"Where D&D failed" or "How D&D lost its D&D" (no Prak/Kaeli)

[shadzar]

and as everyone knows OD&D was just a pile of notes. could it be played by itself? yes. was it a full RPG yet? no. it was just an extended length miniature wargame.

funny how AD&D as it came out in 1977~1979 didnt include dragons as PC races, isnt it? Funny how the product of Holmes who espoused that he was better than everyone else and thus capable of turning OD&D into a single book product approved by Gary, didn't include dragons as a PC races, isn't it?

OD&D from 1974 was still pretty much chainmail. Alpha MtG is a playable game, but not something recognizable today. 40 card minimum deck, no card limits or restrictions...

OD&D is the alpha, or in today's world, lets call it the public beta playtest. whatever happened between Dave and Gary happened, and thus AD&D was born and BD&D was born.

prior to 1974 Forgotten Realms existed as a game, Blackmoor existed as a game, and somewhere along the lines Gary brought them together. What they were before D&D never mattered anymore once they became a part of D&D as they would not again be able to stand-alone free of D&D.

you want to find the difference between Blackmoor and Greyhawk, they pay WotC $150 for the reprint actual woodgrain box they are or have released.

Greyhawk was simply Gary's homebrew world and thus what he used to make everything else from. Blackmoor was simply Dave's homebrew world and what he used and created things for. Forgotten Realms was a game system of itself that never got off the ground. OD&D had no default setting except literal "Earth" (Dungeons and Dragons: Rules for Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns...). Greyhawk was still Earth (Oerth), Blackmoor who knows, but the alien devices sure as hell made things get weird!

since you dont have the material, and dont know what you are talking about, maybe you shouldnt make assumption that you know anything JE? cause it seems you dont. you can read the 7 TSR issues and pre-WotC Dragon magazines if you want, just buy the archive. you can see what the INTENT was, and i highlight that word in all caps for a reason, see the other thread or search my name here with the word to see where it is important.

D&D was and is "exactly what it says on the tin". read the intro in ANY edition and you will find what its purpose is. do people even read those anymore? just read those and you will see what has changed in the design direction of D&D from its INTENT. when the intent of the original changed, D&D died and became something else, and remember now does NOT always equal better.

[Voss]

Shadzar, why do you hate evolution?


In all seriousness, new (or now) doesn't always equal better, sure that is a functional rule of thumb. But when it comes to specifics, and since I have experience playing BECMI, 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e and 4e, and I don't have any qualms making a sweeping statement that 3.5 was better. The difference between 3.0 and 3.5 aren't as wide or sweeping (or as clear), but if someone says 'Let's play D&D,' I'm going to opt for 3.5 every time, because it has the least amount of horrible bullshit.

I might indulge a one-shot of another edition, but I certainly wouldn't want to slog through a prolonged campaign.

[shadzar]

if someone says 'Let's play D&D,' I'm going to opt for 3.5 every time, because it has the least amount of horrible bullshit.

and the fact that we disagree since i think 3.x has the MOST amount of horseshit (not counting whatever the fuck 4h edition is supposed to even be), aside from PO; that right there proves that the "evolution" was in no way one that made the game better. it is NOT an objective fact that 3.5 was better. nor can it be proven as thus.

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

[vagrant]

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

Since I'm new, I'll try and engage Shadzar here. What in 3.5 makes DnD not a game about murder-hobos who go from one place to another murder-hoboing? I've played quite a bit of 3.5, and er, that's the goddamn game. Even 4e is about adventuring. (It's just a steaming pile of shit on execution.)

[Mistborn]

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

shadzar does realize that Drizzt is a 2e specific twink build right?

[Wiseman]

if someone says 'Let's play D&D,' I'm going to opt for 3.5 every time, because it has the least amount of horrible bullshit.

and the fact that we disagree since i think 3.x has the MOST amount of horseshit (not counting whatever the fuck 4h edition is supposed to even be), aside from PO; that right there proves that the "evolution" was in no way one that made the game better. it is NOT an objective fact that 3.5 was better. nor can it be proven as thus.

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

Let's just bring this down to basics. What exactly in 3E+ makes the game not about adventures? You've ranted about this everywhere, but I've never got any idea why.

[Stinktopus]

Since I'm new, I'll try and engage Shadzar here.

Shadzar is the Westborough Baptist Church of D&D.

[nockermensch]

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

shadzar does realize that Drizzt is a 2e specific twink build right?

