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Cluedrew
2016-07-29, 07:58 PM
OK, maybe it should be the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons. On the whole I still have a positive opinion of Dungeons & Dragons, but it has its problems. I have managed to create a list of five flaws that I feel are present in Dungeons & Dragons. These flaws are present in all the editions I have seen but at the same time you may not think they are flaws.

Now in ascending order:

5. Magic
I don't like D&D's magic. It is not a generic magic, spell preparation is not a very common feature of many representations of magic. Yet, it manages to be almost flavourless. Yes there are spell components and spells require gestures and words. But that's it, there is no real explanation, not even the briefest view of how this is supposed to work. No true names, no contact with spirits, just stand over there move your hands and things happen.

4. Levels
Not that growing and strengthening is a problem, but it actually creates a problem that the only way that a character can grow it up. People have actually made "mods" for this, so I don't think I am alone. But if the characters grow up and sometimes I just want to be at a particular power level, or just grow at a rate different from the one given by XP.

3. Non-combat
You can divide D&D into its combat and non-combat portions. And if you sum-up all the non-combat portions of the game it still doesn't measure up to the combat portion. These really need some love and attention. They are often underdeveloped (most boil down to a role). Social mechanics in particular suffer for this.

2. Pacing
This in a way is actually number one, because I just don't have the time for a D&D style combat. A single turn of combat in D&D's takes about as long as the combat in the systems I play now (in my experience). Character creation is also has this problem, but I think you get a better return on that then combat.

1. Wargame//RPG
This is not a problem on its own, but I feel it is the source of 2 & 3, a definite contributing factor to 5 and related to 4. So I think it should be mentioned. Historically D&D grew out of a table-top wargame and I think it held onto that a bit too much. So it is a mix of the two types of games and it if you try to play it for only one of the two, the game suffers for it. Even beyond that I am interested in both, but it often doesn't provide enough of either.

So these the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons.

nrg89
2016-07-29, 08:38 PM
I don't like that the game is extremely hard to teach to new players, the things you mentioned are definitely stuff I don't like to teach either, but the thing I don't like is feats. If it's supposed to be accessible for new players it's a monumental failure. Right at character creation you scare the bejesus out of your players by presenting them with 30 different choices, some of which will have ramifications for the next ten levels.

Spells get a groan from the DM everytime, especially at higher levels, but feats you just can't avoid; your player will interact with them. And most of them are not very flavorful and they're an early signal for players that D&D can be played as a math problem.

SimonMoon6
2016-07-29, 09:41 PM
I agree with most of the comments in the first post. I'll add one more thing I don't like: alignments. It's a strange arbitrary way to suggest a character's personality and it easily enables racist attitudes, since "those guys" are "always evil". And don't forget first edition's "alignment languages". What the heck was the reasoning behind those?

I don't like magic for the stated reasons and also how daunting it can be to a new player. "Okay, you're a wizard. Now pick which spell you want to cast today out of the following list of 58 spells. And make sure to change that choice based on what the particular adventure is". And that makes it seem like spellcasters are the most difficult classes to play, but they're not since if they choose a spell badly one day, they choose something better the next day. Whereas, if a new player wants to be a fighter, unless he's playing 1st edition, he has lots of choices that will have a permanent impact on his character. He might ruin his character with his first level choices and that's terrible! And that's a reason not to like the character creation system whose stated goal is to "reward system mastery" but I see that as "punish newbies".

I hate levels on many, um, levels. I could write an essay (and actually I've started one). Character progression is fine, but radical progression is terrible. Going from wimp to god in only one year of playing is unacceptable to me. Suddenly, the adventures that were challenges for you are adventures you wouldn't waste time on any more because they're so trivially easy.

Non-combat can be really interesting in other games. But with D&D skills tied to character level, things get weird. And don't get me started on Profession or Crafting skills. You can't paint a valuable painting unless you have valuable ingredients (expensive paints and canvas?).

erikun
2016-07-30, 12:36 AM
D&D Magic is interesting, and I suspect that it is a love-it-or-hate-it situation. There aren't really any other systems which use something similar. Part of the point is no doubt to make the magic system feel strange and unusual - to feel like some sort of magic, as opposed to just being a skill like climbing but with spitting fire out of your hands. Magic and spells and spell slots always appeared to me to represent the way that Wizards were supposed to operate: using their INT to determine what they would need for the upcoming day.

It's not necessarily a magic system which I prefer, but I can certainly see where it makes sense.

Levels... were always a shorthand for character progression. Classes, too. One of the things that I didn't like about D&D3e is how much it took a relatively simple idea (pick a class, you have these powers, you get these powers after 2000 XP) and turned it into a massively complicated exercise. I've heard of some systems which keep the complexity but streamline it - I believe a version of RuneQuest had you select the skills which a character would "train" during a level, and they gained the skill points upon leveling up - but for the most part, it was a simple and straightforward system which I felt became needlessly complicated in later editions.

On the one hand, having no rules for out of combat situations is nice because it basically forces players to roleplay a bit. If they have an item they want to sell to a merchant and they don't have anything to roll, they're forced to just talk and roleplay it out. Some groups were fine with not discussing much and just wanting to sell it, which is perfectly fine. Some groups wanted to haggle and include plot hooks, which is perfectly fine. In other games with good rules, this wasn't much of a problem either. If you group wanted to ignore the rules and just roleplay, fine. If the group wanted to follow the mechanics, there was a working system there.

I found that including poor rules for non-combat situations tended to mess the entire process up, though. Players wanted to roll their Appraise skill or whatever else to get a discount, because the Diplomacy skill says 15+ makes a NPC friendly and some other page of the book says that friendly NPCs grant a 10% discount, etc. Which is fine, you can still do that and have the good NPC roleplay dialogue (if you want), but there was just so many minor details to remember there and so many attempts at prestige classes to goof around with the system. And, what's worst, is that if a player jumped into a prestige class which specifically allowed for an unusual situation in a non-combat roll, then you can't exactly invalidate the whole thing by ab-libing the scene...

I've actually played enough non-D&D games with terrible combat pacing that I don't really find D&D that unusual. Sure, the combat runs overly long and there are too many fiddly bits, but it is hardly such a monstrosity when I've seen what else is out there.

And I don't like alignment. I feel it is intended as a roleplay tool, and a simple "what would this character do?" guide for people who don't have a good idea of what the character they are running might do. But so much advice has muddled the meaning and so many people attempt to ham-fist characters with it that I'd just prefer to throw the whole thing out. We don't even have a clear definition of a lot of alignments anymore.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 12:43 AM
OK, maybe it should be the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons.

...

So these the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons.

I concur with those points, non-exclusively, with the added note that disliking something doesn't mean other people are wrong to like it. For me, every edition of D&D I've interacted with places player time and effort on things that I'm usually not interested in, and quickly abstracts through the things that I want to linger on. For many people this isn't the case, of course.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-30, 12:56 AM
I get the feeling that many people who actually do like DnD actually have issues with these and try to fix them a lot. I don't think they are bad points at all.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 01:02 AM
I get the feeling that many people who actually do like DnD actually have issues with these and try to fix them a lot. I don't think they are bad points at all.

I'd argue that the whole genre of "fantasy heartbreakers" exists because of (mostly) D&D players who want something better for their group/individual preferences/styles.

2D8HP
2016-07-30, 12:04 PM
Before I list what I don't like, I will say that despite its problems D&D remains the most fun game I've actually played, and:
You may change it around a a little bit , but for me as long as the game features a Dragon sitting on a pile of treasure, in a Dungeon and you play a Wizard with a magic wand, or a Warrior in armor, wielding a longbow, just like the picture on the box I picked up in 1978, whatever the edition, I want to play that game!https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/D%26d_original.jpg/200px-D%26d_original.jpg
Since they're different D&D's I'll make different lists.

1977 Basic set:
1) I remember at the age of ten that I felt the need to read the 48 page rulebook three times before I felt "I got it" (but since I was under the "recommended age" anyway, I may have well have been too young for it).
2) The game only went to 3rd level, so even though there was a Red Dragon in the monster list (and on the cover illustration), any PC you made with those rules would not be a "Dragonslayer", but would instead be a"slain by Dragon"!
3) In fact, while it could have been fixed by a better DM, and maybe what are in retrospect obvious house rules, in what seemed like "the right way" to play the game, almost none of the PC's would survive First Level.
4) The "In Search of the Unknown" adventure that came with the box, was definitely a "fill in the blanks" module, and couldn't just be an "open and run" adventure, which annoyed me at the time.
5) How feeble magic users were at first level (in retrospect we should have just started classes at different levels, but that seemed like "cheating").

oD&D plus:
1) It just really needed an editor! Very unclearly written, and spread over so many books and magazine articles.
2) Some of the books my DM used were already hard to find in the late 1970's, and I never did get them all! :smallredface:
3) What can I say? No game will ever seem as cool as those long ago games, so it set a standard that I'll never be able to match! :smallfrown:

1970's AD&D
1) Except for having rules for higher levels, it really didn't fix what seemed the main "problem" of Basic D&D, i.e.your First Level PC wouldn't probably survive!
2) Unlike Basic, I never could memorize all the rules, they were just too many of them!
I would never be "Advanced" enough.
3) The "sample" Dungeon in the DMG only detailed part of the map (almost the exact same map is in the 5e DMG)!
4) At the time, it bothered me that it wasn't as "realistic" as Runequest or MERP/Rolemaster (I don't care now).
5) While I still prefered to play D&D, early 80's Call of Cthullu, proved to be much easier to GM.

1985's "Unearthed Arcana":
1) After the initial excitement of the "Barbarian" and "Cavalier" classes, I realized what an unbalanced rule changing mess it made of the game, that it was Gygax himself who mangled up his own game so much just made it more bitter.
2) After "UA", I just couldn't find anyone else who still wanted to play D&D for decades. Tables were open for other RPG's, but they were never as much fun.

2e AD&D:
1) I foolishly skipped 2e thinking it would be more of the same as "Unearthed Arcana", also the artwork turned me off ( just say no to helmet horns!).
2) When it was the current edition "back in the day", I couldn't find any tables that still wanted to play D&D! :smallfrown:

Post '70's TSR B/X, BECMI, RC, etc:
1) Race as Class.
2) That it was a seperate game.
When these rules came out in the 1980's and 90's, I already had a large collection of 1970's rules, so I never bought any of these rules until this year when I picked up from Half Priced Books 1994's "The Classic Dungeons and Dragons Game Rules and Adventures Book", which except for bringing back the "race as a class rules" (no Elf Thieves), that was changed in 1975's "Greyhawk" supplement, it largely looks to be the same game as mid 1970's D&D.
In looking at it I can't help be regret the existence of my beloved Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which was a completely different game!:smallwink:
"No royalties for you Arneson! Mine all Mine! Bwahahaha!
Wait, what's that Blume?"It would have been better had they kept it the '77 "Basic" game with "options", no separate "Advanced" game.
All those years of my only playing the "Advanced" version of D&D now seem silly snd stupid.

3e:
1) That soon after I bought it first 3.5 then 4e come out. For more then a decade Half Priced Books has had on their shelves copies of the 3e PHB that are priced much cheaper than what I paid for it, as no one wants an "obsolete" game. Darn you to heck WotC for rolling out so many "editions"!
2) The oversized mess it became (just say no to infinite "feats" and "prestige classes)! 3) How quickly the characters became unhumanly "epic".
4) Two weapon wielding Rangers, that's not Aragorn!

3.5, Pathfinder, and 4e:
1) Just no.
Too much.
Too soon.
PAY ME BACK FOR BUYING 3e FIRST!

5e:
1) Just like AD&D they're just too many rules for me to memorize (if I only use the free online "Basic" Rules, and only some of the PHB that's less of a problem).
2) While not to the same extent, most of what I didn't like about 3e is still true about 5e. Too many rules, too powerful PC's, too many options.

While I've had "hella" fun playing 5e, it is not the perfect edition of D&D for me, because that edition probably doesn't exist.
My ideal form of D&D would:
1) Be as easy to learn and to create PC's as the 1977 "Basic" D&D rules were.
2) Have as quick flowing combat as 5e has.
3) The ability to make special "snowflake" PC's like 3.x D&D.
4) Feel as intuitive to GM as early 1980's "Call of Cthullu".
5) Have a "Ranger" class as awesome as the1e AD&D Ranger was.
Since "perfect" D&D doesn't exist, the free 5e Basic Rules plus some of the extra rules in the PHB is "close enough for government work", and plenty fun for me.

From the 1977 Holmes "Basic" rules, I miss:
Being able to know all the rules. How enchanting the box illustration looked. How quickly characters could be created.

From the 1974 to 1977 OD&D rules and supplements I miss:
The charm of a creation of "amateurs" (done for love), not "professionals" (done for money). "Guidelines" rather than "rules" (5e kind of brings this back).

From 1e AD&D I miss:
The authorial voice. How completely awesome 1e Rangers were!
That the characters stayed human scale longer (not quickly becoming comic book style superheroes). How "Appendix N" and "Deities and Demigods" inspired my reading.
How gratifying it was when PC's survived a session!

3e, what I miss:
The initial excitement of the diversity of characters that could be created.
That they brought back the Greyhawk setting!

What a like about all WotC D&D's, and Pathfinder:
That more classes are viable and can survive First Level!

Cluedrew
2016-07-30, 12:15 PM
I concur with those points, non-exclusively, with the added note that disliking something doesn't mean other people are wrong to like it.No (or is it yes...), ultimately all of these problems are subjective. I mean I could define a set of criteria by which these are objective flaws, but those criteria would themselves be subjective. Take flaw #1, Wargame//RPG as an example. If one could define platonic role-playing game being part war game would probably keep D&D from reaching that. But at the same time a lot of people enjoy the little bit of wargame thrown in.

On Alignment: A couple of people (or just SimonMoon6) mentioned alignment. Alignment didn't make it on this list because I have seen it done well and in those cases it works quite well. If you are wondering those are the cases where it is a descriptive approximation. It can be miss used, but it is not often enough. Plus I have never had any use alignment as an excuse/straight jacket experiences.

To 2D8HP: That is quite a list.

2D8HP
2016-07-30, 01:51 PM
To 2D8HP: That is quite a list.To Cluedrew,
Yeah I do ramble and go on long tirades!
The most important part was about the game as it was in 1978, just before the AD&D PHB:

oD&D plus:
1) It just really needed an editor! Very unclearly written, and spread over so many books and magazine articles.
2) Some of the books my DM used were already hard to find in the late 1970's, and I never did get them all! :smallredface:
3) What can I say? No game will ever seem as cool as those long ago games, so it set a standard that I'll never be able to match! :smallfrown:

And that's just it, D&D should mostly be like oD&D but as well edited, and as clearly written as 5e, with some of the rule changes that 5e has (but not all). All the other editions should not exist!

There should only be three editions.
1) oD&D with the supplements and magazine articles that led to AD&D (you have to start somewhere).
2) The 1977 Basic set (not perfect, but still a treasure).
3) The ideal perfect form of D&D that will probably never exist.

If they publish a 6e within a decade from now, with so many editions poppin' out so soon after each other, I don't care if it's a little better, IT BETTER BE PERFECT!

While I am very much grateful that with 5e, for the first time in decades, I have been finally able to find other people willing to play a game called "Dungeons & Dragons, I pretty much feel that for the most part, over the last decades the changes have been:
TOO MANY!
TOO SOON!
TOO OFTEN!

STOP THE EDITION AVALANCHE!

Slarg
2016-07-30, 02:54 PM
3. Non-combat
You can divide D&D into its combat and non-combat portions. And if you sum-up all the non-combat portions of the game it still doesn't measure up to the combat portion. These really need some love and attention. They are often underdeveloped (most boil down to a role). Social mechanics in particular suffer for this.



I'm indifferent on the other four, but I absolutely disagree with this one here. In non-combat, my Great Old One Warlock can use Detect Thoughts along with his class Telepathy to learn pretty much anything he needs to whenever he enters a town, and there's been a time where an innocent man (of that particular crime) was on trial and I cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter(Uncontrollable laughter) right after he said "I did not murder that man!", which resulted in him getting locked up and our rogue went in and busted him out so he would work with us.

Or the times where Telepathy, Detect Thoughts, and Dissonant Whispers(Psychic damage, but not enough to kill someone) to convince a NPC to poison a warlord for us, all while making it seem like it was *his* idea.

And that's just what I've done. I knew an Arcane Trickster who would stab someone (Hell, even a horse) and then put the bloodied weapon into our marks' pocket/belt (which lead to the trial scenario above).

Heck, I've seen a Bard put on what amounts to a Rock concert while a Wizard either used a scroll of Mass Suggestion or a spell to do the same and we caused a week long riot without lifting a finger after that.

There's plenty of non-combat usages for a bunch of the effects you get. You just have to think outside the box for them.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 03:07 PM
There's plenty of non-combat usages for a bunch of the effects you get. You just have to think outside the box for them.

I feel like that just illustrates how combat-oriented the game tends to be (edition-dependent).

2D8HP
2016-07-30, 04:26 PM
I'm indifferent on the oher four, but I absolutely disagree with this one here. In non-combat, my Great Old One Warlock can....... I knew an Arcane Trickster who.... I admit that in @Slarg's example, it all sounds pretty cool, fun, and groovy but, I'M NOT GOING TO LET REALITY STOP A PERFECTLY GOOD RANT!
I spy three things that are just plain wrong in @Slarg's example. :furious:

Imprimis:

non-combatThe only reason D&D got slandered with the tag role-playing games is that Flying Buffalo said that a Tunnels and Trolls product could be used with
other Fantasy Role Playing Games i.e. D&D.
D&D is, was, and should be about stompn' on and stealin' from monsters.
Do not deviate!

Secundus

Warlock = a new class and thus badwrong!

Tertius

Arcane Trickster = also a new class and thus badwrong!

Take heed!
Also new and thus badwrong are:
Dragonborns,
Tieflings, and
Eldrich Knights.

(And I'm keeping an eye on Gnomes, half-elves and half-orcs)!

You have been notified!

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-30, 04:30 PM
Well! I don't go about insulting your race/class combo. Your mother was a kender samuari 20 and your father smelled of bat guano!

The breadth of classes is what I love about Pathfinder/3.5. Too often I have found that one class gels with a player and another, very similar one does not. (I for instance, really love the scout, but am a bit meh about the ranger.)

2D8HP
2016-07-30, 04:47 PM
I for instance, really love the scout, but am a bit meh about the ranger.


HERESY!

(actually the Scout does look pretty cool)

NO!

(max hit points at first level)

RESIST!

(unlimited multi-classing)

MUST REMAIN STRONG!

The old ways are best.
The old ways are best.......

:wink:

Cluedrew
2016-07-30, 05:32 PM
I'm indifferent on the other four, but I absolutely disagree with [point 4].

[...]

There's plenty of non-combat usages for a bunch of the effects you get. You just have to think outside the box for them.You know I am making my own role playing game. And I needed a system to calculate the probabilities of different results coming out. I did it in Excel. It can be done, I did it but let me tell you I had to think it had to think outside the box to get it to work.

But Excel is really not meant for that.

And that is really how I feel about it. As BayardSPSR said, the fact you have to think outside the box to get it to do what you want really shows that it is not meant for that. If your best stories of D&D are not combats, you should consider switching systems. Personally I would gladly trade the third way I have to hit someone with a sword (or the forth ability I have to set them on fire) for an ability that reflects... well anything really. The traditional woodworking my character inherited form her parents, the ability to make good clothing, the random ancient language my wizard learned as a student.

Yes, D&D has non-combat. No I'm not saying we should rid it of combat. But for me the balance is way off.

Vitruviansquid
2016-07-30, 05:43 PM
I played DnD mostly in the 4th edition, and I hated how absolutely combat-obsessed that game was while I was playing it... up until I played a less combat-obsessed game, and then I wanted the meaty, crunchy combat back.

Pugwampy
2016-07-30, 07:23 PM
This game does eat up time but I cannot think of a better way to spend my time .

I very much like the magic . Its unique .

Non combat Roleplaying part makes the game so much more then just a chess game between people .

BayardSPSR
2016-07-30, 09:47 PM
Non combat Roleplaying part makes the game so much more then just a chess game between people .

Yeah, it makes it chess where you roleplay between some of the moves sometimes. As opposed to a game of roleplaying where you don't keep stopping to play chess for some reason.

Cluedrew
2016-07-31, 06:56 AM
To BayardSPSR: I think I know what your getting at (role-play doesn't stop when combat starts)... and now I can't help but wonder how I could modify how I play chess to represent how my characters would play it.

But here is the thing, the amount of stuff you can say in combat about your character is very small for the amount of time it takes to play it. Further more if the thing I want to say about my character is "I have no idea how to fight" then 4 encounters a day of hiding behind the paladin are going to get boring.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-31, 11:54 AM
To BayardSPSR: I think I know what your getting at (role-play doesn't stop when combat starts)... and now I can't help but wonder how I could modify how I play chess to represent how my characters would play it.

