Why play 3.5 anymore?

[JoeJ]

That's not really my point. Compare:

3.5: tables detailing the HP of every material from paper to stone to metal.
5E: "The GM determines an object’s Armor Class and hit points."

Say I am a DM running a dungeon. The PCs encounter a door and want to bust it down because the rogue is too drunk to pick the lock. In 3.5, I flip open the DMG and see, the wooden door has 15 hit points. In 5E, I have no guidance for how hardy a wooden door is. Unless I write it down, the next time the PCs want to break down a wooden door, it might have more or less HP. Down the street in another DM's game, the door will have a different amount of HP. Next session, my friend Larry who is a carpenter convinces me that doors should have more HP than that, and the number changes again.

My point is not about doors either, but about the underlying philosophy of the game that the object HP rules are an example of.

The 5e DMG does list approximate AC and hp for objects, based on size and material type. (AFB so I can't give you the page no.)

Having an extended table of specific item hp seems to me like a complete waste of paper and ink. As a DM in either game, of course I'd give the next wooden door a different number of hit points. Why would I want it to stay the same? Doors aren't all equal in the real world, and I can't think of any good reason to make them all equal in a game.

[Darth Ultron]

My point is not about doors either, but about the underlying philosophy of the game that the object HP rules are an example of.

This philosophy is the worst part of the game for me. And it's the first big part change with my house rules: ''yea, the junk they wrote on page 33 is nice and it might be a vague starting point and idea of what to do, but in reality it will just be whatever the DM decides it to be on a whim."

And the players like like this philosophy of ''rules worship'' are some of the worst players: they are not even trying to play D&D, they are just playing a game of ''gotcha'' with the DM.

[Cosi]

This philosophy is the worst part of the game for me. And it's the first big part change with my house rules: ''yea, the junk they wrote on page 33 is nice and it might be a vague starting point and idea of what to do, but in reality it will just be whatever the DM decides it to be on a whim."

And the players like like this philosophy of ''rules worship'' are some of the worst players: they are not even trying to play D&D, they are just playing a game of ''gotcha'' with the DM.

In the latest installment of Darth Ultron's ongoing series "What Even Are Rules, Man", Darth Ultron takes the stance that players being able to consistently and predictably interact with the environment is evil power-gaming.

[Darth Ultron]

In the latest installment of Darth Ultron's ongoing series "What Even Are Rules, Man", Darth Ultron takes the stance that players being able to consistently and predictably interact with the environment is evil power-gaming.

The problem is that the rules can only ever cover like 1% of anything in a game like D&D, other then combat. And the game works best with some general guidelines and suggestions and not super hard core unalterable rules that everyone must follow like zombies.

And I find '' consistently and predictably '' just funny...like the only way you can have the one single interpretation of that is if everyone mindless follows a rule.

[NoldorForce]

:smallconfused: The whole point of rules beyond winging things through freefrom and improv play is to provide some structure for the game so that it's not just an endless succession of "nuh-uh!" and "yuh-huh!" in the vein of Cops and Robbers. Rules aren't tools for players to attempt to oppress the GM, but instead a common ground from which to drive play. The level of detail and strictness in any given ruleset can of course vary, but if you're declaring that you're using a ruleset then expectations are that you will in fact be using that ruleset unless some rare exception comes up. Declaring that you're using a ruleset, but with frequent changes, is at the least disingenuous if not actively deceitful.

[ImNotTrevor]

This philosophy is the worst part of the game for me. And it's the first big part change with my house rules: ''yea, the junk they wrote on page 33 is nice and it might be a vague starting point and idea of what to do, but in reality it will just be whatever the DM decides it to be on a whim."

And the players like like this philosophy of ''rules worship'' are some of the worst players: they are not even trying to play D&D, they are just playing a game of ''gotcha'' with the DM.

This is why I like systems that flip the bird to Rule Zero.

The GM has a lot of leeway in such systems, but there are rules they aren't allowed to break. It's actually CLOSER to a lot of the early renditions of the now-named Rule Zero, such as "Rulings, not Rules." Which was among the vanguard of such ideas. Essentially, "The DM is there to make rulings to fill in the inevitable gaps in the rules, not change the rules." Which is decidedly different from "The DM gets free reign to do whatever he/she feels like, consistency and player experience can take a long walk off a short pier."

So yeah, Rule Zero is not an all-encompassing concept throughout RPGs. Some discard the notion entirely.

That being said, I maintain my position that you should play the Edition and/or game that you personally find to be the most fun, screw the haters. People, I find, do the fanboyish, rabid defense of their preferred product out of fear. Perhaps it is because 3e and 3.5 were some of our largest money sinks for this hobby, and so obviously it would mean you were an idiot if you wasted that much money on something that was not the best possible option, so the need is felt to defend the option you chose as the objectively best choice. (Because you wouldn't spend so much money on a choice that WASN'T the best, right?)

In truth, the choice is subjective, so far as Edition, Game, whatever. The only explanation needed for why you play a game is "Because it matches my preferred playstyle." I had a player who ducked out of one of our games because it didn't match his preferred playstyle, and none of us faulted him for it. He came back when we played another game he enjoyed more. This had nothing to do with which game was better, and everything to do with which game was better FOR HIM.

That's all there is to it. Play what you want. It's about Fun. Don't let editions and games become like consoles and PCs.

[hifidelity2]

That being said, I maintain my position that you should play the Edition and/or game that you personally find to be the most fun, screw the haters.

That's all there is to it. Play what you want. It's about Fun. Don't let editions and games become like consoles and PCs.
Agree 100%

In one of the groups I am in they don't like GURPS so we don't play it. Another group does so we do

[AMFV]

Agree 100%

In one of the groups I am in they don't like GURPS so we don't play it. Another group does so we do

Nope, everyone has to like the same things, because taste is objective and the things I like are the right things to like.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nope, everyone has to like the same things, because taste is objective and the things I like are the right things to like.

3.5 is the superior game. I don't have favourites, I just know what's best.

[AMFV]

3.5 is the superior game. I don't have favourites, I just know what's best.

Nah, it's Third Edition, but you can only play with the Fiend Folio, the BoVD, the Book of Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, the first and last thirds of the PHB, and nothing else.

[NoldorForce]

Nah, it's Third Edition, but you can only play with the Fiend Folio, the BoVD, the Book of Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, the first and last thirds of the PHB, and nothing else.What's this part of the joke a reference to? Omitting casters or something?

[AMFV]

What's this part of the joke a reference to? Omitting casters or something?

People who argue that certain parts of certain systems are perfect and that others should be arbitrarily removed.

[Raimun]

I wish I could still play 3.5. That game is fun, even if it does have some problems.

Pathfinder is also fun but in a slightly different way than 3.5. The worst balance problems have been dealt with, even if Fighter and Wizard can still be played like Angel Summoner and BMX-Bandit and the basic balance problems still remain.

5th edition I don't really care about. I've played it a moderate amount of time, which is not that much but not that little either. If I had to say a number, I would mention that I've played 7 of the 12 classes. I have to say, this game was played to death at least six months ago. Just about everything about 5th edition is so bland. There's no real edge to the game and I'm frankly always a bit surprised how many pages the book has, considering how everything is so... vague, shallow and feels like half-finished. Luckily, it's not the only game I've been playing.

Oh, and damn kids, get off my lawn... *grumble* *grumble*.

[Anonymouswizard]

Nah, it's Third Edition, but you can only play with the Fiend Folio, the BoVD, the Book of Sword and Fist, Masters of the Wild, the first and last thirds of the PHB, and nothing else.

Way to miss the point on an Ao-Sue reference.

Personally, in a position where I've run 5e (hated that experience), and am about to play it from the other side of the screen in four weeks, I'm off mixed feelings. It actually has the one part of 3.5 I loved (feats), although I wish the skill system was either less binary or gave you more skills (I feel highly undertrained with my half-elven wizard getting only 6 skills, even though she's better at more stuff than my GURPS character). Otherwise, I don't particularly like it for anything other than simplicity, and I think the lack of dead levels is a bad thing in that regard (although ASIs replacing class features at those levels is a cool innovation).

Also, although the power curve has been evened out between the classes, the balance still seems a bit off. My biggest annoyance here is between the Sorcerer and Wizard, because my party has both. Metamagic is great, and I wish my wizard had access to it, but that doesn't make up for the fact that I begin with at least twice the spells prepared as she gets known (actually, due to the ability score rolling method we used, it's three times), and I end with 10 more prepared spells than she has known. Okay, some of the Origin features are really nice, especially Draconic Resistance and Elemental Affinity, but my Tradition can give me some really nice benefits as well (looking specifically at Divination, Necromancy, and Transmutation here). Dragon Wings is really good, but at the time it's online I'm still blowing a 5th level spell slot or all my 3rd levels to get the party past the same obstacles, and Draconic Presence is great but expensive unless you cash in several spells.

EDIT: I get the blandness problem, I really expected at least double the sourcebooks and some setting books by now (come on psionics and Dark Sun), but out of the gate it's slightly better than 3.X core. The writing is bland, and they really could have included more rules in the game instead of being mainly dependant on rulings, but it's still decent enough that I'm giving it a second shot.

[AMFV]

Way to miss the point on an Ao-Sue reference.


Eh, I know it's sacrilegious, but I've never been a big fan of FR. The whole setting seems like a huge mess to me. I tend to steal stuff from it, but Ao I don't, since I find the whole concept of an uncaring overgod, completely boring.

Edit:

Back on topic, the reason I stayed with 3.5/PF so long was the community around it. But that seems to be in decline, a lot of the most creative optimizing folk took off for 4E and now 5E, and with less and less new content being released there's less folks playing it. I've started to look for new systems, since the whole thing has kind of stagnated and I've lost my interest. I imagine that there will always be a community playing it.

[Anonymouswizard]

Eh, I know it's sacrilegious, but I've never been a big fan of FR. The whole setting seems like a huge mess to me. I tend to steal stuff from it, but Ao I don't, since I find the whole concept of an uncaring overgod, completely boring.

I was using Ao-Sue to refer to Marty from the S.U.E. Files, it's one of the names from the first thread.

For the record, I'm not a FR fan either. If I want standard fantasy I'll actually use Birthright, it's just a more interesting setting to me.


Edit:

Back on topic, the reason I stayed with 3.5/PF so long was the community around it. But that seems to be in decline, a lot of the most creative optimizing folk took off for 4E and now 5E, and with less and less new content being released there's less folks playing it. I've started to look for new systems, since the whole thing has kind of stagnated and I've lost my interest. I imagine that there will always be a community playing it.

Yeah, I think this hits the nail on the head, people staying or leaving has more to do with their thoughts on if the current content has grown stale (me, I'm personally planning to go back to 2e, because there are entire worlds there that I've never explored).

[themaque]

I play Pathfinder now and again but I really enjoy playing 5e. I find my old 2nd ed supplements and adventures convert SUPER easy to 5e and hope to one day have time to run a few of the old classics with it.

At least, it converts easily in my mind. YMMV.

[JAL_1138]

I play Pathfinder now and again but I really enjoy playing 5e. I find my old 2nd ed supplements and adventures convert SUPER easy to 5e and hope to one day have time to run a few of the old classics with it.

At least, it converts easily in my mind. YMMV.

I end up having to rebuild all the encounters from scratch (or pilfering level-appropriate ones from 5e material like Adventurers' League and the few modules there are, or reusing ones I used in other campaigns with reskins, tweaks to level, and fluff), but otherwise, "drop in new encounters and run as-is otherwise" works pretty well. If there's a trick to using the old encounters with tweaks to the math that are quicker than making new ones, I'd be very, very interested to hear it as I have way more 1e and 2e material than 5e material and would love to be able to use it with even less prepwork.

(EDIT: To my mind, "converts easily" means "just switch the stat blocks with ones from the edition you're converting to and make no further changes whatsoever, not even changing type and number of creatures, and keep NPCs identical except for converting from to-hit tables to thac0 if needed." 1e to 2e is easy; below level 20, BX/BECMI adventures to 2e are easy. 2e to 5e, little more work.)

[goto124]

Those who enjoyed the switch from 3.5e to 5e said it's much easier to run and play the game instead of fiddling with numbers.

Those who disliked the switch said 5e is rather bland and lacking.

Is it a two sides of the same coin kind of thing?

[Milo v3]

Those who enjoyed the switch from 3.5e to 5e said it's much easier to run and play the game instead of fiddling with numbers.

Those who disliked the switch said 5e is rather bland and lacking.

Is it a two sides of the same coin kind of thing?

They can be, but not necessarily. I'm fine if a game isn't fiddling with numbers, my issue with 5e is that characters barely have any abilities at all. Not numbers abilities, abilities. Though the fact that to be decent at skills you have to be a bard or rogue doesn't help.

[ImNotTrevor]

Those who enjoyed the switch from 3.5e to 5e said it's much easier to run and play the game instead of fiddling with numbers.

Those who disliked the switch said 5e is rather bland and lacking.

Is it a two sides of the same coin kind of thing?

Could easily be the case. In a sense, FATE is really bland because it comes to the table as a blank slate. It can be anything, which means it doesn't have its own flavor. (The Tofu of rpgs, I suppose.)

5e, from what I can tell, has decided to strip some of its mechanical oomph to allow narrative flexibility. D&D still doesn't care overly much about things like Fictional Positioning, but 5e seems to account for it a LOT better than 3.5 does. So there's that.

However, the kinds of people who like 3.5 for its mechanical rigging and crunchiness will be put off from 5e for the same reason that people who like 5e are attracted to it.

Again, it's a matter of personal preference. The End.

[goto124]

Fictional Positioning

This is the first time I've ever heard of it. Could you care to explain what it is, please?

[Amphetryon]

This is the first time I've ever heard of it. Could you care to explain what it is, please?

From the first hit on a Google search:

Fictional Positioning as a verb, is considering the fiction, and looking at ways to shape it to fit what you want out of play- this can be from a tactical and/or creative standpoint. Fictional Positioning as a concept, is where everything stands in relation to each other in the fiction- the things the group has agreed to have happened/exist ala Baker-Care principle, the feel for the characters, the situation, the gameworld, etc.

[themaque]

They can be, but not necessarily. I'm fine if a game isn't fiddling with numbers, my issue with 5e is that characters barely have any abilities at all. Not numbers abilities, abilities. Though the fact that to be decent at skills you have to be a bard or rogue doesn't help.

While I don't think it's as bad as you make out, to me, bolsters the "Old School" feel of the game. You have skills, you can feel pretty badass but you're not a GOD and you can't do EVERYTHING.

Although you would have to define "Decent at skills" since most anyone can have pretty much any skill just not ALL the skills.

However, I think GOTO124 is probably on the money and we just see our prefered side of the coin.

[Milo v3]

While I don't think it's as bad as you make out, to me, bolsters the "Old School" feel of the game. You have skills, you can feel pretty badass but you're not a GOD and you can't do EVERYTHING.

Although you would have to define "Decent at skills" since most anyone can have pretty much any skill just not ALL the skills.
1. Being young, I don't really care or know anything about old-school. :smalltongue:
2. I sincerely couldn't feel badass with the characters when it comes to their mechanics, and while you can make a good backstory regardless of system, the lack of capabilities my characters had compared to other systems hampered me making the backstory because the fluff didn't match the crunch.
3. 5e is designed so you start as nothing and become folk heroes.... I am not interested in those stories. Those characters are too low-power in comparison to the characters I find entertaining.
4. When it comes to skills, the roll matters ridiculously more than your character. The only characters who actually have a proper advantage when it comes to skills so that there character actually matters at all in a skill situation are bards and rogues.


However, I think GOTO124 is probably on the money and we just see our prefered side of the coin.
To a degree it's "two sides of a coin" I guess.... In that "If you remove tonnes of stuff from the game. It is likely to have less stuff in it."? But the reason I find it bland and lacking isn't because of it's fast to play and had less fiddling with numbers. When I played mutants and masterminds, it was fast to play and we didn't do any fiddling with numbers, but it wasn't bland and lacking.

[goto124]

And why is MnM not lacking?

[Milo v3]

And why is MnM not lacking?
Well when you can make literally anything with a ruleset it generally is not considered lacking :smalltongue:

[themaque]

And why is MnM not lacking?

Because in MnM you have POWER and TONS of options and can do anything the GM will let you get away with just about no matter what the situation. The rules are d20 based so if you already have a good handle on basics of the rules.

For Super Hero gaming it's my system of choice actually.

And I can totally understand Milo why 5e is NOT for you.

When I want to play a HERO that eventually becomes a GOD I play Pathfinder.

When I want to start as a zero who becomes a HERO I play 5e.

I would also suggest Hackmaster for that style of gaming (Zero2Hero) if you also want a firmer mechanical framework as well.

[ImNotTrevor]

This is the first time I've ever heard of it. Could you care to explain what it is, please?

Someone pointed out the actual definition already, but accounting for Fictional Positioning to certain degrees is a thing in all systems. What changes is how much the system accounts for it. For instance...

Dark Heresy has no rules for shooting someone who is helpless. So either the GM handwaves it, or a normal attack is made. Due to the way that attacks involve randomly determining the limb that is struck, you can have situations where you press a shotgun to the back of a heretic's head, pull the trigger, and blow off his left leg. The GM has to make sure the game acts in a way that isn't stupid, but there isn't a rule for it.

D&D 3.5 has its own lacks in terms of accounting for fictional positioning. Fighting from higher ground, for instance, such as on the higher side of a hill. 3.5 would need to have a rule in place for that. Since 5e has stripped itself of the "Rules For EVERYTHING" philosophy and made the Advantage/Disadvantage dichotomy, it allows DMs to account for things like that.
If a Rogue has picked this exact kind of lock 300 times before, that's entirely irrelevant in 3.5. In 5e, he might get advantage for it.
My elf has Profession: merchant and is negotiating a trade deal with an elven nation. I could get advantage on that, even though the rules don't explicitly say I can. Because it would make sense that this elf would have several things going in his favor.
If the Barbarian is trying to blend in at a noble's huge social function, he will probably have disadvantage.
An elf rogue trying to make his way out of a city that hates elves without being noticed might be at a disadvantage, since everyone there is now functionally a guard and would rat him out.

You can simulate this in 3.5 with rulings about the DC or maybe a flat +2/-2 modifier, but the first is unlikely to be communicated clearly (unless you tell them the DC) and the second becomes less and less impressive as the levels go up.

It's not as rigid, and the above advantage/disadvantage situations are all judgement calls, but 5e at least gives you a simple but robust framework to use. It's not perfect by any means, no system is, but that aspect has at least been improved.

That's my basic rundown of Fictional Positioning in practical terms. Its actually one of the most important things in RPGs, but also one that most don't talk about because we do it automatically without thinking about it, and it only sticks out when it behaves weirdly or is ignored with odd consequences. (Such as the Dark Heresy example above.)

As far as MnM goes, you might find it non-bland in part because its particular brand of flexibility is one you prefer, while the sort in 5e is not. *Shrug* That and I think the vast and varied world of Superheroes naturally carries with it a certain flavor that Pulp Fantasy somewhat struggles with nowadays. (When was the last time you saw a non-LotR fantasy movie that was good? And that was released in the last 5 years?) Superheroes are everywhere right now. We have ready access to examples of their flavor in our heads at any time.
For Fantasy we have LotR and Game of Thrones...and that's it. And only one of those has elements of "Daring Band of Adventurers Solve Problems!"
That's 100% theoretical musings, though.