I call semi-bullshit on this. Drizzt got the Master Race bit down, but he'd be dual wielding katanas if he was going the full twink route.

On related and hilarious old news, I remember how in 3e they simply directly ported Drizzt and the result mess was very, very weak. Dual wielding with like -4 to hit, because legacy reasons.

---

Since I'm new, I'll try and engage Shadzar here.

Shadzar is the Westborough Baptist Church of D&D.

Now, I'd not go that far. His message is not one of hate, but of hopeless nostalgia for something that was never that good.

[tussock]

was OD&D a full RPG yet? no. it was just an extended length miniature wargame.

OD&D is likely the most complete RPG ever in the D&D line. Assuming you used Overland Survival and Chainmail like it told you to, you had ...

[*]A combat system where the monsters die, and another combat system where they also die in case you didn't like the first one.
[*]Complete and passably good (for the time) systems for army building and mass combat up to companies of a few hundred.
[*]Castle building rules and siege rules and rules for who lives in them and how often they appear as you wander about.
[*]A cute little game for wandering about and not dying in the wilderness given limited rations and so on, with added monster lairs and robber-baron castles.
[*]Simple rules for cost of living and income from non-adventure sources.
[*]Ship building and sea warfare as a passably good mini-game, which also works for aerial combat.
[*]Random dungeon generation and rules-based placement of treasures, monsters, and traps, in a tiered way of ensuring players controlled the level of challenge they faced.
[*]Rules for players building their own personal dungeon-crawl army of NPCs that supports people being the head honcho from low level.
[*]Advancement rules and experience totals that quickly advanced you, along with awesome game-changing magic items and coin you can do many important rules-based things with as above.

Compare that to 4th edition which is a giant list of very restrictive character options with a giant list of fiddly monsters and some advice that you might like to play D&D with it all somehow, including a bunch of shit that doesn't actually work should you try to use it as written.


Now, the original game rules are terribly hard to read and understand if you don't already know how to play D&D, and/or aren't familiar with the given sources, and brief to the point of guesswork in a couple places even then. But given it's tiny size and even tinier budget it's pretty amazing.

[Voss]

Now, I'd not go that far. His message is not one of hate, but of hopeless nostalgia for something that was never that good.

If you ignore all the screeds about anything that isn't the subject of his obsession.

and the fact that we disagree since i think 3.x has the MOST amount of horseshit (not counting whatever the fuck 4h edition is supposed to even be), aside from PO; that right there proves that the "evolution" was in no way one that made the game better. it is NOT an objective fact that 3.5 was better. nor can it be proven as thus.

You disagreeing with me proves nothing. Nor did I claim that I could prove 3.5 was better.

But I can give a list a better mechanics, and better approaches to gaming that 3rd embraced... can you point to something objective that makes whichever edition you're masturbating over 'better?' Tip: 'I like it more' is a preference, not a reason.

[shadzar]

you can create whatever pet Drizzt-clone you wish with all your character tweaking and twinking options in 3.x. I will continue to play D&D which is a game about adventures.

Since I'm new, I'll try and engage Shadzar here. What in 3.5 makes DnD not a game about murder-hobos who go from one place to another murder-hoboing? I've played quite a bit of 3.5, and er, that's the goddamn game. Even 4e is about adventuring. (It's just a steaming pile of shit on execution.)

rephrase the question so i can understand it cause i dont use stupid elitist terms like "murder hobos" but i use english. when i can understand the3 question i will be glad to answer it.

[shadzar]

Let's just bring this down to basics. What exactly in 3E+ makes the game not about adventures? You've ranted about this everywhere, but I've never got any idea why.

this i can answer.

like i said, and it was evident by a surge in player in the mid 90-s... starting with the PO and its pointsbuy system and "create your own race" and "create your own class" D&D left the game of adventure. If people wanted that much cahracter design control why weren't they already playing GURPs?

people went with this PO shit and stopped trying to go on adventures to dungeon/wilderness/cities and jsut wanted to make some uber-character. this went on to become 3.0 with its feats, skills, and other ridiculous bells and whistles to add to your character like: Profession (Basket weaving).

people became too interested in making their build and the game was jsut a step that had to be done to get to the next level of the build.