Sorry, that was the opposite of what I was trying to say - my intended point was that the combat game you're constantly playing eats up a lot of time that could be spent roleplaying, making in-character decisions, resolving conflicts, increasing tension, etc.

Anonymouswizard
2016-07-31, 12:11 PM
I have a weird relationship with D&D. In theory I like it and enjoy it. I'm even enjoying a game of 5e at the moment.

However, I just don't like several things about D&D, especially newer editions:

#1 Spell Slots
My biggest complaint is spell slots. I just have no idea what they represent in-world. They come across as a purely gamist mechanic in order to limit spellcasters, whereas I tend towards simulationist. I'd have much preferred it if 5e had gone with a spell point system, I'm fairly certain that spell slots aren't actually a holy cow (memorised spells I actually like in theory, especially the 5e interpretation).

#2 Levels
Now I try to make my opinion on class and level systems clear. I find that they tend to be inherently limiting and annoying. But my bigger annoyance is with the levels than classes. I, at least in theory, like classes. Funnel characters into certain roles in order to make things easily balanced and characters more varied? Awesome! But what I don't like is levels, where characters get sudden leaps in competence at fixed intervals of XP, instead of growing organically and slowly becoming better at what they do (this is why I like the WH40KRPGs, because your level measures how much you've upgraded your character). It just pulls me out of the zone, as either I get a level every session and advance improbably fast, or I spend a long time at the same level and then suddenly improve in a variety of things. I much prefer looking at my skills at the end/beginning of the session and then checking if I have enough XP to raise them.

#3 Lack of focus on skills
This is a rather weird and very personal one. I just don't like that your character's noncombat skills are always a secondary focus (generally barring thieves/rogues). Most of your character's class abilities are combat focused, and the 5e design team essentially classes noncombat abilities as 'ribbons' instead of true class features (nevermind how powerful they are). Also, when you reach a noncombat situation it seems to be normal to consider spells instead of skills, especially if you have a lot of magic.

#4 Wide Power Curve
D&D tries to fit both 'beginning adventurer with a bit of skill' and 'demigod able to change the environment with a single spell' into one game, and doesn't really succeed at both (although it does better at the first). In 4e, when it focused on 'badass adventurer' this wasn't as much of a concern.

I have a few other nitpicks, but those are minor.


I'd argue that the whole genre of "fantasy heartbreakers" exists because of (mostly) D&D players who want something better for their group/individual preferences/styles.

Totally, I'd be working on mine, but I think The Dark Eye might actually be what I want, so I'm waiting until I can take a peek at the corebook.

2D8HP
2016-07-31, 05:07 PM
A lot of the complaints about D&D, I remember people having decades ago.
I lot were "fixed" with 1978's
Runequest (http://www.chaosium.com/runequest/) ("backgrounds" not classes, skills not levels), but maybe it from being jaded, but for me, while the rules felt more intuitive and "realistic", and easier than all but '77 "Basic" D&D to GM, but when I played it in the 1980's, it just wasn't as fun to be a player, as D&D.

And that's just it, I have never been a player of any game as fun as D&D (early Shadowrun and Traveller came closest). But unless you just use the rules as "suggestions", and totally "wing it", DM'ing complete RAW D&D has always been a chore. Every cool new ability/power a PC has makes it more fun for the player, but is an extra thing for the DM to memorize.

While still a chore, being a "Keeper" of Call of Cthullu was just easier than DM'ing D&D (other RPG's I've GM'd were as much or more of a hassle to GM, my players loved the Top Secret games I "Administered", but I was almost completely ignoring the rules and making everything up. Notice a pattern?).

Can you keep D&D as fun for players, but reduce the burden on DM's?

I've never tried it but Magic World (http://www.chaosium.com/magic-world-2/) is supposed to have more "gonzo" D&D like magic, but with Call of Cthullu/Runequest style rules, so that may be worth checking out.

Also, has anyone tried Tunnels and Trolls? It came out soon after oD&D, and is supposed to be simpler.

Cluedrew
2016-07-31, 05:17 PM
Sorry, that was the opposite of what I was trying to say... Oops. My view remains as it was my previous post, you can say things about a character (role-play) in combat. As a refinement of what I said earlier I think most of the interesting stuff gets "said" around (just before and after) the beginning and the end of combat. All that stuff in the middle is just a tactics games and repetition.


I have a weird relationship with D&D. In theory I like it and enjoy it. I'm even enjoying a game of 5e at the moment.In a gene that is so heavily dependant on the people you are playing with the system only cares so much weight. Some of my best role-playing memories are from free-form games where the system brought absolutely nothing to the table. Yes a good system is important*, put probably not as important as the people you are playing with.

*There are some trade-offs you make when you play free-form, it is hard for the outcome of a scene to ever be in question for one.

BayardSPSR
2016-07-31, 07:22 PM
... Oops.

No worries; I need to stop assuming that everyone who reads a sentence I write will interpret it in the exact same way I do.


While still a chore, being a "Keeper" of Call of Cthullu was just easier than DM'ing D&D (other RPG's I've GM'd were as much or more of a hassle to GM, my players loved the Top Secret games I "Administered", but I was almost completely ignoring the rules and making everything up. Notice a pattern?).

Can you keep D&D as fun for players, but reduce the burden on DM's?

Having had no exposure to CoC, I'm curious what about it made it better/easier to GM.

RazorChain
2016-07-31, 10:34 PM
... Oops. My view remains as it was my previous post, you can say things about a character (role-play) in combat. As a refinement of what I said earlier I think most of the interesting stuff gets "said" around (just before and after) the beginning and the end of combat. All that stuff in the middle is just a tactics games and repetition.

In a gene that is so heavily dependant on the people you are playing with the system only cares so much weight. Some of my best role-playing memories are from free-form games where the system brought absolutely nothing to the table. Yes a good system is important*, put probably not as important as the people you are playing with.

*There are some trade-offs you make when you play free-form, it is hard for the outcome of a scene to ever be in question for one.


I have to agree on that, there is nothing more important to a game than the people you are playing with.

As to Why I don't like D&D is kinda I grew out of it and it just doesn't work for me anymore. I'm not going to bash the system for....most everything. The problem arises if you ask why? If you never ask questions and just play the game then you'll be fine.

But then those questions suddenly pop up after you just brought in 30lbs of gold to pay for your 50lbs full plate, or why did your spell vanish from your head after you cast it? Why do monsters congregate in dungeons and collect treasure? Where did that Owlbear keep his treasure that the DM randomly rolled for on treasure table D? Was it going shopping with all that gold? How does more armor make you harder to hit? And before you start to answer that question by glancing blows etc then if a Giant throws a huge rock at you, how comes it is harder for him to hit you? What do Hit Point in D&D represent? Toughness? Durability? Why do they keep publishing material by Ed Greenwood or his novels? Why don't people scoop out their eyes with a spoon after reading his books and ask almighty Cthulhu to end their suffering? Why alignments?

So it is best not to ask questions.

But I have to agree with 2D8HP that D&D should have been a boardgame with minatures where you just go and raid dungeons.

Honest Tiefling
2016-07-31, 11:26 PM
And that's just it, I have never been a player of any game as fun as D&D (early Shadowrun and Traveller came closest). But unless you just use the rules as "suggestions", and totally "wing it", DM'ing complete RAW D&D has always been a chore. Every cool new ability/power a PC has makes it more fun for the player, but is an extra thing for the DM to memorize.

And this is why I actually like it when a player tells me of their build from level 1-20. I don't have to muck about with new classes or archetypes that have recently come out, I can just focus on the proposed builds and what the characters will likely be in front of it.

2D8HP
2016-08-01, 12:20 AM
Having had no exposure to CoC, I'm curious what about it made it better/easier to GM.The rules were simple, and intuitive (you roll percentile dice to see if a listed skill was used successfully). The pre-made adventures were pretty clear, and the setting (Earth in the 1920's, with hidden cults and monsters), was real easy to make up scenerios for (a little "Indiana Jones", and a lot of "monster movie"). Since the only spells the PC's could use were the ones you let them find, that made it easier as well. Since the PC's were just regular 20th Century people, there weren't any special powers rules to memorize, unless you wanted the PC's to get them, and you didn't have to confirm to a "Magic system" for the monsters, and could just make up anything that fit the plot.
The downsides? Well number one, as a GM since you had to mostly conform to 20th century Earth, there just wasn't as much Worldbuilding fun to be had (there was a "Dreamlands" setting, but it was hardly used).
Ultimately though it just wasn't as fun to play, your not exploring a fantastic world or really "leveling up", though my players liked having firearms and dynamite instead of swords and fireball spells.
I actually reused some scenerios (cultist and Elder Gods) in D&D, and that worked well.
But my players prefered the Space Opera scenarios of "Traveller" better still, but what they really liked was playing secret agents in the espionage settings of "Top Secret", which was even easier to make uo adventures for (if you've seen just one James Bond movie, and a few episodes of "Mission Impossible", you've got the genre down), for myself though I found it really boring to GM and I just phoned it in, I hardly bothered to learn the rules, and just had the players roll percentile dice for success like in Call of Cthullu.
Even more popular with the gamers I knew "back in the day", were "Champions" or "Villains and Vigilantes", which had comic book superhero settings, but I had hardly any interest in at all as a player, and none as a GM. Then by the early 1990's all anybody around wanted to play was "Cyberpunk" or "Vampire", and that was the final straw, and I left the hobby for decades, until I discovered that they were other people willing to play D&D again, and while it isn't the D&D I knew, it's been close enough, maybe even better to play albeit worse to DM.

vasilidor
2016-08-01, 12:22 AM
In every version i have played it is impossible to improve noncombat abilities/skills separately from combat abilities. Drives me nuts.

Slipperychicken
2016-08-01, 01:31 AM
The non-combat and wargame problems arise because D&D (I can only speak for least 3.x and 5th edition) is about fantasy violence. That's why most of the rules are about it, and why it's so rare to go a session without a fight. Also, if you want to emulate some classical myths and other stories D&D is inspired by, the heroes in those tales were often people who tried to solve their problems by fighting. I find the closer you stick to dungeon-crawling small scale fantasy violence, the better D&D works overall. That's just what the games were made for.

Pacing: I agree for 3.x, not for 5e. You could easily take a whole 4-6 hours to a single 7-round fight in 3.x (you'd count yourself lucky to get through it in just an hour), but in 5e I've gotten through pretty long fights in 45 minutes or less.

I agree about the vancian magic. If it's just going to be a generic flavorless thing, I don't see the point of all the complexity. My 5e group has already dumped vancian in favor of an MP system.

Levels: I too want to play games where my character starts with things he can do, but doesn't necessarily get that much better in the game. Also the hit point scaling is horrible and the games do a bad job defining what hit points even are. The way they describe it, it overlaps a bunch of other mechanics like armor class, the to-hit roll, dexterity to armor class, dodging as an action, and so on.

I also hate alignment. There are good reasons why most roleplaying games either don't have a comparable rules construct or else play it down greatly. "Using alignment properly" is more or less code for keeping it as far away from the game session as humanly possible.

And I don't like that D&D does such a poor job of making economics, or at least price tables that don't collapse under the slightest scrutiny. Magic items, spells as services, and buildings are each their own cans of worms.

Martin Greywolf
2016-08-01, 02:06 AM
I think the real problem DnD has is that of a bard - it tries to be jack of all trades and ends up master of none. The "trades" I've seen in it are:

1) Chess

DnD tries to give you combat system where DM and players play against each other and what they have to win - basically a tactical game, only with bigger ruleset than chess. Sure, DM can rule zero things, but that mostly exists to provide for the things not covered by the rules and books make an assumption that he plays fair.

2) RPG

As in, role playing game, where you play a role. Non-combat skill use is basically centered around this.

3) Power levels

We all saw the 1-5==Conan, 6-10==Gandalf, 11-15==Wuxia, 16-20==Hercules thing, and you know what? It's more or less correct. DnD tries to give you a system where you smoothly proceed from one power level to the next - problem is, once you have too many of those as playable, it changes the mood of the setting a lot. We can all agree that, say, Witcher as a PC game wouldn't work all that with Dynasty Warriors combat system simply because the tone of the mechanics doesn't agree with tone of the story - and there's your problem.

If you start a Conan like story in DnD and don't level cap, you end up in Journey to the West mechanical mood eventually, and the initial story will get weird as a result.

4) Conclusion

By themselves, these are not bad things to have in a system - a solid tactical system can be a fun game - but when you try to do all of them and end up doing none of them well, that's a problem.

From this then comes a lot of problems, most serious one being that DM part of the rules always sucks to the point of being useless to any but people who never heard about TTRPGs. You can find nothing there about pretty damn crucial things, like pacing or Hero's Journey, or solid advice on how to build resting NPCs or story arcs. Hell, even throwing in Myers-Briggs wouldn't be out of the question.

tl;dr DnD rule books are MAD as hell.

goto124
2016-08-01, 06:42 AM
Even DnD is moving away from alignment. Not sure about 4e, but 5e shows it clearly what with even paladins not having required alignments.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-01, 07:29 AM
Even DnD is moving away from alignment. Not sure about 4e, but 5e shows it clearly what with even paladins not having required alignments.

4e changed the meaning of alignment. It's no longer meant to say anything about your personality, it's more to do with where you stand in the great debate over if we should care about others or ourself first. Okay, that's really simplifying it, but that's basically how the five alignments play out:
Lawful Good: we should build civilisation so people are protected!
Good: we should stop the abuse of others.
Evil: I am the most important.
Chaotic Evil: everyone who isn't me is worthless.
Unaligned: I just don't care.

Unaligned actually makes sense in this alignment system, it's you declaring that you aren't trying to be completely altruistic or selfish, you'll do what you want in the moment.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-01, 08:11 AM
Since we're rattling off whatever we hate about DnD rather than just talking about what OP hated, I think the one thing DnD that doesn't get enough flak is how awful those games are at naming things.

Cluedrew
2016-08-01, 08:20 AM
To Vitruviansquid: Either works. Also what you mean by naming things, I have a few ideas (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0012.html) of what you could mean, but I'm not sure if that is what you are talking about.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-01, 08:54 AM
DnD is really bad at naming things in more fancy ways than they should be.

Take "Eldritch Knight." In-game, it's just a fighter who knows some magic, but the DnD-ized name sticks the word "knight" in there to make all sorts of unnecessary meanings. What if my fighter who knows some magic isn't from a society where they have knighthoods? What if he isn't a member of the nobility?

Then there's the cases where they egregiously use two words when one would do. "Dread Necromancer," "Mystic Theurge," "Favored Soul," as if necromancers were not inherently dreadful, theurges not inherently mystical, and if you tell me someone is favored by the gods, I would have to ask "does she have a soul?"

"Warblade" Euuuugh.

4e also had it really bad in the monster manual. Just turning to the section on Centaurs, you have some fairly sane named enemies - "Centaur Hunter," "Centaur Mystic." Then you have "Centaur Fey Charger." Why add the word "fey?" You know centaurs are inherently fey, and this one likes to charge at you. There's no such thing as "fey charging" there is just "charging."

And then you also had monsters named to sound like objects. If players went into the next room in a dungeon and the DM told them "you see before you a Djinn Stormsword and a Djinn Windbow" it wouldn't be far-fetched for the players to reply "I pick up the Djinn Stormsword. What are its bonuses?" You could

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-01, 09:07 AM
Take "Eldritch Knight." In-game, it's just a fighter who knows some magic, but the DnD-ized name sticks the word "knight" in there to make all sorts of unnecessary meanings. What if my fighter who knows some magic isn't from a society where they have knighthoods? What if he isn't a member of the nobility?

Yeah, you can have this one, 'Mystic Warrior' would have worked. There's something for 'cool' names, but to be honest I'd rather be able to say 'magician' than 'mystic energy wielding practitioner'.


Then there's the cases where they egregiously use two words when one would do. "Dread Necromancer," "Mystic Theurge," "Favored Soul," as if necromancers were not inherently dreadful, theurges not inherently mystical, and if you tell me someone is favored by the gods, I would have to ask "does she have a soul?"

This is nitpicking. 'As if necromancers were not inherently dreadful' relies on a specific type and view of death mages, many of which are decidedly undreadful (for all you know they could be into necromancy because they want to develop healing magic). Theurges are already mystical, but here they are being used in two different ways (the name is still horrible). Favoured Soul actually makes a lot of sense, you are a soul who is favoured by the gods. Really, you pick up on these but not the horrible misuse of Thaumaturge?


"Warblade" Euuuugh.

4e also had it really bad in the monster manual. Just turning to the section on Centaurs, you have some fairly sane named enemies - "Centaur Hunter," "Centaur Mystic." Then you have "Centaur Fey Charger." Why add the word "fey?" You know centaurs are inherently fey, and this one likes to charge at you. There's no such thing as "fey charging" there is just "charging."

And then you also had monsters named to sound like objects. If players went into the next room in a dungeon and the DM told them "you see before you a Djinn Stormsword and a Djinn Windbow" it wouldn't be far-fetched for the players to reply "I pick up the Djinn Stormsword. What are its bonuses?" You could

Well you don't say 'you see a Efreet Fireblade', you say 'you see a tall, broad man with skin of red, a scimitar in his hand and a pair of wicked horns on his head'. Okay, I know that in practice we'll just say 'it's a troll' or 'it's a mercenary armed with a spear', but it's not what the intention of the designers is when you're introducing enemies.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-01, 09:16 AM
You're right, I wouldn't actually refer to her as a "Duskpacer Libertine" on the table ... but I still have to read it in the book. :\

Knaight
2016-08-01, 10:21 AM
1977 Basic set:
1) I remember at the age of ten that I felt the need to read the 48 page rulebook three times before I felt "I got it" (but since I was under the "recommended age" anyway, I may have well have been too young for it).

oD&D plus:
1) It just really needed an editor! Very unclearly written, and spread over so many books and magazine articles.


There's a trend here, and it's that writing RPG rules is a form of technical writing, and that Gygax was terrible at technical writing. There's poor wording, poor organization, just bizarre editing, the list goes on. RPGs in general tend to have real problems in this regard, but early D&D was particularly bad.

As for my list, it's a bit more comprehensive. I outright dislike D&D, and on a separate note don't consider any edition a good game (with the obvious caveat that for earlier editions that's because of stuff done after them, where Gygax and Arnerson were working from the disadvantaged point of having no source material). Specific complaints:

1) Nominal Genericness
D&D has a bad habit of pretending to be a generic fantasy game, while simultaneously being hyper focused in a number of ways. There's the implicit setting of the game that comes out in the rules, there's the narrow range of characters suitable for PCs (adventurers specialized in violence), so on and so forth. If it would just acknowledge these things and recommend sticking with them that would be fine - I like Torchbearer well enough, and it's just as limited - but instead it sticks them in the background. It thus ends up a system that does a whole lot of things poorly, while simultaneously not as good in its niche as it would be if the designers just admitted to the niche.

2) Gratuitous Mechanical Load
Every edition of D&D is a rules heavy game by comparison to the market as a whole - the various times 4e, 5e, and oD&D have been painted as light are almost entirely because people treat 3.5 as some sort of standard and not an example way over on the heavy end of the spectrum. Again, I don't have a problem with rules heavy. What I do have a problem with is the implementation of rules that add to the amount of mechanics without them adding much to the game, and D&D is riddled with this. Perhaps the most egregious example is the use of both ability scores and ability score modifiers, along with the various ways they've been connected. There's a couple of minor bits of usefulness that crop up in different editions, but they're few and far between. A subtler one is the number of distinct scales that crop up for different aspects of a character, most of which add nothing. 3.x is particularly bad here: Attributes are 3-18, Spells are 0-9, Modifiers are -4 to +4, Skill Ranks are 0-23 or 0-10 for class and cross class skills (and that's without taking multiclassing into account), saves are 0-6 or 2-12, the list goes on. If something was actually gained from all this I'd be all for it, but I've seen games get by with one standard that can cover everything D&D can cover and more. Yet another example is the amount of accounting that goes on, both because of the scale of the currency system in use and the experience system.

3) Awful GM Advice
The vast majority of GMs are DMs or were DMs first, and learned from the D&D advice. The D&D advice has a tendency to be terrible. There's the routine encouragement of enormous amounts of preparation, well beyond what's necessary even for prep heavy GMs. There's the tacit encouragement of railroading in various places (3.5 DMG II, I'm looking at you), there's surprisingly little on pacing and other critical components, so on and so forth.

Pugwampy
2016-08-01, 10:44 AM
One thing I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons .

Uncooperative players who believe that real life land only gives them one set of problems so they postpone DND till next week only to be shocked that real life land dumped another problem on their laps only to be shocked when DM tells them all to drop dead due to lack of interest.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-01, 11:29 AM
1) Nominal Genericness
D&D has a bad habit of pretending to be a generic fantasy game, while simultaneously being hyper focused in a number of ways. There's the implicit setting of the game that comes out in the rules, there's the narrow range of characters suitable for PCs (adventurers specialized in violence), so on and so forth. If it would just acknowledge these things and recommend sticking with them that would be fine - I like Torchbearer well enough, and it's just as limited - but instead it sticks them in the background. It thus ends up a system that does a whole lot of things poorly, while simultaneously not as good in its niche as it would be if the designers just admitted to the niche.