[Milo v3]

As far as MnM goes, you might find it non-bland in part because its particular brand of flexibility is one you prefer, while the sort in 5e is not. *Shrug* That and I think the vast and varied world of Superheroes naturally carries with it a certain flavor that Pulp Fantasy somewhat struggles with nowadays. (When was the last time you saw a non-LotR fantasy movie that was good? And that was released in the last 5 years?) Superheroes are everywhere right now. We have ready access to examples of their flavor in our heads at any time.
Note, a big part of it's brand of flexibility is that you can completely ignore the superheroes thing and use it to make fantasy, sci-fi, action-film, wuxia, anime-esque, etc. etc. etc.

[Anonymouswizard]

1. Being young, I don't really care or know anything about old-school. :smalltongue:

What do you care about then?


2. I sincerely couldn't feel badass with the characters when it comes to their mechanics, and while you can make a good backstory regardless of system, the lack of capabilities my characters had compared to other systems hampered me making the backstory because the fluff didn't match the crunch.

Okay, this is going to be a big problem if you want to enjoy 5e, so I don't think it's for you. But, over the past 3 years, I've played Unknown Armies (street level, where you likely are only great at your specialty), a homebrewed game encouraging specialisation (which caused you to be rubbish everywhere else), MechWarrior (where it's hard to start with the skills to succeed at a roll 50% of the time, and now a 100CP GURPS game (where, over 30CP worth of sessions in, the only characters with more than a 14 in any skill are the 'overfocused by design' alchemist (one skill), and the elf shadowdancer (several spells, and makes me smell cheese)), 5e starting characters seem fairly powerful all-round (although that might be my habit of skimping on combat prowess when given the chance). Also, remember that 1st level was designed more as a 'training' level than a starting level, the designers said that if you're familiar enough with D&D you should be able to start at 3rd level.


3. 5e is designed so you start as nothing and become folk heroes.... I am not interested in those stories. Those characters are too low-power in comparison to the characters I find entertaining.

You wouldn't be interested in my current game, where due to how GURPS works, we're reaching the end of the campaign and might have gone up the equivalent of a level. We're all relatively low power, including a recently ordained Warrior Priest (me, served towards the end of the skaven war), an ex-army officer (our friendly skaven, better at deduction than fighting), a dwarven engineer (not particularly good at fighting), a shadowdancer (who I'm not certain if they have a combat skill, they seem to just teleport stuff), and an alchemist. All the equivalent of maybe 2nd or 3rd level 5e characters.

So yeah, maybe systems other than d20 aren't for you, I can't see other systems where you go from hero to demigod. I like 5e, but then again I don't mind playing 'from zero to hapless fool'.


4. When it comes to skills, the roll matters ridiculously more than your character. The only characters who actually have a proper advantage when it comes to skills so that there character actually matters at all in a skill situation are bards and rogues.

I basically agree here, I find 5e too swingy everywhere. But it was a design decision, and I can sort of see the logic behind it/


To a degree it's "two sides of a coin" I guess.... In that "If you remove tonnes of stuff from the game. It is likely to have less stuff in it."? But the reason I find it bland and lacking isn't because of it's fast to play and had less fiddling with numbers. When I played mutants and masterminds, it was fast to play and we didn't do any fiddling with numbers, but it wasn't bland and lacking.

Really? I found M&M bland and lacking, because not only does my gun work exactly as your fire blast does, just with different descriptors (I think my GM not using these properly might be part of the problem), but most of our characters ended up doing the same thing. Also, while the limited attacks/defences are interesting, it ended up as 'let the psychic take on the brute while the rest of us pile on the ice lady'. Sure it was fast, but a lot felt lost in it.

But I guess there's even a side number 3 to what's slowly becoming a tetrahedron. Man, who makes coins in this shape?

EDIT:

Someone pointed out the actual definition already, but accounting for Fictional Positioning to certain degrees is a thing in all systems. What changes is how much the system accounts for it. For instance...

Dark Heresy has no rules for shooting someone who is helpless. So either the GM handwaves it, or a normal attack is made. Due to the way that attacks involve randomly determining the limb that is struck, you can have situations where you press a shotgun to the back of a heretic's head, pull the trigger, and blow off his left leg. The GM has to make sure the game acts in a way that isn't stupid, but there isn't a rule for it.

Sorry, a bit off topic, but.

Yeah, it misses rules for shooting a helpless target, but considering stunned targets give +20 and unaware targets give +30, so +30 to your roll or an automatic hit wouldn't be unreasonable. In addition shooting at point blank will give a +30, and a called shot will give -20, so you can very well hit that heretic in the back of the head.


Note, a big part of it's brand of flexibility is that you can completely ignore the superheroes thing and use it to make fantasy, sci-fi, action-film, wuxia, anime-esque, etc. etc. etc.

Yeah, but GURPS is better at sci-fi, so why would I use M&M? I can see an argument for using it for soft sci-fi, but I still think this is where GURPS really excels.

Also, it's really not the best system for simulating Wuxia. D&D is bad at it already, and M&M removes some of the stuff it can do okay. Plus, Taoist magic would be a pain to create in M&M, especially external and internal alchemy.

[goto124]

From what I've read of MnM so far, it's rules-lite bordering on freeform, with abilities that don't really differ-


I found M&M bland and lacking, because not only does my gun work exactly as your fire blast does, just with different descriptors (I think my GM not using these properly might be part of the problem), but most of our characters ended up doing the same thing.

That. Not the first time I've heard this complaint.

Does flavor come from the mechanics, or the setting?

[Cazero]

Really? I found M&M bland and lacking, because not only does my gun work exactly as your fire blast does, just with different descriptors (I think my GM not using these properly might be part of the problem)

Not just your GM. You too can do stuff about it with power stunts.
You can use fire to Nullify any cold effect. You can use fire to set things on fire and make an Environement effect or a Reaction Damage. You can use fire to exploit a Weakness to fire and get bonus damage. You can use fire to heat up the air in a specific way, wich distort the light trajectory and create a Concealment or Illusion effect.
Bullets can't do that, but they can't be Nullified by water or ice and their availability as equipment can make them cheaper.

All the descriptor minigame is freeform. If you find the game bland, maybe freeform isn't for you. If your GM doesn't enable it, maybe freeform isn't for him.

[JAL_1138]

From what I've read of MnM so far, it's rules-lite bordering on freeform, with abilities that don't really differ-



That. Not the first time I've heard this complaint.

Does flavor come from the mechanics, or the setting?

To me, both. 4e's points-of-light actually had some potentially-interesting flavor--the dawn war, the stars are eldritch abominations, civilization has collapsed to a few city-states separated by leagues of hostile wilderness, etc., so on and so forth. While I wouldn't use the names of previously well-known D&D gods for it, which hurt its uniqueness somewhat, it's practically tailor-made to be a grim, hardscrabble, hopeless setting where mortal life clings on for what brief time it has left before one of the infinite number of godawful horrors eventually wins (good only has a few gods on its side, while chaos, destruction, horror, madness, and evil have literally billions of powerful entities, most of them in the far realm though. As soon as any of them break through, the world is screwed). But the mechanics don't really match that. Everyone's got superpowers, or anime powers anyway. Not 3e god-wizard or CoDzilla superpowers, but much, much more than the sort of "I have a rusty axe, some chainmail, some ingenuity in how to scrounge a living in this post-apocalyptic last gasp of mortal existence, and...yeah, that's it" that would better match the grimdark the setting implies.

EDIT: Also, one of my biggest complains with 4e aside from the grindiness of the padded-sumo combat was that by putting everyone on a similar resource system, characters felt very samey and undifferentiated, even though fluffwise their abilities were vastly different. So mechanics are critical to flavor; it's much harder for it be handled through fluff alone.

[ImNotTrevor]

Note, a big part of it's brand of flexibility is that you can completely ignore the superheroes thing and use it to make fantasy, sci-fi, action-film, wuxia, anime-esque, etc. etc. etc.

Which it won't do as well as systems dedicated to those themes will do. MnM will never be as good for weird Anime Maid Comedy storylines as Maid RPG.
And I highly doubt it would be as good for Cinematic Post-Apocalypse with deeo Personal Drama as Apocalypse World is. And it won't be as good at Space Opera as Stars Without Number, nor as good at Star Wars as Star Wars RPGs are. It's another Tofu game, just crunchier than FATE. It can technically be anything, but it is best suited for Superheroes.

If your demand for flexibikity is "it must be able to do literally anything" then no, 5e is not for you. Obviously. 5e does pulp fantasy well, and everything else really really REALLY poorly, and even then only after being beat into submission.

So yeah, the game has to fit your preferred playstyle. I prefer to play many systems that each do their specific niche very well than to play one system that does everything just good enough.

[Anonymouswizard]

To me, both. 4e's points-of-light actually had some potentially-interesting flavor--the dawn war, the stars are eldritch abominations, civilization has collapsed to a few city-states separated by leagues of hostile wilderness, etc., so on and so forth. While I wouldn't use the names of previously well-known D&D gods for it, which hurt its uniqueness somewhat, it's practically tailor-made to be a grim, hardscrabble, hopeless setting where mortal life clings on for what brief time it has left before one of the infinite number of godawful horrors eventually wins (good only has a few gods on its side, while chaos, destruction, horror, madness, and evil have literally billions of powerful entities, most of them in the far realm though. As soon as any of them break through, the world is screwed). But the mechanics don't really match that. Everyone's got superpowers, or anime powers anyway. Not 3e god-wizard or CoDzilla superpowers, but much, much more than the sort of "I have a rusty axe, some chainmail, some ingenuity in how to scrounge a living in this post-apocalyptic last gasp of mortal existence, and...yeah, that's it" that would better match the grimdark the setting implies.

So... Dark Sun without the Sorcerer Kings and less deadly psionic sandworms?


EDIT: Also, one of my biggest complains with 4e aside from the grindiness of the padded-sumo combat was that by putting everyone on a similar resource system, characters felt very samey and undifferentiated, even though fluffwise their abilities were vastly different. So mechanics are critical to flavor; it's much harder for it be handled through fluff alone.

Yeah, this is my problem with M&M, the main difference seemed to be if we were rolling for a melee attack with +X to hit and +Y damage, or a ranged attack with +A to hit and +B to damage. In other words, taking the boringness of 3.X martials and applying it to casters as well.

Not to say that you couldn't create an interesting array of powers outside of combat, but once you were in combat the only way to win was to use some sort of damage power, or maybe keep the enemy in an affliction long enough for your allies to defeat them. Sure, I can use my ice beam to put out fires, but I can also do that in GURPS, where Mind Control is a versatile in-combat power.

@Caxero: oh he literally refused to use the descriptor minigame at all. Something something plot.

[themaque]

I think this is where the Super Hero theme of M&M actually made the system work for our group.

People where always trying to figure out how they could use their powers in different ways, really making use of power stunts.

The GM had a wide variety of villains that also made situations different rather than "Hit him till they die from it!"

But I wouldn't really consider using those rules straight over for anything else. As previously stated, I have other rules systems MADE specifically for that.

My current love? Monster of the Week. Yeah, we could easily make this out of M&M but I don't think it would have half the heart and not play nearly as smoothly.

[Talakeal]

I think this is where the Super Hero theme of M&M actually made the system work for our group.

People where always trying to figure out how they could use their powers in different ways, really making use of power stunts.

The GM had a wide variety of villains that also made situations different rather than "Hit him till they die from it!"

But I wouldn't really consider using those rules straight over for anything else. As previously stated, I have other rules systems MADE specifically for that.

My current love? Monster of the Week. Yeah, we could easily make this out of M&M but I don't think it would have half the heart and not play nearly as smoothly.

The Super Hero genre is kind of annoying me right now.

We are trying to play Mutants and Masterminds, and the DM has said that for the game to work we all have to have "comic book morality," meaning that we are both willing and able to beat to crap out of people at the drop of a hat but will absolutely refuse to kill under any circumstances.

Really hard for me come up with and RP a character with that mindset.

The rules seem good though.

[Velaryon]

For me, the straitjacket feel is in 3.5. True, 5e has fewer overall options, but it seems to have quite a few more options that I want to play, or to have in my game as DM. And the amount of system mastery I need to take advantage of those options is a lot lower. I really don't like the sub-game of trying to plan out every detail of a "build" from levels 1-20. I'd rather create my character quickly and then not have to think about mechanics very much after that. (I know that's the opposite of what a lot of players want.)

In fact, most of the things you listed as not liking are areas where I prefer 5e to 3.5. The only thing I really miss still is the clerical spheres from 2e that gave priests of different gods very different spell lists.

I will say that sometimes, when you need an overly specific build to make a certain character viable after low levels (I'm looking at you, archers), or when nothing you do is going to come even close to matching the effectiveness of a different option that you just don't feel like playing (making a duelist-style melee character vs. the greatsword-wielding barbarian type), that's when I feel a bit limited in 3.5. But either because of my level of system mastery (nowhere near a lot of folks on this forum but still enough to accomplish what I want), or because of the system's greater flexibility and sheer amount of content, I find that I don't run into those walls nearly as often as I do in 5e.



Those are pretty fair reasons to not be a 5E fan. You don't like the features of the system, especially as compared to 3E.

There are individual elements I like, but somehow they combine to be less than the game I want them to be.



But that's the thing is, with the groups I've seen 3.P encourages builds while 5e encourages characters. Yeah, I'm talking in pretty broad strokes but that's been my experience.

This I think comes down to a difference in how people think. Working with the core rules of 5e, mechanically the only real differences between two characters of the same class/subclass are going to be the background, spells known if applicable, and feats if you're using that system (I really hate that it's considered optional). The result is a fairly blank slate of a character. Where one person is going to see that blank slate as a canvas on which to paint the character, another person will see nothing but the blankness, and trying to latch a character onto that won't feel natural to them.

On the other hand you have 3.5/Pathfinder. I see where you're coming from on the "encourages builds" thing, especially when you look at the way character builds are often discussed on online forums (where the narrative aspects of the character are basically ignored in favor of number crunching). But my experience has usually been that creating characters isn't like that. I almost never pre-plan a build to level 20, especially since few if any games I've played in go that far. Instead, I pick targets I want to head toward such as certain feats, prestige classes, etc., see how much of my character choices that forces me to use, and then see what else I can fit in there that seems interesting when used with what I already have.

Basically, building a character this way helps inform the personality and background of my character. It throws up weird questions, like "why does my bard have a level of druid?" OOC, that's because I am building toward the Fochlucan Lyrist class, but in character, I end up with something like:

"He was raised in a druid enclave and picked up the basic principles and magic of druids, but he knew his heart lie elsewhere. He overheard a traveler masterfully playing the lute and decided that he wanted to be a bard. As he took up the adventuring lifestyle and traveled the lands performing and developing his bardic magic, he saw how others did not value the beauty of the forest the way his family did, and over time he embraced his heritage and began to develop his druidic talents alongside his bardic abilities."

That's not Shakespeare by any means, but it's a quick-and-dirty example of how 3.5 can encourage creativity by basically asking you questions about how the character came to have certain things you want in the build. It's a very different creative process than making the personality first and fitting abilities to it, but the end result need not be any less creative or unique.



4. When it comes to skills, the roll matters ridiculously more than your character. The only characters who actually have a proper advantage when it comes to skills so that there character actually matters at all in a skill situation are bards and rogues.

I agree completely with this. As my character grows in level and experience, I want him to reliably be able to handle the things that used to challenge him, so that my high-level badass dude doesn't fail something easy like a chump because of one bad die roll. In 3.5 you can build that cushion into your character via focusing on your attack roll, skill check, caster level, or whatever it is you want to focus on.

Granted, it gets to positively silly levels when you pull out all the stops in optimizing. Things like masterwork tools for absolutely any skill, custom-crafted magic items to provide gigantic permanent skill bonuses, and so on are a problem if you let them be, particularly when it comes to poorly thought-out rules like those for the Diplomacy skill, but there's plenty of middle ground between having +80 in a skill, and not being able to ensure you can swim across a river without drowning at level 10 (just to pull an example out of my butt without checking to see how applicable it actually is in 5e).

The upper limit in 3.5 is WAY higher, but there's nothing at all that say you have to play way up there.

[JAL_1138]

So... Dark Sun without the Sorcerer Kings and less deadly psionic sandworms?


Pretty much, except set in a temperate climate instead of desert (not so much worry over dying of thirst), and with the likely armageddon being a sudden and violent end from an eldritch abomination or two (thousand) instead of the gradual fading and extinction of Dark Sun. There's potential there.

This is also why I felt like Dark Sun didn't work too well in 4e (though the modules I've seen for it being pretty mich flimsy excuses to string combat encounter after combat encounter together didn't help, since I didn't care for 4e combat). I suppose a lot of the blatantly-supernatural powers could be (and may have been) fluffed away as psionics, which are common enough there that it's probably the best setting for 4e's powers system to make sense in, but it still felt too superhero-y for the level of grimdark. Padded Sumobwas a big problem for me in a setting where life should be so cheap and easily-lost that there used to be rules for having a stable of spare characters.

While it's not my cup of tea and never will be as far as rulesets go, I do think 4e could have worked pretty well for a "fighting anime" type game, where padded-sumo combat, calling your named attacks, positioning-affecting abilities (e.g., flash step), everyone importsnt to the story having blatantly-supernatural fighting techniques, rapid healing, and suchlike are key genre characteristics. It seems so much better suited to that than to pseudo-medieval Western fantasy--and, conversely, a system like 2e AD&D would definitely not be suited to that; it couldn't model it worth a dang.

[Milo v3]

What do you care about then?
Tonnes of stuff.... Just not old school because I am ignorant on the subject. :smallconfused:


Okay, this is going to be a big problem if you want to enjoy 5e, so I don't think it's for you.
I know. This why I don't currently play it.


Also, remember that 1st level was designed more as a 'training' level than a starting level, the designers said that if you're familiar enough with D&D you should be able to start at 3rd level.
Even that would be too low level, I don't even start a level one in 3.5e. Would probably have to start at 5th level at minimum if I played again.


You wouldn't be interested in my current game
Correct.


So yeah, maybe systems other than d20 aren't for you, I can't see other systems where you go from hero to demigod. I like 5e, but then again I don't mind playing 'from zero to hapless fool'.
.... I play non-d20 systems.... :smallconfused:

Monsterhearts, Chronicles of Darkness, Pokemon Tabletop United, Exalted, Lords of Creation, the Window, Cyberpunk 2020, Call of Cthulhu, etc.

I just don't play D&D 5e, because it doesn't match the fantasy me or my players are primarily interested in, while 3.P does allow you to play at those low-levels... in addition to mid and high levels.


Because not only does my gun work exactly as your fire blast does, just with different descriptors (I think my GM not using these properly might be part of the problem)
Definitely wrong. Descriptors shouldn't be the only thing distinguishing people


but most of our characters ended up doing the same thing.
My groups had stuff from a god of darkness who was a master at sneak attacks, to a cannibalistic shapechanger who ran in and eviscerated everything, to a character who goes around possessing people and getting them to kill and attack themselves, to a guy who's only "power" was regeneration so he was primarily a distraction with his best form of attack being to try and get in close then detonate explosives, a guy who was god of the city the game took place in so he did battlefield control by altering the ground/buildings/walls, a guy who has magic tattoos so and his primary form of attack was trying to tap enemies to teleport them inside his bird-cage tattoo. It takes abit to get your head around, but you can make characters do very different things.


Also, while the limited attacks/defences are interesting, it ended up as 'let the psychic take on the brute while the rest of us pile on the ice lady'. Sure it was fast, but a lot felt lost in it.
This doesn't match my experiences to a large enough degree I feel I cannot comment on it accurately.