Correct me if i am wrong, but isnt TGB made originally from the former big-to-do people from the CharOps boards? while i understand Pun-pun was a mental excercise, there are MANY people playing the game that think the game is about all those builds. that is al they care about the build they could create. how far along their build the got before the game ended. I don't think that was the intent of CharOps-ers? but with the internet and people trying to play MtG via net-decks... well D&D CharOps became the net-decks, and people stopped playing D&D and decided to just play "d20 character build system". there was SO much provided for them to do that, especially when PrCs started like the previous Necromancer class, as a DM tool, then the company caved in and just made it a player option.

WBL doesn't help the problem any, as it strengthens the fact you have to spend more time trying to build your character than be able to play the game, and hll most DMs don't really like sifting through the shit to play. so 3.x was pretty much a character designer ruleset with some gameplay ideas thrown in.

oddly enough 4th edition was a skirmish game with locked in character options that pretty much decided shit for you, but there was still no adventure it was just, "which monster do we fight next?"

[Wiseman]

So you're saying that because characters became more customizable, nobody wanted to actually play the game. So you're saying it's somehow a distraction and you'd rather have all statistics in the hand of the GM. For the record I love how customizable 3.5 is, and am in fact in the middle or running such a game right now. Never had any problems with this.

[deaddmwalking]

I'd say that some people enjoy working on character mechanics away from the game table, but I don't know anyone that likes character creation/advancement planning MORE than the game.

Sure, some people are more curious to see how well their 'build' performs in a test under fire than in exploring the world, but I've known rela people like that, too. The ones who are always challenging themselves and seeing how much they can take.

I don't like those people in real life or in the game. But I've had lots of fun playing characters in 3.5 - not just playing a 'build'.

[Wiseman]

Either way, I think it's more fun to play with an optimized build, as it the player more in control of the events of the game, instead of just blindly being dragged forward by the DM.

[Maxus]

I admit to optimizing--to a degree. I spend a couple hours making a character, getting a backstory going, then I'm going to make that character survivable, DAMMIT.

It's one reason I like Tome stuff as much as I do--it makes a lot of concepts more viable outside of a cookie-cutter build.

[nockermensch]

In shadzar-vision, if you like to tinker with character creation options, you're the cancer killing D&D.

Good times was when all fighters were defined by weapon choice specialized in Bastard Sword and Longbow and all wizards started the game with random spell picks.

But then again, false dichotomy is false. How do you think PCs interact with adventures if not by their character abilities? If I want to play as a whip wielding adventurer, you may be sure I'll be reading all the rule options about whips and try to make something actually functional based on that idea.

[shadzar]

So you're saying that because characters became more customizable, nobody wanted to actually play the game. So you're saying it's somehow a distraction and you'd rather have all statistics in the hand of the GM. For the record I love how customizable 3.5 is, and am in fact in the middle or running such a game right now. Never had any problems with this.

Have you EVER played or attempted to play a game with:

A: a pregen character

B: just a name/race on a sheet of paper and an equipment list with it

if not, why not?

[deaddmwalking]

So you're saying that because characters became more customizable, nobody wanted to actually play the game. So you're saying it's somehow a distraction and you'd rather have all statistics in the hand of the GM. For the record I love how customizable 3.5 is, and am in fact in the middle or running such a game right now. Never had any problems with this.

Have you EVER played or attempted to play a game with:

A: a pregen character

Yes. I have played with PreGens. I don't do it anymore - at least, not without powerful reasons to the contrary. I like generating characters that I consider interesting - usually I'm not excited by pre-gens. I don't care about the mechanics - an optimized pre-gen is less interesting than a 'weak' character I create myself - there is an investment in the creation process that makes a character more meaningful and helps me 'get into character' more completely.

B: just a name/race on a sheet of paper and an equipment list with it

if not, why not?

Not recently. Systems that I play have more rules than this. I could play this, but it doesn't sound very interesting to me. At the very least I want to have an ennumerated worldview. Play Jack with a hammer is not as interesting as playing Jack - wandering the west with a sledgehammer proving that human mettle is more enduring than any machine.

[shadzar]

A: who said it was optimized? just a pregen. here is pre-rolled stats and assigned equipment and race/class. YOU add everything else to the character, it was just created for a reason to be in the game so the player didn't have to take take to go through the mechanical process of character creation.

B: again you fail to understand. HAck who HAS a hammer is all you are REQUIRED to paly. and likely you chose both the name Jack, and the fact that he has a hammer. HOW you paly it it now up to you. there is no goal written on the sheet just, name, class, race, equipment. sure you dont see what STR/DEX etc exists, but you are not bound by those either. you are free to have Jack feel and think and adventure for whatever reason you wish him too.

see this is what i feared. MANY people think that if they don't have total control over the character design like being given a pre-gen, or have all the numbers by only have a name/equipment list; they then feel like the have no control over how to play the character or its motivations.