This is what makes 4e the best edition of D&D to me. Is it the same as OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, 2e, 3.X, or 5e? No, but unlike them it says 'hey, do you want to be a badass hero in a game focused on tactical combat?', and then provides a game focused on tactical combat where your hero can choose a class that defines how they are badass. Although it's not the same game as 3.X is, 3.X is focused more on the world changing magic while 4e is three guys with swords, their bookish friends and the medic going into a dungeon, kicking ass and taking names.

Now personally I prefer Fate to even 4e, but 4e is honest about how limited it is and you have to respect that.


2) Gratuitous Mechanical Load
Every edition of D&D is a rules heavy game by comparison to the market as a whole - the various times 4e, 5e, and oD&D have been painted as light are almost entirely because people treat 3.5 as some sort of standard and not an example way over on the heavy end of the spectrum. Again, I don't have a problem with rules heavy. What I do have a problem with is the implementation of rules that add to the amount of mechanics without them adding much to the game, and D&D is riddled with this. Perhaps the most egregious example is the use of both ability scores and ability score modifiers, along with the various ways they've been connected. There's a couple of minor bits of usefulness that crop up in different editions, but they're few and far between. A subtler one is the number of distinct scales that crop up for different aspects of a character, most of which add nothing. 3.x is particularly bad here: Attributes are 3-18, Spells are 0-9, Modifiers are -4 to +4, Skill Ranks are 0-23 or 0-10 for class and cross class skills (and that's without taking multiclassing into account), saves are 0-6 or 2-12, the list goes on. If something was actually gained from all this I'd be all for it, but I've seen games get by with one standard that can cover everything D&D can cover and more. Yet another example is the amount of accounting that goes on, both because of the scale of the currency system in use and the experience system.

Yep, this is what leads to Fate being described as 'rules light' (personally I prefer 'streamlined'). I'm going back to 4e though, there your class based attack bonus, scaling saves, skill points, and so on were streamlined into what I like to call your 'base level bonus' ranging from 0-15, which is simplified further in 5e to your Proficiency Bonus. The bonus stacking rules are also something that adds complexity and I can never remember how they work.


3) Awful GM Advice
The vast majority of GMs are DMs or were DMs first, and learned from the D&D advice. The D&D advice has a tendency to be terrible. There's the routine encouragement of enormous amounts of preparation, well beyond what's necessary even for prep heavy GMs. There's the tacit encouragement of railroading in various places (3.5 DMG II, I'm looking at you), there's surprisingly little on pacing and other critical components, so on and so forth.

Yeah, overprep and railroading is a problem I've encountered, only made worse by adventure modules encouraging both. Then you get bogged down in one combat that takes 2 hours because the game forgot to tell you not to force the party to fight monsters only one PC can hurt, or you're forced to spend two hours looking over a room because the book didn't tell the GM that searching for clues should be short compared to putting them together.


But do you want to know the worst thing about D&D?

The fanboys.

Those who refuse to admit any fault in D&D and who won't play another game. 'Hey, I own Ars Magica, where you play wizards in medieval Europe, want to play?' 'No thanks, it sounds like a worse D&D.' 'Alright, what about Eclipse Phase? It's a future setting where humanity can transfer minds to different bodies and cthulhuesque AIs destroyed Earth?' 'Dude, why can't you just run sci-fi with D&D?'

:smallfurious:

Looking back on it, this is always what turns me off D&D. I suggest an interesting setting (Unknown Armies, Eclipse Phase, even a fantasy setting using GURPS) and people only want to play D&D. Then about a year later I get into a game with decent people who are fun to play with, and admit that they play D&D simply because it's the game they like the best and they do this for fun. There's no hard feelings when my suggestions get turned down 'because we want something familiar'.

Knaight
2016-08-01, 05:50 PM
This is what makes 4e the best edition of D&D to me. Is it the same as OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, 2e, 3.X, or 5e? No, but unlike them it says 'hey, do you want to be a badass hero in a game focused on tactical combat?', and then provides a game focused on tactical combat where your hero can choose a class that defines how they are badass. Although it's not the same game as 3.X is, 3.X is focused more on the world changing magic while 4e is three guys with swords, their bookish friends and the medic going into a dungeon, kicking ass and taking names.

Now personally I prefer Fate to even 4e, but 4e is honest about how limited it is and you have to respect that.
I absolutely respect 4e for it's focus, and from the perspective of a dispassionate analyst of quality I'd agree that it's best. That doesn't get it to favorite, mostly because my answer to "Hey, do you want to be a badass hero in a game focused on tactical combat?" is "No". I like turn based strategy in video games, I like some small scale strategic board games, but in RPGs that's a definite no.


Yep, this is what leads to Fate being described as 'rules light' (personally I prefer 'streamlined'). I'm going back to 4e though, there your class based attack bonus, scaling saves, skill points, and so on were streamlined into what I like to call your 'base level bonus' ranging from 0-15, which is simplified further in 5e to your Proficiency Bonus. The bonus stacking rules are also something that adds complexity and I can never remember how they work.
I've seen Burning Wheel described as "rules medium" because of this. I'd agree that 4e and then 5e did simplify this nicely, but even there you still have a fair few scales. The ability score/ability modifier thing is particularly irritating.


Yeah, overprep and railroading is a problem I've encountered, only made worse by adventure modules encouraging both. Then you get bogged down in one combat that takes 2 hours because the game forgot to tell you not to force the party to fight monsters only one PC can hurt, or you're forced to spend two hours looking over a room because the book didn't tell the GM that searching for clues should be short compared to putting them together.
I had to unlearn the D&D advice to become a decent GM, and while I'll be the first to admit that I'm way over at the improvisation end that's not the only problem I've seen.


But do you want to know the worst thing about D&D?

The fanboys.

Those who refuse to admit any fault in D&D and who won't play another game. 'Hey, I own Ars Magica, where you play wizards in medieval Europe, want to play?' 'No thanks, it sounds like a worse D&D.' 'Alright, what about Eclipse Phase? It's a future setting where humanity can transfer minds to different bodies and cthulhuesque AIs destroyed Earth?' 'Dude, why can't you just run sci-fi with D&D?'
This does happen with a fair few games, but I'd agree that D&D has this particularly bad - probably because most people who play something other than D&D bounce between multiple systems, and as such are willing to admit faults in them that lead them to pick other systems for other circumstances. Still, I've seen this same phenomenon with some of the generics (GURPS, Fate), and the WoD fanbase is if anything worse about it.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-01, 07:11 PM
Burning Wheel described as "rules medium"

Ha. Haha.


I had to unlearn the D&D advice to become a decent GM, and while I'll be the first to admit that I'm way over at the improvisation end that's not the only problem I've seen.

I'm curious what's counterproductive about the D&D GM advice, having had no exposure to it.

Pugwampy
2016-08-01, 07:51 PM
I'm curious what's counterproductive about the D&D GM advice, having had no exposure to it.

Oh oh i have an example quote straight from an official product .

"If the players dont want to do the quest , then you tell them its game over "


To be honest all of the basic game products aimed at new DM,s and Players need an experienced DM to navigate and change rules to run them properly . I had to invent a quickie homebrew "luck roll" for one of the basic games just to decide which player benefits from a treasure chest . Same boxset gives me a black horned minotaur miniature whose name recommendation was "Pale Horn"

2D8HP
2016-08-01, 11:24 PM
Oh oh i have an example quote straight from an official product .

"If the players dont want to do the quest , then you tell them its game over "
Since being a player of D&D is glorious fun, but being a DM is largely a chore, I don't actually find that bad advice at all, except that making up "fluff" for adventures "on the fly" became easy as a DM. It was memorizing, and adjudication of RAW that remains hard.

This is what makes 4e the best edition of D&D to me. Is it the same as OD&D, BD&D, AD&D, 2e, 3.X, or 5e? No, but unlike them it says 'hey, do you want to be a badass hero in a game focused on tactical combat?'Strange but both the praise and the criticism of 4e (which I skipped), is making it sound more interesting to me (and less sorry that I never tried to DM 3.5, which sounds even more complex than 5e!).

But do you want to know the worst thing about D&D?

The fanboys.

Those who refuse to admit any fault in D&D and who won't play another game..Well I'm a fanboy who has previously listed plenty of faults of D&D in this thread, and I played very many other RPG's in the 1980's (and depending on whether if "Arduin" counts), a couple of others in the 1970's and 90's, and none was as simply fun for me to play as either '70's or 5e D&D, though I cite Call of Cthullu and Runequest as being easier to GM than all but perhaps '77 Basic D&D.
They may be games as fun to be a player as D&D, and are less of a pain in the neck to GM, but without actual other players of those games I will just read them and then they gather dust, like so many others (seriously the Castle Falkenstein setting, and the (King Arthur) Pendragon rules and setting looked so cool, why did every table in the '90's instead go with Cyberpunk and Vampire, or at least just stick to D&D?).
Since most RPG'ers start with D&D (the '77 Basic D&D rules are imprinted in my mind in a way no other rules are), the closer those rules get to what people are already familiar with in D&D, the easier the new game will be to learn, unless the new rules are very significantly simpler.
But if the rules are largely the same, then why will the game be better? I can't speak on recent games, but of "back in the day" games, most of the "innovations" usually made the games more annoyingly complex (GURPS, and yes 3.5/Pathfinder) or relegated them to settings that didn't interest me (the bulk of them), or had no tables I could find (the rest).
Of games that actually had players (regrettably Falkenstein and Pendragon largely didn't), nothing has hit the mark as well as '77 Basic D&D.
Has anything changed?

ImNotTrevor
2016-08-01, 11:35 PM
Roll20 is a thing, now. You can find a game of just about anything there.

There's also the idea of "Hey guys, I got this new system I wanna try. Would you guys mind playing it for a session or two just to see how it goes?"
And timing this with the end of a campaign/ campaign arc. That also works really well to get people to try new things, because you're not suggesting a campaign, just a couple sessions and if they don't like it it's back to familiarity.

That's what I did with my group and now the number of systems we've tried just keeps growing...

Pugwampy
2016-08-02, 09:33 AM
Quote Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard View Post
But do you want to know the worst thing about D&D?

The fanboys.

Those who refuse to admit any fault in D&D and who won't play another game..

Being a fan boy is only part of the problem . I am sure DND has many faults but i chose it first . I have spent far too much time shamelessly begging and asking and advertising my passion to idiots who look at me stupid , wondering why I want to entertain them for free or think its some sort of a sex club .

I dont DM DND because i am interested in playing Cuthulu or Wheel of time. I want to play DND . I also have minis , dice and tiles for DND . I can offer a better quality DND game experience because I have lots of props . There is a mountain of funny rules and options in my brain ,

Its is huge difference between someone wanting to "try" another game system and a dedicated GM of that game system .


SHOW ME THE MINIS !!!

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-02, 09:58 AM
This does happen with a fair few games, but I'd agree that D&D has this particularly bad - probably because most people who play something other than D&D bounce between multiple systems, and as such are willing to admit faults in them that lead them to pick other systems for other circumstances. Still, I've seen this same phenomenon with some of the generics (GURPS, Fate), and the WoD fanbase is if anything worse about it.

Yeah, I'll agree that the WoD fanbase is worse at the ignoring any fault in their game, but they at least have a tendency to not push the game(s) at thing's it's not equipped to deal with.

Also, yes the generics have a bit of this problem, although I've personally noticed it mainly with GMs instead of being something shared by GMs and players as in D&D. I completely understand why a GM might gravitate towards one system (unlike me, who likes to jump between them and owns far too many).


Strange but both the praise and the criticism of 4e (which I skipped), is making it sound more interesting to me (and less sorry that I never tried to DM 3.5, which sounds even more complex than 5e!).

Give it a try, I've never had an opportunity to, and I don't have everything I need to run it (I don't own a battlemat is the main thing), but it's a well designed game where the team was competent enough to work out a few bugs during it's run (read: they released updated stats for all the monsters in the MM1 to stop fights being as long).


Being a fan boy is only part of the problem . I am sure DND has many faults but i chose it first . I have spent far too much time shamelessly begging and asking and advertising my passion to idiots who look at me stupid , wondering why I want to entertain them for free or think its some sort of a sex club .

I dont DM DND because i am interested in playing Cuthulu or Wheel of time. I want to play DND . I also have minis , dice and tiles for DND . I can offer a better quality DND game experience because I have lots of props . There is a mountain of funny rules and options in my brain ,

Its is huge difference between someone wanting to "try" another game system and a dedicated GM of that game system .


SHOW ME THE MINIS !!!

You see, I'm in the position where I'm offering to run a game and people basically say 'but D&D'. I had a huge problem trying to start a group last year because I was in an anti-D&D phase, which seemed to be the only thing people at uni wanted to play, despite me offering several games (I got one taker for the Mistborn Adventure Game, and none for any of the others I suggested). I'm not actually talking about feeling more comfortable running D&D, I'm talking about the situations where I bring Anima or Call of Cthulhu and say 'hey guys, I could run this for a change' and everybody seems too enthralled by D&D to care.

Strangely, Shadowrun seems extempt from this predjudice, people seem to just love the idea of it.

Flickerdart
2016-08-02, 10:10 AM
Since being a player of D&D is glorious fun, but being a DM is largely a chore...

I disagree - being a DM is just as much of a chore as playing a wizard or cleric or summoner. It's not for everyone, but some people like book-keeping and getting to build and "play" lots and lots of different characters.

Earthwalker
2016-08-02, 10:15 AM
Strangely, Shadowrun seems extempt from this predjudice, people seem to just love the idea of it.

Why would DnD players like a game that's all about being criminals that break into places and steal stuff? I don't understand at all.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-02, 10:27 AM
Why would DnD players like a game that's all about being criminals that break into places and steal stuff? I don't understand at all.

I think I'm going to expand my statement.

Pink Mohawk Shadowrun seems to be obviously immune to this prejudice, because you can buy the biggest gun that you can and then barge into a corporation's front door and attempt to steal stuff. They also tend to live at Street level or close to it, so you could say it's because they get to be literal murderhobos.

Garimeth
2016-08-02, 11:19 AM
I3) Power levels

We all saw the 1-5==Conan, 6-10==Gandalf, 11-15==Wuxia, 16-20==Hercules thing, and you know what? It's more or less correct. DnD tries to give you a system where you smoothly proceed from one power level to the next - problem is, once you have too many of those as playable, it changes the mood of the setting a lot. We can all agree that, say, Witcher as a PC game wouldn't work all that with Dynasty Warriors combat system simply because the tone of the mechanics doesn't agree with tone of the story - and there's your problem.

If you start a Conan like story in DnD and don't level cap, you end up in Journey to the West mechanical mood eventually, and the initial story will get weird as a result.

...

From this then comes a lot of problems, most serious one being that DM part of the rules always sucks to the point of being useless to any but people who never heard about TTRPGs. You can find nothing there about pretty damn crucial things, like pacing or Hero's Journey, or solid advice on how to build resting NPCs or story arcs. Hell, even throwing in Myers-Briggs wouldn't be out of the question.

tl;dr DnD rule books are MAD as hell.

Martin, you hit the nail on the head for me. I want to tell cool stories with the friends I DM for. The party as a unit gets its own Hero's Journey, and every player gets their own sub arc. The story I want to tell ends at the Gandalf or low wuxia level. I'd even say Hercules is fine if we're talking classic mythology, or even Kevin Sorbo, lol. What takes the power level over the top, to me, is some of the supernatural abilities. For example:

Detect Lies/Thoughts/Telepathy: Now any attempt to have a story or plot with subterfuge, intrigue, or betrayal just became way more complicated than I want it to be. I know there are ways around these things, but I don't want everyone that wants to lie to the PCs to have to have access to magic, if I am trying to portray magic as rare and fantastic.

Teleportation/Instant communication: Now the types of tension that comes from conflicting choices (only time to save the princess, OR stop the army - not both it'll take too long to travel there!) is no longer accessible, or I have to go all tippy verse to make it work.

Mind Control: This opens up plenty of plot devices, but it also comes with all of the problems of the first grievance. I'm ok with this if lmited to nothing stronger than Charm Person and a short duration Suggestion. Not as bad in 5e, because people know they were mind controlled.

These are only some exmaples, and there are ways around them - but I feel like using D&D to run the style of game I enjoy running is like being a carpenter with only a hammer. If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail.

Pugwampy
2016-08-02, 11:52 AM
Strangely, Shadowrun seems extempt from this predjudice, people seem to just love the idea of it.

Not me .I read the core rules . I would sooner play Star Wars or Mechwarrior . I take offense to only playing with d6 dice . Shadow run looks as grim as a Judge Dredd mega city ....without Judge Dredd .

2D8HP
2016-08-02, 11:54 AM
I'm talking about the situations where I bring Anima or Call of Cthulhu and say 'hey guys, I could run this for a change' and eveah, I'm talking about the situations where I bring Anima or Call of Cthulhu and say 'hey guys, I could run this for a change' and everybody seems too enthralled by D&D to care.I had the opposite experience of still wanting to play D&D, but by the late 1980's I just couldn't find a table in my area, that still wanted to play D&D, I could only find other RPG's
Strangely, Shadowrun seems extempt from this predjudice, people seem to just love the idea of itInteresting, "Cyberpunk plus Elves and Magic" concept sounded really dumb to me, but I admit I had a blast playing it which I ascribed to a GM who could do good chase scenes.

I disagree - being a DM is just as much of a chore as playing a wizard or cleric or summoner. It's not for everyone, but some people like book-keeping and getting to build and "play" lots and lots of different characters.I've pretty much only play Fighters and Thieves, and my ideal "character sheet" would have hit points, items carried and nothing else, as the book-keeping part breaks role-play immersion for me, which I find annoying. If I had my preference, I would just tell the DM what my PC's actions are, and never calculate any "modifiers" I don't mind studying the rules, and doing the arithmetic during character creation, but I hate it during play
Similarly I loved "Worldbuilding" and coming up with and portraying NPC's as a DM (weirdly "back-stories" for PC "heroes" is hard for me, but I can make up villains by the dozens), but keeping it all RAW, was a chore, I did agree to GM some games ("Top Secret") only on the condition that everything was GM fiat, and I'd have the players roll percentile dice for success, based on my guesses, without referring to the rulebook, that actually worked well!
One RPG that I thought actually did the Swords and Sorcery genre better than D&D was Stormbringer! , but it did it too well, you were as likely to roll up a drooling begger as a mighty sorcerer, and most PC's were effectively "sidekicks", which made it less than fun to play, now if someone were to turn it into point buy PC creation.....

prufock
2016-08-02, 11:55 AM
So what systems DO you like, OP?

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-02, 12:13 PM
If I had my preference, I would just tell the DM what my PC's actions are, and never calculate any "modifiers" I don't mind studying the rules, and doing the arithmetic during character creation, but I hate it during play

Wow... you are literally describing the kind of player I hate: the one who heaps all the rules on the GM so that they don't have to remember anything. In my game you would be quickly told to keep your modifiers within reach.

ComaVision
2016-08-02, 12:19 PM
Wow... you are literally describing the kind of player I hate: the one who heaps all the rules on the GM so that they don't have to remember anything. In my game you would be quickly told to keep your modifiers within reach.

No hate to 2D8HP but I REALLY feel this. I have two players in one of my groups that have been playing for several years and neither can make a character on their own. It absolutely ruins any attempts at good pacing when I have to explain basic rules umpteen times per session.

Cluedrew
2016-08-02, 01:16 PM
So what systems DO you like, OP?I do have a name, although if you had forgotten it is fine. Games I like, not in any ranking:

Dungeons & Dragons: A few faults is not enough to make me hate it. Although because of the speed of play (particularly in combat) I might never get into another real D&D game because... other games can do the same in less time. I remember someone saying that 5e sped up combat any you could now finish a battle in half an hour or so. I've seen games that can do it in 5-10 minutes and still offer decision points to express your character.

I have other complains about the system, but I have some complaints about all the systems on this list. But really that is the deal breaker.

Powered by the Apocalypse: Not Apocalypse World, I have never played it nor do I have an interest in doing so, but hacks of the original system. Really focused and intuitive games. I basically taught myself the systems from character sheets.

Roll for Shoes: I would never play a campaign in this, but at the same time I carry the materials I need to play the game with me a lot because, well there are not much, it is great for just killing some time with other RPG friends, requiring effectively 0 set up time.

These are all the major ones, although there are still a lot of systems I haven't tried yet.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-02, 03:31 PM
You see, I'm in the position where I'm offering to run a game and people basically say 'but D&D'. I had a huge problem trying to start a group last year because I was in an anti-D&D phase, which seemed to be the only thing people at uni wanted to play, despite me offering several games (I got one taker for the Mistborn Adventure Game, and none for any of the others I suggested). I'm not actually talking about feeling more comfortable running D&D, I'm talking about the situations where I bring Anima or Call of Cthulhu and say 'hey guys, I could run this for a change' and everybody seems too enthralled by D&D to care.