Yeah, but GURPS is better at sci-fi, so why would I use M&M? I can see an argument for using it for soft sci-fi, but I still think this is where GURPS really excels.
I don't own GURPS, so it's hard for me to comment on anything. But primarily you can make anything in M&M so.... why wouldn't you use it for sci-fi? You can make alien races/starships/laser weapons/technological gizmos/etc. etc. without any trouble. So why not do it?


Also, it's really not the best system for simulating Wuxia. D&D is bad at it already, and M&M removes some of the stuff it can do okay.
What? No... no no no no no. In M&M, you can play a warrior that does giant effortless jumps without magic or powers. In M&M you can cut all the raindrops that are falling within 10 ft. of you with a cut of your blade. In M&M, you can travel over water by breaking the waters surface every now and then with your blade. In M&M, you can do superhuman martial arts ridiculously easily. And remember to use stunts to do unconventional stuff all the time. D&D, doesn't really have anything to do with it since the powers and abilities in M&M are not based on D&D, it covers Everything. It doesn't really remove stuff aside from vancian casting, while at the same time adding a ridiculously immense amount of stuff you can make. If you cannot make a wuxia character using mutants and masterminds, you have not read the M&M book properly.


Plus, Taoist magic would be a pain to create in M&M, especially external and internal alchemy.
I'm not sure why those would be difficult to create at all. Sincerely.

[JoeJ]

I don't own GURPS, so it's hard for me to comment on anything. But primarily you can make anything in M&M so.... why wouldn't you use it for sci-fi? You can make alien races/starships/laser weapons/technological gizmos/etc. etc. without any trouble. So why not do it?

You probably wouldn't have noticed this since it isn't the kind of game you'd likely enjoy, but M&M is not very good with PCs who aren't significantly more powerful than the average person. (Not that there's any reason a superhero game needs to be good at that.) Below about PL 5 it becomes pretty hard to create characters that are both competent and significantly different from one another.

[Anonymouswizard]

Definitely wrong. Descriptors shouldn't be the only thing distinguishing people

Well I'm just relating my experiences. I wasn't the only one in that group who came out with the same impression of M&M.


My groups had stuff from a god of darkness who was a master at sneak attacks, to a cannibalistic shapechanger who ran in and eviscerated everything, to a character who goes around possessing people and getting them to kill and attack themselves, to a guy who's only "power" was regeneration so he was primarily a distraction with his best form of attack being to try and get in close then detonate explosives, a guy who was god of the city the game took place in so he did battlefield control by altering the ground/buildings/walls, a guy who has magic tattoos so and his primary form of attack was trying to tap enemies to teleport them inside his bird-cage tattoo. It takes abit to get your head around, but you can make characters do very different things.

Let's see, the first one is potentially a bit of a pain in GURPS, but you can do the concept, even easier with the Powers book; the second can be done easily with just the Basic Set; the third can be done with the Basic Set; so can the fourth, although GURPS tends towards the gritty so I would recommend only small explosives; the fourth is essentially impossible with the basic set, although can be done with potentially one Advantage with Powers, or using Realm Magic from thaumatology; and the fifth just sounds like a bunch of justifications for weird powers (I think the bird cage one can be done with Affliction, giving paralysis and non-switchable incorporeal).


This doesn't match my experiences to a large enough degree I feel I cannot comment on it accurately.

No, seriously, unless an enemy had balanced defences it became a case of 'is it better to use the character who targets toughness or will?' Again, just my experience.


I don't own GURPS, so it's hard for me to comment on anything. But primarily you can make anything in M&M so.... why wouldn't you use it for sci-fi? You can make alien races/starships/laser weapons/technological gizmos/etc. etc. without any trouble. So why not do it?

Maybe I want hard sci-fi, which M&M sucks royally at, but GURPS just raises it's eyebrows and goes 'yeah yeah, just ban all exotic and supernatural advantages/disadvantages, want a roughly-realistic laser while you're at it?' It also adapts well to softer sci-fi, with alien races being fairly easy to build, psionic powers which actually run off a far better system than magic, a variety of pre-statted technological gizmos, rules for inventing more, an advantage specifically to gadgeteer quickly, rules for starships (although the full rules are in a separate book), rules for lasers (including infra-red, blue-green, ultraviolet, microwave, rainbow, all available in either beam or pulser form), particle beams, gauss weaponry, powered armour, non-powered armour, tailored armour, medical equipment, survival equipment, droids, nanoswarms, cybernetics (including knee-length cyberhair*), and so on.

* The best enhancement ever, and do not let anybody tell you different. Also one of the few suitable for both the jungle and the ballroom.


What? No... no no no no no. In M&M, you can play a warrior that does giant effortless jumps without magic or powers.

Considering I've never seen anywhere specifying light-body feats have to be non-magical.


In M&M you can cut all the raindrops that are falling within 10 ft. of you with a cut of your blade.

So can I in GURPS, Fate, and even D&D for that matter.


In M&M, you can travel over water by breaking the waters surface every now and then with your blade.

And yet it's still impossible to stand on the top of a bamboo tree. I'll stick to the systems Qin and Legends of the Wulin use for this sort of stuff.


In M&M, you can do superhuman martial arts ridiculously easily.

This isn't actually a feature of wuxia. Sure, plenty of wuxia stories have superhuman martial arts, but there are others where the martial arts are very human, just masterful. Oh, and pressure points (this and 'light body skill' being the only vaguly superhuman things in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).


And remember to use stunts to do unconventional stuff all the time.

That's actually fairly un-wuxia. In wuxia people do conventional stuff incredibly well, and generallu must spend time before they can call up a new move.


D&D, doesn't really have anything to do with it since the powers and abilities in M&M are not based on D&D, it covers Everything.

Except being realistic enough to cover hard sci-fi. It kind of sucks royally at that.


It doesn't really remove stuff aside from vancian casting, while at the same time adding a ridiculously immense amount of stuff you can make. If you cannot make a wuxia character using mutants and masterminds, you have not read the M&M book properly.

Not denying that you can't make a Wuxia character. High dodge and Parry, good attack/damage mix, various advantages improving combat abilities, and a few powers at a low level to represent a variety of benefits from practicing martial arts. I'm arguing it's bad at running a wuxia game.


I'm not sure why those would be difficult to create at all. Sincerely.

Lots of weird effects that rare come up in a game. As in, the how can actually be rather important, something M&M barely respects.

[Quertus]

Why do I play 3.x? Because that's what I can get a play group playing. If I were the only one that mattered, if D&D was a game you played by yourself, then I'd probably play more 2e than 3e.

Why is 3.x what people play? Sunk cost. "I don't want to buy more books"; "I don't want to learn a new system"; "I certainly don't want to learn an old system" are all things I've heard.

I think 2e was more fun, while 3e was much more codified, and easy to use. I felt 3e was more bland than 2e. With all the expansions, 3.x has become... a different kind of flavorful than 2e. Just compare wild mages in the two editions to see just how bland 3.x is by comparison.

So, 3e is popular with my game groups because it was the first version of D&D that was easy to use, and no version since has given a compelling reason to switch, while familiarity, sunk cost, and breadth of options are all strong reasons to stay with 3.x.



THAC0 is BAB, but negative. That's quite easily it. Make your attack roll, subtract from THAC0, you hit that AC. It's as simple as BAB.


Oh, here it is. The idiotic 'but subtraction is harder than addition except being 99.99999999999999999999999999999% identical' thing. Games don't use THAC0-esque systems because you are lazy.

I love 2e, but THAC0 is terrible. While it is technically as simple as BAB, it is no where near as intuitive as BAB. I have taught 7-year-olds to play d20 without difficulty, but even intelligent college graduates have trouble groking 2e's arbitrary "do I want high or low" stats, saves, AC, THAC0 / stat checks, save rolls, and attacks.


Anyway, on topic, what matters to me in a game are:

Is the game easy for a new player to pick up and play?
Once you're playing, is everyone going to have fun?
Do the rules emphasize the parts of the game that the group cares about?

3e fails all of these spectacularly (it's complex and rules-heavy with an elaborate char-gen minigame; it's imbalanced and unforgiving to the point that one bad roll will send you back to that painfully prolonged char-gen

Now, admittedly, the delightful breadth of options in 3.x makes the character creation mini game require more benefit more from system mastery, but at least someone who knows the game can tell you how to create a ninja pirate zombie robot, rather than just saying that you can't (or, worse, that you have to homebrew it). Few games are easier to learn to play a ninja pirate zombie robot in than 3.x.

So I think that part of the strength of 3.x is that it succeeds at those 3 things. Other than a crit at low levels, what single roll can you not be resurrected from? How is being forced back to the drawing board a common problem in 3.x?


Bounded accuracy makes high level nonexistent. I don't understand how that could possibly be good. If you don't like high level, play low level. Don't remove it from the game and claim that design decision was good.

I think I agree. It's there anything you get out of 5e's bounded accuracy that you can't get by simply playing a sub set of an earlier edition? Other than obsoleting the adventurer with armies of cannon fodder, that is?


From what I've read of MnM so far, it's rules-lite bordering on freeform, with abilities that don't really differ


Really? I found M&M bland and lacking, because not only does my gun work exactly as your fire blast does, just with different descriptors (I think my GM not using these properly might be part of the problem), but most of our characters ended up doing the same thing. Also, while the limited attacks/defences are interesting, it ended up as 'let the psychic take on the brute while the rest of us pile on the ice lady'. Sure it was fast, but a lot felt lost in it.

Yeah, but GURPS is better at sci-fi, so why would I use M&M? I can see an argument for using it for soft sci-fi, but I still think this is where GURPS really excels.



Yeah, this is my problem with M&M, the main difference seemed to be if we were rolling for a melee attack with +X to hit and +Y damage, or a ranged attack with +A to hit and +B to damage. In other words, taking the boringness of 3.X martials and applying it to casters as well.

Not to say that you couldn't create an interesting array of powers outside of combat, but once you were in combat the only way to win was to use some sort of damage power, or maybe keep the enemy in an affliction long enough for your allies to defeat them. Sure, I can use my ice beam to put out fires, but I can also do that in GURPS, where Mind Control is a versatile in-combat power.

Um... off the top of my head... transform, stun, sleep, fatigue, illusions, mental illusions, entangle, mind control, stat drain, teleport your foe to the moon, create a wall around them, use super speed to build a wall around them... let alone create 1000 copies of yourself which each summon 1000 creatures and ask your foe politely to give up. Or spend a hero point to say that there is a foo in the environment that your foe is weak against. Or, yeah, you could also deal damage to them. And you can build any of these attacks to go against any of several defenses.

One of the best parts of M&M, IMO, is the extreme rock paper scissors lizard Spock tactics of choosing who is best suited to go against whom. Not just in terms of powers, but also descriptors. You rarely get that level of choice in most games, IME.

But I must admit, for any option it has, M&M feels rather... less interesting than most systems. I know it shouldn't, with all the modifiers, descriptors, etc, but it somehow does. I can't put my finger on it. Perhaps I just like HP and dealing damage too much? Or perhaps I've had too many horrible GMs, and anything just sounds like an excuse for the GM to be a ****.

[gooddragon1]

I like 3.5 because:
+It has an SRD that's easily accessible
+I have the hard copy books
+It's the edition I played for 3 years
+It has flexibility to allow me to do anything I want that I can homebrew
+I've homebrewed stuff for it
+As long as you've got an agreement with your players, it works well and in exchange it grants flexibility (rather than having to enforce balance through restrictions).

[Milo v3]

Let's see, the first one is potentially a bit of a pain in GURPS, but you can do the concept, even easier with the Powers book; the second can be done easily with just the Basic Set; the third can be done with the Basic Set; so can the fourth, although GURPS tends towards the gritty so I would recommend only small explosives; the fourth is essentially impossible with the basic set, although can be done with potentially one Advantage with Powers, or using Realm Magic from thaumatology; and the fifth just sounds like a bunch of justifications for weird powers (I think the bird cage one can be done with Affliction, giving paralysis and non-switchable incorporeal).
I don't care. You are missing the point of that statement, and going onto a completely different tangent. That statement was in reply to the characters all doing the same thing, so I showed how I disagreed by talking about characters that did different things. I was not saying "You cannot do any of this with GURPS" at all.

Though the gritty thing is one of the biggest flaws I've heard of that GURPS possesses, I mean, it's meant to be a universal system. Though I don't know why you'd only use small explosives in that specific case?


No, seriously, unless an enemy had balanced defences it became a case of 'is it better to use the character who targets toughness or will?' Again, just my experience.
I wasn't saying you weren't being serious. Merely that my experience was so different I feel it would be unfair and rude of me to argue against your experience in that respect.


Maybe I want hard sci-fi, which M&M sucks royally at
So? I didn't say Hard Sci-Fi, I just said Sci-Fi. I am not saying "M&M does everything perfectly better than anything else that exists". I am saying "You can use M&M for fantasy/superheroes/sci-fi". Though, I'm not sure it'd be ridiculously hard to do hard sci-fi.... I mean, you just don't allow the powers to do anything that isn't justified and have the effects match how the devices work. Also, have weapons inflict conditions in addition to damage rather than just damage.


With alien races being fairly easy to build, psionic powers which actually run off a far better system than magic, a variety of pre-statted technological gizmos, rules for inventing more, an advantage specifically to gadgeteer quickly, rules for starships (although the full rules are in a separate book), rules for lasers (including infra-red, blue-green, ultraviolet, microwave, rainbow, all available in either beam or pulser form), particle beams, gauss weaponry, powered armour, non-powered armour, tailored armour, medical equipment, survival equipment, droids, nanoswarms, cybernetics (including knee-length cyberhair*), and so on.
Not sure why you are mentioning this since M&M has all that.... Could you expand on this point?


Considering I've never seen anywhere specifying light-body feats have to be non-magical.
What? I didn't say they Have to be. I said they can do it... since wuxia characters are often doing leaps through skill and finesse rather than magic. Not that they Have to.


So can I in GURPS, Fate, and even D&D for that matter.
You can't do that in D&D, but that's not my point. Seriously. I'm saying M&M can do wuxia stuff. Not "LOOK M&M IS SUPER UNIQUE AND GIVES YOU ABILITIES YOU CAN'T DO ANYWHERE ELSE!!!!" Please read my actual arguments.


And yet it's still impossible to stand on the top of a bamboo tree.
.... No? Just jump up there, either with leaping or a good Atheletics [Jump] check, and then make a balance check on it (possibly enhanced by Enhance Acrobatics power that is limited to ). Or just use Wall Crawling (limited to upright).


This isn't actually a feature of wuxia. Sure, plenty of wuxia stories have superhuman martial arts, but there are others where the martial arts are very human, just masterful.
Then that's not wuxia. That's just a martial arts movie. The two words are not equivelent. Wuxia is specifically superhuman, often accomplished through masterful technique and skill.


Oh, and pressure points (this and 'light body skill' being the only vaguly superhuman things in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon).
You're seriously telling me Doing super jumps, leaping off water, and standing on leaves is only vaguely superhuman? If you want this scene and think it's only vaguely superhuman, you may have to clarify what sort of ridiculous stuff you think humans are able to do because.... humans can't do that stuff. (https://youtu.be/Ccmava-4KnY)

... and M&M does pressure point stuff....


That's actually fairly un-wuxia. In wuxia people do conventional stuff incredibly well, and generallu must spend time before they can call up a new move.
That was actually to represent minor things that wuxia characters sometimes do that might only come up once in the entire movie, something that you might not spend points on for your character to permanently have, but might use once. Like catching and balancing falling valuable object on their blade or something.


Except being realistic enough to cover hard sci-fi. It kind of sucks royally at that.
Again, your misunderstanding the point of that section. I was saying the powers and abilities in M&M are not based on D&D, it covers basically everything. Not that M&M matches everything's themes, but that it's powers are not limited to what D&D has. In D&D you cannot play a character who is a time-travelling warrior who superages anyone they slice with their blade. In D&D you can't just summon a magic broom for flight. In D&D you cannot create a whole universe (you can make a tiny universe with Genesis though). You cannot copy any power that hits you. You cannot be someone able to headbutt so hard it destroys buildings. You cannot manipulate flower petals as a form of attack and defence. You cannot look at someone and learn all their combat techniques. You cannot wield a parasol as a weapon. You cannot etc. etc. etc. D&D is not the limit of what you can do in M&M, that was the point of that statement.


I'm arguing it's bad at running a wuxia [B]game.
And yet you have not said how.


Lots of weird effects that rare come up in a game. As in, the how can actually be rather important, something M&M barely respects.
.... Weird effects that rarely come up in the game is specifically what stunts or the varied power is for....

[JoeJ]

Though, I'm not sure it'd be ridiculously hard to do hard sci-fi.... I mean, you just don't allow the powers to do anything that isn't justified and have the effects match how the devices work. Also, have weapons inflict conditions in addition to damage rather than just damage.

For a GM to try and decide what is and is not justified during the game and without any guidance whatsoever from the rules would be extraordinarily difficult. And they would still have to homebrew rules for realistic spacecraft, because the space travel power in M&M only models comic book physics.

[Cazero]

For a GM to try and decide what is and is not justified during the game and without any guidance whatsoever from the rules would be extraordinarily difficult.
Strongly depends of the GM. The only difficulty I ever had about that kind of thing is picking appropriate DCs. And M&M simple table about what an abilty of X represents would be enough to cover most of my needs.


And they would still have to homebrew rules for realistic spacecraft, because the space travel power in M&M only models comic book physics.
Not necessarily. You can make space travel powers using the extensible speed and distance table (http://www.d20herosrd.com/home/ranks-and-measures), it simply require additional effort to not be dysfunctional. Just look at how dirt cheap dimensional travel is : same design intent, it's cheap because making the plot enabler a simple and affordable tool is more important that accurately modeling the laws of physics.
But if you really want to make it hard sci-fi style, nothing stops you to do legit space travel with a very strong Speed/Flight power. Just put appropriate flaws to cut off the excessive versatility and reduce the gigantic cost. The only "houserule" necessary for realism is vetoing inappropriate powers, something every M&M GM have to do anyway because players can game the system by accident.

[Blue Lantern]

So, to summarise the last 10 pages, I can see there are three main reasons for people to keep playing 3.5 over switching:


Familiarity and unwillingness to switch to a new system on the account of having fun with what they have.
Liking the more fine grained character creation an customization.
Liking the way higher power ceiling especially at high or epic levels.

[PersonMan]

For me the question isn't 'why keep playing 3.5', but rather 'why stop?' and I don't think 5e has what I want in a system. Without the payoff, I don't think it's worth it for me to learn 5e properly so I don't bother.

[JoeJ]

Not necessarily. You can make space travel powers using the extensible speed and distance table (http://www.d20herosrd.com/home/ranks-and-measures), it simply require additional effort to not be dysfunctional. Just look at how dirt cheap dimensional travel is : same design intent, it's cheap because making the plot enabler a simple and affordable tool is more important that accurately modeling the laws of physics.
But if you really want to make it hard sci-fi style, nothing stops you to do legit space travel with a very strong Speed/Flight power. Just put appropriate flaws to cut off the excessive versatility and reduce the gigantic cost. The only "houserule" necessary for realism is vetoing inappropriate powers, something every M&M GM have to do anyway because players can game the system by accident.