YOU actually just proved that by adding things i did not say to what you thought about those 2 situations. i guess this is because you had a shitty DM that tried to force those things YOU added unto you?

would you like to revise your answers based SOLELY on the questions asked, without adding nonsense that wasnt even mentioned?

do i need to explain the questions further than i have with this post? are the questions really too simple to be able to answer?

[deaddmwalking]

No.

My answer is: I don't play pre-gens.

I like making characters. I think that choosing weapons (or feats, or skills) based on the personality I have in my mind is part of getting into a character. Without that, I'm not interested. I'm not interested in 'strong' pre-gens and I'm not interested in 'weak' pre-gens. I don't dislike pregens because of 'char-op' - I dislike pregens because I like making unique characters that are fun to play. And for me, that means every step of the process. I'm not interested in a 'random character' - I'm interested in exploring a specific character that I have in my mind.

It may be a simple idea - a character like one from a movie or a book, or around a combat style, or around a culture. But I don't play characters that someone else makes for me.

My answer is:
No. I wouldn't play a character with just a name and equipment written on a piece of paper. At the very least, I would write down additional information. Even if it is not required, I'd write down character description and background; I'd also have some aspirations. Because without those, it's not a character; it's a token.

I like playing characters. I like role-playing games. In an RPG, the character you're playing matters.

In Monopoly the game is the same whether you're a Dog or a Race Car; token doesn't matter. In an RPG whether you're Conan the Destroyer or Fafhd the Gray Mouser makes a difference to how you play the game. I wouldn't play a character that didn't differentiate between them.

[shadzar]

A: you are proving my point. you don't really care about playing D&D, you want to play Character X. if you can't play Character X, then you cant enjoy the game itself.

B: you misunderstood still. nothing says you cannot have OTHER stuff on the character sheet. the NAME/CLASS/LEVEL/EQUIPMENT on the sheet is ALL the mechanical info you have. you could write fucking poetry on the sheet if you wanted to, but your character info you start with is ONLY those few bits that tells you MOSTLY what your character is: name, race, class, and what shit its carrying.

this is the very thing i mean that the games are NOT designed to be played, but designed to let people play their pet character concept. this is why WotC game systems don't work. people like them? SURE, because they get to paint every freckle on their character a different color and there is some mechanical rule there to back them up. but those things aren't needed to play the GAME.

i can only assume that people so focused on their character design do not watch movies or read literature since they have NO character to control in those mediums?

[deaddmwalking]

A: you are proving my point. you don't really care about playing D&D, you want to play Character X. if you can't play Character X, then you cant enjoy the game itself.

I don't understand your proposed difference. Sometimes I want to play D&D as a Wizard; somtimes I want to play D&D as a Fighter. When I'm in the mood to create and play a Wizard I don't want to play a Fighter. The game is about playing a character in the game world. If the character is not interesting, the game is not interesting.

I'd rather play an interesting character in a boring campaign than a boring character in an interesting campaign.

But of course, I'd prefer an interesting character in an interesting campaign.

B: you misunderstood still. nothing says you cannot have OTHER stuff on the character sheet. the NAME/CLASS/LEVEL/EQUIPMENT on the sheet is ALL the mechanical info you have. you could write fucking poetry on the sheet if you wanted to, but your character info you start with is ONLY those few bits that tells you MOSTLY what your character is: name, race, class, and what shit its carrying.

Firstly, in any edition of D&D, there is more to a character than this. Attributes, for instance. I think those matter. I'm not saying I wouldn't play a game that used different ways of telling me what an attribute was, but I wouldn't play a character that I couldn't answer certain questions like 'how strong am I?'; 'how smart am I?'.

this is the very thing i mean that the games are NOT designed to be played, but designed to let people play their pet character concept. this is why WotC game systems don't work. people like them? SURE, because they get to paint every freckle on their character a different color and there is some mechanical rule there to back them up. but those things aren't needed to play the GAME.