Heh, when I was in college back in the 80's, one of the guys in the group was solidly anti-D&D. There were so many things he hated about it, from alignments to its abstraction of Armor Class (there was no "touch AC" for example back then, so things were weird). I found it odd that he had such a reaction but over the years I've come to understand and mostly agree with some of his points. So, while we *would* play D&D, we made sure that there were a bunch of other games in the mix.

It helped that we were college kids with lots of free time. We'd get together about 8 AM on Saturday and play games all day long. We might play D&D for a few hours, then play Palladium for a few hours, then play this one guy's homebrew superhero game for a few hours, then play TSR's Marvel Super-Heroes RPG for a few hours, then play Call of Cthulhu for a few hours... well, okay, probably not ALL of those on the same day. But we'd keep playing till it got late. And we'd always want to play a variety of games.

But D&D is just this juggernaut that can't be ignored. "Nothing succeeds like success," people say and that's true of D&D. Everybody's heard of D&D, so D&D is often the first RPG people play, and thus when a group of people get together and want to play an RPG, D&D is usually the game that everybody knows and is ready and willing to play... even if they hate D&D's rules and general peculiarities.

Kadzar
2016-08-03, 02:02 AM
Addressing the things OP talked about:

Levels: The fact that you have to wait for arbitrary thresholds to improve your character in any way, and then all at once. No holding onto some XP until you feel you have proper use for it or spending a couple weeks learning a new skill. Also, Feats, which by themselves I probably wouldn't mind, become terrible for the fact that, for some reason, you can only ever learn them at specific class/character levels.

Magic: The thing that bothers me about D&D magic isn't really that it doesn't make sense (I mean, it doesn't, but I don't really mind), but the fact that it makes you want to rest a lot. I can remember reading a D&D-based webcomic once, before I knew anything about the game, and being super confused by the fact that the spellcasters apparently wanted to rest more than any of the other characters. It messes up story pacing in a major way and isn't really a great limiter to a spellcaster's power. Instead of not wanting to abuse their power for fear of unintended consequences or whatever, wizards don't want to use their spell slots because maybe they'll need it for something else later that day.

Pacing: I'll admit combat going on too long is a problem, but an underrated aspect of this combat also being too short, in-game. From what I hear I believe this is mostly a problem for editions 3-going on, but 6 seconds is a really short timeframe for things to happen, especially if you want things to happen offscreen or whatever while a fight is happening, so there really isn't much point to trying to do something while other characters are fighting, so you might as well join the fight to get it over faster so you can actually return to normal time.

And not mentioned, but what bothers me:

Class: In theory, I kind of like the idea of a prepackaged bundle of features that you can pick and play, but I'd also like the ability to pick the features that fit my character concept. Thankfully, modern somehow doesn't fit either of those criteria very well. You're going to have to make some sort of choices eventually no matter what, but you're also arbitrarily restricted in choices you can make as you level up based on choices you made earlier. Also, because people like customizing their characters but are limited only to the abilities in the combination and order designated by their class (for the most part) if someone doesn't like a class exactly the way it is, a completely new class must be made.


I mean, I do like D&D, but this an several other nitpicks are why I've been thinking about making my own system.

vasilidor
2016-08-03, 02:41 AM
the price tags on magic item creation has always left me wondering: exactly where does all the gold (that could have been used for feeding a small town) go? I mean i have had home-brew sources for that but still it bugs me. I dislike the 3.0 & 3.5 cost of xp for the creation of such and first and second was for the most part quite vague.

Flickerdart
2016-08-03, 11:27 AM
the price tags on magic item creation has always left me wondering: exactly where does all the gold (that could have been used for feeding a small town) go? I mean i have had home-brew sources for that but still it bugs me. I dislike the 3.0 & 3.5 cost of xp for the creation of such and first and second was for the most part quite vague.

I always thought it was exotic incenses, enchanted inks, the obligatory jewels that every magic item seems to be encrusted with, and other such things. A large part of the cost could be the difficulty of finding these things - each merchant that deals in them has only a very small sliver of profit because he typically sells to another merchant, and only a small number of transactions involve an end-user. At some point in the supply chain, monstrous traders and producers may be involved, which explains why dragon hoards are so big and how a goblin ended up with 1d4 gems.

Cluedrew
2016-08-03, 01:18 PM
Pacing: I'll admit combat going on too long is a problem, but an underrated aspect of this combat also being too short, in-game.The Decker problem, although it is not quite as bad as with actual deckers because everyone present gets to participate. As for the people who are not present... yet another good reason never split the party.


Class: In theory, I kind of like the idea of a prepackaged bundle of features that you can pick and play, but I'd also like the ability to pick the features that fit my character concept.There is a separation of who and what in D&D, which gets bigger as they loosen alignment restrictions on classes (not that was a great way to tie them together). Although it is good advice "don't assume the rogue is a thief" should probably make about as much sense as "don't assume the wizard is a magic user". I guess that might be the sixth thing I don't like about D&D, there is a lot of mechanics for what your character is, but not a lot for who.


I mean, I do like D&D, but this an several other nitpicks are why I've been thinking about making my own system.That is a long road.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-03, 01:51 PM
Pacing: I'll admit combat going on too long is a problem, but an underrated aspect of this combat also being too short, in-game. From what I hear I believe this is mostly a problem for editions 3-going on, but 6 seconds is a really short timeframe for things to happen, especially if you want things to happen offscreen or whatever while a fight is happening, so there really isn't much point to trying to do something while other characters are fighting, so you might as well join the fight to get it over faster so you can actually return to normal time.

Interesting, I've always felt the opposite: that six seconds is a whole lot of time to only be able to attack once in, and that I-go-you-go for more than four characters makes the whole thing feel like it's taking ages.


I guess that might be the sixth thing I don't like about D&D, there is a lot of mechanics for what your character is, but not a lot for who.

Indeed, the question of what someone is (class/level/race/alignment) seems to be far more important than, or at least treat as far more important than, the question of who someone is.


That is a long road.

Verily, long and twisting, and strewn with the bleaching bones of the fallen. Oft it circles back upon itself, and the weary wanderer may walk the same path many times. At its end lies a mirage of a golden city that few reach, and those who reach know not how to reach, its walls beset by an army of relentless trolls. But it is a road with more than one destination, and more than one beginning. Set off as if from the void, and rely on no false guide. Pay the glittering fantasy no heed, stay resolute, and take comfort at the wells, and shrines, and resting places a pilgrim may turn to after months of journeying. They are their own reward.

It's a challenge, but it can be worth doing. I strongly recommend starting from zero, and abandoning all preconceptions about what RPG rules ought to be (to the extent you can), playing as many different systems as you can get your hands on to keep your mind open, and not expecting to publish it or see very many people playing it. If you can take pleasure in each iteration being better in some way than the last, then you will enjoy doing it, but you have to do it for the process more than the result.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-03, 03:11 PM
It's a challenge, but it can be worth doing. I strongly recommend starting from zero, and abandoning all preconceptions about what RPG rules ought to be (to the extent you can), playing as many different systems as you can get your hands on to keep your mind open, and not expecting to publish it or see very many people playing it. If you can take pleasure in each iteration being better in some way than the last, then you will enjoy doing it, but you have to do it for the process more than the result.

Yep, I've recently started my latest attempt at a D&D replacement, and decided to start from not having anything worked out, instead working towards what I wanted in order of preference. I got:
1) A simple system that's not hard to explain.
2) Based around skills instead of classes.
2a) Some way for skills to start at a relatively high value, so warriors don't start with the same effective hit chance that a wizard does.
3) More simulationist than gamist or narrativist, but not completely excluding such elements.
4) Focus more on the warriors and rogues than mages.
5) Relatively low power, think D&D levels 3-5. HP is explicitly designed for this feel.

This has resulted in an iteration I'm the most happy with out of all the versions I've tried, and which has had a significant reduction in difficulty to pick up and play. It also focuses on a 2d10 roll-under system, because in my experience those are easier for people to learn (heck, it's not even at the stage where modifiers are a real thing), and if a warrior specialising in polearms wants to pick up some skills with axes it's really easy for them to get a skill of 9+.

It does have some things I don't like, spellcasters are partially balanced by making spells slightly more annoying than skills (they have a lower cap and cost Arcane Energy) in exchange for being easily scaled-up. Skills also currently cost a lot to increase, which I'm worried will cause master of none problems. But generally it's something that I think will be improved after a few rounds of playtesting, especially as I get an idea as to how much various spells should cost.

2D8HP
2016-08-03, 04:14 PM
I would feel remiss if I did not post why
You may someday come back to D&D, (http://www.chrispramas.com/2008/03/seven-stages-of-gygax.html) in this thread.
Also, I still think a superb game (for me) could be made by combining features of 1970's D&D
(the closest I could quickly find is Here), (http://www.mediafire.com/?5nzhz1ztiyx)
and the free 5e Basic rules (http://dnd.wizards.com/node/4896).
Since I just don't know 2e AD&D or 4e D&D at all, by far the worse version of D&D for me is 3.x/D20. I dislike the complexity, and it really just seems like your PC's are comic book superheroes instead of Swords and Sorcery adventures to me, but judging by this Forum it is by far the RPG that is still the most played, despite 1980's D&D outselling it by far.

Why?

Well once you've gone to the trouble of learning 3.x you don't want that knowledge to go to waste, and 3.5 being the rules inspiration of OOTS doesn't hurt, but there has to be something else.

When I stopped RPG'ing in the 1990's the most popular games were:

1) Champions (comic book superheroes),
2) Cyberpunk (near future bionic psychopaths), and
3) Vampire (supernatural cannibals).

In each of the games that were popular in the 1990's the setting was (to me boringly) close to real life but the PC's were superpowered.

Which tells me that having a superpowered PC is more important to most than exploring a fantastic world is.

3.x has many, many lists of special abilities and powers, the memorization of which makes it more of a chore to DM than other editions, which intensifies what to me is the main flaw of D&D, that is it's lots of fun to play, but a chore to DM.

I don't much like Superhero settings, but it seems to me that if you want a rival to D&D, make a game that has unique godlike PC's but is simple to GM.

Knaight
2016-08-03, 05:03 PM
I would feel remiss if I did not post why
You may someday come back to D&D, (http://www.chrispramas.com/2008/03/seven-stages-of-gygax.html) in this thread.

It's an entertaining enough read, but it's also pretty unconvincing. Most people I know who ditch D&D stay away, and that "Joy" stage assumes that you really liked it for a while to begin with.

vasilidor
2016-08-03, 06:17 PM
all complaining aside i have spent many a happy hour playing the game. on things i dislike in rpgs in general is any roll under system (which is how advanced and second did skills). this presupposes that no matter how difficult a task is your chance of success or failure is always the same, be it trying to navigate normal traffic on a motorcycle, or jump said motorcycle over a chasm Knievle style.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-03, 06:21 PM
could be made

Ay, there's the rub.

Actually, there's someone in another thread who seems to want similar things from their RPG, so there's clearly demand for the kind of thing you're talking about. Something to think about...


It does have some things I don't like, spellcasters are partially balanced by making spells slightly more annoying than skills (they have a lower cap and cost Arcane Energy) in exchange for being easily scaled-up. Skills also currently cost a lot to increase, which I'm worried will cause master of none problems. But generally it's something that I think will be improved after a few rounds of playtesting, especially as I get an idea as to how much various spells should cost.

In my experience, writing rules for magic is hard. It might be the hardest thing I've tried to do in terms of RPG design - the other possibility is writing rules for hacking that are both realistic and fun. I wish you the best of luck, and will be very curious if you produce a system you do like enough to stick with.

2D8HP
2016-08-03, 06:37 PM
@Anonymouswizard,
Except for, "Focus more on the warriors and rogues than mages" (which sounds really good to me), most of your list was done with:

1978's
Runequest (http://www.chaosium.com/runequest/) (low "realistic" magic), and


I've never tried it but Magic World (http://
[url=www.chaosium.com/magic-world-2/) which is supposed to have more "gonzo" D&D like magic.

Check em out, it may help you craft your game.


@
vasilidor,
Your quite right about "roll under" system not being a good simulation, but it makes it much simpler than "modifier"systems.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-03, 07:16 PM
Class: In theory, I kind of like the idea of a prepackaged bundle of features that you can pick and play, but I'd also like the ability to pick the features that fit my character concept. Thankfully, modern somehow doesn't fit either of those criteria very well. You're going to have to make some sort of choices eventually no matter what, but you're also arbitrarily restricted in choices you can make as you level up based on choices you made earlier. Also, because people like customizing their characters but are limited only to the abilities in the combination and order designated by their class (for the most part) if someone doesn't like a class exactly the way it is, a completely new class must be made.

What I don't get about DnD classes (in certain editions) is why it seems to want to be a classless system in the most ridiculously roundabout way possible of creating a class for every combination of ideas possible.

You have a number of iconic basic classes that cover a good breadth of playstyles. But then there must be all sorts of hybrid classes that can be described as "if you took this signature part of class A and mashed it with this iconic part of class B." So you have rogues and wizards and then there must be arcane tricksters, and you have sorcerers and clerics and then there must be favored souls. And so on and so forth. (That's not to say there aren't still some original classes that don't engage in this brand of incest, so it's not all bad.)

2D8HP
2016-08-03, 07:32 PM
What I don't get about DnD classes (in certain editions) is why....@Vitruviansquid,
I may be misreading what your saying so that it aligns with what I believe (please correct me), but I think what your getting at is that much of what's wrong with D&D is too much addition (classes etc.) over the years, and not enough subtraction.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-03, 07:45 PM
This may be an unpopular opinion on my part, but having a lot of content is good for the DnDs. That's the DnDs' niche. They have the money and the tradition for having insane amounts of content for everything they release.

I just wish they released stuff that was unique and exciting rather than slight modifications of old ideas.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-03, 08:09 PM
Sorry... the reasons I left D&D, are the reasons I'll never go back to D&D.


Levels.
Classes.
Vancian Magic.
Linear resolution dice.
Armor class.
Misnamed weapons and armor.
Massive piles of hit points that don't really represent anything well.
Alignment.
Scaling issues.
Etc.

.

Cluedrew
2016-08-03, 08:33 PM
Verily, long and twisting, and strewn with the bleaching bones of the fallen. Oft it circles back upon itself, and the weary wanderer may walk the same path many times. At its end lies a mirage of a golden city that few reach, and those who reach know not how to reach, its walls beset by an army of relentless trolls. But it is a road with more than one destination, and more than one beginning. Set off as if from the void, and rely on no false guide. Pay the glittering fantasy no heed, stay resolute, and take comfort at the wells, and shrines, and resting places a pilgrim may turn to after months of journeying. They are their own reward.

It's a challenge, but it can be worth doing. I strongly recommend starting from zero, and abandoning all preconceptions about what RPG rules ought to be (to the extent you can), playing as many different systems as you can get your hands on to keep your mind open, and not expecting to publish it or see very many people playing it. If you can take pleasure in each iteration being better in some way than the last, then you will enjoy doing it, but you have to do it for the process more than the result.I seek good things by examining things I perceive to be flawed. Everything is flawed, and liking things that are flawed is neither bad nor wrong.I love your imagery, which is why I quoted the whole thing. And the line in your signature which seems to fit.

Personally I started my project out of something like boredom, because I had left my old group and hadn't ready done any role-playing in two-years. The reason it is still going is because it is fun. I scratch built the base system, which currently is actually most of the game, there is just enough content on top of that to test it. The health system needs some attention for one. Reading about other systems is good too.


Yep, I've recently started my latest attempt at a D&D replacement, and decided to start from not having anything worked out, instead working towards what I wanted in order of preference.Yeah, I started with a list of goals too. I forget what the original list was but I still have an informal list going through my head. I was going to say something else but I forget. I'm kind of tired.

bjj8383
2016-08-03, 08:33 PM
OK, maybe it should be the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons. On the whole I still have a positive opinion of Dungeons & Dragons, but it has its problems. I have managed to create a list of five flaws that I feel are present in Dungeons & Dragons. These flaws are present in all the editions I have seen but at the same time you may not think they are flaws.

Now in ascending order:

5. Magic
I don't like D&D's magic. It is not a generic magic, spell preparation is not a very common feature of many representations of magic. Yet, it manages to be almost flavourless. Yes there are spell components and spells require gestures and words. But that's it, there is no real explanation, not even the briefest view of how this is supposed to work. No true names, no contact with spirits, just stand over there move your hands and things happen.

4. Levels
Not that growing and strengthening is a problem, but it actually creates a problem that the only way that a character can grow it up. People have actually made "mods" for this, so I don't think I am alone. But if the characters grow up and sometimes I just want to be at a particular power level, or just grow at a rate different from the one given by XP.

3. Non-combat
You can divide D&D into its combat and non-combat portions. And if you sum-up all the non-combat portions of the game it still doesn't measure up to the combat portion. These really need some love and attention. They are often underdeveloped (most boil down to a role). Social mechanics in particular suffer for this.

2. Pacing
This in a way is actually number one, because I just don't have the time for a D&D style combat. A single turn of combat in D&D's takes about as long as the combat in the systems I play now (in my experience). Character creation is also has this problem, but I think you get a better return on that then combat.

1. Wargame//RPG
This is not a problem on its own, but I feel it is the source of 2 & 3, a definite contributing factor to 5 and related to 4. So I think it should be mentioned. Historically D&D grew out of a table-top wargame and I think it held onto that a bit too much. So it is a mix of the two types of games and it if you try to play it for only one of the two, the game suffers for it. Even beyond that I am interested in both, but it often doesn't provide enough of either.

So these the things I don't like about Dungeons & Dragons.

I was going to do a point-by-point, but, here's one single thing that can help: Use your gosh darn imagination. It sounds like you're playing with poor players or a lackluster DM. No one is forcing you to adhere 100% to written rules. Experiment and have fun for gosh sake.

Cluedrew
2016-08-03, 08:41 PM
To bjj8383: I have played with good & bad GMs (well, none where terrible) and in the end although I had fun in a lot of games... that didn't make the problems go away. Yes, even when we varied up the rules a bit. If you want to do the point-by-point on what I'm missing, I would be glad to see what bits I have been missing. Also my imagination starts at 11 and I haven't turned it below 17 in years. For example, that line just popped into my head.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-03, 08:55 PM
The ability to houserule and homebrew doesn't invalidate discussion of things we don't like. We houserule and homebrew specifically because there's stuff we don't like in systems.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-03, 10:47 PM
Experiment and have fun for gosh sake.

Identifying things that you dislike is the first step in that direction.


I love your imagery, which is why I quoted the whole thing. And the line in your signature which seems to fit.

Thanks. I changed the sig today in a specific effort to contextualize my habit of criticizing everything all the time.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-04, 06:21 AM
I would feel remiss if I did not post why
You may someday come back to D&D, (http://www.chrispramas.com/2008/03/seven-stages-of-gygax.html) in this thread.

I'm unconvinced. I actually never go back to D&D by choice, if I had to run a fantasy game in any system I currently own, GURPS is higher on the list than D&D, due to the fact that it can drop in simplicity fast (use templates and suddenly you're only spending 25 points and not 100, and you can strip out a lot of the advantages and still have a robust system) and the core system is actually really easy to teach.


In my experience, writing rules for magic is hard. It might be the hardest thing I've tried to do in terms of RPG design - the other possibility is writing rules for hacking that are both realistic and fun. I wish you the best of luck, and will be very curious if you produce a system you do like enough to stick with.

The hardest thing with hacking is making doing it in a roll or two believable, if you can get there you've solved the decker problem.

Magic is annoying because you either have to try to balance freeform, or you have to balance a lot of effects. I'm planning to cheat and use iterative testing to get decently balanced and fun rules instead of trying to balance it all mathematically.


Anonymouswizard,
Except for, "Focus more on the warriors and rogues than mages" (which sounds really good to me), most of your list was done with:

1978's
Runequest (http://www.chaosium.com/runequest/) (low "realistic" magic), and

Oh, I like RuneQuest, it's just got too common magic for me. I like magic being more limited than everyone knowing a few spells.


I love your imagery, which is why I quoted the whole thing. And the line in your signature which seems to fit.

Personally I started my project out of something like boredom, because I had left my old group and hadn't ready done any role-playing in two-years. The reason it is still going is because it is fun. I scratch built the base system, which currently is actually most of the game, there is just enough content on top of that to test it. The health system needs some attention for one. Reading about other systems is good too.

Yeah, I started with a list of goals too. I forget what the original list was but I still have an informal list going through my head. I was going to say something else but I forget. I'm kind of tired.

I personally began making system out of boredom, but now I mainly do it because it's fun. I've had a lot of false starts, I think I started over 20 games (including several versions of a D&D clone) in order to get the two alphas I'm actually okay with. It actually took me a long time to get to the point where I'd sit down with more specific goals than 'like X, but...' (it began with 'like D&D, but...', then moved onto 'like World of Darkness, but...', although I've finally got to the point where I can list out my goals).