That table assumes travel at a constant speed, and doesn't take acceleration into account at all. For realistic, hard SF space travel, that's about useless. You'd need to figure out how build a vehicle with acceleration ranks (which don't exist in the game) rather than speed ranks, and have a way to track fuel used for each change in speed or direction. It's a completely different way of thinking about movement than you'd use for air/land/water travel.

I really like M&M. It's a great system for almost any kind of cinematic larger-than-life action adventure. But it's not very good at the gritty, realistic stories.

[johnbragg]

For me the question isn't 'why keep playing 3.5', but rather 'why stop?' and I don't think 5e has what I want in a system. Without the payoff, I don't think it's worth it for me to learn 5e properly so I don't bother.

This is what I was saying a hundred or so posts ago. I broke in at the dawn of 2E, and encountered older groups at the Compleat Strategist who didn't update from 1E. But they were OOOOLD, like 30, and so both incomprehensible and irrelevant. (I also couldn't fathom the group at my school a year or two younger that was playing high-level BECMI).

3E had huge buy-in. Adding skills and Feats in an organized fashion, and level-by-level multiclasing, was a quantum leap forward. There was tremendous goodwill, enough that we bought the 3.5 books with minimal complaint. Think about that. In 2000, we bought the D&D 3.0 upgrade, PHB, DMG, MM. In *2003*, the same folks put out 3.5, and we paid them AGAIN for the PHB, DMG, MM with little complaining. The 3.0 to 3.5 tweaks could bave been in a single upgrade volume, but we handed WOTC another $100 because we were so happy with 3.0 we were okay with it.

That's tremendous brand loyalty. WOTC saved D&D, and we threw money at them. Then 4th edition basically ruined all of that. And it taught the player base "Why switch?"

[Talakeal]

So, to summarise the last 10 pages, I can see there are three main reasons for people to keep playing 3.5 over switching:


Familiarity and unwillingness to switch to a new system on the account of having fun with what they have.
Liking the more fine grained character creation an customization.
Liking the way higher power ceiling especially at high or epic levels.


For me its less about power ceiling and more reliable power levels.

Bounded accuracy means that the dice is more important than the roll and that means masters will fail at tasks that imept folk can bungle through a shocking amount of the time.

[Segev]

I really like M&M. It's a great system for almost any kind of cinematic larger-than-life action adventure. But it's not very good at the gritty, realistic stories.

Tangential aside, one of my favorite rules in M&M 3e is a very minor one that nevertheless reinforces superhero stereotypes amazingly: in the falling damage rules, the damage you take is dependent on the distance you fall. Distances are measured in "ranks" (which correspond to real distances, but I don't remember how off the top of my head). The effective distance you fall, however, is reduced by the level of super-strength anybody catching you happens to have.

So if Superman catches Lois Lane 3 feet from the ground after she fell off of a skyscraper, his super-strength can reduce her fall distance to practically nothing, explaining why she's just fine afterwards.

[themaque]

For me its less about power ceiling and more reliable power levels.

Bounded accuracy means that the dice is more important than the roll and that means masters will fail at tasks that imept folk can bungle through a shocking amount of the time.

Actually, that master shouldn't make the roll unless there is a chance of failure. He should just be able to DO things.

Aaaaand that's a whole other can of worms and goes back to the guidelines GM interpretation vs hard mechanical yet intimidating rules set.

[Talakeal]

Actually, that master shouldn't make the roll unless there is a chance of failure. He should just be able to DO things.

Aaaaand that's a whole other can of worms and goes back to the guidelines GM interpretation vs hard mechanical yet intimidating rules set.

Yes, a very large can of worms. People have written very large essays explaining how weird this can get and how unfair and arbitrary it can seem, and we probably shouldn't bother restating it here.

For example, if the DM decides that a +10 is enough to automatically climb a wall without a roll and the party consists of half people with +9 and half with +10, that means that the success rate is 100% for half the part and 45% for the other half, despite only a +1 difference in their scores.

[Segev]

Yes, a very large can of worms. People have written very large essays explaining how weird this can get and how unfair and arbitrary it can seem, and we probably shouldn't bother restating it here.

For example, if the DM decides that a +10 is enough to automatically climb a wall without a roll and the party consists of half people with +9 and half with +10, that means that the success rate is 100% for half the part and 45% for the other half, despite only a +1 difference in their scores.

Sometimes, those +1s are significant. 3e D&D handled this with "take 10" and even "take 20" rules. "Take 10" really did just represent "this task is verily routine if you're skilled at it, so don't bother rolling." You didn't risk failing if your skill+10 would do it. You had to roll if you needed 11 or more on the die, but still might succeed.

"Take 20" was for "I'm going to keep trying 'til I get it." "Okay, just take 20; it takes 20x as long, but you eventually will roll a 20. If you can't succeed on a 20, then you can't succeed."

It removes a bit of the unfairness, as the DM in theory sets the DC fairly, and then just lets the PCs' numbers settle it.

[Cluedrew]

I'll throw another reason out there.

Because some people have been playing this system for so long that anything different is by definition wrong.

Which is a shame. They are missing out on so many different games (both in terms of system and campaign) that they just will move past simply because it was not D&D. These games are not better than 3.5 not by a long shot, but saying that they are by some overall measure worse is also wrong.

Generic/specialized, rules light/heavy, narrative(aka story telling)/pure role-play, gritty/high-powered. These are just some of the major dividing lines I could think of. And I have not seen an argument for why any side of any line is better than the other. Why an individual prefers one to the other yes, but that doesn't make it better.

Now, if you have tried other systems and still say "3.5 all the way" yes I will agree with you, 3.5 is the system for you. But that doesn't make it the system for everybody.

[Milo v3]

That table assumes travel at a constant speed, and doesn't take acceleration into account at all. For realistic, hard SF space travel, that's about useless. You'd need to figure out how build a vehicle with acceleration ranks (which don't exist in the game) rather than speed ranks, and have a way to track fuel used for each change in speed or direction. It's a completely different way of thinking about movement than you'd use for air/land/water travel.
Once I actually considered making the limitation as GM of a M&M that if you take speed powers in that specific gme you have give them the quirk modifier, with it enforcing acceleration.

[gooddragon1]

That's tremendous brand loyalty. WOTC saved D&D, and we threw money at them. Then 4th edition basically ruined all of that. And it taught the player base "Why switch?"

This. This. Dear God, this.

[themaque]

To be fair, there are ALWAYS Die hards for any edition, including 4th.

At the end of the day "Play what's fun for you and let other people play what they like. "

I like the provision "Don't be afraid to try new things." but my buddy Mark I'm sure will accuse me of being in the Cult of the New so thus biased. ;-)

[AMFV]

To be fair, there are ALWAYS Die hards for any edition, including 4th.

At the end of the day "Play what's fun for you and let other people play what they like. "

I like the provision "Don't be afraid to try new things." but my buddy Mark I'm sure will accuse me of being in the Cult of the New so thus biased. ;-)

Nah man, the only real D&D is played using Chainmail rules, and then you have to have a seance so you can have Gygax DM. Anything else is just an imitation.

[Tiktakkat]

That's tremendous brand loyalty. WOTC saved D&D, and we threw money at them. Then 4th edition basically ruined all of that. And it taught the player base "Why switch?"

WotC didn't "save" D&D; they pursued profits for themselves.
And they did it in an organized and focused fashion, that included telling us they were going to do a "fourth" edition, which, other than the "burp" of 3.5, came out precisely on schedule.

The issue with "4th edition" wasn't that it a new edition, but that it was built on an unsound mathematical basis, using a completely wrong set of customer expectations, then promoted on a basis of trashing both the old system and its existing player base, who they were trying to pander to with the system changes, on a premise of "firing" the existing customer base and getting a "better" (more "modern" and "in-crowd") one.
It wasn't so much teaching the player base "Why switch?", but shouting at them "We've become corporate idiots!", and proceeding to prove it.

[ImNotTrevor]

WotC didn't "save" D&D; they pursued profits for themselves.
And they did it in an organized and focused fashion, that included telling us they were going to do a "fourth" edition, which, other than the "burp" of 3.5, came out precisely on schedule.

The issue with "4th edition" wasn't that it a new edition, but that it was built on an unsound mathematical basis, using a completely wrong set of customer expectations, then promoted on a basis of trashing both the old system and its existing player base, who they were trying to pander to with the system changes, on a premise of "firing" the existing customer base and getting a "better" (more "modern" and "in-crowd") one.
It wasn't so much teaching the player base "Why switch?", but shouting at them "We've become corporate idiots!", and proceeding to prove it.

I'm not saying they did it right with what I'm going to say here, I think that they did the opposite of the right thing. However, their overall goal of "Get a new generation into D&D" was the right goal to focus on.

The basis for this is really simple. If WotC doesn't attract new customers at a more regular rate than its oldest users die/abandon the franchise/stop purchasing product then the D&D brand will ultimately die. (They can survive off of MtG just fine, but they won't continue an unprofitable product line because that's stupid.) So the solution is to attract the younger generation to D&D. Apparently their market research was either never done at all, or was done by some amateurs fresh out of college who had never heard of a Deeundee but figured it was worth the cash to take the job. We know this because their advertising approach to D&D 4e was "It's hip, it's cool, it's totally not for old people. Screw old people. Youths dislike old people, right? Yeah! Skateboards and Nintendo X-boxes!"

This approach, as it always does, fell flat on its face because it was a decision made by older guys trying to appeal to what they thought the younger generation was into. This always fails. Always. It's why market research exists, and why young people are better for this task. Does it mean they are wrong to want to bring D&D back into hipness and being young-folk friendly? Nope. Their goal was a good one. Their execution....was awful.

So it's probably not so much that WotC is incompetent. Their marketing department is. Absolutely. The advertising agency their hired to do this was also incompetent. Or, they didn't hire one and got shafted because they figured it would save them money rather than the expense being a really important investment for the continued life of the brand. I don't know what happened behind closed doors, but I would be extremely hesitant to say the decision was based on 100% pure greed. Their intentions were probably at least not-evil. I don't think a council of men in dark suits were laughing maniacally at how clever they were when the first set of ads rolled out and then celebrated with some cigars, misogyny, and snorting lots of cocaine through hundred dollar bills that they then set aflame. (I think I got too into that description. Where was I?)

Yeah, it was a stupid decision. But I don't think WotC is anywhere near large enough a company to call out as being especially "corporate." But that's just my thoughts on the matter and not a claim of fact. Just my thoughts.

[gooddragon1]

I don't think a council of men in dark suits were laughing maniacally at how clever they were when the first set of ads rolled out and then celebrated with some cigars, misogyny, and snorting lots of cocaine through hundred dollar bills that they then set aflame.

It's good you don't think that. Because it's completely inaccurate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsQ5eC7P6Dk). /Joke

[ImNotTrevor]

Honestly, I'm surprised Wizards of the Coast hasn't already become a Shadowrun-esque independent state that controls large swaths of the US countryside and imposes corporate law upon its millions of wage-slaves, considering how corporate and evil they are.:xykon:

[Kane0]

More than a few video game megacompnies would demolish wotc if they ever did that. Not to namE nAmes or anything.

Challenge Everything.

[Clistenes]

Nah man, the only real D&D is played using Chainmail rules, and then you have to have a seance so you can have Gygax DM. Anything else is just an imitation.

You are all wrong. The real original D&D is a battle game created by Alfonso X of Castile "The Wise" during the XIII century. His game was called "Great Chess", and it had a big ass checkered table with two armies that included archers, knights, elephants, griffins, dragons, unicorns, lions, bears and all kind of creatures, and when two creatures fought, they used a eight-sided dice to simulate combat.

He also wrote the first PHB, the Book of Games.

[Segev]

WotC didn't "save" D&D; they pursued profits for themselves.

I will note that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Much of what is good in this world comes from people pursuing profit for themselves. The primary distinction is whether they pursue it by trying to make something that other people will like, or by trying to deceive, con, steal, or mug people for it.

WotC, for all its failings in creating 4e, never tried any of the latter. In fact, the very fact that PF took off and that WotC no longer has the deathgrip on the majority of the market they once had is evidence that 4e was not the best choice they could have made. That doesn't mean they didn't do good things by the D&D-loving community by coming out with 3e and pursuing profits therewith.

[themaque]

Just to piggyback on Segev here,

for better or worse, the d20 model and SRD changed the face of gaming. Allowing for a lot of small publishers to get their star.

[Quertus]

Generic/specialized, rules light/heavy, narrative(aka story telling)/pure role-play, gritty/high-powered. These are just some of the major dividing lines I could think of. And I have not seen an argument for why any side of any line is better than the other. Why an individual prefers one to the other yes, but that doesn't make it better.

To attempt to present such an argument... I would contend that bad GMs, and transporting characters between groups, make certain characteristics of games advantageous. Namely, "there is a clear rule for this" rules heavy, and "don't need to home brew" rules heavy, respectively.

But, in general, I agree with you - different styles of games appeal to different people, and some people like the advantages of using different styles of systems to play different games.

[Tiktakkat]

. . . I don't think a council of men in dark suits were laughing maniacally at how clever they were when the first set of ads rolled out and then celebrated with some cigars, misogyny, and snorting lots of cocaine through hundred dollar bills that they then set aflame. (I think I got too into that description. Where was I?)

Yeah, it was a stupid decision. But I don't think WotC is anywhere near large enough a company to call out as being especially "corporate." But that's just my thoughts on the matter and not a claim of fact. Just my thoughts.

Just for the record:
You are aware that when "3rd edition" was released, WotC had already been sold to Hasbro, right?
And that the only reason the SRD and D20 License got out is that Hasbro moved too slow to realize just what they meant until it was too late (mostly because they were focusing on Pokémon and wondering how the license for it disappeared shortly after they bought WotC), right?


I will note that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Much of what is good in this world comes from people pursuing profit for themselves. The primary distinction is whether they pursue it by trying to make something that other people will like, or by trying to deceive, con, steal, or mug people for it.

It isn't whether they are mutually exclusive or not, but whether they are relevant and pursued.
WotC's goal was to make money - period.
That it incidentally revitalized interest in the D&D brand name - whatever, as long as they cashed in big on it, which they did, was just that - incidental.


WotC, for all its failings in creating 4e, never tried any of the latter. In fact, the very fact that PF took off and that WotC no longer has the deathgrip on the majority of the market they once had is evidence that 4e was not the best choice they could have made. That doesn't mean they didn't do good things by the D&D-loving community by coming out with 3e and pursuing profits therewith.

Except WotC does still have the deathgrip on the market they have always had. Just because "4th edition" was a failure and Paizo has an excessively vocal fanbase has in no way changed that.

As for the tactics employed, let us note:
1. WotC constructed "3rd edition" on the premise of "system mastery. That meant you had to play the game more, and preferably pay them more for splat book content, in order to get the most out of the system. Indeed they even priced the initial release of core books below their required market price as loss leaders to get people to sign into their Splat Book of the Month Club.
2. Paizo promoted PFRPG as "3.5 Lives!" It isn't. There are enough differences that the claimed compatibility simply isn't there. In the process, they have established their own Splat Book of the Month Club. And as for commitment to it? They were more than willing to switch to "4th edition" when it was released - until they finally saw how lousy the license was. Then they were more than willing to flirt with switching to "5th edition" - even putting out their "unchained" classes - and only refrained when they realized "5th edition" wasn't going to go over the top with releases.

I like the game, and even a few of the people involved in making it.
Not being impressed with WotC (or Paizo) is not about them.

[ComaVision]

Paizo promoted PFRPG as "3.5 Lives!" It isn't. There are enough differences that the claimed compatibility simply isn't there.

I really don't agree with you here. I've never played Pathfinder but I can grab stuff straight out of the "book" and roll with it if Pathfinder has something I want and 3.5 doesn't. My group has a first-time DM with a shaky understanding of the rules running a Pathfinder AP in 3.5 rules and there haven't been any major hiccups so far.

[Cluedrew]

To attempt to present such an argument... I would contend that [various things] make certain characteristics of games advantageous.Yes; in individual case different systems can become "better" for various reasons. For instance a rules light game would be perfect if "we are on a bus for 3 hours and didn't plan ahead". Setting is also another big one, since a lot of systems are tied to a particular type of setting mechanically. D&D is not going to cut it for a Star Wars game.

Just to provided some more examples of how a particular situation can change things.

[Pex]

Paizo "Splat books of the month" are all free on-line. Players can purchase hard copy books if they want, but they don't have to to use them. Paizo makes their money through modules, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that nor making profit from those who actually do buy the books.

[Tiktakkat]

Paizo "Splat books of the month" are all free on-line. Players can purchase hard copy books if they want, but they don't have to to use them. Paizo makes their money through modules, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that nor making profit from those who actually do buy the books.

I never said there was anything wrong with making a profit.
I never said there was anything wrong with making that profit from adventures.

However, the splat books themselves are not all free on-line.
Specific rules information from them is, but the entire books are not.

This combination of strawman combined with inaccurate information is precisely why I was cautioning against idealizing the publishers.

[gadren]

So, I know I'm in the minority, but I loved 4e. I also loved 3.5 (and still play it). I feel like the two are apples and oranges, and 4e is good for when you want to play a strategic RPG that feels a bit like a card game.
The reason I basically went back to 3.PF when 5e came out was that 4e was cut short and I just didn't want to invest in yet another edition. I love 4e and 3.5, 5e just doesn't has enough to offer for me to shell out the money and time investment.

[gadren]

Except WotC does still have the deathgrip on the market they have always had. Just because "4th edition" was a failure and Paizo has an excessively vocal fanbase has in no way changed that.

This is demonstrably false. While I can't speak for the current situation, I know for a fact that about 2 years after 4e came out, D&D lost its claim of largest market share of the tabletop RPG for the first time in decades. Pathfinder grabbed the #1 spot. Hasbro execs were not happy about it.

So they have not "always" had a deathgrip on the market.

[Tiktakkat]

This is demonstrably false. While I can't speak for the current situation, I know for a fact that about 2 years after 4e came out, D&D lost its claim of largest market share of the tabletop RPG for the first time in decades. Pathfinder grabbed the #1 spot. Hasbro execs were not happy about it.

So they have not "always" had a deathgrip on the market.

A fact based on what?
I've heard the claims, but they have never come with anything to back them out.

Hasbro execs have never been happy with D&D. They consider is a ridiculously niche product, with excessive costs, miniscule product runs, and a fanbase with weird ideas of entitlement to use their IP.

[ImNotTrevor]

A fact based on what?
I've heard the claims, but they have never come with anything to back them out.

Hasbro execs have never been happy with D&D. They consider is a ridiculously niche product, with excessive costs, miniscule product runs, and a fanbase with weird ideas of entitlement to use their IP.

I can grab the market figures for you.
Combined with the links from THIS thread that gathered them for me:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?353592-5-years-of-ICV2-Rankings-A-retrospective

WotC dropped off of the lead starting in the second quarter of 2011 and their position slides downward from there. Let's get back to today, eh?.....

They were not #1 for Spring 2014:
http://icv2.com/articles/games/view/29329/top-5-rpgs-spring-2014
In fact, they didn't make the top 5.

They were not #1 in Summer 2014:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?371211-ICv2-Summer-2014-Ranks
They crept back up in the summer to #2 because 5e has released.

They popped back up for Holiday season 2014.
http://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/30955/top-5-roleplaying-games-fall-holiday-2014


So they struggled for the lead for THREE YEARS, and even disappeared entirely from the top sales positions.

And before I get the complaint I'm sensing, ICV2 is pretty much the only market report source for hobby gaming that wouldn't A) require me to put together the numbers myself or B) cost me a lot of money.

There's your source, sonny-jim.