Describing the freckles a character has doesn't require mechanical rules to support it. I've played lots of different characters and I don't have 'pet' character concepts. Or at least, not in the traditional sense. I recently had to create an NPC and I have the concept of a female berserker from a Polynesian island culture wielding a machahuitl in my mind - I'd really like to play that character in the next campaign I play in because that sounds interesting to me. If that won't fit the campaign, I'll come up with another character that does fit the milieu that does sound intersting to me. But I won't play a character that seems interesting to YOU - I'm only interested in characters that I...find interesting. Now, I'm a man of diverse interests, so I'm sure I can find something that works in any game I join, but it is correct to say that I'm interested in playing a 'specific character' more than I'm interested in playing 'a specific game'.

You never know how the game is going to develop. It could be in good ways or bad ways. But if you know who your character is before the start, you at least know you have something worthwhile.

i can only assume that people so focused on their character design do not watch movies or read literature since they have NO character to control in those mediums?

This doesn't follow. An RPG is not a story or a movie; you enjoy them in different ways. I prefer movies with interesting characters (not wooden ones), but I'm content to watch the adventures of an interesting character passively; I'm not interested in passive entertainment from an RPG.

Since I will be actively choosing a course of action for a character, it needs to be a character that I like.

For example - I won't play 'Evil McKicksPuppies' in a game. That's not fun for me. You better believe that choosing my own character (and motivations/aspirations/etc) is an important part of the game for me.

[nockermensch]

A: you are proving my point. (by refusing to say that playing with a sheet of paper with just BOB THE HUMAN WARRIOR written on it is "playing D&D"). you don't really care about playing D&D, you want to play Character X. if you can't play Character X, then you cant enjoy the game itself.

B: you misunderstood still. nothing says you cannot have OTHER stuff on the character sheet. the NAME/CLASS/LEVEL/EQUIPMENT on the sheet is ALL the mechanical info you have. you could write fucking poetry on the sheet if you wanted to, but your character info you start with is ONLY those few bits that tells you MOSTLY what your character is: name, race, class, and what shit its carrying.

What a beautiful Poe, man. I'm like 85% convinced you're trolling.

[shadzar]

A: so you ask for the wizard pre-gen when you want to play a wizard, or the fighter pre-gen when you want to play a fighter? what is the problem? is it because the fighter has boobs and you didnt want to play a character with boobs? why isnt the cahracter intersting? you are not able to PLAY interesting character? i still fail to understand your arguement. maybe you think a pre-gen is something other than what is is. you should probably define what you assume a pre-gen is and then we can work from there to see where the problem in communication lies.

B: so you are telling me there is someway you can roleplay in an interesting fashion any of these things OUTSIDE of their mechanical impact on combat/diplomacy:

STR: 12
CHA: 18
NWP: fire-building
Profession (basket-weaving)
Feat: Sustenance

you think THOSE are more important than knowing you are:
Jack, human fighter, owning one hammer (carried) and one loin cloth (being worn).

which of these two lets you adventure in the game?

do me a favor, describe how smart INT: 18 is. come on, i am sure EVERYONE wants to hear this. try STR: 18 if you prefer.

you know how IN-GAME you show or tell how smart or strong you are. you best the troll in a grappling match, you outwitted the lich. a number serves ZERO purpose within the game world. does your PC run around talking about his STR: 18?

in what way does having or seeing STR: 18 help convey Jack loves bashing in skulls or cuddling kittens?

the character is the way you play it and the personality you give it. the numbers you dont se in B in no way help you play your character. having no choice in the number given from a pre-gen, in now way let you play Jack any less of the personal and motivation that you want to give him.

AGAIN, this is the whole damn problem. people arent playing character, they are playing a collection of stats. why even put a name on your character sheet instead of putting Fighter #2kj478fj6k8h if all you are playing is a collection of stats?

saying you want Jack the pre-gen or Jack the human fighter you chose but have no numbers for to crush skulls, is in NO way hampered by not getting to chose those number, and by not seeing them.

im sorry. for some reason you keep inferring pre-gens have some built in motivation for the PC rather than having the player decide how to play it and somehow think to that the B cannot be played because the player has no control over the personality and other such things as the character, and you make it SEEM as those are important to you, but you only continue to worry about the STATS.

you don't care about the characters personality or motivations, you just want total control over its number to crunch, otherwise you would be perfectly capable to make Jack A and/or Jack B be your own personal character. and to make him interesting or be interested in him.

so again we re back to the game focuses solely on the characters stats, not the adventure game. people ONLY care about their own singular character for their mini-novella, and must have TOTAL control over every little freckle and hair on it. otherwise, they just cant play in the game.

Bob wont play Monopoly cause he only wanted to play to be the with the racecar, not to play Monopoly.