I'll probably upload my system once I've finished the alpha, I actually have a lot here that I like compared to almost everything else. My science fiction game Infinity Drive is basically ready to go to playtesting, although it's missing a lot of content and rules so I'm reluctant to share it yet (all the rules for robots and vehicles have yet to be written, as do the favours and employees systems). One innovation from Infinity Drive that I like, and might port over to my fantasy game (under the working title Hope Arisen) is that 'knowledge skills' aren't really a thing, there's no science skill or biology skill, and instead everybody gets one profession and two interests (unless they take the traits that alter this amount) which allow you to know knowledge related to them (no roll needed) and give a +2 bonus to relevant checks. It definitely makes things easier than having to have umpteen different knowledge skills, although it's a bit open for abuse.

Cluedrew
2016-08-04, 08:04 AM
Thanks. I changed the sig today in a specific effort to contextualize my habit of criticizing everything all the time.Your welcome.


Magic is annoying because you either have to try to balance freeform, or you have to balance a lot of effects. I'm planning to cheat and use iterative testing to get decently balanced and fun rules instead of trying to balance it all mathematically.Magic is always kind of funny because you don't want it to be too much like regular skills, because then it doesn't feel like magic, but you don't want it too be too different either, because then you get over-powered magic most of the time.


I personally began making system out of boredom, but now I mainly do it because it's fun. I've had a lot of false starts, I think I started over 20 games (including several versions of a D&D clone) in order to get the two alphas I'm actually okay with.I'm on version 12+a few before I started numbering. And I think 10 was when I stopped going "nope, try something else" and rewriting the whole thing. And I'm still worried I might end up having to do again, but I'm really close right now. But hopefully if this works out I will actually have a base system I can port over to other games/settings as well.


My science fiction game Infinity Drive is basically ready to go to playtesting, although it's missing a lot of content and rules so I'm reluctant to share it yet (all the rules for robots and vehicles have yet to be written, as do the favours and employees systems).Well this is one style difference, me I will playtest even my most half-baked ideas. Luckily I have some understanding playtesters who don't mind messing around with an unfinished system. I haven't for instance even touched knowledge skills (or equivalent). Although your profession system seems like a good idea as well, although do you have a list of professions of do people make them up?

Its fun swapping a few little tales with people who have also been down this road.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-04, 08:49 AM
#1 Spell Slots
My biggest complaint is spell slots. I just have no idea what they represent in-world. They come across as a purely gamist mechanic in order to limit spellcasters, whereas I tend towards simulationist. I'd have much preferred it if 5e had gone with a spell point system, I'm fairly certain that spell slots aren't actually a holy cow (memorised spells I actually like in theory, especially the 5e interpretation).

I think that in earlier editions, you had spell slots because each spell was actually a complex ritual which you did all but the final step of. (The final step done in combat.) Though I think that fell by the wayside as they lowered the time it took to memorize spells for the day. (Wasn't it originally 15min per spell level of the spell, so that by level 5 a wizard preparing all of his spells took the better part of a day?)

lenon3579
2016-08-05, 11:17 AM
I started to play RPG on WoD, old Vampire, and most people of my group hated D&D, so I grow up with some prejudice against it. The years passed and on 2007 I was invited to a campaign of 3.5 set on Planescape. After that I played and DMed on AD&D 2e, 3.5, 4e and 5e. And I disagree with some: It's not so better to DM than to play, compared to other games. Once I GMed a campaign of Mage: Ascension. The group loved and wanted more, but I refused to continue and I'll never GM Mage again. Ever. (But if someone would want to GM, can count on me as player).

I agree with most of the complains of the OP, except for the Magic part. I often find myself playing other games and complaining that its magical system should be more d&d-ish to be funnier. And mind that I almost always make spellcaster characters. The times I played as meelee were very funless - I always found myself thinking of how I could solve the problem if I was the spellcaster of the group. Most people I played with sucked at spellcasting. It's an Art. My biggest complain about 4e is the way it simplified magic on a way that made it completely flavorless. Magic in 4e works the same way of the abilities of any other classes. It is completely combat-oriented, getting rid of all those lovely utilitarian magic, which permits me to think out of the box and get rid of nasty situations - like casting water over the villain who was about to lit the explosives with her torch, out of grappling range. :D

But yes, sometimes I prefer the GURPS-ish way of dealing with magic - as skills, with that beautiful tree... I am still working on a porting of the good magics of D&D to GURPS 4e, along with my adaptation of the Planescape setting to that system.

For the rest... I agree. But there is one more thing. The multi-system imbued in D&D. Recently I was GMing a campaign on AD&D 2e, Forgotten Realms, and had a Druid on the group, and he wanted to put his herbalism skill to some good use. There was nothing on the core books about the usage of the skill - after all, there is no usage of herbs in D&D, although they are a very interesting thing to play with. So he researched hard, until he found an obscure supplement which had rules about that, and even a small list of herbs... and it consisted of THREE different sub-systems... one for finding herbs, one for identifying and one for preparing. Not just three rolls, but each roll was different - I remember only that the first was against wisdom, rolling under. I think the worse with those nesting systems is AD&D, but 3.5 is also overloaded with them.

Other thing that is making D&D less and less fun for me is the combat part. Combat is very straightforward and flavorless - Except for spellcasters, obviously.

"Warrior, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Barbarian, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Swashbuckler, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Ranger, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Paladin, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Rogue, what do you do?" "Am I hidden?" "No" "Then I attack".

For goodness' sake! Put some other moves there! Feint, aim, etc, etc. Put different kinds of attacking, depending on stances and/or terrain and/or defenses of the enemy. The only fun thing of the combat are the critics - failures or successes.

It being broken after 10th level only worse things... but I usually just bump them into Planescape when things get too buggy. This setting is good because it puts new challenges on the mobility, with all that portals stuff and the environmental hazards. Also, in the Planes one does not just kills a dragon and takes his hoard.

And I don't want to GM it anymore. I'm fascinated by the cleanliness of GURPS to GM and it's possibilities look exciting. But every time I try everyone says "but I'll only play if it's D&D". Aaaargh.

EDIT:
Although all that, it's still the second funnier game to play as spellcaster (losing only to Mage). And as I love spellcasting in games, I always want to play D&D. Only DMing it is painful.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-05, 11:54 AM
Other thing that is making D&D less and less fun for me is the combat part. Combat is very straightforward and flavorless - Except for spellcasters, obviously.

"Warrior, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Barbarian, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Swashbuckler, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Ranger, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Paladin, what do you do?" "I attack".
"Rogue, what do you do?" "Am I hidden?" "No" "Then I attack".

For goodness' sake! Put some other moves there! Feint, aim, etc, etc. Put different kinds of attacking, depending on stances and/or terrain and/or defenses of the enemy. The only fun thing of the combat are the critics - failures or successes.


Based on my last readings of 3.5 and 4e, I think some of those "other moves" are in the game, they're just largely buried in places like Feats -- so without the correct Feat, you can't use them.

Which I kinda hate.

lenon3579
2016-08-05, 12:12 PM
Based on my last readings of 3.5 and 4e, I think some of those "other moves" are in the game, they're just largely buried in places like Feats -- so without the correct Feat, you can't use them.

Which I kinda hate.

Yes, that. Mini-systems hidden inside mini-systems.

Garimeth
2016-08-05, 12:43 PM
Based on my last readings of 3.5 and 4e, I think some of those "other moves" are in the game, they're just largely buried in places like Feats -- so without the correct Feat, you can't use them.

Which I kinda hate.

I find that the more often I let my players simply attempt or succeed at things that seem reasonable the more often they try them.

You're gladiatorial champion wants to trip or shove the commoner conscript he's fighting to the ground? sure, why not.

You're musketeer style rogue wants to jump over the bar, or try to disarm his opponent? Sure, make a melee attack that opposes mine.

Though to be fair, these reasons are also all why I don't DM D&D anymore either, but my current system (13th Age) is still very much a spiritual successor - and the above is how I deal with the d20 binary fail/succeed weirdness.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-05, 12:56 PM
Based on my last readings of 3.5 and 4e, I think some of those "other moves" are in the game, they're just largely buried in places like Feats -- so without the correct Feat, you can't use them.

Which I kinda hate.

Eh, I agree with that in 3.5, but 4e sort of moved these moves towards the powers system. I don't know how many slipped out and got put into feats or the like, but it's certainly the sort of thing an Encounter Exploit could easily do.

Of course, 4e's powers aren't for everyone. I actually like it for spellcasters somewhat, although I'd have preferred it if martial characters used the system psionics does (you get 3 at-will powers of various levels, and can spend power points to improve them). I get that you shouldn't be in the situation to use a move every round (encounter powers being one use per combat works here), but in a 20-30 round combat you should theoretically be able to pull off a specific move twice.

(Of course 4e also explicitly made the Martial power source supernatural, just much more subtle than the other ones)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-05, 01:39 PM
Eh, I agree with that in 3.5, but 4e sort of moved these moves towards the powers system. I don't know how many slipped out and got put into feats or the like, but it's certainly the sort of thing an Encounter Exploit could easily do.

Of course, 4e's powers aren't for everyone. I actually like it for spellcasters somewhat, although I'd have preferred it if martial characters used the system psionics does (you get 3 at-will powers of various levels, and can spend power points to improve them). I get that you shouldn't be in the situation to use a move every round (encounter powers being one use per combat works here), but in a 20-30 round combat you should theoretically be able to pull off a specific move twice.

(Of course 4e also explicitly made the Martial power source supernatural, just much more subtle than the other ones)

That still suffers the same problem of hiding basic combat maneuvers inside 'special stuff' that's restricted to certain Classes, rather than having them be part of the overall combat system.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-05, 01:48 PM
That still suffers the same problem of hiding basic combat maneuvers inside 'special stuff' that's restricted to certain Classes, rather than having them be part of the overall combat system.

Eh, it's not hidden, it's literally where it's supposed to be. Restricted is a potential problem, and I'll agree there, there probably should be 'normal' versions of several moves for verisimilitude, but due to the design of the game they would have no guarantee of being as effective as the power versions. Some should be restricted to 'if you have a power that says so', but stuff like tripping or a chandelier swing should be fair game. I'd personally mainly restrict stances to powers (heck, the Runepriest has stances, and I love it for it), and then put basic versions of feint/aim/trip/disarm/etc. in as standard actions, with some powers getting slightly enhanced versions of them (maybe letting you do it and weapon damage, although I think an improved feint would be a utility power).

CharonsHelper
2016-08-05, 02:05 PM
That still suffers the same problem of hiding basic combat maneuvers inside 'special stuff' that's restricted to certain Classes, rather than having them be part of the overall combat system.

It was designed that way to make learning the base system easier. It's actually generally a design tool that I'm a fan of, to have the base rules be relatively simple with most of the complexity is specific sub-systems, though I don't particularly like the way 4e did it.

Lord Torath
2016-08-05, 02:11 PM
That still suffers the same problem of hiding basic combat maneuvers inside 'special stuff' that's restricted to certain Classes, rather than having them be part of the overall combat system.2nd Edition AD&D's Player's Option: Combat and Tactics introduced a lot of things you could do other than "Attack" and "Parry", without needing any feats or "feats" to be effective. I think certain actions required certain types of weapons, but those are the only requirements.

lenon3579
2016-08-05, 04:34 PM
2nd Edition AD&D's Player's Option: Combat and Tactics introduced a lot of things you could do other than "Attack" and "Parry", without needing any feats or "feats" to be effective. I think certain actions required certain types of weapons, but those are the only requirements.

Ah, those AD&D supplements... They were the best and the worst. But surely make all later supplements pale. If there is one thing that makes me love that advanced second edition over any other is the quality of their supplementary material. Especially the ones for the settings, like Pirates of the Sword Coast, the Volo's and Elminster's Ecologies collections, the Planescape ones, etc, etc, etc...

Though I never had the chance to put my hands on PO:CaT when I last GMed... now I have the PDF, and my friends are begging me to GM AD&D 2e, but I'm already too filled of D&D.


It was designed that way to make learning the base system easier. It's actually generally a design tool that I'm a fan of, to have the base rules be relatively simple with most of the complexity is specific sub-systems, though I don't particularly like the way 4e did it.

So hiding the options of diversifying the actions a fighter can take on a turn behind the wall of unintelligibility, the feats table, is designing it to make the system easier? And I'm not even talking about locking it for characters and classes which don't have the specific feat.

Compare that to what GURPS do (for the sake of comparing, I'm NOT SAYING that one is worse than the other, in general terms, just showing how it can be made differently). You have the Free Actions (talk, drop an intem, crouch), the movement actions: Do Nothing, Move, Change Posture (like from sitting to standing), Aim/Evaluate (both are same thing, but for Ranged/Meelee), Wait (for the others' actions), Concentrate (on a parallel task), Ready (a weapon which needs readying, like a two-handed axe). The attack actions: Feint, Move and Attack, Attack and All-Out Attack (Determined, Double, Feint + Attack, Strong). And the All-Out Defense action. It's simple, intuitive, elegant and gives the player a lot of options to chose, to give more flavour to combat. Will I evaluate the enemy or go attacking right away? Will I feint or risk a strong all-out attack for max damage? Those things are available to every character, even to untrained fat geek teens, because they are intuitive decisions a person would make. They differ from the Skills and Techniques which are learned and trained - like Roundhouse Kick.

Cluedrew
2016-08-05, 04:57 PM
I agree with most of the complains of the OP, except for the Magic part. I often find myself playing other games and complaining that its magical system should be more d&d-ish to be funnier. And mind that I almost always make spellcaster characters. The times I played as meelee were very funless - I always found myself thinking of how I could solve the problem if I was the spellcaster of the group.There are things D&D does right with magic. Variety is its crowning feature in my option, but then you were reading a list of the things I don't like about the system.

It just gets me how little internal logic governs magic in D&D. The only thing that separates a powerful wizard from a commoner is study( and some spell components). But what is that study about? Unlocking the secrets of the universe? Isn't that all study is, for a given subset of the universe? Plus, despite the generic fantasy thing, the system of spell slots don't look like any other magic system I have ever seen. Except a maybe the one for Warhammer (the table top wargame, not the RPG (because I have never seen the RPG)).

I also forward the wargame explanation for why martials are so boring, what to martials do in a war game? They walk forward, they hold the line and they attack the enemy line. Except for some speedy assassin type units who try and go around to get at weaker enemy units. What do casters do in wargames? They case spells that change the flow of battle, mess with the rules and assumptions of engagement.

D&D is a game that is based off of the assumptions of a wargame and then modded to be a RPG. And it shows.

The Fury
2016-08-05, 10:41 PM
There are legitimate reasons why someone might not like Dungeons and Dragons or really any D20-type RPG. I say this as someone that actually has a lot of fun with these games as well. Though the people that tell me why D&D is terrible, those that I actually meet and play games with usually run non-D&D games as though they were D&D. I mean, in a typical D&D game there's a dungeon that the players enter, fight monsters and get treasure. That's fine, that's just what you expect in D&D. But when you're playing Call of Cthulhu, Old World of Darkness or whatever, it's a little weird. Especially when the person running the game just told you that D&D is too focused on combat and getting treasure, therefore it doesn't allow for nuanced storytelling. Maybe D&D just created a precedent for tabletop RPGs that's difficult to break away from?

Funny, enough the only games that I've played in that actually made an effort to shake up the dynamic of fights, dungeon diving, character alignment and treasure-getting, most of those were actual D&D. A couple were Pathfinder, but whatevs.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-06, 07:50 AM
Well this is one style difference, me I will playtest even my most half-baked ideas. Luckily I have some understanding playtesters who don't mind messing around with an unfinished system. I haven't for instance even touched knowledge skills (or equivalent). Although your profession system seems like a good idea as well, although do you have a list of professions of do people make them up?

Eh, it's less not wanting to playtest half-baked ideas (I'm just short a group of guinea pigs), and more not wanting to 'publish' something missing giant chunks of core systems, even as an alpha. I fully intend to have a planet-bound playtest of this as soon as I can, maybe with a bunch of pregens just so I can get sessions in quickly (as I don't need a prolonged campaign playtest right now, just 'is this system easy to use and fun?').

The current plan for professions and interests is that they are freeform, I will create a list of example professions and maybe restrict them to a list, but as it is if they apply is pretty freeform no matter how they are generated. Yes, I know it's open to abuse, but there are going to be guidelines (professions are slightly generic, so you might have 'starship engineer' or 'mercenary soldier', while interests are specific), I just need to playtest and see how they work in practice.


Its fun swapping a few little tales with people who have also been down this road.

Yep, especially as everyone has a different style of doing it. I start with a basic setting idea and build my setting up so it makes sense with the mechanics, whereas I have a friend who starts with a world and builds the mechanics to match (and his game is very good, if obviously in early beta).


So hiding the options of diversifying the actions a fighter can take on a turn behind the wall of unintelligibility, the feats table, is designing it to make the system easier? And I'm not even talking about locking it for characters and classes which don't have the specific feat.

Eh, that's more a problem with the feats table(/power lists for 4e) than with the idea. Consider this, that fighters are supposed to use feats (at least in 3.5). If you're playing a fighter you're supposed to consider the feats and what they do for your character, as well as the options they open up (fighters haven't actually been a newbie class since 3.0, that's actually the barbarian with mostly passive abilities that they don't get options for). Yes, feats could be made much easier to deal with, possibly by giving them different groups (so you have 'movement' feats, 'combat technique' feats, 'weapon skill' feats, 'skill trick' feats, 'metamagic' feats, and so on).

Imagine this in a theoretical system, everyone for their standard action can do one of five things: attack, reckless attack, go full defence, take an extra move action, or use a power. This is a very basic version of what 3.5 lets you do (you can try combat techniques, but can't let them succeed without the feat). Now I'm using power to say 'any ability granted by a feat or a class', a mage's spells and a fighter's combat techniques are both powers.

Now let us imagine a starting fighter in this system. Lets say that all fighters get two feats at first level, which must be either 'combat technique' or 'weapon skill' feats. As a new player who doesn't care that much about options I might go to the weapon skill feats, as this simply increase how good I am with a weapon and are theoretically balanced with the combat technique ones. But I've been playing this system for two years and want more actions in combat, so I take the Bull Rush and Trip feats. Now on my turn I can use my standard action to: attack, reckless attack, go full defence, take an extra move action, attempt a trip, or attempt a bull rush.


Compare that to what GURPS do (for the sake of comparing, I'm NOT SAYING that one is worse than the other, in general terms, just showing how it can be made differently). You have the Free Actions (talk, drop an intem, crouch), the movement actions: Do Nothing, Move, Change Posture (like from sitting to standing), Aim/Evaluate (both are same thing, but for Ranged/Meelee), Wait (for the others' actions), Concentrate (on a parallel task), Ready (a weapon which needs readying, like a two-handed axe). The attack actions: Feint, Move and Attack, Attack and All-Out Attack (Determined, Double, Feint + Attack, Strong). And the All-Out Defense action. It's simple, intuitive, elegant and gives the player a lot of options to chose, to give more flavour to combat. Will I evaluate the enemy or go attacking right away? Will I feint or risk a strong all-out attack for max damage? Those things are available to every character, even to untrained fat geek teens, because they are intuitive decisions a person would make. They differ from the Skills and Techniques which are learned and trained - like Roundhouse Kick.

Ah, yes GURPS combat, a.k.a. I aim and fire this turn again. It's stupidly easy to get an accuracy of +7 or higher on a rifle, meaning that once guns come online it becomes a simple case of aim and then shoot in order to hit the target as often as possible (seeing as 1-2 shots will take most enemies down, depending on your weapon), and all the other attack actions are basically the idiot who just took a bullet to the chest. Maybe we'll crouch or go prone at the start of the fight, it depends on available cover and the number of enemies.

Now in pre-firearms games it might be much more involved and the other actions will be important (probably still important while we're at the musket stage to be honest, although the first gun you can spam tips the tables). I don't care what the options are past that though, almost nothing beasts a scoped rifle and a skill of at least 10, just aim and fire, aim and fire. Then rapid fire weapons come along and you have to balance the possibility of more damage with the near-certain hits of aiming. I tend to stick to aiming and firing a single shot, it's insanely good with rifles.

SimonMoon6
2016-08-06, 09:21 AM
Though the people that tell me why D&D is terrible, those that I actually meet and play games with usually run non-D&D games as though they were D&D. I mean, in a typical D&D game there's a dungeon that the players enter, fight monsters and get treasure. That's fine, that's just what you expect in D&D. But when you're playing Call of Cthulhu, Old World of Darkness or whatever, it's a little weird.

Anyone who's running Call of Cthulhu like D&D probably should not be running Call of Cthulhu.

In CoC, fighting monsters is something you don't want to do. Seeing monsters will make you go crazy and even the weak ones can probably kill you. In D&D, monsters give you experience points to make you more powerful and even the strong ones probably can't kill you.

