking anything. it starts again fresh and new. you dont have to count how many melta rounds it fired last game [combat], nor do you have to heal your WOUNDS...etc.

there is no fiddly bits between the combats.

For one, you didn't specify between-combat bookkeeping, and 40K (and indeed, most every GW game) has gobs and gobs of regular old bookkeeping just to play the damn game. For another, you could throw the between-scene bookkeeping of any edition of D&D out the window, you'd just have to give up character progression and some verisimilitude. Considering you lose the exact same verisimilitude by trying to string together 40K matches without accounting for casualties and wounds and whatnot, I don't really see what this has to do with anything.

Plus, some editions, variants, and spinoffs of 40K have included between-combat character development, and all of them are a huge clusterfuck of fiddly bits.

[shadzar]

no a unit from game to game doesnt require tracking anything. it starts again fresh and new. you dont have to count how many melta rounds it fired last game [combat], nor do you have to heal your WOUNDS...etc.

there is no fiddly bits between the combats.

For one, you didn't specify between-combat bookkeeping, and 40K (and indeed, most every GW game) has gobs and gobs of regular old bookkeeping just to play the damn game.

re-read it again you will see i said string together the combats and put a story between them.

also that the entire game is like a D&D combat but plays MUCH quicker.

the comparison is that the game is fast, but it is just combat. combat in D&D takes at times much longer than a 1d6 scenario of 40k. the game isnt monstrosities and warhounds running around a gymnasium with gaunts and scouts, but less than 1500 points with no special characters and standard force organization with no expansions (chapter approved, armageddon, etc).

so yeah i said it was without between game fiddly bits.

i left the combat fiddly bits in both alone, as they both have them.

its all the places you dont need the fiddly bits to play 40k, and D&D alike, where they should be removed. you dont need mechanics for social interactions between characters, because the player is right there in front of you that is that character, so be the ball...nanananananananananananana... erm i mean be the character and do it between yourselves.

[Winnah]

...you dont need mechanics for social interactions between characters, because the player is right there in front of you that is that character, so be the ball...nanananananananananananana... erm i mean be the character and do it between yourselves.

You don't need rules for social interaction between players. Interactions between characters does require some rules structure if you want to play a socially adept PC. Sure, you can handwave all that shit as a DM, but as a player, having your character only being able to intimidate thugs or manipulate a noble when the referee feels it appropriate to the story is just wrong. Too close to railroading for my taste.

I'm not saying the charisma attribute and skills are the correct method of handing social interaction in a game, but it's a hell of a lot better than letting an over-stimulated windbag hog all of the spotlight while less assertive (or more polite) players keep their mouths shut...

[shadzar]

You don't need rules for social interaction

no, no i dont, but apparently YOU do.

that is something that should be handled at the group level, rather than trying to do so with the game as a whole.

and we are back to square one.

the game doesnt ened these things, YO need them. odds are that each group will feel differently about them, so each group must set up their own "formalities" on this.

combat there is little to debate, a sword does 1d8 damage. but form group to group, the mechanics themselves for social interaction dont always agree with perceived notions.

the funny thing is, with EVERY edition there has been DM control, because they decide the ability check to make or the DC to roll against. if the DM is still in control, what part do the dice play really? just give you the false belief you had some control over the outcome?

[Winnah]

the game doesnt ened these things, YO need them. odds are that each group will feel differently about them, so each group must set up their own "formalities" on this.

Having to make up houserules to arbitrate common situations is why I stopped playing 4e.

combat there is little to debate, a sword does 1d8 damage. but form group to group, the mechanics themselves for social interaction dont always agree with perceived notions.

Bullshit. Combat is resolved as an abstraction. 'Damage' has no meaning until you have no hit points, yet different groups I have played with and run games for, have entirely different opinions on what 'damage' actually is. You're telling me social actions can't receive similar abstraction?

the funny thing is, with EVERY edition there has been DM control, because they decide the ability check to make or the DC to roll against. if the DM is still in control, what part do the dice play really? just give you the false belief you had some control over the outcome?