And remember, WotC was acquired by Hasbro, yes. But in a lot of acquisitions like this, the company that now owns the smaller one will remain pretty hands-off. So I still doubt that after Hasbro signed that first check, WotC upper management became Hutt-esque creeping masses of evilly chuckling human flesh. In fact, the watchful eye of Hasbro probably didn't help at all. "You better make us some money or we're gonna have you all making My Little Pony Boardgames."

Again, we don't see behind closed doors and most of these sorts of things are usually stupidity, not greed.
"Don't attribute to malice that which can be attributed to stupidity" -Michael Jordan, 1787

[Tiktakkat]

And before I get the complaint I'm sensing, ICV2 is pretty much the only market report source for hobby gaming that wouldn't A) require me to put together the numbers myself or B) cost me a lot of money.

No, the complaint you are going to get is:
"The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers."

So . . . not actual, you know, direct sale figures.
Or how many people were playing the various games during those periods.
Or whether that covers PDF sales. (Which it doesn't appear to.)
Or sales outside the US and Canada. (Which it clearly doesn't.)

And so much for you knowing anything about the market share "for a fact" sonny-jim.
At most you've got the three years from when they killed D&D minis and were beclowning themselves with 4.5 where they dropped off ICV2's list. Yeah, that was a pretty low point, and WotC may even have actually dropped down . . .
. . . and then rebounded immediately as soon as they had new product, pretty much demonstrating that even in "death", they retained their "grip" on the market.
Hmmm . . .


And remember, WotC was acquired by Hasbro, yes. But in a lot of acquisitions like this, the company that now owns the smaller one will remain pretty hands-off.

In fact, they did.
(There were announcements to that effect, including Adkison remaining in charge at WotC.)


So I still doubt that after Hasbro signed that first check, WotC upper management became Hutt-esque creeping masses of evilly chuckling human flesh.

That assumes they weren't already of course.
(Not that I think they were. They were just ordinary humans looking to cash in on their awesome investment - which they did.)


In fact, the watchful eye of Hasbro probably didn't help at all. "You better make us some money or we're gonna have you all making My Little Pony Boardgames."

Which in fact did happen.
(Again, there were more than enough announcements as it happened, including Adkison leaving WotC.)


Again, we don't see behind closed doors and most of these sorts of things are usually stupidity, not greed.

I already noted the stupidity that was part of the "4E" promotional material.
And I've noted it wasn't about greed, just making money - preferably enough not to get fired during the annual year-end downsizing.

[Piedmon_Sama]

I feel like, as low of a bar as 3.5 might set, Pathfinder is actually worse for overall balance and absolutely unrestrained in its splat creep (I mean they even let third party stuff up on the wiki for Pete's sake....) Admittedly this may come from having more experience with 3.5 versus playing Pathfinder (which I'm just now finally getting into after five years of dragging my heels.....), wherein I feel like I'm groping through an enormous sea of options with no idea if the character I'm making is going to be a stud or a dud.


e: As for other D&D editions, they're not even in the running. 5e is just.... I actually bought the books and tried running a session for my friends, but since we all had to share the PHB it was slow going and awkward and I don't think any of my friends want to drop another $120 on yet another roleplaying game. Ultimately I wasn't happy with how simplified everything from the combat to the classes felt. It just felt like a much smaller, more restricted game than 3.5. I still feel so dumb whenever I look at my once-ever used 5e books. I need to sell them on e-bay but I already got a coffee stain on the DM's Guide ugh.

4e.... HA HA HA no, just no.

[Milo v3]

I feel like, as low of a bar as 3.5 might set, Pathfinder is actually worse for overall balance and absolutely unrestrained in its splat creep
Power is actually closer to the middle in general with new material than it was from the core book, though of course rare exception exist. Balance is better than it was from the CRB.


(I mean they even let third party stuff up on the wiki for Pete's sake....)
That is completely false. The PRD, which is the one paizo actually owns has no third-party at all. Random fans then made the d20pfsrd which contents third-party and paizo cannot do anything to make them not have third-party content since.... it's not Paizo's site.

[Piedmon_Sama]

the d20pfsrd is what my group uses and believe me it's a circus.

If I never see some weird ass broke witch variant again it'll be too soon. e_____e

[Milo v3]

the d20pfsrd is what my group uses and believe me it's a circus.
So? You're basically doing the equivalent of complaining that 3.5e is horrible because dandwiki exists.... regardless of the fact that it's a fanmade site and not the SRD.

Personally, I dislike the d20pfsrd, because of how it lists it's sources and how it edits things and can create misconceptions very easily. I'll always use the PRD (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/) (which is run by Paizo) or Archives of Nethys (http://archivesofnethys.com/). But I wouldn't blame the game itself for a wiki maintained by fans.

[Malifice]

3. 5e is designed so you start as nothing and become folk heroes.... I am not interested in those stories. Those characters are too low-power in comparison to the characters I find entertaining.

Im really not sure where you get this from. A 5E Wizard is almost identical to his 3.5 counterpart. He cant have as many buff spells active at once, and gets less spells to use per day (but infinite rituals and cantrips). All the rest is there (Clone, simulacrum, teleport, wish, meteor swarm, planar travel etc).

The big difference is that the other classes now actually keep up. An Eldritch knight fighter gets all the goodies of a 3.5 fighter (extra feats, 4 attacks per round) plus 5E's added benefit of rerolling mental saves, breaking the action economy with action surge 6/ day, the ability to improvise combat manouvers and do them well (instead of needing feats to do them), self healing - and the spell casting abilities of a 7th level Wizard tacked on the top.


When it comes to skills, the roll matters ridiculously more than your character. The only characters who actually have a proper advantage when it comes to skills so that there character actually matters at all in a skill situation are bards and rogues.

The DC's never get above 19, and most 'easy' tasks that might have called for a roll in 3.5 are absent in 5E. Climbing a rope, or jumping a pit for example. A difference between +0 to +11 is pretty huge when the DCs range from 10-19.

It also gives the Rogue something to be amazing in. From 11th level they have half a dozen skills at double the bonus and treat every roll of a D20 of at least a roll of 10.

I find in 5E if your skilled in an area and have a decent stat that runs off it you should succeed in the task when a roll is called for. If youre specialised in the task (a Rogue) then you almost always will succed in the task, no matter the difficulty.


To a degree it's "two sides of a coin" I guess.... In that "If you remove tonnes of stuff from the game. It is likely to have less stuff in it."? But the reason I find it bland and lacking isn't because of it's fast to play and had less fiddling with numbers. When I played mutants and masterminds, it was fast to play and we didn't do any fiddling with numbers, but it wasn't bland and lacking.

I certainly dont find it bland and lacking comapred to 3.5 or Pathfinder. I find it a game that strikes a good balance between requiring system mastery and ease of play, and allows you to play a character concept that works right out of the tin.

Im not a fan of the slower release schedule though. I wouldnt want a return to the 3.5 splatbook avalanche, but a slightly faster release schedule would make me happier.

After briefly returning to Pathfinder with a mate of mine, we spent the better part of 12 hours creating 2nd level pathifinder characters pouring through splatbooks and PFSRD looking for feat/ trait/ archetype/ class combos to make viable characters.

I wound up with a swashbuckler/ magus [bladebound kensai] with wayang spellhunter, magical knack magus, slashing grace, Spell focus and spell specialisatin, weapon focus [rhoka] etc (with a background of coming from Noble Cheliax house as a renegade daemon summoner), and he wound up with a MoMs Monk/ Warpriest [Sacred Fist] going down the pummelling charge line of feats, with a background of being a forigner from Golarions asia area with some out there feats. 20 level builds were designed and feat selection and class selection were carefully mapped out.

When the game commenced we were playing with a ranged gnome rogue (who sucked due to 3.Ps ranged sneak attack rules) a half elf fighter (who used spiked armor) and some other waste of space PC who contributed very little. I was dealing 1d8+4d6+4 shocking grasps attacks at +10, and parrying anything that came back my way. The DM eventually kicked us out after one session for being 'too optimised'. Fair enough.

In 5E we would have gone an Outlander background Open Hand Monk and a Noble background Blade pact Fiend Warlock. Playing along a Half Elf battlerager (if allowed) or fighter and a Gnome Rogue. Done - no power disparity, no system mastery required, no fiddly bits, no time wasted - and identical and functional characters.

Each to their own, but I see no reason to take 12 hours doing something I can do in 12 minutes, and with infinitely less pitfalls for the beginner.

[ImNotTrevor]

No, the complaint you are going to get is:
"The charts are based on interviews with retailers, distributors, and manufacturers."

So . . . not actual, you know, direct sale figures.
Or how many people were playing the various games during those periods.
Or whether that covers PDF sales. (Which it doesn't appear to.)
Or sales outside the US and Canada. (Which it clearly doesn't.)


I'm terribly sorry for only bringing you the best source currently available.
Excuse me for a few years while I go and get an accounting degree and infiltrate WotC to post their 100% accurate sales figures for the sake of an internet argument.

I never claimed it was proof. Only that it was a valid source. The best source available, in fact. You asked for a source. I provided the best available. Don't suddenly get your panties in a bunch because I didn't go out of my way to literally steal the sales figures from the offices of each RPG company and analyze the data to present to you on a platter.

We have evidence to support our point (that WotC lagged behind for a few years). Until you find something that actually refutes this data as woefully inaccurate, it remains valid as the best source currently available.

[Flickerdart]

I never claimed it was proof. Only that it was a valid source. The best source available, in fact.
Having the best available source does not make the source automatically valid.

[Tiktakkat]

I never claimed it was proof. Only that it was a valid source. The best source available, in fact.

gladren claimed he knew it for "a fact".
That would mean there are sources to prove it, not merely, kinda, sorta, maybe, theoretically suggest it.

You also clearly don't know the difference between a "source" and a "meta-analysis of a survey of sources that provided limited information".

Or, more simply:


Having the best available source does not make the source automatically valid.

That.

[VoxRationis]

The issue with "4th edition" wasn't that it a new edition, but that it was built on an unsound mathematical basis, using a completely wrong set of customer expectations, then promoted on a basis of trashing both the old system and its existing player base, who they were trying to pander to with the system changes, on a premise of "firing" the existing customer base and getting a "better" (more "modern" and "in-crowd") one.
It wasn't so much teaching the player base "Why switch?", but shouting at them "We've become corporate idiots!", and proceeding to prove it.

They did this to some degree with 3rd edition as well. The entire Eberron setting from the ground up was made to shove the design philosophies (the commodification of magical items, the lack of powerful NPCs, the "anything goes" clerics and paladins) of 3rd edition in our faces. It's just that those qualities mesh well with most of the Playground and so people don't complain about it as much.

[Friv]

Im really not sure where you get this from. A 5E Wizard is almost identical to his 3.5 counterpart. He cant have as many buff spells active at once, and gets less spells to use per day (but infinite rituals and cantrips). All the rest is there (Clone, simulacrum, teleport, wish, meteor swarm, planar travel etc).

It's not just fewer spells per day, mind you - it's substantially fewer high-level spells per day.

For spells, a Level 20 wizard in 5E has 6 spells per day of Level 6-9 (two each of Level 6 and 7, one each of Level 8 and 9). That gives you a lot of power, but encourages you to apply it to situations where your party members can't already do just as well, because you've got limits to your actions.

In 3.5, a Level 20 wizard specialist with a +8 Intelligence (not actually the highest you can reach, but pretty high) gets 31 spells of Level 6-9 (eight each of Levels 6-8, and seven Level 9 options) every day. You can do whatever you want, as often as you want. There's no reason not to take spells that overlap with the party because you can have a few of those, plus all of the things that are unique to you.

[Piedmon_Sama]

So? You're basically doing the equivalent of complaining that 3.5e is horrible because dandwiki exists.... regardless of the fact that it's a fanmade site and not the SRD.

Personally, I dislike the d20pfsrd, because of how it lists it's sources and how it edits things and can create misconceptions very easily. I'll always use the PRD (http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/) (which is run by Paizo) or Archives of Nethys (http://archivesofnethys.com/). But I wouldn't blame the game itself for a wiki maintained by fans.

Nobody ever used dandwiki unless I approved it-----with Pathfinder I never know what's what. I thought the cybertech stuff was some nutty third party book until someone took it out and showed it to me (not that anything from that book seemed overpowered, let alone worth its price tag....)

No, it's not "on" the Pathfinder people, but since the thread is literally asking "why play 3.5" I'm literally giving the reason---because I know 3.5 and I know what's legit and what stinks of bull**** without having to trawl 2,000 electronic pages of magic items to decide what's what.

[Kane0]

My group made the third party mistake with PF psionic stuff. We found out after the soulknife PC was introduced, but thankfully its not unbalanced.

[Tiktakkat]

They did this to some degree with 3rd edition as well. The entire Eberron setting from the ground up was made to shove the design philosophies (the commodification of magical items, the lack of powerful NPCs, the "anything goes" clerics and paladins) of 3rd edition in our faces. It's just that those qualities mesh well with most of the Playground and so people don't complain about it as much.

There is a stark difference between the "What in the hell is a baatezu?" ad and the multiple variations on "THIS is the way to play the game and have fun" scattered through the "4E" preview book. The distinct absence of that attitude in "5E" promotional material is telling. Not that the grognard pandering was particularly impressive, but at least they were making an effort to try and be civil, even though their constant failures with older edition lore were rude in their own way.

And while Eberron was certainly set up to highlight various design philosophies, it was released 4 years into the system cycle, 1 year after the mid-cycle switch to "3.5". There was more of the "shut up, we're the professionals" elements in the Living Greyhawk Campaign than in the Eberron setting design. Of course that also involves the issues within WotC marketing as well as the R&D miscues.

[wumpus]

This is what I was saying a hundred or so posts ago. I broke in at the dawn of 2E, and encountered older groups at the Compleat Strategist who didn't update from 1E. But they were OOOOLD, like 30, and so both incomprehensible and irrelevant. (I also couldn't fathom the group at my school a year or two younger that was playing high-level BECMI).

3E had huge buy-in. Adding skills and Feats in an organized fashion, and level-by-level multiclasing, was a quantum leap forward. There was tremendous goodwill, enough that we bought the 3.5 books with minimal complaint. Think about that. In 2000, we bought the D&D 3.0 upgrade, PHB, DMG, MM. In *2003*, the same folks put out 3.5, and we paid them AGAIN for the PHB, DMG, MM with little complaining. The 3.0 to 3.5 tweaks could bave been in a single upgrade volume, but we handed WOTC another $100 because we were so happy with 3.0 we were okay with it.

That's tremendous brand loyalty. WOTC saved D&D, and we threw money at them. Then 4th edition basically ruined all of that. And it taught the player base "Why switch?"

One memorable phrase from previous edition wars was the idea that when TSR came out with a new edition, all previous books didn't spontaneously combust and require replacement. Of course, this wasn't far from the truth: the biggest advantage the D&D game ever had was that it was the standard RPG that "everyone" knew (at least everyone at the table). Between 2 and 3, the books might as well have caught fire, because everybody was using 3.x. During the 3-4 transition, TSR/WOTC/Hasbro certainly *tried* to set everything on fire (the Forgotten Realms took the brunt of it). But this time regardless of how good a game 4e might be, it wasn't what the 3.x players wanted. And those books remained unburnt and still played. And it also means that there is no longer "one true game that everybody knows".

While it might not come down to brand loyalty anymore, it makes much more sense to ask "why play AD&D (or 0e) anymore?". My suggested emulations:
0e : Basic rules. Nobody (including the DM) is allowed to look at the books during the game.
1e : Basic rules. Players aren't allowed to look at the rules during the game (possibly suspended while in town buying stuff).
BECMI: Basic rules. Checking the rules is ok (maybe).
2e (or 1e with the 2e players handbooks): Basic rules + SRD. Checking the rules during play subject to house rules.
[all the "checking the rules" stuff is supposed to have to do with the way old school games are ruled on the fly. Also the rules are supposed to be understood as a basis for the DM to build his own game out of them. They aren't supposed to be carved in stone.]

You might still want Gygax's own Dungeon Master's Guide for inspiration and general guidelines (see a non-AD&D player's reaction http://www.paperspencils.com/tag/gary-gygaxs-dmg/) to "properly" run your old school game, but I suspect the new rules simply work better. So my take:

0e-2e: replaceable with 5e (and really replaceable with just the free parts)
3e-pathfinder: a current game. Quite competitive
4e : a current game. Sufficiently different to appeal to a different set of players and unlikely to be replaced by a D&D product.
5e : a current game. Likely to appeal to new players and those who had the same frustrations that lead to pathfinder.

[ImNotTrevor]

gladren claimed he knew it for "a fact".
That would mean there are sources to prove it, not merely, kinda, sorta, maybe, theoretically suggest it.

You also clearly don't know the difference between a "source" and a "meta-analysis of a survey of sources that provided limited information".

Or, more simply:



That.

Then you have exactly as much claim that D&D was the best selling rpg for the same period. Which invalidates both arguments. You don't get to validate your sourceless claim by invalidating my sourced one. That's not how this works, either.

Of the two claims, the drop in sales has SOME form of evidence presented.

The claim that no drop in sales has occurred has no evidence. That which can be claimed without evidence can be refuted without evidence. So I refute your claim. *shrug*

For all you know, 5e only actually sold 5 copies and everyone else acquired it through theft, because none of us have ever seen WotC's sales numbers. This is highly unlikely, and yet still statistically possible.

Depending on my source's sample size, it may actually be a very good snapshot. I don't personally know the sample size. (At least, I haven't seen it listed)

It is also the case that just because the source is collected from metadata doesn't mean it's automatically invalid, either.

So basically, since it is either invalid source or no source, then anyone can make any claim and be exactly as likely to be right.

So I assert that WotC has sold no more than 1,000 copies of any given D&D edition. Since we apparently have no valid data to go on, I am exactly as likely to be correct as any other assertion.

In other words, until someone ponies up a better/more accurate source than mine, it is the one we can work with. Any other assertion has no evidence AT ALL thus far. Vague evidence is better than 0 evidence.

[Malifice]

It's not just fewer spells per day, mind you - it's substantially fewer high-level spells per day.

For spells, a Level 20 wizard in 5E has 6 spells per day of Level 6-9 (two each of Level 6 and 7, one each of Level 8 and 9). That gives you a lot of power, but encourages you to apply it to situations where your party members can't already do just as well, because you've got limits to your actions.

In 3.5, a Level 20 wizard specialist with a +8 Intelligence (not actually the highest you can reach, but pretty high) gets 31 spells of Level 6-9 (eight each of Levels 6-8, and seven Level 9 options) every day. You can do whatever you want, as often as you want. There's no reason not to take spells that overlap with the party because you can have a few of those, plus all of the things that are unique to you.

You could tack on another high level slot via arcane recovery for the 5E wizard. So a 20th level Wizard has up to 7 spells available over 5th level. Which considering 5E's adventuring day default of 6-8 encounters is enough for the Wizard to be able to drop a big boom effect/ high level slot once per encounter on average. In addition he can drop 3-4 spells of level 1-5 per encounter, and unlimited cantrips (which scale much better in 5E as an at will source of damage). He also has unlimited use of two spells of levels 1-2 (shield and mirror image are common choices). Also: unlimited rituals throughout the day assuming he has the time to cast them.

The maths of 5E is amazing. The devs did some brilliant work on balancing the classes, from both a mathmatical and actual table play perspective, and without replicating the 'sameness' that many complained about with 4E.