In CoC, there aren't much in the way of treasures to find. And what little there are have a tendency to drive you insane. And even if you maintain your sanity, the treasures are mostly books that only help the intelligent members of the group. You're never going to find a +5 sword, for example. In D&D, treasures are everywhere and important for making your character more powerful.

In CoC, intelligence and clue-gathering are important parts of the adventure. In D&D, intelligence and clue-gathering are looked down upon, as people just want to get to the "good" part, i.e., the combat.

In CoC, figuring out what to do is the point of the adventure. In D&D, mindless combat is (usually) the adventure.

Knaight
2016-08-06, 10:48 AM
There are legitimate reasons why someone might not like Dungeons and Dragons or really any D20-type RPG. I say this as someone that actually has a lot of fun with these games as well. Though the people that tell me why D&D is terrible, those that I actually meet and play games with usually run non-D&D games as though they were D&D. I mean, in a typical D&D game there's a dungeon that the players enter, fight monsters and get treasure. That's fine, that's just what you expect in D&D. But when you're playing Call of Cthulhu, Old World of Darkness or whatever, it's a little weird. Especially when the person running the game just told you that D&D is too focused on combat and getting treasure, therefore it doesn't allow for nuanced storytelling. Maybe D&D just created a precedent for tabletop RPGs that's difficult to break away from?

Funny, enough the only games that I've played in that actually made an effort to shake up the dynamic of fights, dungeon diving, character alignment and treasure-getting, most of those were actual D&D. A couple were Pathfinder, but whatevs.

Even if you like d20 type play you may well dislike D&D as a system - were I to run a game about adventurers dungeon crawling I'd probably use WR&M.

With that said, given the criticisms that's just weird. It's also pretty indicative of sticking to fairly traditional games, as the more esoteric ones can't have that happen. Fiasco and Microscope just can't do dungeon crawls.

Cluedrew
2016-08-06, 12:05 PM
Anyone who's running Call of Cthulhu like D&D probably should not be running Call of Cthulhu.This is true. And I think what I'm getting at is actually if you are playing D&D like a... shoot I just realized- and I just lost the rest of the post.

Anyways, I was going to say that there are two general meanings for RPG. First role-playing game as sort of like a story telling game. But D&D is more like the second one, it is more like Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy (with a bit of Fire Emblem or Rogue). And it is good at that, D&D is a good character based tactical wargame.

But it is comparatively weaker at doing the story telling part of the game, because it provides fewer tools for that. Yes it provides some, but even those get swamped by the shear amount of combat rules.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-06, 04:58 PM
But it is comparatively weaker at doing the story telling part of the game, because it provides fewer tools for that. Yes it provides some, but even those get swamped by the shear amount of combat rules.

There are some that say the fewer rules governing RP, the more flexible and easy RP gets. Some games have no rules regarding whether NPCs successfully lie to your character, you merely interpret their words as truths or lies based on your judgment.

Myself, I think of it less in terms of the sheer mass of rules and more in terms of how effective existing rules turn out to be. For the different editions of DnD, I feel that alignment, used in a sane way, can be a very effective tool for enhancing RP while the rules for convincing people and lying have tended to be very bad for RP.

Cluedrew
2016-08-06, 05:16 PM
There are some that say the fewer rules governing RP, the more flexible and easy RP gets.Yes, and if the only social mechanics that I had been exposed to where those in D&D, which are sometimes worse than nothing, I would agree with them. I would agree with them hole heartedly. Having seem more elegant solutions for a more civilized game I would say that there are places for both. Some times you should just leave it players and other times going to mechanics works better. Which one depends on a number of factors, including subjective ones, but they both have their uses.

Admittedly free-forms greatest strengths is ease of use and flexibility, so on that part I still agree. But you pay some costs there. There was a thread about this topic "On dice controlling your character" as I recall.

I also agree with you that yes, alignment can be used well and is useful when it is.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-06, 08:29 PM
I also agree with you that yes, alignment can be used well and is useful when it is.

When or how can alignment be used well?

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-06, 10:08 PM
The alignment system used well is a tool to help people conceive of morality in a way they normally wouldn't in order to play a game that treats morality in its specific way. It's kind of like the way Call of Cthulhu has mechanics that help people approach mystery in a way they wouldn't normally, in order to play a game that treats mystery in its specific way.

So normally, if I learned about a guy raising skeletons, I wouldn't be too bothered unless those skeletons were being used for something more conventionally nefarious. But that reaction wouldn't fit into DnD, so the alignment system exists to tell me to be bothered by a capital "E" Evil act.

Koo Rehtorb
2016-08-06, 10:14 PM
The alignment system used well is a tool to help people conceive of morality in a way they normally wouldn't in order to play a game that treats morality in its specific way. It's kind of like the way Call of Cthulhu has mechanics that help people approach mystery in a way they wouldn't normally, in order to play a game that treats mystery in its specific way.

So normally, if I learned about a guy raising skeletons, I wouldn't be too bothered unless those skeletons were being used for something more conventionally nefarious. But that reaction wouldn't fit into DnD, so the alignment system exists to tell me to be bothered by a capital "E" Evil act.

You don't need the alignment system for that. All you need to do is say "in this setting raising skeletons is considered evil".

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-06, 10:19 PM
That is a simple example to illustrate the action of the point, which is written above the example.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-06, 10:45 PM
You don't need the alignment system for that. All you need to do is say "in this setting raising skeletons is considered evil".

Well, that does leave it open to opinion whether "that which is considered evil" is something that is actually evil, so I can see how a formal alignment system of some kind needs to be used to cue certain player responses for the purpose of theme.

goto124
2016-08-07, 03:05 AM
Well, that does leave it open to opinion whether "that which is considered evil" is something that is actually evil, so I can see how a formal alignment system of some kind needs to be used to cue certain player responses for the purpose of theme.

But why do you need raising skeletons to be inherently evil?

If it's the society reacting to the evil, the PCs can try to work around it. Raise only animals, people they had to kill anyway, try to hide the animated skeletons, etc. You also have consequences for getting caught raising skeletons - people start shunning you, being wary of you, etc.

But for an alignment system, raising skeletons gains you... evil energy? Which does... something? Which is bad for... some reason?

Cluedrew
2016-08-07, 09:18 AM
When or how can alignment be used well?I find it most useful as a descriptive tool. So you can describe a character as "a silent type" or a "do gooder" or as "Chaotic Good". In that regard it is just adds a bunch more terms to the pool of descriptors and archetypes. It also works as a personality test, sure ultimately the results of the personality test are (can be) meaningless but it forces you to think about the character to try and answer where exactly on the two spectrums they fall.

And despite what people saying about it not working for anything that falls cleanly into the 9 boxes, one of my best experiences with D&D was a character who could be spread out over all 9 alignments. Especially since the character was supposed to be ambiguous doing that made sure they did not spend to much time at any alignment helped keep that going.

Also from the wargame side of this, knowing your opponent's alignment is a good indicator of "is this a combat encounter or not". It games about complex morality (which D&D is not built for) you can make the "detect X" abilities a little more ambiguous. "I use detect evil." "You get something back that is a little stronger than everyday faults of normal people, but not burn and pillage strength."

ImNotTrevor
2016-08-07, 10:22 AM
Alignment systems can be used well in the same sense that with enough skill and dedication you can hammer in a nail with your face.

It's not going to be easy, there are better options to accomplish the same thing, and you might question if it was worth it, but when you do pull it off you get bragging rights in some circles.

Or, you could just not do that.

comk59
2016-08-07, 10:30 AM
I generally use alignment as a way to judge how pixies and outsiders react to you. Otherwise, it's just a part of their character that never comes up.

Cluedrew
2016-08-07, 01:26 PM
To ImNotTrevor: First, I like your imagery. Secondly I have never had any troubles with the alignment system. I don't know why everyone else does (beyond some particular "don't do that" cases) or how it has worked out so differently for myself than so many others who rant about it. Maybe it is the way it was originally presented to me, how I/my group approached applying it, the conversations I had about it or something else. Either way all that stuff I said is not me working through it over long hours. That is just what I did with it, I didn't even think I was doing anything usual for a long time.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-07, 02:35 PM
To ImNotTrevor: First, I like your imagery. Secondly I have never had any troubles with the alignment system. I don't know why everyone else does (beyond some particular "don't do that" cases) or how it has worked out so differently for myself than so many others who rant about it. Maybe it is the way it was originally presented to me, how I/my group approached applying it, the conversations I had about it or something else. Either way all that stuff I said is not me working through it over long hours. That is just what I did with it, I didn't even think I was doing anything usual for a long time.

The main problem with the alignment is that it doesn't add anything to the game. You can still run an awesome game of good versus evil, without having to call the heroes Good and the villains Evil. For most people it actually doesn't come up, it's essentially superfluous, and if it does it generally seems to be along the lines of your DM taking away your Paladin powers.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-07, 03:13 PM
But why do you need raising skeletons to be inherently evil?

If it's the society reacting to the evil, the PCs can try to work around it. Raise only animals, people they had to kill anyway, try to hide the animated skeletons, etc. You also have consequences for getting caught raising skeletons - people start shunning you, being wary of you, etc.

But for an alignment system, raising skeletons gains you... evil energy? Which does... something? Which is bad for... some reason?

The Alignment system is not an explanation of real-life morality, it is a structure to portray an in-game morality. Naturally, if we seek to map real-life morality onto the game, it breaks down. So you could say that this is the wrong question.

In this situation, the alignment system is there specifically to get me to stop questioning how raising skeletons is evil. It is evil because the alignment system says it is, and it says the Necromancer is an Evil person who does Evil things, so I can/should act against the necromancer responsible if I am playing a good character.

Yes, this makes the morality system in DnD kind of cartoonish and simplistic, but that's the point. The game is an engine best used for heroic fantasy combat, not moral debate.

2D8HP
2016-08-07, 06:33 PM
The main problem with the alignment is that it doesn't add anything to the game...


Yes, this makes the morality system in DnD kind of cartoonish and simplistic, but that's the point. The game is an engine best used for heroic fantasy combat, not moral debate.

For me, putting a "Good" entry in "Alignment" is often the only IC justification for taking the "plot hooks", otherwise I have a hard time not role-playing my PC's leaving the scene, and just going to safety and opening a tavern or something.
With the '70's Adventures I grew up on the PC's motivations were easy to justify; loot Dungeons to get rich. Now that the Adventures are largely "save innocents from evil", Alignment is often the only hat to hang on I can think of as to why my PC is willing to risk his neck (this is also why "hero" back-story comes hard to me, I just don't think in "hero").

ImNotTrevor
2016-08-07, 07:12 PM
To ImNotTrevor: First, I like your imagery. Secondly I have never had any troubles with the alignment system. I don't know why everyone else does (beyond some particular "don't do that" cases) or how it has worked out so differently for myself than so many others who rant about it. Maybe it is the way it was originally presented to me, how I/my group approached applying it, the conversations I had about it or something else. Either way all that stuff I said is not me working through it over long hours. That is just what I did with it, I didn't even think I was doing anything usual for a long time.

It's not that you're doing something unusual. It's that I can accomplish the same thing with a 1 minute conversation and no mechanical input from the system. I can make sure that my players in a rough-and-tumble, morally gray game like Apocalypse World play nice for most or all of the game by saying the following two sentences:
"Remember, you all know eachother, and you're basically allies. You don't need to like each other, but as of the start you are basically allies."
So they know immediately that it's Us vs Them, primarily.

I can also just say "So we're going for a epic hero adventure this time around, like we talked about last time, so make sure you build a hero-type character." And since we're all on the same page already, there aren't any problems.

I don't need a system for that. In other words, I use a hammer and/or don't bother with the nail at all.

goto124
2016-08-07, 08:02 PM
Agreement with ImNotTrevor. 5e's Ideals/Bonds/Flaws could be used to flesh out a character. You could say "my character is heroic to the point of fault" to make a goody-two-shoes, without discussing alignment at all. Alignment is at best barely useful, to be dropped the moment it interferes with characterization instead of helping. As said before, hammer without nail.


Yes, this makes the morality system in DnD kind of cartoonish and simplistic, but that's the point. The game is an engine best used for heroic fantasy combat, not moral debate.

True! It's also how I feel about alignment - more for splitting people into teams than any actual meaning of 'morality'.

Cluedrew
2016-08-07, 08:56 PM
On Useful Alignment: Well if you don't find it useful don't use it. I'm going to continue to use it where it is useful to me, which is hardly everywhere, but it does come up on occasion.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-07, 09:07 PM
On Useful Alignment: Well if you don't find it useful don't use it. I'm going to continue to use it where it is useful to me, which is hardly everywhere, but it does come up on occasion.

Yes! There is no point going berserk, as we've all seen happen on forums, attempting to reconcile alignments with a campaign that doesn't fit it when you can toss it away altogether.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-08, 05:01 AM
For me, putting a "Good" entry in "Alignment" is often the only IC justification for taking the "plot hooks", otherwise I have a hard time not role-playing my PC's leaving the scene, and just going to safety and opening a tavern or something.
With the '70's Adventures I grew up on the PC's motivations were easy to justify; loot Dungeons to get rich. Now that the Adventures are largely "save innocents from evil", Alignment is often the only hat to hang on I can think of as to why my PC is willing to risk his neck (this is also why "hero" back-story comes hard to me, I just don't think in "hero").

You see, I rarely have this problem, because I make PCs the GM can motivate easily. Either I just like to help people (rather rare), I'm explicitly a mercenary (fairly likely), or the GM has linked us to some sort of organisation and I've made a team player anyway.

I've also occasionally fallen back on 'well if nobody does anything I'll end up eaten by the dragon anyway, might as well give it stomach ache', but generally I'll let the GM play off my character's honour, greed, or duty (as I've met people with all three in real life). Remember, there's never anything stopping you from asking for pay for something, so you can always save the innocents to get rich.

The problem with using alignment here is that you're using a chainsaw to perform heart surgery. The reasons for taking the plot hooks should be more specific motivations, and if the GM's doing anything right they can keep the players relatively strapped for cash if anything else fails.


Agreement with ImNotTrevor. 5e's Ideals/Bonds/Flaws could be used to flesh out a character. You could say "my character is heroic to the point of fault" to make a goody-two-shoes, without discussing alignment at all. Alignment is at best barely useful, to be dropped the moment it interferes with characterization instead of helping. As said before, hammer without nail.

Completely this. I still remember when I sat down to first play Unknown Armies, and what was I faced with?

'What is your character obsessed with? What makes them afraid? What makes them angry? What makes them act like a good person?'

And the thing? This had positive mechanical effects. I wanted situations to be linked to my Obsession, and looked for excuses to pull my Triggers. 5e's roleplaying traits have always reminded me of a less elegant version of UA's Triggers.

Pugwampy
2016-08-08, 06:23 AM
'What is your character obsessed with? What makes them afraid? What makes them angry? What makes them act like a good person?'


Interesting . I think thats worth play testing on the DND board .
I really dont play much with alignment anywhoo . I have more of a consequences to actions attitude in my games.


Is there a full question sheet of that nature somewhere ?

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-08-09, 01:06 AM
5. Magic
I don't like D&D's magic. It is not a generic magic, spell preparation is not a very common feature of many representations of magic. Yet, it manages to be almost flavourless. Yes there are spell components and spells require gestures and words. But that's it, there is no real explanation, not even the briefest view of how this is supposed to work. No true names, no contact with spirits, just stand over there move your hands and things happen.

It just gets me how little internal logic governs magic in D&D. The only thing that separates a powerful wizard from a commoner is study( and some spell components). But what is that study about? Unlocking the secrets of the universe? Isn't that all study is, for a given subset of the universe? Plus, despite the generic fantasy thing, the system of spell slots don't look like any other magic system I have ever seen. Except a maybe the one for Warhammer (the table top wargame, not the RPG (because I have never seen the RPG)).

People saying that Vancian is boring, nonsensical, unrelated to "real" magic, best replaced with spell points, etc. is a pet peeve of mine, so I'll chime in here.

Regarding how well Vancian represents magic, as one or two people mentioned upthread spell preparation involves performing a little ritual for every spell you want to cast and then storing it away for later, which has quite a bit more historical influence than most systems. In Goetic magic, you pull out your musty old tome, inscribe a mystical diagram on the floor, wave your arms in mystic gestures, chant for an hour and ten minutes, call out "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a minor demon from the Lesser Key of Solomon appears in your magic circle.

In D&D magic, you pull out your spellbook, inscribe a mystical diagram on the floor, wave your arms in mystic gestures, chant for an hour--then magically lock the current state of the ritual away in your mind instead of finishing it immediately. When you want to complete it, most likely after buffing yourself, double-checking the dimensional anchor, etc., you wave your arms in mystic gestures, chant for ten minutes, call out "Demon, come forth!" and poof, a CR 6 or lower demon from the Monster Manual appears in your magic circle.

Not only is the general flavor pretty much the same, going from "perform a big fancy ritual" to "perform most of a big fancy ritual and save the last bit to be triggered later" is probably the best extrapolation of traditional European hermetic magic, Mesoamerican sacrificial magic, or the like to get you combat-time spells; the concept of nebulous "magical energy" that a person just has and uses to "do stuff with magic" is a very modern one, comparatively, and doing things like negotiating during combat with previously-bound spirits to help you would be too slow.

Regarding how D&D magic works, it does essentially work on a True Names/Language of Magic concept, though it isn't explicitly called out as such aside from truenaming. The vast majority of spells have verbal components, spoken in a tongue belonging to ancient and powerful magical beings, and there's an entire class for people who can talk and sing so well that magic happens (and the bard was was, incidentally, the first example of a prestige or advanced class back in 1e, basically being better magic-users than the Magic-User). You need to know creatures' names to call them specifically with planar binding and similar spells, and most magic items have magic words that make them function. Power Word spells pack the most amount of power into the smallest space (in AD&D, they were very powerful spells given the lower overall monster HP and had ridiculously fast casting times, and even in 3e they're no-save spells with proportionally powerful effects) and are explicitly words with inherent magical power. Other examples of words-as-magic abound: glyphs, sigils, runes, symbols, etc., and of course wizards and archivists write down magic spells in their spellbooks and prayerbooks--magic spells made of words which themselves are magical and can't be understood by the uninitiated; scrolls, likewise, are literally written-down magic.

If you were to put an explicit statement in the Magic chapter that "D&D magic works by knowing and using the language of magic," you'd have to change absolutely none of the fluff and it would work just fine. And incidentally, while magic doesn't work via spirits, there are plenty of classes in 3e with a "get magic from powerful spirit creatures" theme, including the spirit shaman and wu jen with their minor-class-feature-but-basically-just-flavor companion spirits, the sha'ir who works magic entirely through its companion spirit, the warlock who gains power from a pact with an otherworldly being, the binder who channels spirits through his body, the hexblade that has a companion spirit that's basically a curse made manifest, and every single arcane class with a familiar.


So hiding the options of diversifying the actions a fighter can take on a turn behind the wall of unintelligibility, the feats table, is designing it to make the system easier? And I'm not even talking about locking it for characters and classes which don't have the specific feat.

Compare that to what GURPS do (for the sake of comparing, I'm NOT SAYING that one is worse than the other, in general terms, just showing how it can be made differently). You have the Free Actions (talk, drop an intem, crouch), the movement actions: Do Nothing, Move, Change Posture (like from sitting to standing), Aim/Evaluate (both are same thing, but for Ranged/Meelee), Wait (for the others' actions), Concentrate (on a parallel task), Ready (a weapon which needs readying, like a two-handed axe). The attack actions: Feint, Move and Attack, Attack and All-Out Attack (Determined, Double, Feint + Attack, Strong). And the All-Out Defense action. It's simple, intuitive, elegant and gives the player a lot of options to chose, to give more flavour to combat. Will I evaluate the enemy or go attacking right away? Will I feint or risk a strong all-out attack for max damage? Those things are available to every character, even to untrained fat geek teens, because they are intuitive decisions a person would make. They differ from the Skills and Techniques which are learned and trained - like Roundhouse Kick.

The only actions above that D&D lacks as default options in the Combat chapter that absolutely anyone can attempt are Aim/Evaluate and Dedicated/Strong attack, both of which are just +X to attack or damage abilities rather than new options; Aim/Evaluate mirrors Aid Another and/or the standard +2 "favorable circumstances" bonus, Dedicated Attack mirrors Charge, and Strong Attack mirrors the extra Str damage you get from two-handing a weapon. Meanwhile, other standard combat maneuvers D&D has include bull rushing, tripping, disarming, and grappling. While many of the better and more complex options are indeed gated behind feats and other selectable abilities, the 3e criticism that you need a feat to do everything is very much overblown.