As A DM I have control of the plot, ecounters and a lot of the 'fiddly shit' you were going on about earlier. I have no control over player agency. I can limit choices, but I'm not running their characters. Should I remove choices entirely, then the players do not matter, do they?

As a player, I have control over my character. The character can follow expected oucomes as set up by the narrator. The character can also force that narrative according to my whim. It is a vehicle enabling me to influence the story, should I choose to do so in any meaningful way.

As for dice, they provide a random element by which actions can be arbitrated. Unneccesary and tedious when an action requires no arbitration, but useful to limit player agency, fairly and with minimal bias.

[shadzar]

the game doesnt need these things, YOU need them. odds are that each group will feel differently about them, so each group must set up their own "formalities" on this.

Having to make up houserules to arbitrate common situations is why I stopped playing 4e.

and we come all back to the Kuntz interview, and why we have the newer editions because D&D has already failed, and why there are edition wars.

the game was made to be a simple system, add what you want.

people want to have a babysitter do the work for them to make their group work.

lazy as people not grasping the concept of D&D to begin with. it isnt an MRE just add water. its kitchen stadium, and you have to do ALL the work for your group.

i want D&D to have X, but i dont want to make X, i want it to be in the game when i buy it, so everyone else has to have X to, and to pay for it even if they dont want it.

a game for the imagination turned into a game for lazy retards.

you want a complete game, sit down and play monopoly. D&D was and will always be an unfinished game, as that is what an RPG is.

what situations are common to you, are not common to all, and having them part of the rules is where the biggest arguments come from.

always the same bullshit excuses. "i dont like Thing X, so Thing X needs to be made for me"

make it your fucking self.

turning the novels into exacts in settings, and hand holding players through every last little thing has pampered them for the sake of turning a quick buck.

Lorraine Williams thrived on little shits like you, cause you follow her line of thinking "these dumb gamers will spend money on anything"

this is why Gary put that comment in the books "we mustnt let players know they dont evne need to buy books form us to play"

it is why "Zeb" cook put the comment in also

At conventions, in letters, and over the phone I'm often asked for the instant answer to a fine point of the game rules. More often than not, I come back with a question--what do you feel is right? And the people asking the questions discover that not only can they create an answer, but that their answer is as good as anyone else's. The rules are only guidelines.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

NetBooks existed LONG before the Tomes found on TGD. like the Tomes, not everybody used them. Steve Winter was wrong trying to collect everyone's houserules and then so to was WotC.

the fact that everyone doesnt play the same way still with 4th, means the truth shall prevail. Everyone will make the game what they want within the group.

YOU dont need the "official" product to include things, you jsut need something like the Tomes and NetBooks, to provide something for you because you cant pull your head out of your ass long enough to think out how to do something yourself.

if it werent for that lazy attitude and the greed and such of the Blumes and Williams, there would have been something like the OGL since the 80's i am sure. Hell people were allowed to make their own, and could even get them printed (which means they got paid for), software to run D&D games with back then.

so if you dont have the social skills required to play a social game, then stop, and find a game requiring les. you dont need rules for everything printed from an "official" source.

you want a game like Monopoly form D&D, but it will NEVER offer a compelte set of rules to handle all situations, because after nearly 40 years, they still dont know everything that someone might do in the game to need to cover it, NOR can they print all this and expect people to buy it. when they do so, the first thing people bitch about is the bloat.

it is a never ending cycle, so when the petty people stop trying to make them make everything for them, then they will be able to stop bitching about bloat. then will the game be able to be played.

thankfully some people have grown up and learned. they have started making their own "fantasy heartbreaker" because they realized what Gary said back in the 70s. You dont need to buy their books. you didnt need anything from TSR or WotC to play an RPG. those hangers-on that cant go beyond those limits and dont like D&D for what it is trying to change it still is just sad and pathetic. you have my pity Winnah.

[fectin]

If you're so strongly in favor of personalized homebrews, why do you even care that WotC exists?