You have to really work at creating a character that sucks in 5E, whereas in PF you have to really work to create a character that doesnt suck. If you know what you're doing in PF (have extensive system mastery) it's great (if time consuming and laborious). But then the PCs advance in level, casters start to pull away over everyone else and the underlying problems of 3.5 start to burst through the patch of PF.

I'll take 5E's plug and play character creation system (which gives more character options in the PHB than any other edition of the game by far, yet takes a fraction of the time to create a character, with far less pitfalls for creating a 'suboptimal' one) over PF's, and 5E's balance and encounter design over PFs any day.

[Kane0]

Might not mean anything for a lot of people reading, but Malifice has a bit of a reputation in the 5e forums. What he said above actually says a lot within the context of some of his other posts.

[goto124]

Speaking of 5e, how does one has 6-8 encounters per day anyway, outside a dungeon crawl?

[Kane0]

5e runs pretty quick in a fight compared to 3.PF and 4e, plus the 'average' encounter isn't so much designed to be lethal as to drain resources over the course of the day. Its pretty normal for an average party to bash through 4-6 of those average difficulty encounters without much threat (barring bad luck and/or tactics), and the last one or two are the ones that are challenging.

This can be altered by using alternate rest options in the DMG, for example the lengthy rest option means you can spread those 6-8 encounters over the course of a week or so in game rather than pack them into a single day.

[Bohandas]

Why not 3.5?

Why waste the time and money for a new edition?

[Malifice]

Speaking of 5e, how does one has 6-8 encounters per day anyway, outside a dungeon crawl?

You dont. There is no need to repeatedly throw 6-8 encounter days at the party. Many will be shorter (and a few even longer) than the 6-8 mark. You aim for around 50 percent frequency as your benchmark.

At the 50 percent frequency mark, the players naturally pace themselves according to this default, even on many of the shorter adventuring days, and avoid nova strikes.

In any version of DnD, policing the 5 minute AD by the DM is absolutely fundamental to maintain class balance and encounter balance.

If you are really struggling, the DMG provides a variant rule in 5E the longer rest variant. It turns the adventuring day into a week (with short rest powers recharging overnight, and long rest powers - spell slot recovery mainly taking a whole week of downtime and rest to recover).

Under this variant you can give 0-3 encounters per in game day, and have three such days featuring encounters before the party needs to rest for a week back in town.

You can also use a hybrid of the two if needed (zooming in to normal rest pacing in dungeons, and zooming out to longer rests when spending weeks exploring the wilderness with few encounters per day).

Heck, you could also use a milestone system if you wanted.

As long as youre sticking to the [6-8 encounter/ 2 short rests per long rest] paradigm as a default, youre good regardless of what a short rest or long rest represent in game (indeed regardless of whether they even represent 'resting' at all).

I personally stick to a 6 encounter/ 2 short rest adventuring day as my default. I handwave short rests as 5 minutes long, but allow no more than two per day, and most adventures feature soft or hard time limits to enforce this encounter/ rest pacing and stop (or punish) nova strikes. At the 50 percent mark, I find that players naturally pace themselves (they're reluctant to nova on the first or second encounter of the day, fearing that there might be anywhere from 4-6 more encoutners to come before they get to long rest.

It works a treat.

[wumpus]

Speaking of 5e, how does one has 6-8 encounters per day anyway, outside a dungeon crawl?

You don't. I fail to see why that a game called "Dungeons and Dragons" should not be optimized for dungeons.

I can only assume that the forum implied method of playing 3.x (hopefully this isn't often done) is a DM failure (presumably it works for *any* D&D edition, just that "tier 1 power gamers" seem equally welded to 3.x and this style)

8-10 months of casting divination spells* (scribing scrolls at lower levels) Casters know exactly which spells to prep.
1 month of clearing out a dungeon at 1 encounter/day, maximum (abuse of rope trick, magnificent mansions and other pocket planes as necessary. Possibly with divination assurance of safety).
[level twice]
Locate next dungeon (presumably with divination help), repeat.

* presumably in a world like this casters need to keep plenty of slots for defense and contingencies. Only a few divination spells are cast each day.

[Friv]

You could tack on another high level slot via arcane recovery for the 5E wizard. So a 20th level Wizard has up to 7 spells available over 5th level. Which considering 5E's adventuring day default of 6-8 encounters is enough for the Wizard to be able to drop a big boom effect/ high level slot once per encounter on average. In addition he can drop 3-4 spells of level 1-5 per encounter, and unlimited cantrips (which scale much better in 5E as an at will source of damage). He also has unlimited use of two spells of levels 1-2 (shield and mirror image are common choices). Also: unlimited rituals throughout the day assuming he has the time to cast them.

Arcane Recovery actually specifically caps at Level 5 spells; you can't use it to regain high-level effects.

But yeah, you get huge usage of low-level spells. This is also good, because it means that at lower levels wizards don't just cast a game-winning spell and then tap out, and at higher levels you can have options other than "win encounter" or "let someone else deal with it so that you can win the next encounter".

[AtlasSniperman]

I feel I should start with my history; I was introduced to D&D with AD&D, I liked it, but once the game ended I couldn't find any more groups to play with for a couple years. Then I discovered D&D encounters and that got me back into the hobby and in addition helped me find groups to play with outside of just the official encounters games run at the local game store. These groups showed me 4e which, knowing encounters, I had some experience with but found the whole system a little stupid. Then another group showed me 3.5 and i found what I loved. When 5e came out I got the DMG and PHB and read them cover to cover twice, tossing them aside in dissatisfaction.

What don't I like about 5e? I feel the easiest way to explain it would be that 3.5 had classes that could be made to look like other classes, 5e doesn't. I like the blurry venne diagram model, not the honeycomb model of characters. I love that with the right combinations in 3.5 you can make a rogue that looks like a fighter, or a wizard, or a paladin, or a druid, or you could make a ranger look like a wizard, or a monk, or a rogue. In 5e archtypes, that's gone.

Now before you call me a 3.5e purist, please note that the campaign setting I, personally, run uses a horrifiedly mangled set of rules and creatures that follows this idea. I've grabbed rules from AD&D, 3e, 3.5e, PF, 4e and yes, 5e, and smashed them all onto the 3.5e framework.

I like the idea that characters can become as gods.
My setting is built on it.

[Psyren]

I fully intend to play both, once 5e has some more options and APs.

But even now, there are a TON of builds I want to try in both 3.5 and PF that I haven't gotten to even touch yet, so I'm in no hurry.

[JAL_1138]

What don't I like about 5e? I feel the easiest way to explain it would be that 3.5 had classes that could be made to look like other classes, 5e doesn't. I like the blurry venne diagram model, not the honeycomb model of characters. I love that with the right combinations in 3.5 you can make a rogue that looks like a fighter, or a wizard, or a paladin, or a druid, or you could make a ranger look like a wizard, or a monk, or a rogue. In 5e archtypes, that's gone.



In 5e you can make a fighter who casts like a 7th-level wizard; a wizard who can wade into melee with a sword (SCAG Bladesinger); a rogue who casts like a 7th-level wizard, a rogue who melees straight up instead of being sneaky (though you'll need to double-team with another party member, granted); most ranger abilities are spells, some of which are unique and some of which overlap with cleric, druid, and wizard; a bard who can pass themselves off as virtually any class at all with a bit of work and patience; a dex-based con-artist ranged(!) paladin (ok, ranged doesn't work great, but it can work; you can still do a dex melee paladin very well) who could pass for a rogue or bard; a monk that can dual-wield effectively and move stealthily through the shadows as well as any rogue, or can cast sorcerer-like spells; a warlock who can mix it up in combat with a melee weapon quite nicely; and more options as well. There's a ton of spells that can be cast for free if you have ten minutes and one feat. That's without multiclassing and with only a few feats, and just the ones that come up off the top of my head. Throw multiclassing in the mix and many, many more options open up. Classes aren't as pigeonholed as you think.

[Quertus]

Yes; in individual case different systems can become "better" for various reasons. For instance a rules light game would be perfect if "we are on a bus for 3 hours and didn't plan ahead". Setting is also another big one, since a lot of systems are tied to a particular type of setting mechanically. D&D is not going to cut it for a Star Wars game.

Just to provided some more examples of how a particular situation can change things.

Yeah, if you mean a reason why one is always universally better for everyone, I agree, I don't see that happening. Although I think mutants & masterminds makes for a better star wars game than any star wars system I've read.


It's not just fewer spells per day, mind you - it's substantially fewer high-level spells per day.

For spells, a Level 20 wizard in 5E has 6 spells per day of Level 6-9 (two each of Level 6 and 7, one each of Level 8 and 9). That gives you a lot of power, but encourages you to apply it to situations where your party members can't already do just as well, because you've got limits to your actions.

In 3.5, a Level 20 wizard specialist with a +8 Intelligence (not actually the highest you can reach, but pretty high) gets 31 spells of Level 6-9 (eight each of Levels 6-8, and seven Level 9 options) every day. You can do whatever you want, as often as you want. There's no reason not to take spells that overlap with the party because you can have a few of those, plus all of the things that are unique to you.


Speaking of 5e, how does one has 6-8 encounters per day anyway, outside a dungeon crawl?

6-8 encounters? As Hulk would say, "Puny god dungeon crawl". Give them 3.x casting, but make it 60-80 encounters without rest. See who complains about casters being too powerful when you give them a real test.

So... can any characters in 5e stand up to a "real" dungeon? Or does the system / party just fall apart when put through an old school meat grinder?

[Flickerdart]

6-8 encounters? As Hulk would say, "Puny god dungeon crawl". Give them 3.x casting, but make it 60-80 encounters without rest. See who complains about casters being too powerful when you give them a real test.
This is when people start pulling out greater planar binding or animate dead or polymorph any object or shapechange and suddenly spell slots stop being a problem. I have little doubt that a properly prepared 3.5 spellcaster party can roll through 80 level-appropriate encounters starting around level 5, with it becoming a sure thing after level 7.

The easiest way is to abuse command undead by constantly creating minions with animate dead and then commanding the released ones. By level 7, a wizard can get one base 4th level spell slot, one more from a plausible INT of 18, and one from specialization, elven generalist, or domain (let's not talk about focused specialization). With every casting he can create 14 HD of undead, like a 12 HD advanced megaraptor skeleton (CR6). The wizard can make three megaraptors every day, and cast command undead on the released ones. They get no save and it lasts for a week. After one week of doing this, the wizard has 21 megaraptors, at a cost of three 2nd level spell slots each day to renew the command undead on the ones that are about to expire. He can have two more megaraptors permanently controlled with animate dead.

The wizard then meets up with his three wizard friends, each of whom has also animated 23 megaraptors.

Do you really doubt that four wizards and 92 megaraptors can't beat 80 CR7 encounters, one after the other?

At level 9, you can supplement the megaraptors with bearded devils (lesser planar binding) and fighters (dominate person), each of which also last days/level. The math works out the same, so now you have double the minions. For extra class, have your fighters or bearded devils riding your megaraptors.

[Kane0]

-Snip-

This post reminds why I prefer 5e, why my friend who plays PF annoys me and why I think your signature is hilarious.

[JoeJ]

This is when people start pulling out greater planar binding or animate dead or polymorph any object or shapechange and suddenly spell slots stop being a problem. I have little doubt that a properly prepared 3.5 spellcaster party can roll through 80 level-appropriate encounters starting around level 5, with it becoming a sure thing after level 7.

The easiest way is to abuse command undead by constantly creating minions with animate dead and then commanding the released ones. By level 7, a wizard can get one base 4th level spell slot, one more from a plausible INT of 18, and one from specialization, elven generalist, or domain (let's not talk about focused specialization). With every casting he can create 14 HD of undead, like a 12 HD advanced megaraptor skeleton (CR6). The wizard can make three megaraptors every day, and cast command undead on the released ones. They get no save and it lasts for a week. After one week of doing this, the wizard has 21 megaraptors, at a cost of three 2nd level spell slots each day to renew the command undead on the ones that are about to expire. He can have two more megaraptors permanently controlled with animate dead.

The wizard then meets up with his three wizard friends, each of whom has also animated 23 megaraptors.

Do you really doubt that four wizards and 92 megaraptors can't beat 80 CR7 encounters, one after the other?

At level 9, you can supplement the megaraptors with bearded devils (lesser planar binding) and fighters (dominate person), each of which also last days/level. The math works out the same, so now you have double the minions. For extra class, have your fighters or bearded devils riding your megaraptors.

How are you going to get 92 dead megaraptors to even fit through the door of the dungeon, much less all crowd into the same room with you once you're inside?

[JAL_1138]

How are you going to get 92 dead megaraptors to even fit through the door of the dungeon, much less all crowd into the same room with you once you're inside?

I believe the standard answer here is "very carefully." :smalltongue:

[goto124]

This is when people start pulling out greater planar binding or animate dead or polymorph any object or shapechange and suddenly spell slots stop being a problem. I have little doubt that a properly prepared 3.5 spellcaster party can roll through 80 level-appropriate encounters starting around level 5, with it becoming a sure thing after level 7.

The easiest way is to abuse command undead by constantly creating minions with animate dead and then commanding the released ones. By level 7, a wizard can get one base 4th level spell slot, one more from a plausible INT of 18, and one from specialization, elven generalist, or domain (let's not talk about focused specialization). With every casting he can create 14 HD of undead, like a 12 HD advanced megaraptor skeleton (CR6). The wizard can make three megaraptors every day, and cast command undead on the released ones. They get no save and it lasts for a week. After one week of doing this, the wizard has 21 megaraptors, at a cost of three 2nd level spell slots each day to renew the command undead on the ones that are about to expire. He can have two more megaraptors permanently controlled with animate dead.

The wizard then meets up with his three wizard friends, each of whom has also animated 23 megaraptors.

Do you really doubt that four wizards and 92 megaraptors can't beat 80 CR7 encounters, one after the other?

At level 9, you can supplement the megaraptors with bearded devils (lesser planar binding) and fighters (dominate person), each of which also last days/level. The math works out the same, so now you have double the minions. For extra class, have your fighters or bearded devils riding your megaraptors.

Make the villains wizards too, and you'll have a heck of a campaign :smalltongue:

[Kane0]

Make the villains wizards too, and you'll have a heck of a campaign :smalltongue:

Like this one? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?325177-Cattle-Driving-Necromancers-Bizarre-Campaign-Journal)

[Knaight]

6-8 encounters? As Hulk would say, "Puny god dungeon crawl". Give them 3.x casting, but make it 60-80 encounters without rest. See who complains about casters being too powerful when you give them a real test.

So... can any characters in 5e stand up to a "real" dungeon? Or does the system / party just fall apart when put through an old school meat grinder?

Old school meat grinders don't tend to involve 60-80 encounters without rest, and old school characters are likely to be unable to handle it. Even in 3.x, that's not going to work well unless you're really abusing corners of the system (chain summoning, getting high regeneration as a martial character, etc.). 60-80 encounters without rest is ridiculous.

[JoeJ]

Old school meat grinders don't tend to involve 60-80 encounters without rest, and old school characters are likely to be unable to handle it. Even in 3.x, that's not going to work well unless you're really abusing corners of the system (chain summoning, getting high regeneration as a martial character, etc.). 60-80 encounters without rest is ridiculous.

True. Typically, you'd either leave the dungeon and come back, or try to find a secure room to hole up and rest. Also, old school encounters weren't all combat. There were a plenty of traps, tricks, and puzzles too, and a lot of the monsters could be negotiated with. (In many cases you'd be looking at a TPK if you did try to fight; it was generally assumed that the PCs wouldn't be able to defeat everything they met.)

[Tiktakkat]

How are you going to get 92 dead megaraptors to even fit through the door of the dungeon, much less all crowd into the same room with you once you're inside?

Where are you going to find 92 dead 12 HD advanced megaraptors in the first place?

[Incanur]

Personally, I play 3.PF (really PF with some 3.x elements and homebrew) out of inertia and nostalgia. The group I'm with wanted 3.5 when we started years back. I would have rather used my own custom rules, but so it goes. I wouldn't encourage anyone to get into 3.x (including PF), but I'm not terribly interested in learning another system myself. (I do continue to work on my own homebrew system.) 3.x (including PF) does have its charms, as incoherent as the system is on the whole.

[ImNotTrevor]

Personally, I play 3.PF (really PF with some 3.x elements and homebrew) out of inertia and nostalgia. The group I'm with wanted 3.5 when we started years back. I would have rather used my own custom rules, but so it goes. I wouldn't encourage anyone to get into 3.x (including PF), but I'm not terribly interested in learning another system myself. (I do continue to work on my own homebrew system.) 3.x (including PF) does have its charms, as incoherent as the system is on the whole.

If you are building a system, I'd recommend playing other systems. There are many, many ways to build a system and unless the goal is to make a clone of 3.5 with new bells and whistles, you'll probably find yourself dissatisfied with the results.

Or don't. But it would be a little like trying to write a book after reading a very popular but mediocre book (A la Twilight) and only that.

[Fri]

If you are building a system, I'd recommend playing other systems. There are many, many ways to build a system and unless the goal is to make a clone of 3.5 with new bells and whistles, you'll probably find yourself dissatisfied with the results.

Or don't. But it would be a little like trying to write a book after reading a very popular but mediocre book (A la Twilight) and only that.

There's a reason the term Fantasy Heartbreake (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/9/)r exist.

[Incanur]

My custom system comes out of a desire for combat that uses Earth's reality and history as a baseline. Because of this, it diverges radically from 3.x, though with some admitted similarities (d20s, ranks, ability scores, etc.). I've messed around with The Riddle of Steel but it's not quite what I'm looking for. My custom system ain't intended for mass appeal, only to satisfy my own desires - which it does ably. I may never run a game with it, but it's been fabulous for worldbuilding and fantasy writing.

[ImNotTrevor]

My custom system comes out of a desire for combat that uses Earth's reality and history as a baseline. Because of this, it diverges radically from 3.x, though with some admitted similarities (d20s, ranks, ability scores, etc.). I've messed around with The Riddle of Steel but it's not quite what I'm looking for. My custom system ain't intended for mass appeal, only to satisfy my own desires - which it does ably. I may never run a game with it, but it's been fabulous for worldbuilding and fantasy writing.

Have you PLAYED Riddle of Steel?
Reading a system can give a good intro into how a system is played. But in the end, you have to actually play it to really get how it works.

Have you looks outside of Riddle of Steel? Looked into other means?

This system doesn't sound like a radical divergance. It sounds like 3.5 with a new combat system. Which would still be 3.5. Just with a new combat system.

Again, if that's what you want then do it.

I just can't really encourage someone to make a system after trying exactly one.

[JoeJ]

My custom system comes out of a desire for combat that uses Earth's reality and history as a baseline. Because of this, it diverges radically from 3.x, though with some admitted similarities (d20s, ranks, ability scores, etc.). I've messed around with The Riddle of Steel but it's not quite what I'm looking for. My custom system ain't intended for mass appeal, only to satisfy my own desires - which it does ably. I may never run a game with it, but it's been fabulous for worldbuilding and fantasy writing.

I strongly urge you to look at GURPS. It's much more reality-based than any version of D&D, and you might find some good ideas to use as jumping off points for your system.

[Incanur]

Have you PLAYED Riddle of Steel?
Reading a system can give a good intro into how a system is played. But in the end, you have to actually play it to really get how it works.

That's impractical. I can't be bothered and don't care. I know what I like and what I want. :smallsmile:


Have you looks outside of Riddle of Steel? Looked into other means?