And CharonsHelper is correct about his initial assertion that having lots of things gated that way helps for ease of learning the mechanics, even if it wasn't necessarily something the designers intended. If Power Attack, Combat Expertise, and similar feats are default options, for instance, new players have the option paralysis of whether to subtract -X from one stat to add +Y to another stat every single round, whereas being able to say "here's the one modifier on your sheet you need to care about, if anything else applies I'll tell you when you roll" cuts down on the complexity. In my games I rule that many feats are either standard combat maneuvers or things anyone can attempt at a certain BAB, just like I roll skill tricks and many downtime feats into the skill system at a certain number of ranks, but I have experienced players who can handle the complexity and actually prefer it.

Cluedrew
2016-08-09, 07:35 AM
To PairO'Dice Lost: But ultimately none of that comes across when I play the game, which is why I say this. A lot of these explanations (the one you just gave and a couple of others people have given me over the years) would actually help the issue. But they aren't, not that I have seen. I ended up trying to fill in some of it on my own last time I played a spell caster (an artificer) but it did feel like I was just strapping on the flavour on top of flavourless mechanics.

The problem is not helped by the amount of D&D inspired books (Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance) and none of them really used any of this. The Rise of Elminster (or whatever it was called) was the most frustrating "what is going on with the magic system" book I have ever read. If they had scenes of him doing those pre-rituals, practicing the pronunciation of the other language and so on it would have built that up. But it never did and the rules of the game don't either.

Sure all that stuff is there behind the scenes, or rather it might be as I haven't found much official support for it, but it doesn't feel like it ever actually comes on stage itself.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-09, 09:33 AM
To PairO'Dice Lost: But ultimately none of that comes across when I play the game, which is why I say this. A lot of these explanations (the one you just gave and a couple of others people have given me over the years) would actually help the issue. But they aren't, not that I have seen. I ended up trying to fill in some of it on my own last time I played a spell caster (an artificer) but it did feel like I was just strapping on the flavour on top of flavourless mechanics.

The problem is not helped by the amount of D&D inspired books (Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance) and none of them really used any of this. The Rise of Elminster (or whatever it was called) was the most frustrating "what is going on with the magic system" book I have ever read. If they had scenes of him doing those pre-rituals, practicing the pronunciation of the other language and so on it would have built that up. But it never did and the rules of the game don't either.

Sure all that stuff is there behind the scenes, or rather it might be as I haven't found much official support for it, but it doesn't feel like it ever actually comes on stage itself.

That stuff is always used as the explanation, but we almost never actually see it in the game, and its effects are largely abstracted into the mechanics in a very bland way.

My impression is that this is, in part, because the various publishers over the years have been extremely sensitive to any notion that D&D is an "evil bad stuff how-to book". The more bland and vague and shoved into the background all the details of the in-setting working of magic are, the less is shown in terms of in-character process and flavor, the more this sort of accusation can be avoided.

This vagueness and focus on mechanics also serve to make the system appear less specific to the underlying setting assumptions that have always, in a largely unspoken manner, informed so many of the design decisions.


Now, personally, as a matter of my own tastes and preferences, the more explanation is given to Vancian magic, the more those details in PairO'Dice Lost's post are laid out, the LESS I like Vancian magic and the LESS it fits any game I've ever run.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-09, 11:38 AM
I'm down with Vancian magic as a game mechanic. DMs should probably make be advised to make every in-game day about equivalent to one session of play, though.

But I still don't understand how it's cool. Yes you perform the part-rituals to prep your spells, but it's not like you'll describe doing the rituals every session. That would get obnoxious quickly. It's not like there's anything about the rituals to make them luck based or interactible, so they get swept under the rug easily enough.

Nor do I think it's uncool enough that it detracts from games that use it. For all the people who call it generic, I think of generic as spells coming from nothing and can be infinitely performed, or spells that use mana. Vancian is actually pretty weird in that it challenges you to gauge what spells you would want to cast before an adventure, and how much of each spell you want (though D&D doesnt have great balance between spells).

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-08-09, 11:41 PM
To PairO'Dice Lost: But ultimately none of that comes across when I play the game, which is why I say this. A lot of these explanations (the one you just gave and a couple of others people have given me over the years) would actually help the issue. But they aren't, not that I have seen. I ended up trying to fill in some of it on my own last time I played a spell caster (an artificer) but it did feel like I was just strapping on the flavour on top of flavourless mechanics.


That stuff is always used as the explanation, but we almost never actually see it in the game, and its effects are largely abstracted into the mechanics in a very bland way.

"Strapping flavor on top of flavorless mechanics" and "abstracted blandly" is the case for pretty much any magic system, though. Exalted involves super-duper-powerful beings channeling the very essence of creation against their foes...but mechanically it's "spend N points, get X effect." Earthdawn involves threading weaves of eldritch power very carefully to avoid the corrupting influence of the Horrors...but mechanically it's "spend 1+N actions casting, get X effect." Ars Magica involves the magic user shaping the fabric of reality by pitting his philosophy of the cosmos against the collective subconscious of humanity...but mechanically it's "determine Technique and Form, add difficulty modifiers, roll check."

The fact that the how-magic-works-in-D&D is relatively brief and most of it is implied throughout the system is fairly common for RPGs. Shadowrun's how-magic-works chapter has just one page of flavor, and is just about as detailed. Compare all of the fluff text on magical theory in both systems' core books:


Before setting out on a dangerous journey with her companions, Mialee sits in her study and opens her spellbook. First she pages through it, selecting the spells that she thinks will be most useful on her adventure. When she has chosen the spells she wants (which could mean choosing the same spell more than once), she meditates on the pages that describe each one. The arcane symbols, which she has penned by hand, would be nonsense to anyone else, but they unlock power from her mind. As she concentrates, she all but finishes casting each spell that she prepares. Each spell now lacks only its final trigger. When she closes the book, her mind is full of spells, each of which she can complete at will in a brief time.


Wizards, sorcerers, and bards cast arcane spells, which involve the direct manipulation of mystic energies. These manipulations require natural talent (in the case of sorcerers), long study (in the case of wizards), or both (in the case of bards). Compared to divine spells, arcane spells are more likely to produce dramatic results, such as flight, explosions, or transformations.
[...]
Clerics, druids, experienced paladins, and experienced rangers can cast divine spells. Unlike arcane spells, divine spells draw power from a divine source. Clerics gain spell power from deities or from divine forces. The divine force of nature powers druid and ranger spells. The divine forces of law and good power paladin spells. Divine spells tend to focus on healing and protection and are less flashy, destructive, and disruptive than arcane spells.


During the study period, she chooses which spells to prepare. The act of preparing a spell is actually the first step in casting it. A spell is designed in such a way that it has an interruption point near its end. This allows a wizard to cast most of the spell ahead of time and finish when it’s needed, even if she is under considerable pressure. Her spellbook serves as a guide to the mental exercises she must perform to create the spell’s effect. If a wizard already has spells prepared (from the previous day) that she has not cast, she can abandon some or all of them to make room for new spells.
[...]
To record an arcane spell in written form, a character uses complex notation that describes the magical forces involved in the spell. The notation constitutes a universal arcane language that wizards have discovered, not invented. The writer uses the same system no matter what her native language or culture. However, each character uses the system in her own way. Another person’s magical writing remains incomprehensible to even the most powerful wizard until she takes time to study and decipher it.


Mana, the essence of magic, saturates all three realms. It is everywhere, connecting everything—one big mana field linking all life together. Some compare mana to a flowing river—an analogy useful to describe the ley, dragon, and chi power lines. It is more accurate to describe it like the waves of an ocean, circulating in currents throughout the three realms. In the physical realm, we know that mana flows in cycles—sometimes the ambient mana is rich and magic is possible (like now), but sometimes the level is poor and magic becomes difficult if not impossible (as it was before the Awakening).
[...]
On the physical plane, mana cannot be seen, tasted, or touched, but the Awakened can sense it and manipulate it. The mana here seems inherently tied to the mana on the astral plane, flowing in the same eddies and currents. Mana casts reflections of living things, called auras, from the physical plane onto the astral. Auras are intangible on the astral plane—astral entities pass right through them—but those who can assense them can gather information from them. Anything magical in nature also casts a reflection on the astral; spells—the manipulation of mana—on the physical plane have a visible aura on the astral plane. Non-living things have no aura.
[...]
Sorcery involves the intuitive manipulation of the mana field by a magician, who shapes it in certain ways for certain effects. A good metaphor for this is to equate the mana field with the airwaves, making the use of Sorcery the transmission of certain radio signals that create different effects. To cast a spell, a magician channels mana through herself and transmits it on a specific frequency. The act of channeling is fatiguing to a magician, and causes drain. The signal that the magician creates is based on a spell formula that the magician has learned, determining its form and effect. The target of the spell is the radio signal receiver, and the signal is sent on the target’s frequency. When the signal is received, it channels mana through the target to create a specified effect (thus Direct Combat spells bypass armor, because they affect the target from within). All of this occurs on the same plane—physical or astral—as the magician and the target.

Area-effect spells work roughly the same way, except that instead of transmitting a signal to one target, the caster sends the signal out on multiple frequencies corresponding with the targets within the area of effect. If there are targets within the area that the caster cannot see, they will not be affected, because the caster cannot synchronize with them to transmit the spell signal on a frequency they will receive.

The metaphor continues with counterspelling, which equates to “jamming” the mana field, disrupting all frequencies within an area of effect so that a spell is jammed and thus disrupted.

Both basically amount to "There's a vaguely-defined magical field that magic users can manipulate somehow," with D&D going for the analogy to ritual magic while Shadowrun goes for the analogy to technology. Everything else is implicit, whether D&D's verbal components, runes, and such or Shadowrun's mana static, magical traditions, and such.


The problem is not helped by the amount of D&D inspired books (Forgotten Realms, Dragon Lance) and none of them really used any of this. The Rise of Elminster (or whatever it was called) was the most frustrating "what is going on with the magic system" book I have ever read. If they had scenes of him doing those pre-rituals, practicing the pronunciation of the other language and so on it would have built that up. But it never did and the rules of the game don't either.

Oh, granted, the D&D fiction is terrible at reflecting the rules at pretty much every level. It's bad enough that when I read a series of Eberron books recently that centered around several magic-users and involved several fight scenes where magic was used, I couldn't tell that the books were using 4e Eberron (and the corresponding non-Vancian power system) until they mentioned the eladrin spires of the Feywild Thelanis.


My impression is that this is, in part, because the various publishers over the years have been extremely sensitive to any notion that D&D is an "evil bad stuff how-to book". The more bland and vague and shoved into the background all the details of the in-setting working of magic are, the less is shown in terms of in-character process and flavor, the more this sort of accusation can be avoided.

This vagueness and focus on mechanics also serve to make the system appear less specific to the underlying setting assumptions that have always, in a largely unspoken manner, informed so many of the design decisions.

This is also an issue; 2e made the cleric less overtly Christian-inspired, ditched the half-orc and assassin, removed references to devils and demons, and drastically cut down the gods featured in Legends & Lore for exactly that reason. It's just a shame that that ended up making people think of D&D as "generic fantasy" when it most certainly isn't, but that's what D&D being the default RPG will do.


I'm down with Vancian magic as a game mechanic. DMs should probably make be advised to make every in-game day about equivalent to one session of play, though.

That was the original rationale for such a system; in Chainmail casters had per-game spells, and in OD&D/AD&D it was assumed that resting in a dungeon was very dangerous and/or unreliable so one set of spells would have to carry you through one full expedition to the dungeon (read: start session, go to dungeon, use up resources, head back to town, end session), with casters being able to delve farther into dungeons in one trip or refresh spells a few times as they gained levels.

A common houserule is to leave the "per-day" nomenclature but say that spells must be regained in an arcane sanctum, consecrated shrine, or other relatively permanent base of operations, which achieves the same outcome but avoids the metagame-y feel of per-session or per-adventure spells.


Now, personally, as a matter of my own tastes and preferences, the more explanation is given to Vancian magic, the more those details in PairO'Dice Lost's post are laid out, the LESS I like Vancian magic and the LESS it fits any game I've ever run.

But I still don't understand how it's cool. Yes you perform the part-rituals to prep your spells, but it's not like you'll describe doing the rituals every session. That would get obnoxious quickly. It's not like there's anything about the rituals to make them luck based or interactible, so they get swept under the rug easily enough.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Vancian is particularly cool or that its flavor does or should come up often in-game; the only time it ever really comes up in any of my games is when wizard characters spout magic-babble to sound smart. I'm just saying that having relatively threadbare flavor explanations for magic isn't a D&D thing, it's an RPG thing (and really a fantasy thing; few settings go much beyond "magic exists, wizards use it, the end"), and D&D gets an unfair rap for Vancian being bland just because it's the common denominator.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-10, 02:35 AM
This is also an issue; 2e made the cleric less overtly Christian-inspired, ditched the half-orc and assassin, removed references to devils and demons, and drastically cut down the gods featured in Legends & Lore for exactly that reason. It's just a shame that that ended up making people think of D&D as "generic fantasy" when it most certainly isn't, but that's what D&D being the default RPG will do.

Maybe better in the long run; I'm not sure "Catholic pulp fantasy" would have sold that well.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-10, 03:58 AM
Personally, the biggest problem with D&D magic is that the fluff doesn't represent the mechanics, or the other way around. Shadowrun magic is actually very good at having the fluff and mechanics of magic reflect each other, the big one being Force/Drain (on a side note, I prefer Shadowrun 3e, so to me spells still have Forces which you can't exceed.

Now, in D&D magic (3.0+), a spell is a ritual that I've paused to finish later. This to me means a simple question:
-What happens if I want to cast a ritual all at once? Does it take a spell slot or is it free?

Of course, to the designers of D&D this doesn't work, because surely you cast your spells after preparing them. However, this actually depends on the fluff: does the ritual consume a 'spell slot', or is the spell slot used to 'hold' the ritual?

Another thing that annoys me is levelled spell slots. I like Vancian Magic, but levelled spell slots make little sense. What does a spell slot represent, and why can only some hold a Fireball? This annoys me because I don't know what slots represent as there's no fluff attached to them, so I can't make heads or tails of how spells are stored.

Not to say slots/preparing spells is inherently bad (I'm actually annoyed that the English version of The Dark Eye 5e doesn't have that staff enchantment [no idea about the German version but I'd assume it's the same]), it's just how D&D does them that annoys me.

Knaight
2016-08-10, 04:01 AM
"Strapping flavor on top of flavorless mechanics" and "abstracted blandly" is the case for pretty much any magic system, though. Exalted involves super-duper-powerful beings channeling the very essence of creation against their foes...but mechanically it's "spend N points, get X effect." Earthdawn involves threading weaves of eldritch power very carefully to avoid the corrupting influence of the Horrors...but mechanically it's "spend 1+N actions casting, get X effect." Ars Magica involves the magic user shaping the fabric of reality by pitting his philosophy of the cosmos against the collective subconscious of humanity...but mechanically it's "determine Technique and Form, add difficulty modifiers, roll check."

On the other hand, the D&D flavor is often particularly flavorless. Take a look at REIGN by comparison - there's some peripheral stuff that is free, and it basically shows how working in setting specific magical traditions can add a whole lot of flavor compared to the likes of D&D. The flavor side of the magic has never been why I personally dislike it - it fits with the general milieu of D&D, which is an exceptionally bland kitchen sink implied setting spread far too thin.

Cluedrew
2016-08-10, 08:43 AM
"Strapping flavor on top of flavorless mechanics" and "abstracted blandly" is the case for pretty much any magic system, though.At a certain level this can be said of all mechanics in RPGs. However that doesn't mean that sometimes the flavourless mechanics and flavour sometimes fit together well, interlocking at points of interest.


Both basically amount to "There's a vaguely-defined magical field that magic users can manipulate somehow," with D&D going for the analogy to ritual magic while Shadowrun goes for the analogy to technology. Everything else is implicit, whether D&D's verbal components, runes, and such or Shadowrun's mana static, magical traditions, and such.There are three important differences between the two explanations you posted:

The first is in D&D's favour, which is that it describes (yes vaguely) what makes it possible for someone to manipulate magic. Not a lot but enough for this general overview it is pretty good, better than ShadowRun's Awakened.
ShadowRun covers the actual mechanics of magic, waves through a field and matching frequencies. D&D's explanation of what happens actually stops at the casting of the spell.
ShadowRun also mentions something magic cannot do (caster attuning to someone they are not aware of) which then puts limits on magic.

2 is actually one of the biggest issues because it provides no internal logic by which magic interacts with the world. For ShadowRun I'm going to guess it doesn't (or does with difficulty) create matter or teleport, really long range spells are hard, information gathering is comparatively easy. I would also guess that if there was a spell resistance mechanic (chance to ignore a spell aimed at you) it would because of an inconsistent frequency that makes you hard to synchronise with and hence target with magic. The caster has a chance of firing the spell out at the wrong frequency and it just goes by you.

I can't do that for D&D because I have no, not even vague, mental modal by which to explain the spell effects. The lack of limits also is half the reason for martial-caster disparity in my opinion because magic always comes back with a yes. I mean the mechanics of spell casting are interesting, as I wrote this I realized I have created at least two magic systems that has spell binding as a feature. But it doesn't do enough.

I also just realized that there are a couple of conclusions about the system I can draw about the system. A wizard can hold only a spell indefinably, even if they forget they have the spell. Prepared spells can be moved around between minds. At high levels simple spells no longer require a spell book. Sufficiently dangerous spells are also dangerous to release. More complex spells have longer preparation time, but the same casting time. I could go on but you may have noticed something about that list. Many of its entries are wrong.

No matter how many times you go through the motions of spell preparation you cannot memorise the process (for this reason casting a spell is often said to take the knowledge of the spell from you... but then how can you prepare the spell multiple times). Despite the unlocked energy in your mind, it will always dissipate harmlessly unless used. Nor can this energy/knowledge be transferred, not even to another character with the appropriate spell slots with the use of another spell... Actually that spell could exist, but I do not know of one.


Oh, granted, the D&D fiction is terrible at reflecting the rules at pretty much every level.Yup, kind of a shame. There is a disconnect there, between those stories and the game itself. Of course I'm glad they adjusted the proportion and length of battles. Discworld has a better representation of spell slots than the D&D books.

Airk
2016-08-10, 12:11 PM
All kinds of weird stuff going on this thread, and I have to say the guy who thinks 4E "hid" its martial powers somehow is crazy offbase. It does a better job of building interesting, differentiated martial characters who have cool stuff they can do than any other game I've seen, and that totally includes GURPS. and no, the stuff isn't "hidden" in the feat list. In fact, most of it isn't in the feat list at all. And even if it is, that's no worse than it being in the advantages in GURPS. Oh, and I'm pretty sure the same person was the one who was complaining that all magic in 4E was combat based when in fact there's a huge section of rituals that contains tons of useful noncombat spells. So yeah.

Anyway, to return to the OPs points: While I don't actually LIKE D&D very much these days (except for 4e, which I felt, like several other posters here, had a clearer idea of what it was about and did a good job of enabling that one thing) and I agree, in general, with the OP's points, most of them aren't really important to me.

Magic is bland, sure, but whatever. I don't really care. To some extent I can reskin this for my games if necessary.
Levels don't annoy me, except for the fact that they tie all the various 'noncombat' skills together with the combat stuff. Bothers me less in 4E where the only way your skills really get better is with the level bonus, or if you happen to take a feat, so there's less "I'm better at playing the lute now because I killed some orcs."
Non-combat, okay, now we're talking. All the 3X/Pathfinder apologists who hate on 4E because it eliminated "craft" and "perform" from the skill list can go hang. :P These skills are horrible implementations, and stripping them out and making the game only about being a badass adventurer is actually better than the muddled mess that noncombat generally is in D&D. The idea that "you can run any kind of game in D&D!" is...technically true, but painfully false.
Pacing; This is another place where I didn't mind 4E, because I was signing up for a game about kicking ass in combat. It's a bigger problem in the versions that try to act like noncombat stuff is important.
The "wargame" point isn't really a point by itself - it just feeds into the other issues.

The other big reason I have issues with D&D is the flat random distribution combined with the large die size and relatively small bonus size. It's hard to feel like a capable individual with your +5 to do <thing> when you roll a 4 and bozo McClumsy with a -1 rolls a 13 and still does better than you. This is super frustrating to me, especially since there really isn't anything I can do about it. I have a limited pool resources, and my only real choice is when to spend them, and not whether they will actually do anything when I do. (Once again, 4E comes in to mitigate this with things like action points and powers that do things on a miss.)

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-10, 12:26 PM
The problem with the bonuses is that the same 1d20 scale has to fit an entire range from the bonuses of 1st level characters to the bonuses of 20th level characters, along with any bonuses from Feats, Spells, Magic Items, and so on.

Airk
2016-08-10, 12:32 PM
The problem with the bonuses is that the same 1d20 scale has to fit an entire range from the bonuses of 1st level characters to the bonuses of 20th level characters, along with any bonuses from Feats, Spells, Magic Items, and so on.

Good point. Alas, while that explains why it's a problem, but it doesn't make it less of a problem for me. Just another place where D&D's desire to be a generalist, do everything game makes it worse for me.