Yes, I've looked at lots of different systems (including GURPS). TROS and GURPS are my favorites as far as published systems go.


This system doesn't sound like a radical divergance. It sounds like 3.5 with a new combat system. Which would still be 3.5. Just with a new combat system.

Have you actually played 3.x? The incoherent combat system, elaborate exploits, Vancian magic, Christmas-tree buffs, accounting subgame, and ample bestiary stand out. My custom rules don't mirror any of that. I'm shooting for something dramatically different from any version of D&D, which is a big reason why my current group has never been interested in my custom rules. (That's fair, of course, and as I wrote earlier, 3.x has its charm.)


I just can't really encourage someone to make a system after trying exactly one.

I encourage anybody who writes fantasy and/or enjoys worldbuilding to think in systematic terms. It provides wondrous clarity in this regard.

[ImNotTrevor]

That's impractical. I can't be bothered and don't care. I know what I like and what I want. :smallsmile:

Then you don't actually know how the system works.



Yes, I've looked at lots of different systems (including GURPS). TROS and GURPS are my favorites as far as published systems go.

If you've never played them....



Have you actually played 3.x? The incoherent combat system, elaborate exploits, Vancian magic, Christmas-tree buffs, accounting subgame, and ample bestiary stand out. My custom rules don't mirror any of that. I'm shooting for something dramatically different from any version of D&D, which is a big reason why my current group has never been interested in my custom rules. (That's fair, of course, and as I wrote earlier, 3.x has its charm.)

I have played 3.5
And those things are small tweaks, save the combat overhaul.
I can dip my hand into the homebrew subforum and pick up 5 or 6 paragraph-length fixes for any of those. And the ample bestiary is the easiest of all. "Just don't use 'em." Done.

It's heavily houseruled D&D, from the sound of it.
Most of the core is still firmly in place, but expanded or pruned as needed and with a sizeable chunk replaced, but that's still basically D&D.



I encourage anybody who writes fantasy and/or enjoys worldbuilding to think in systematic terms. It provides wondrous clarity in this regard.

Are you attempting to equate writing fiction with game design?

Do you know what Reward Structures are?
Fictional Positioning (as it relates to RPGs)?
The difference between Fiction-first and Narrative-first design?

That's important but base-level stuff and "thinking systematically" doesn't cover them.

So no, don't just start writing RPGs if you've only ever played one. It will be, at its very best, bland and uninteresting. And at worst, keep you from ever doing it again and possibly getting better.

So to those reading this who actually want to design rpgs, please play lots of rpgs. Consider it your studies. Just like how good writers are voracious readers. Good game designers are voracious consumers and analyzers of games and their design.

[Incanur]

I have played 3.5
And those things are small tweaks, save the combat overhaul.

Yeah, we don't have a shared basis of experience and/or understanding for this conversation.


It's heavily houseruled D&D, from the sound of it.

I'm not going to get into the details because that's not the purpose of this thread.


That's important but base-level stuff and "thinking systematically" doesn't cover them.

What I'm pointing to is the disconnect between the mechanics and fluff you see in 3.x/PF. You see similar tensions in most fictional universes. Logical 3.x D&D, for example, leads quickly to Tippyverse. Imagining optimizers in the mix means you can't just blithely have super tech or magic without contemplating the implications.


So no, don't just start writing RPGs if you've only ever played one. It will be, at its very best, bland and uninteresting. And at worst, keep you from ever doing it again and possibly getting better.

So to those reading this who actually want to design rpgs, please play lots of rpgs. Consider it your studies. Just like how good writers are voracious readers. Good game designers are voracious consumers and analyzers of games and their design.

:smallsigh: I fundamentally disagree with such gatekeeping, for RPG design and for everything else. I encourage everyone to follow their desires, regardless of they're qualified or whether they're doing it right. No singular standard for "good" gaming, writing, or anything exists. Anybody who tells you otherwise is simply making an appeal to authority to further their own interests.

[ImNotTrevor]

:smallsigh: I fundamentally disagree with such gatekeeping, for RPG design and for everything else. I encourage everyone to follow their desires, regardless of they're qualified or whether they're doing it right. No singular standard for "good" gaming, writing, or anything exists. Anybody who tells you otherwise is simply making an appeal to authority to further their own interests.

Do what you want, brotimes. I'm not trying to stop you.

I'm just saying that Shakespeare read more than one play.
Frost read more than one poem.

Knowing what the field looks like is to your advantage. If you want to just do it to screw around with numbers, go for it. No one tells a kid to not play with legos. But following the insructions a few times can actually teach you some cool tricks.

Same goes with actually playing rpgs. A lot of their mechanics seem weird or unbalanced until actual play happens, when suddenly it becomes a non-issue. Or the inverse happens. (That's why playtesting exists)

I'm not saying "Don't ever develop systems without playing more than one," I'm saying "You'll save a lot of time reinventing the wheel if you learn from what others have already worked out. And you'll have a broad toolkit of what works/doesn't and what you like/don't based on actual experience. In other words, it will be easier, more fun, and more rewarding."

You do you, honey booboo.

I'm more worried about the people who actually have a shot at creating innovation in game design. It is happening now, and I'm playing those games (and having a blast while doing it). Maybe I just want more people to have fun. And make even more diverse systems. And do so knowing how to do it.

Just like I don't think you would tell someone to write a book if they had no concept of plot, grammar, or basic literacy. You would first help them cultivate those things, then set them loose to write their book. Not because they shouldn't, but because they'll have a better time and less frustrating results. Maybe even great results.

So yeah, go get tools you future rpg designers. Learn how to do it right, then go do it better. Or just bash your head into the wall until progress is made. Your choice. (I can vouch for the former, though.)

[Incanur]

"You'll save a lot of time reinventing the wheel if you learn from what others have already worked out. And you'll have a broad toolkit of what works/doesn't and what you like/don't based on actual experience. In other words, it will be easier, more fun, and more rewarding."

This assumes a convergence of both goals and metrics that ain't there. Even TROS, which shares my historical inspirations, isn't trying to do what I'm doing, draws on different sources, and interprets these sources differently. Your advice also assumes that it's better to have superficial experience with many RPG systems versus deep experience with one system. I've been running games for sixteen years, but of course you think you know better than me about what I want. :smalltongue:

[Cosi]

No singular standard for "good" gaming, writing, or anything exists. Anybody who tells you otherwise is simply making an appeal to authority to further their own interests.

Maybe. People have different preferences, and enjoy different things. There are certainly people who enjoy the rules of Shadowrun, or D&D, or WoD, more than other games. And some of that is subjective judgments that have nothing to do with rules, such as liking vampires or cyberpunk more than fantasy. But some of it is different preferences for rules. It's not wrong to want to use dicepools instead of a single roll, or points instead of levels, or any number of other choices.

But you can definitely make objective statements about bad rules. For example, THAC0 is bad. It's more complex both internally (addition is commutative, subtraction is not) and as it relates to the rest of the system (other things just use addition), but it has the exact same behavior as an addition based system, statistically speaking. There is no reason to use it instead of some other system. And you can make other statements about bad rules, which certainly makes writing good rules easier.

[Incanur]

But you can definitely make objective statements about bad rules. For example, THAC0 is bad. It's more complex both internally (addition is commutative, subtraction is not) and as it relates to the rest of the system (other things just use addition), but it has the exact same behavior as an addition based system, statistically speaking. There is no reason to use it instead of some other system.

Even here folks disagree, with some arguing that THAC0 is as easy to grasp as attack bonus. If nothing else, assuming THAC0 is meaningful less intuitive than common alternatives, it serves the same purpose as much academic jargon: it distinguishes the enlightened from the neophytes. Secondarily, it perhaps conceals information from players. (Full disclosure: I've no affection for THAC0 myself.)

[Cosi]

Even here folks disagree, with some arguing that THAC0 is as easy to grasp as attack bonus. If nothing else, assuming THAC0 is meaningful less intuitive than common alternatives, it serves the same purpose as much academic jargon: it distinguishes the enlightened from the neophytes. Secondarily, it perhaps conceals information from players. (Full disclosure: I've no affection for THAC0 myself.)

Those people are wrong, and provably so. It is in fact more complex, and there is nothing gained from that complexity.

As far as "excluding neophytes" goes, that's not a mechanical concern, and hence not a reason to like or dislike the game. It's like saying you think WoD's resolution system is good because you think Vampires are cool. You can totally think that, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with mechanics.

[JoeJ]

Those people are wrong, and provably so. It is in fact more complex, and there is nothing gained from that complexity.

Provable more complex, but whether that's good, bad, or neutral is a value judgment, which is inherently subjective. It's quite possible that some people enjoy extra complexity for its own sake.

[Flickerdart]

Where are you going to find 92 dead 12 HD advanced megaraptors in the first place?

Wherever there's a breeding population of megaraptors, there are going to be thousands of individuals at least.

But the megaraptors are just an example. Any skeleton with up to 14HD will do. A clever wizard (and they are all clever!) will diversify his minions, and use a dozen or so that are most qualified for every encounter.

[Incanur]

Those people are wrong, and provably so. It is in fact more complex, and there is nothing gained from that complexity.

Aesthetics are part of the gaming experience, and they're arbitrary or at least significantly so. One might like the visual appearance of of the abbreviation "THAC0," for example. Most or all of us would consider that absurdly superficial, but it's a thing. "BAB" isn't the same as "THAC0," even if it serves the same purpose.

My point is that even your ideal of good mechanics requires certain starting assumptions and shared understandings about what matters.


As far as "excluding neophytes" goes, that's not a mechanical concern, and hence not a reason to like or dislike the game. It's like saying you think WoD's resolution system is good because you think Vampires are cool. You can totally think that, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with mechanics.

You're missing the point. Assuming THAC0 constitutes unnecessary complexity, that complexity can still have the function of increasing the barrier to entry and thus the investment and status of established players. Sometimes increased complexity is the point, an end unto itself. It certainly has an effect, and some folks will like that effect.

Example: "The first three times I read The Player's Guide to Necronia, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. On the fourth read, I started to see the pattern. Now I'm at my hundredth read and I just can't stop. I figure out so much more each time around. It's like I'm actually a wizard deciphering ancient lore! At this rate, by the end of the next year I should be able to build a character."

Honestly, complexity for complexity's sake is about why some folks like 3.x so much. :smallamused:

[JoeJ]

Wherever there's a breeding population of megaraptors, there are going to be thousands of individuals at least.

But the megaraptors are just an example. Any skeleton with up to 14HD will do. A clever wizard (and they are all clever!) will diversify his minions, and use a dozen or so that are most qualified for every encounter.

I'm still trying to figure out how you get them all into the dungeon with you. Or why you think that skeletons are going to be useful for every encounter. And most importantly, if it's really so easy for one character to trivialize every encounter, how can that game be any fun?

[Tiktakkat]

Wherever there's a breeding population of megaraptors, there are going to be thousands of individuals at least.

There are?
You do?
Uh huh.
And how exactly do you survive being attacked by thousands of megaraptors long enough to steal dead ones in pairs?


But the megaraptors are just an example. Any skeleton with up to 14HD will do. A clever wizard (and they are all clever!) will diversify his minions, and use a dozen or so that are most qualified for every encounter.

Which . . . are still going to be difficult to secure given their general CR.

Meanwhile, if such creatures are so common, then why won't every fighter have a mount and train of magebred warbeast megaraptors, ready to curbstomp the average wizard at a moments notice?

Overall, it doesn't really seem like a viable plan, not to mention a thoroughly implausible ecology.

[Cosi]

Provable more complex, but whether that's good, bad, or neutral is a value judgment, which is inherently subjective. It's quite possible that some people enjoy extra complexity for its own sake.

Things being more complex is fine. 3e's system where there are Warblades (whose powers recharge when they take a turn off from using powers), Binders (whose powers recharge every thirty seconds), Psions (whose power points recharge every day), Wizards (who can prepare a new suite of spells every say), and Fighters (who don't have any powers) is more complex than 4e's system where people have at-will powers, encounter powers, and daily powers regardless of what class they nominally are. But there are advantages to that. For example, the Binder benefits more from long encounters than the Wizard (because the Binder can fire off his round one nuke again if the fight goes long enough). That's a trade-off. It is harder for someone who plays a Binder to pick up a Warblade, but the Warblade is distinct from the Binder.

But THAC0 doesn't have any of that. Subtracting does not produce a statistically different result (let alone a more accurate result) from addition, so there is no reason to do it, regardless of how you feel about complexity.

[Quertus]

But you can definitely make objective statements about bad rules. For example, THAC0 is bad. It's more complex both internally (addition is commutative, subtraction is not) and as it relates to the rest of the system (other things just use addition), but it has the exact same behavior as an addition based system, statistically speaking. There is no reason to use it instead of some other system. And you can make other statements about bad rules, which certainly makes writing good rules easier.

THAC0 is bad. But, to be fair to THAC0, it is addition, not subtraction. IIRC, RAW, you add your modifiers to your die roll, then compare the result to your THAC0 chart. If the modified result (die roll + modifiers) is 20 or higher, you crit.

Of course, I never played it that way - I always played it as subtraction. The only time I ever saw someone try to play it correctly, they were shot down for doing it "wrong".

[JoeJ]

But THAC0 doesn't have any of that. Subtracting does not produce a statistically different result (let alone a more accurate result) from addition, so there is no reason to do it, regardless of how you feel about complexity.

If someone values complexity, then that's the reason to do it. You don't need anything else. If it doesn't produce a different result, then there's no down side.

However, even if THAC0 adds complexity, it doesn't add very much. Back when i played 2e, nobody I knew had difficulty with it. We'd just roll the die and announce what AC we hit.

[ImNotTrevor]

This assumes a convergence of both goals and metrics that ain't there. Even TROS, which shares my historical inspirations, isn't trying to do what I'm doing, draws on different sources, and interprets these sources differently. Your advice also assumes that it's better to have superficial experience with many RPG systems versus deep experience with one system. I've been running games for sixteen years, but of course you think you know better than me about what I want. :smalltongue:

Things I don't care about:
1. What you want to do with your system.

Having superficial experience with an RPG is reading it and never playing it to see how it behaves in reality. It's like imagining how an experiment will go, and assuming you're right because you're real smart. AKA, no one will believe you're right, no matter how smart you are. Thought experiments are handy, but not the same as actually going and doing the experiment. (And no thought experiments are considered valid until they are proven to be accurate.)

Having deep experience with one system is the same for inspiration as reading one book over and over. It gives a really good understanding of that one book. But not Books in general. Same with playing just one rpg. You get really in touch with that one rpg, but not rpgs in general. (And miss out on cool tools)

And...how deep can one really go with only one system? It would take maybe a year or two of intense dedication to literally memorize any given core rule book, but that's not actually helpful since being able to spout the rule doesn't mean the rule's function is understood, nor that its place in the larger system is understood.

I'm not the guy you want to be quoting experience at. I'm not a freshly-started GM. I've been GMing for 13 years myself, and those extra 3 don't put me in awe of you. That, and I'm no longer quoting principals of game design for your sake. You've made your decision. I really don't care what you do. Just don't try to hold it as the superior method. Or even a good one.

Think of it like this:
Jimmy wants to be a carpenter.

Jimmy goes to the home depot and buys some wood and some nails, and a single book on table-making. He then sets out to make a table with nothing but planks, nails, and a hammer. His plan is to continue this process until he figures out how to make beautiful tables all on his own.

Timmy wants to be a carpenter.

Timmy starts by going to carpentry classes and reading books on carpentry, and saves up to buy his own tools at home. All the while he works on simple projects of increasing complexity to grow his skills and try out the things he has learned. He studies many different styles of carpentry.

One of these two will be really good at making Tables after many years of trial and error.

The other will be a really good carpenter who can make just about anything out of wood within the same time frame.


"Jack of all trades, master of none,
though oftentimes better than master of one."

So again, I don't care what you do with your system. Go do it.

Just don't try to tell me it's anything like actually educating yourself about the craft you're trying to get into before you do it, and voraciously consuming the amazing (or not amazing, as you may find) works of your predecessors in the manner they were meant to be consumed.

It's just like with the carpenters I mentioned. Both are totally fine ways to become a carpenter.

But they are not equivalent to any degree. Only a moron would claim that they are, and you don't strike me as a moron.

[Satinavian]

Having superficial experience with an RPG is reading it and never playing it to see how it behaves in reality. It's like imagining how an experiment will go, and assuming you're right because you're real smart. AKA, no one will believe you're right, no matter how smart you are. Thought experiments are handy, but not the same as actually going and doing the experiment. (And no thought experiments are considered valid until they are proven to be accurate.)I don't have to actually play FATAL to know that it is bad. Reading is more than enough.
That is also true for many other less obvious examples.
Analyzing rules without actually see them in play is a good idea that often leads to good results.

Playtesting is something you do with a rule you want to use to see if it works like imagined. It's not something you necessarily do with rules you don't want to see in a game. A ruined campaign or even session is too high a price for telling "I told you so" afterwards.

Playtesting also tends to reveal unrecnognized problems, things the designer of the rules didn't think about. It rarely reveals new features, because those tend to be the focus of the rule descriptions anyway.



Having deep experience with one system is the same for inspiration as reading one book over and over. It gives a really good understanding of that one book. But not Books in general. Same with playing just one rpg. You get really in touch with that one rpg, but not rpgs in general. (And miss out on cool tools)Here i do agree.

But there is a difference between not playing a game after reading the rules and deciding you don't like them and relying on experience with only one single system for designing whole new systems instead of making some house rules.

[ImNotTrevor]

I don't have to actually play FATAL to know that it is bad. Reading is more than enough.
That is also true for many other less obvious examples.
Analyzing rules without actually see them in play is a good idea that often leads to good results.

Playtesting is something you do with a rule you want to use to see if it works like imagined. It's not something you necessarily do with rules you don't want to see in a game. A ruined campaign or even session is too high a price for telling "I told you so" afterwards.

Playtesting also tends to reveal unrecnognized problems, things the designer of the rules didn't think about. It rarely reveals new features, because those tend to be the focus of the rule descriptions anyway.


I think that's fine. It's why Thought Experiments exist in the first place. We don't really have to drop a piano on a sparrow to see if it would die, because we understand enough of the basics.

So if one class gets +10 to its attacks on a 2d6 system at level 1 and a complement of spells, and another gets a -3 and leprosy, we obviously don't need to play that to know that it will end badly. But usually these things are obviously really, really bad. (And honestly, the one reason I don't play FATAL is because it's gross. I have no idea if it accomplishes its goals or not. Apparently it does, according to its fans. I just find those goals to be gross.)



Here i do agree.

But there is a difference between not playing a game after reading the rules and deciding you don't like them and relying on experience with only one single system for designing whole new systems instead of making some house rules.
I'm not claiming that one must play all systems. I'm saying "Playing and analyzing lots of systems">"Playing Just One," if you plan to make something other than some homebrew rules. (And even then, seeing how other systems solve the problems you see can be informative)

[Anonymouswizard]

:smallsigh: I fundamentally disagree with such gatekeeping, for RPG design and for everything else. I encourage everyone to follow their desires, regardless of they're qualified or whether they're doing it right. No singular standard for "good" gaming, writing, or anything exists. Anybody who tells you otherwise is simply making an appeal to authority to further their own interests.

Eh? There's ways to do stuff well, learning stuff will only help you identify this. Do you think J.K. Rowling has never read a children's book?


But you can definitely make objective statements about bad rules. For example, THAC0 is bad. It's more complex both internally (addition is commutative, subtraction is not) and as it relates to the rest of the system (other things just use addition), but it has the exact same behavior as an addition based system, statistically speaking. There is no reason to use it instead of some other system. And you can make other statements about bad rules, which certainly makes writing good rules easier.

No no no no no. In all practical applications subtraction is no more complex than addition.

THAC0 is bad for the same way most of 2e is bad: inconsistency. BAB is not the reason 3e is better designed that 2e, the presence of a core mechanic is.

[Incanur]

Having superficial experience with an RPG is reading it and never playing it to see how it behaves in reality. It's like imagining how an experiment will go, and assuming you're right because you're real smart. AKA, no one will believe you're right, no matter how smart you are. Thought experiments are handy, but not the same as actually going and doing the experiment. (And no thought experiments are considered valid until they are proven to be accurate.)

Testing everything via experimentation isn't practical, especially for individuals. Opportunity cost is a thing.


Having deep experience with one system is the same for inspiration as reading one book over and over. It gives a really good understanding of that one book. But not Books in general. Same with playing just one rpg. You get really in touch with that one rpg, but not rpgs in general. (And miss out on cool tools)

I've technically GMed three different versions of one basic system: 3.0, 3.5, and PF, sometimes with extensive modifications. I've also done free-form sessions and so on.


And...how deep can one really go with only one system?

3.x might as well be the Abyss in term of depth. You can keep going and going, but you probably shouldn't. :smallwink:


Just don't try to hold it as the superior method. Or even a good one.

So far it's already produced better results than any published system, for my specific purposes. I do encourage others to do the same if desired, whether it's roleplaying systems, novels, political theory, or whatever.


Think of it like this:
Jimmy wants to be a carpenter.

This analogy breaks down because, once again, you're assuming there's a shared a standard for the good. I argue that this doesn't necessarily apply. In the realm of aesthetics, vast potential space exists. Maybe Jimmy's actually pursing a personal artistic vision, and normatively beautiful tables strikes him as hideously dull. Jimmy wants something different. The results look like deranged hack jobs to most, but Jimmy's satisfied. Eventually, an obscure modern art gallery displays a few of Jimmy's pieces.


But they are not equivalent to any degree. Only a moron would claim that they are, and you don't strike me as a moron.

Look at this. I'm constantly underestimated. :smallamused:


Eh? There's ways to do stuff well, learning stuff will only help you identify this. Do you think J.K. Rowling has never read a children's book?

Do you think the universe considers Rowling a great author? Or is that a judgment some humans make?

[Flickerdart]

Meanwhile, if such creatures are so common, then why won't every fighter have a mount and train of magebred warbeast megaraptors, ready to curbstomp the average wizard at a moments notice?
You should probably catch up on the conversation before assuming it's a fighters vs wizards matchup. This is about characters handling a 60-80 encounter gauntlet without resting. Handle Animal is another way to do this, though the ramp-up takes much longer.

[goto124]

I think that's fine. It's why Thought Experiments exist in the first place. We don't really have to drop a piano on a sparrow to see if it would die, because we understand enough of the basics.

How do you drop a piano on a sparrow anyway? The little birb would just fly away!

So... 3.5e is better for people who switch tables a lot? What of 5e's tournament game thingy that's meant to standardize many rules for game-shop play?

[ImNotTrevor]

Testing everything via experimentation isn't practical, especially for individuals. Opportunity cost is a thing.

I already covered this elsewhere, but spending a single session on a system isn't very costly. Especially when the system is free or Pay What You Want.



I've technically GMed three different versions of one basic system: 3.0, 3.5, and PF, sometimes with extensive modifications. I've also done free-form sessions and so on.

Then you haven't literally only played 1 system. But that's not much better.



3.x might as well be the Abyss in term of depth. You can keep going and going, but you probably shouldn't. :smallwink:

Not really.
D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder do one thing really well:
Pulpy Action-Fantasy
Everything else it does "meh" or does poorly, and in both cases there is almost always a better system option.
The Reward structure is simple and rewards killing things and taking their stuff before all other things, until the DM rewards it for some other reason. (Usually arbitrary/subjective like "You roleplayed good") but then again everything in D&D is bound to Rule 0 to give the illusion of infinite depth. It is an illusion. By the time you hack D&D enough to do Spacefaring Financial Drama as well as Freemarket does it, you're not playing D&D anymore. And you've made something that is probably a lot clunkier than you intended.
It's Class-based, meaning you have to develop new classes to achieve new narrative possibilities for characters.
Magic is disproportionately powerful, the classes are not well balanced.
The system is (when played as intended) moderately lethal, but the cost of death disappears in the mid levels unless the DM houserules certain spells out (but we don't need to include houseruling in system design analysis any more than we include Fanfiction in novel analysis.)
Embraces Rule 0 while also taking nearly 0 steps to actually educate the DM in how to DM beyond "You know best!" And "buy our adventure modules!"



So far it's already produced better results than any published system, for my specific purposes. I do encourage others to do the same if desired, whether it's roleplaying systems, novels, political theory, or whatever.

You've read all published systems? Impressive. And I don't believe you.
I encourage people to educate themselves and practice as they learn rather than run headlong into the night with nothing more than an idea.



This analogy breaks down because, once again, you're assuming there's a shared a standard for the good. I argue that this doesn't necessarily apply. In the realm of aesthetics, vast potential space exists. Maybe Jimmy's actually pursing a personal artistic vision, and normatively beautiful tables strikes him as hideously dull. Jimmy wants something different. The results look like deranged hack jobs to most, but Jimmy's satisfied. Eventually, an obscure modern art gallery displays a few of Jimmy's pieces.

If they are ever noticed to be tables. Or art. I never said he was making art. He was making tables, to use as tables. (Carpentry)
The only way your counter works is by changing the core premise. Naughty naughty.



Look at this. I'm constantly underestimated. :smallamused:

Hold now, Major Winchester. Your humility is blinding me.



Do you think the universe considers Rowling a great author? Or is that a judgment some humans make?
This question has no meaning because nothing except humans can judge quality (that we are aware of) so all discussions of quality infer humanity. Take your amateur internet philosophy elsewhere.

[Cosi]

Analyzing rules without actually see them in play is a good idea that often leads to good results.

I disagree. Analyzing things in a "real game" is important for some things (do people enjoy the game? are some things so clunky RAW gets ignored? does the game run at the speed you want?) but it's terrible for finding design flaws. Because people don't try to break games when they play them. I like 3e, but I acknowledge that it has flaws (i.e. SLA wish, many minions spells, polymorph et al). But you wouldn't notice those flaws in a game. People who are just trying to play D&D with their friends aren't going to cross reference the SLA rules, the text of wish, and the magic item creation rules to discover that the game asks "how much power do you want?" and allows them to answer "infinity". That just doesn't happen.

Even more mundane concerns like class balance (or archetype balance for games like Shadowrun which do not have classes per se) are hard to notice at the table. People spend a lot of time exploring or negotiating, which tends to involve out of character discussion followed by the guy with the best modifier rolling Streetwise or Data Analysis or Spellcraft. And players don't try to overshadow other characters. They also play only one character, which is usually not selected with a mind towards breaking the system. Even if the system does break (maybe someone notices that the limit to the number of demons he can control with planar binding is not "one" or "two" or even "seven", but instead "infinity"), that gets patched and the game continues as if it never happens.

Playtesting (in the sense of "playing the game", not rigorous pseudo-game testing like the SGT) is important. It tells you that your game can be, well, played. It can demonstrate that when confronted with the text you've written, people will parse it in the way you intend. It can tell you that people respond to the incentives you've given them in the way you expect. But it can't (or at least, almost always doesn't) tell you if or how your game is broken. And even when it tells you the game is broken, it tends not to produce good solutions. Most people who discover that animate dead or dominate person or planar binding is broken will respond by banning it and moving on, which doesn't help you produce versions of those spells that are balanced.


So... 3.5e is better for people who switch tables a lot? What of 5e's tournament game thingy that's meant to standardize many rules for game-shop play?

A new edition is a trade off. You get less options (because there aren't as many books printed) but you get more consistency (because people own all the books and haven't spent five or ten years making house-rules). There's nothing about 5e which makes it inherently better than 3e for people who switch tables, it's that the game hasn't spent any time diverging into 3e and 3.5 and PF and houseruled versions of those and core only versions of those and weird hybrids based on rules people kind of remember but don't bother to look up. On the other hand, it doesn't have the wealth of content that exists in 3e. You can't be a Jade Phoenix Mage or a Kenku or take Knockback as one of your feats. Because those things don't exist.

For a specific example of this, consider a player who wants to play a Gish - a character with a modicum of martial prowess and magical ability. In 3e there are a wide variety of ways to do that. You could be a Duskblade, a Sword of the Arcane Order Mystic Ranger, a Stalwart/Battle Sorcerer, a Magus, a Clawlock, a Bloodrager, or the recent PF Fighter archetype with spells. Or you could be a multiclassed character, like a Bardblade or Sorcadin. Or you could take a PrC like Spellsword, Eldritch Knight, or Jade Phoenix Mage. But if you take character that is one of those things to a random game, it's entirely possible that they'll ban ToB, or rule against Sword of the Arcane Order with Mystic Ranger, or not allow PF material. OTOH, if you're playing 5e there's a fairly limited variety of ways to do that. IIRC, there's a Fighter archetype, a Warlock archetype, and maybe a Wizard archetype. But if you show up to a game with your Fighter (caster archetype), you can be sure that you will get to play essentially that character.

[goto124]

Heh, the limited amount of content is both a blessing and a curse.

[Incanur]

I already covered this elsewhere, but spending a single session on a system isn't very costly. Especially when the system is free or Pay What You Want.

You think you can get a meaningful understanding of a system in one session? As Cosi notes, thought experiments and number crunching can do more to test a system than playing it, especially if you're only talking about a few sessions.


D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder do one thing really well:

I'm not sure these systems do anything really well. I'm just saying you can sink arbitrary amounts of time and effort into them, given the endless rules arguments and number of books involved.


The only way your counter works is by changing the core premise. Naughty naughty.

Your core premise was flawed to begin with, as I wrote.


This question has no meaning because nothing except humans can judge quality (that we are aware of) so all discussions of quality infer humanity.

Do you think humans universally agree on what makes a good RPG system? While some sort of genetic limitations probably exist, I argue that there's so much potential space that it's effectively arbitrary and subjective. Sometimes criticizing folks for having badwrongfun can serve to advance a particular craft or art, assuming a shared framework. Most of the time it's just gatekeeping and status signalling: "I'm better than you because of my superior understanding of RPG design! I'm a higher form of life because I like bands that are actually good!" I'm all about rejecting that nonsense. I will push back against it when I see it.


Take your amateur internet philosophy elsewhere.

I'm sure I will sooner or later, once I get bored.

[Segev]

I would recommend trying to run your gritty, realistic fantasy game in GURPS, honestly. Just take the rules as written for it and go. I'm not a GURPS fan, but the one thing it does very well is gritty realism. Even its fantastical elements work best of you're trying to inject them into a realistic portrayal of their consequences...and it tends to make them very costly compared to more "realistic" ways of achieving things.

It also is a vastly distinct design paradigm from d20, which should help you see if you like the class-based focus for your own purposes.

[kyoryu]

Testing everything via experimentation isn't practical, especially for individuals. Opportunity cost is a thing.

Excluded middle. It's certainly viable to test a smattering of different systems that approach the same thing in a few different ways. Do a PBtA game, maybe some Fiasco. GURPS or HERO (or possibly Savage Worlds). Maybe Fate. Some old-school D&D, or BRP. Ideally, do these as a player with an experienced GM of the system to get a good feel for how the system works.


This analogy breaks down because, once again, you're assuming there's a shared a standard for the good.

I absolutely don't, personally. The only interesting definition of "good" is "fitness to purpose". And purpose can include very subjective things such as individual preference. Still, D&D 3.x is a very specific game, that uses a very specific subset of techniques available. It's worthwhile to get at least an overview of what other techniques are used, and the pros and cons of each.

It's hard to argue "Italian food is the best!" when it's the only food you've ever had.

[JoeJ]

It's hard to argue "Italian food is the best!" when it's the only food you've ever had.

But since Italian is the best, why would I ever bother with anything else?

[Segev]

But since Italian is the best, why would I ever bother with anything else?

Variety. It makes the Italian all the better to return to. >_> <_<

[ImNotTrevor]

You think you can get a meaningful understanding of a system in one session? As Cosi notes, thought experiments and number crunching can do more to test a system than playing it, especially if you're only talking about a few sessions.


I didn't say that. But it is better than 0 sessions. It's an extreme example of "Doing as little as possible."



I'm not sure these systems do anything really well. I'm just saying you can sink arbitrary amounts of time and effort into them, given the endless rules arguments and number of books involved.

If they did nothing well, no one would play them. There are things to be learned from D&D and Pathfinder. Just not all lessons.
And spending a lot of time on a thing isn't bottomless potential for understanding. Those are two different things.



Your core premise was flawed to begin with, as I wrote.

Only when you assume the core premise must be more complex than "Jimmy wants to be a Carpenter." Your "flaw" is "yes, but what if Not That Premise But This One Instead." Come on, now. It's so obvious I needn't even point it out.



Do you think humans universally agree on what makes a good RPG system? While some sort of genetic limitations probably exist, I argue that there's so much potential space that it's effectively arbitrary and subjective. Sometimes criticizing folks for having badwrongfun can serve to advance a particular craft or art, assuming a shared framework. Most of the time it's just gatekeeping and status signalling: "I'm better than you because of my superior understanding of RPG design! I'm a higher form of life because I like bands that are actually good!" I'm all about rejecting that nonsense. I will push back against it when I see it.

You're against helping people gain knowledge and tools?
Hm. Ok.

Again, I'm not better as a person than you.
But my systems would probably be moderately more popular. *shrug*
This doesn't mean anything about either of us as people. I'm sure you're a really cool dude. I just fundamentally disagree with sending people into a complex world with minimal preparation or knowledge.

I just want to have more people to talk shop with about game design. Maybe find someone to partner up with someday. I want MORE people in here.

When my entire experience was with 3.5 and I tried to make my first system, I found myself more frustrated than satisfied. As I've branched out and seen more "tricks of the trade," my toolkit has grown. And so now it's easier and more satisfying.

But hey, YMMV.

My wisdom on the situation is that learning from those who came before saves a lot of time, energy, and frustration. Mathemeticians don't have to rediscover every principal of math on their own from scratch. And game designers don't need to relearn every aspect of their trade from 0, either.

Like I keep saying and you keep ignoring,
You can do it whatever way you want.
But an easier way exists.

[Incanur]

It's hard to argue "Italian food is the best!" when it's the only food you've ever had.

It's easy for me to argue that 3.0/3.5/PF is crap when it's the only published system I've run or played. :smallsmile:


Only when you assume the core premise must be more complex than "Jimmy wants to be a Carpenter." Your "flaw" is "yes, but what if Not That Premise But This One Instead." Come on, now. It's so obvious I needn't even point it out.

We've been talking about RPG systems. The whole wants-to-be-a-carpenter thing is notably different from this, at least assuming a shared understanding about constitutes being a good carpenter. That's why the analogy wasn't great to begin with.


You're against helping people gain knowledge and tools?

No, I'm against gatekeeping and status signaling, as I've written. I'm a humanities graduate student and an instructor for undergraduates, so I'm in the belly of the beast when it comes to gatekeeping and status signaling. That partially explains my sensitivity in this regard. No, a person doesn't need to read Foucault or have a degree to make so-and-so argument. Sure, these things might help, but 95% of you-must-be-this-tall-to-ride claims are nonsense.


But my systems would probably be moderately more popular. *shrug*

I suspect so. I ain't going for popularity. Individual satisfaction and broad appeal don't necessarily align. This is exactly why I resist the standard narrative of a singular quality metric for largely subjective domains like art, writing, and music. I write fiction, blog, and develop my own RPG rules because I enjoy these activities. I want to improve, but assessed by my own lights rather than by popularity or expert opinion.

If I'm writing for academia or running a 3.PF game for my current group, that's a different story. Then I care about popularity in terms of the specific audiences.

[ImNotTrevor]

It's easy for me to argue that 3.0/3.5/PF is crap when it's the only published system I've run or played. :smallsmile:

Actually, that's exactly as wrong for the exact same reason.

[Anonymouswizard]

Variety. It makes the Italian all the better to return to. >_> <_<

That's why I have pizza one day and pasta the next. It's not like I need anymore variety than that.

[Milo v3]

That's why I have pizza one day and pasta the next. It's not like I need anymore variety than that.

Blasphemy, everyone knows you're meant to reheat pizza the next day.

[Malifice]

This is when people start pulling out greater planar binding or animate dead or polymorph any object or shapechange and suddenly spell slots stop being a problem. I have little doubt that a properly prepared 3.5 spellcaster party can roll through 80 level-appropriate encounters starting around level 5, with it becoming a sure thing after level 7.

The easiest way is to abuse command undead by constantly creating minions with animate dead and then commanding the released ones. By level 7, a wizard can get one base 4th level spell slot, one more from a plausible INT of 18, and one from specialization, elven generalist, or domain (let's not talk about focused specialization). With every casting he can create 14 HD of undead, like a 12 HD advanced megaraptor skeleton (CR6). The wizard can make three megaraptors every day, and cast command undead on the released ones. They get no save and it lasts for a week. After one week of doing this, the wizard has 21 megaraptors, at a cost of three 2nd level spell slots each day to renew the command undead on the ones that are about to expire. He can have two more megaraptors permanently controlled with animate dead.

The wizard then meets up with his three wizard friends, each of whom has also animated 23 megaraptors.

Do you really doubt that four wizards and 92 megaraptors can't beat 80 CR7 encounters, one after the other?

At level 9, you can supplement the megaraptors with bearded devils (lesser planar binding) and fighters (dominate person), each of which also last days/level. The math works out the same, so now you have double the minions. For extra class, have your fighters or bearded devils riding your megaraptors.

Thank you for the chuckle :)

[ComaVision]

I think a thread has officially broken down once people start talking about how much education they have.

[wumpus]

Eh? There's ways to do stuff well, learning stuff will only help you identify this. Do you think J.K. Rowling has never read a children's book?

THAC0 is bad for the same way most of 2e is bad: inconsistency. BAB is not the reason 3e is better designed that 2e, the presence of a core mechanic is.

Consistency is hardly a great virtue in RPGs, at least to those who aren't to crazy about 4e. 4e seemed to make consistency, homogenization, and balance the primary goals. 5e may have found a better "excluded middle" for a good consistency level.

While I'm not familiar with the DMG side of 2e (I mostly know it through Baldur's Gate), 1e's consistency problems centered around extremely detailed rules for narrow specific cases (and expect them to often be ignored) and fewer rules that could be applied for all general cases (excluding combat, which was reasonably well covered). The obvious reason for this is that Gary Gygax was writing his game for DMs who would then be creating their own "game" (presumably he preferred to create games for fellow game-creators), and said as much in the introduction of the DMG (another reason was that he was CEO and his editor worked for him. I'm sure this created a dynamic of "trying to cram as much cool stuff that fits" instead of letting the editor build a sane book out of the material.)

[Flickerdart]

Consistency is hardly a great virtue in RPGs, at least to those who aren't to crazy about 4e. 4e seemed to make consistency, homogenization, and balance the primary goals. 5e may have found a better "excluded middle" for a good consistency level.
There's a big, huge difference between "the way abilities work is different for these different classes" and "positive bonuses are good except attack modifiers." They are not both consistency issues.