Cluedrew
2016-08-10, 02:12 PM
The "wargame" point isn't really a point by itself - it just feeds into the other issues.While it is true that you will never directly encounter the fact D&D is part wargame, it is such a significant factor in so many other areas that I decided to bring it up and point it out.

The source of a problem (or many problems) is in and of itself a problem. There was at least one other point that almost made the list, but I couldn't quite put my figure on it.

Anyways, the main point was just to explain why I included that point.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-10, 05:43 PM
On the 1d20, I dislike the flat distribution as well, but I haven't met any other dice system that was better.

Rolling multiple dice is unintuitive to me because I would have to do some math to find out how much a +1 improves my probability at anything (though admittedly I might develop a feel for it had I played more 3d6 games). Even if the results of modifiers could be ridiculous, I at least knew exactly what each step means.

I forget which system I tried had rolls with width and height, but that was a way too slow for me.

The way Savage Worlds had modifiers improve die type (so d4 becomes d6 and so on) is limited to the five dice commonly available until you had to use flat modifiers.

Knaight
2016-08-10, 07:31 PM
I forget which system I tried had rolls with width and height, but that was a way too slow for me.

One Roll Engine. It could be any number of ORE games, but width and height is the ORE trademark. It's also just as fast as D&D once you get used to it.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-10, 09:26 PM
On the 1d20, I dislike the flat distribution as well, but I haven't met any other dice system that was better.

Rolling multiple dice is unintuitive to me because I would have to do some math to find out how much a +1 improves my probability at anything (though admittedly I might develop a feel for it had I played more 3d6 games). Even if the results of modifiers could be ridiculous, I at least knew exactly what each step means.

The difficulty with the distribution of, say, 2d6 is that each step of modifier means something different, there been far more of a difference between a target of 7 and 8 than between 11 and 12.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-10, 10:11 PM
The difficulty with the distribution of, say, 2d6 is that each step of modifier means something different, there been far more of a difference between a target of 7 and 8 than between 11 and 12.

Yes... unless I'm misreading you, that is pretty much exactly what I said?:smallconfused:

BayardSPSR
2016-08-10, 11:22 PM
Yes... unless I'm misreading you, that is pretty much exactly what I said?:smallconfused:

Sorry, I must have been misreading you as well.

Airk
2016-08-11, 09:10 AM
On the 1d20, I dislike the flat distribution as well, but I haven't met any other dice system that was better.

Rolling multiple dice is unintuitive to me because I would have to do some math to find out how much a +1 improves my probability at anything (though admittedly I might develop a feel for it had I played more 3d6 games). Even if the results of modifiers could be ridiculous, I at least knew exactly what each step means.


So uh, my million dollar question is:

Why does it matter?

Does a 74% chance vs an 86% chance of success influence whether you roll?

If I had to precedurize how I deal with probabilities, I tend to eyeball stuff into vague groups:

Basically no chance of success
Low chance of success
Less than even odds
more or less even odds
better than even odds
High chance of success
Basically guaranteed success.

But all of these are fuzzy, and none of them really involve doing actual math. If I have a 6d6 dice pool, and I need 3 "successes" of 4 or higher, I know I'm in the "Better than even odds" bucket. If I only need two successes, I'm in the "high chance" bucket. If I only need one, it's somewhere between "high" and "basically guaranteed". It's easy for me to eyeball this. 2d6? If need greater than 6, I know I start in the "better than even" odds bucket. 2d6+2 with target greater than 6? Now I'm definitely in the "high" chance of success bin. None of this involves me figuring out the actual chance of success. I don't care if it's 60% or 65% - figuring that out is useless and time wasting.

So I ask: Why do you need to figure out your exact chance?

Cluedrew
2016-08-11, 08:12 PM
So I ask: Why do you need to figure out your exact chance?Because we like math. Or I do. I am very aware that some people to not like math... at all... or more the opposite.

But I do like knowing the chance of a particular outcome. I don't do it every time, and on more complex systems (that is to say ones where I can't do the probability calculation in my head) I will usually just measure out some bench marks and then check how close I am to those.

That being said in my wargame days (after this thread it might come as a surprise, but I do play and enjoy table top wargames) I actually found that the instinctual feel of victory. I'm not exactly sure why but just having a feel for how the situation would likely play out (and how likely significantly different outcomes were) seemed to be more important than the actual numbers.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-11, 08:34 PM
As someone who has spent a lot of time working on homebrew systems and analyzing existing systems, and creating new material for existing systems, and so on, the math is CRITICAL for me.

I absolutely have to know what a +1 bonus or a change in difficulty or whatever really means for the game's mechanics.

Picked up a copy of Yggdrasill, and I could tell fairly quickly that the creators had not done their math -- the average character will not, on average, pass an average difficulty characteristic "test".
.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-11, 09:29 PM
Does a 74% chance vs an 86% chance of success influence whether you roll?

Yes.

If I have two tactical options, one with a 74% chance of success, and the other 86%, of course I'll pick the 86%. (Though likely what precisely would happen would be different, so I might go for the 74% chance if the success result is better.)

My character is a skilled combatant. He knows instinctively which tactics to use. I do not think that it hurts my roleplay to know the math. (Not that you suggested it, but I've heard such in the past.)

Note: I actually slightly prefer the bell curves of 2d10 & 3d6 because you deal with the whole diminishing returns vibe, which I find interesting tactically. Plus, you can do things such as not have max ranges, but if you have significant range penalties, the max effective range will be inherent, etc.

Cluedrew
2016-08-11, 09:46 PM
As someone who has spent a lot of time working on homebrew systems and analyzing existing systems, and creating new material for existing systems, and so on, the math is CRITICAL for me.Which reminds me... {Goes and does math.} ...Yeah 5 is not high enough for superhuman ability. The position of a designer is different from a player though. Actually I got caught in the opposite problem once. Some people trying my game got lost because they did not know what a particular number worked out to in terms of success. I have tried to solve the problem by describing the scale, but then some other parts of the game changed and 5 ended up being a lot lower than it used to be.


My character is a skilled combatant. He knows instinctively which tactics to use. Of course I want to know which has the best chance.And this is why sometimes I just play someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Actually this is actually another, lesser, point about D&D and that is the amount of system mastery some parts of the game to do well. It is yet another thing that ties it in with the wargames. This didn't make the list... mainly because I just thought of it now. I suppose if you group it under rules-heavy vs. rules-light it just becomes a style choice but I'm not sure if they are the same thing.

I'll have to think on it.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-11, 10:26 PM
And this is why sometimes I just play someone who has no idea what they are doing.

Maybe for the first level or two, but other than Call of Cthulhu, and I can't think of any games where your character would remain that inept for very long, and in most they're decently skilled from the get-go.

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-11, 10:49 PM
It's a big deal for me to know 2d6 has a 41.6% chance to hit a target number of 8, a 27.8% chance to hit a target of 9, and a 16.6% chance to hit a target number of 10. These are some of the common Armor Break values for Blood Bowl, and respectively, they mean for me "Try really hard not to have to take this check," "within acceptable bounds of risk, and "basically never worry about it." (In actual Blood Bowl, these values are expressed as armor value 7, armor value 8, and armor value 9)

If I was GM of an RPG, I need to know what is a decent modifier, what is a powerful modifier, and what modifier basically guarantees success or failure (so that I sparingly or never use the last).

If I was creating or advancing a character, I would need to know which numbers that I have represents terrible liabilities, which numbers represent odds I can live with, and which numbers are excellent strengths.

If I was playing a character in an RPG who can cast a +1 modifier buff on someone, and I could cast it on someone smack in the middle of the bell curve for maximal effect or someone who happens to benefit more from the stat, I would need to know just how big of a difference in effectiveness the spell would be for one character over another.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-12, 12:10 AM
Actually this is actually another, lesser, point about D&D and that is the amount of system mastery some parts of the game to do well. It is yet another thing that ties it in with the wargames. This didn't make the list... mainly because I just thought of it now. I suppose if you group it under rules-heavy vs. rules-light it just becomes a style choice but I'm not sure if they are the same thing.

I'll have to think on it.

Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-08-12, 12:43 AM
Spoilering my response to Cluedrew re: Vancian magic, since it's long and the discussion has moved on a bit:


The first is in D&D's favour, which is that it describes (yes vaguely) what makes it possible for someone to manipulate magic. Not a lot but enough for this general overview it is pretty good, better than ShadowRun's Awakened.
ShadowRun covers the actual mechanics of magic, waves through a field and matching frequencies. D&D's explanation of what happens actually stops at the casting of the spell.
ShadowRun also mentions something magic cannot do (caster attuning to someone they are not aware of) which then puts limits on magic.

2 is actually one of the biggest issues because it provides no internal logic by which magic interacts with the world. For ShadowRun I'm going to guess it doesn't (or does with difficulty) create matter or teleport, really long range spells are hard, information gathering is comparatively easy. I would also guess that if there was a spell resistance mechanic (chance to ignore a spell aimed at you) it would because of an inconsistent frequency that makes you hard to synchronise with and hence target with magic. The caster has a chance of firing the spell out at the wrong frequency and it just goes by you.

I can't do that for D&D because I have no, not even vague, mental modal by which to explain the spell effects. The lack of limits also is half the reason for martial-caster disparity in my opinion because magic always comes back with a yes. I mean the mechanics of spell casting are interesting, as I wrote this I realized I have created at least two magic systems that has spell binding as a feature. But it doesn't do enough.

This basically comes down to a difference in design goals. D&D magic is designed to be able to do anything, because the original Chainmail rules gave wizards a grab-bag of random effects that D&D then had to formalize. The standard magic-user knew Invisibility, See in Darkness, Fire Ball, Lightning Bolt, Phantasmal Forces (basically an illusory summon monster), Darkness, Wizard Light (daylight), Detection (detect magic+detect [alignment]), Concealment, Conjuration of an Elemental, Moving Terrain, Protection from Evil, Levitate, Slowness, Haste, Polymorph, Confusion, Hallucinatory Terrain, Cloudkill, Anti-Magic Shell, and could cast them in any combination from once (for Seers) to seven times (for Wizards) per battle.

Further, Chainmail was explicitly setting-less and designed to fit with any sort of setting; the Spells section of the magic-user begins "There are virtually unlimited numbers of spells that can be employed, but the list below contains the major ones used in most fantastic battles. If there are two opposing Wizards, and the game is not a recreation of a battle found in a novel, determine which is the stronger magician (by casting dice if necessary)." So once again it's not a Vancian thing; no matter what casting system D&D had gone with, it would have had to come up with some explanation for how magic can do everything from "shoot lightning in straight line" to "create perfect semi-solid illusory replica of any creature the caster can imagine" and replicate battles from the Battle of Helm's Deep on the low-power end to Merlin's many shape-shifting battles on the high-power end and everything in between.

Conversely, Shadowrun was not only explicitly designed with a single setting in mind (and so wanted to, and could, have its magic closely fit its setting) but designed with a player archetype setup where you can invest in magic or technology to varying extents (and so wanted to have distinct and non-overlapping powersets for magicians, mystic adepts, hackers, deckers, otaku/technomancers, faces, and so forth), so it's more thematically focused.

But Shadowrun suffers with "magic scope creep" just like D&D does despite its theoretically tighter theming. It has narrow spell categories of Detection, Health, and Illusion, plus the very broad Combat and Manipulation categories, the latter of which is defined as spells that "control, animate, or transform matter and energy" and so has the same "default category" problem that Conjuration and Transmutation do in D&D; Manipulation includes everything from light manipulation to emotion control to telekinesis to shapechanging. Interestingly enough, every single spell listed above in the Chainmail Wizard's spell list appears on the Shadowrun spell list except Detection (because magic-detection, Assensing, is a base skill all magicians get free), Phantasmal Forces and Conjuration of an Elemental (because spirit-binding is a different kind of magic than sorcery), and Cloudkill (because chemical warfare is a tech thing), so the theoretically tighter metaphysics don't rule out much.

Honestly, the rules standardization of 3e and the assignment of Greyhawk as default setting meant that WotC could have taken the opportunity to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of Magic, give more mechanical weight to spell schools, prune out the crazier AD&D spells, and so forth, but they just carried forth the grab-bag approach from AD&D. On that note:


I also just realized that there are a couple of conclusions about the system I can draw about the system. A wizard can hold only a spell indefinably, even if they forget they have the spell. Prepared spells can be moved around between minds. At high levels simple spells no longer require a spell book. Sufficiently dangerous spells are also dangerous to release. More complex spells have longer preparation time, but the same casting time. I could go on but you may have noticed something about that list. Many of its entries are wrong.

No matter how many times you go through the motions of spell preparation you cannot memorise the process (for this reason casting a spell is often said to take the knowledge of the spell from you... but then how can you prepare the spell multiple times). Despite the unlocked energy in your mind, it will always dissipate harmlessly unless used. Nor can this energy/knowledge be transferred, not even to another character with the appropriate spell slots with the use of another spell... Actually that spell could exist, but I do not know of one.

The reason you can't just remember how to prepare a spell is because, keeping with the "magic is a Language of Power" explanation, reading the magical writing is part of the spellcasting; this is why you can copy spells from scrolls into spellbooks and why in prior editions you could cast spells directly out of spellbooks as if they were scrolls. Likewise, in AD&D more powerful spells did take longer to prepare (10 minutes per spell level per spell), and you can transfer prepared spells either voluntarily (imbue with spell ability and similar) or involuntarily (spell theft and similar), though only to a limited extent; prepared spells aren't dangerous and more powerful ones don't harm the spellcaster because the spells aren't completed (and thus don't hold any power that could harm the caster) until they're cast.

It's rather unfortunate that AD&D chose the word "memorization" to refer to the spell preparation process, since it tends to give people the wrong idea of how it works. WotC took one step forward in strengthening the flavor by clarifying that preparation ≠ memorization, and two steps back by changing all spell preparation to 1 hour regardless of number and strength of spells prepared and removing the spellbook == scrolls association.
TL;DR: If you dislike D&D's magic system, don't accuse the Vancian system of vague metaphysics, call it flavorless, and blame it for Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards; instead, blame AD&D for focusing too much on backwards compatibility and WotC for missing a great opportunity to clean up its flavor and mechanics.


Non-combat, okay, now we're talking. All the 3X/Pathfinder apologists who hate on 4E because it eliminated "craft" and "perform" from the skill list can go hang. :P These skills are horrible implementations, and stripping them out and making the game only about being a badass adventurer is actually better than the muddled mess that noncombat generally is in D&D. The idea that "you can run any kind of game in D&D!" is...technically true, but painfully false.

To be fair, noncombat skills have existed in one form or another since OD&D: X-in-6 d6 rolls as class features for certain classes in OD&D, thief skills/backgrounds/sage specializations in 1e, nonweapon proficiencies in 2e, and Craft/Knowledge/Perform/Profession in 3e. D&D has never just been about being a badass adventurer--even at its most dungeon-crawliest, it also involved wilderness survival and exploration, army-raising, kingdom management, and the like--so stripping out everything not directly relevant to combat or moving between combats isn't going back to pre-3e D&D, it's going back to Chainmail.


As someone who has spent a lot of time working on homebrew systems and analyzing existing systems, and creating new material for existing systems, and so on, the math is CRITICAL for me.

I absolutely have to know what a +1 bonus or a change in difficulty or whatever really means for the game's mechanics.

Picked up a copy of Yggdrasill, and I could tell fairly quickly that the creators had not done their math -- the average character will not, on average, pass an average difficulty characteristic "test".

Yep, doing the math is incredibly important as a designer. Fail to do that, and you get things like World of Darkness games where the Botch rules mean that at certain dice pool sizes adding an extra die to your pool can increase your chances of critical failures, or Shadowrun 5e where the Limit rules mean that it's frequently better to use pistols at long range and sniper rifles at close range instead of the reverse.

And it's important as a GM, since if you can't easily do the math you can't determine whether the designers did the math. D&D with its flat 5% for every +1 (until you get into "only fail on a 1"/"only succeed on a 20" territory) or Shadowrun with its average 1/3 hit per die makes that judgment simple, so you can judge for yourself whether average NPC stats are good challenges for PCs of a given power level, whether GM advice on setting difficulties make sense, and so forth, and that improves the gameplay experience for everyone.


Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?

None that I know of; pretty much by definition, more rules means more moving parts means more possible combinations and outcomes means more knowledge and experience necessary to make sense of it all.

Knaight
2016-08-12, 03:12 AM
Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?

There are plenty for which the system mastery demands are vastly less extensive than for D&D. Legends of the Wulin, REIGN*, and even GURPS come to mind.

*It is admittedly arguably rules medium.

Max_Killjoy
2016-08-12, 06:21 AM
Spoilering my response to Cluedrew re: Vancian magic, since it's long and the discussion has moved on a bit:

The reason you can't just remember how to prepare a spell is because, keeping with the "magic is a Language of Power" explanation, reading the magical writing is part of the spellcasting; this is why you can copy spells from scrolls into spellbooks and why in prior editions you could cast spells directly out of spellbooks as if they were scrolls. Likewise, in AD&D more powerful spells did take longer to prepare (10 minutes per spell level per spell), and you can transfer prepared spells either voluntarily (imbue with spell ability and similar) or involuntarily (spell theft and similar), though only to a limited extent; prepared spells aren't dangerous and more powerful ones don't harm the spellcaster because the spells aren't completed (and thus don't hold any power that could harm the caster) until they're cast.

It's rather unfortunate that AD&D chose the word "memorization" to refer to the spell preparation process, since it tends to give people the wrong idea of how it works. WotC took one step forward in strengthening the flavor by clarifying that preparation ≠ memorization, and two steps back by changing all spell preparation to 1 hour regardless of number and strength of spells prepared and removing the spellbook == scrolls association.
TL;DR: If you dislike D&D's magic system, don't accuse the Vancian system of vague metaphysics, call it flavorless, and blame it for Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards; instead, blame AD&D for focusing too much on backwards compatibility and WotC for missing a great opportunity to clean up its flavor and mechanics.


Gygax clearly states that the magic was always intended to be "Vancian", and used the word "memorized" to describe the process (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf).


Several elements, the unquestioned foremost being the magic system used in these games. To my way of thinking, the concept of a spell itself being magical, that its written form carried energy, seemed a perfect way to balance the mage against other types of characters in the game. The memorization of the spell required time and concentration so as to impart not merely the written content but also its magical energies. When subsequently cast — by speaking or some other means — the words or gestures, or whatever triggered the magical force of the spell, leaving a blank place in the brain where the previously memorized spell had been held. Because I explained this often, attributing its inspiration to Jack Vance, the D&D magic system of memorized then forgotten spells was dubbed by gamers “the Vancian magic system”.


Other people may be fine with this, but to me, it's infinitely silly.

Khedrac
2016-08-12, 07:44 AM
Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?
Rolemaster and the like.
Because cross-classing is not a thing system mastery has a smaller impact, one just needs to know how to play one class (assigning skill points etc.) and leave the complex stuff (calculating xp) to the GM.

goto124
2016-08-12, 08:09 AM
I thought Rolemaster is more like Rollmaster and a pain to actually calculate with?

Cluedrew
2016-08-12, 08:41 AM
Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?Admittedly... no. Now even rules-light game have some lesser degree of system mastery as part of them, and this will increase as the rules become more numerous. Actually as far as I know the only way to get ride of all required system mastery is to give the player no input into the game. This is problematic.

The thing is you can get good things in return for increasing system mastery requirements. Which is why I said it can be a style choice. But at the same time D&D seems, and I mean by my initial instincts on the matter, to add to the demand without a lot of benefit, with things like trap options, where decision points are placed and the amount of planning ahead you have to do in some cases. Someone with more system mastery than me would probably have to comment.


Spoilering my response to Cluedrew re: Vancian magic, since it's long and the discussion has moved on a bit:Woot. Woot. I get my own spoiler. I'm actually going to be replying in kind because I had a bunch of points written out when I realized the main thing I was trying to get at.

This basically comes down to a difference in design goals. D&D magic is designed to be able to do anything, because the original Chainmail rules gave wizards a grab-bag of random effects that D&D then had to formalize.And I think that is- Oh you say that part later. But the other part comes back to problem 1: The design goals for an RPG and a wargame shouldn't be the same.


Conversely, Shadowrun was not only explicitly designed with a single setting in mind [...], so it's more thematically focused.And I think that is a good thing. I have heard that Shadowrun has its own set of martial-caster problems (and I'm not surprised it has some scoping problems, you need really good restraint for that sort of thing), but I still think that, just comparing those introductory texts that Shadowrun does a better job creating its base than D&D, with the exception I noted.


prepared spells aren't dangerous and more powerful ones don't harm the spellcaster because the spells aren't completed (and thus don't hold any power that could harm the caster) until they're cast.But how does the spell go from 0 to full power in 6 seconds? What is the point of all that preparation then if nothing happens or gets built up during it? A now this calls to mind the metaphor of creating a vessel and then poring liquid into it. Because you can throw away an empty vessel without spilling any liquid. But then wouldn't the amount of power (liquid) be independent from the complexity of the vessel (spell level)? Why does it always take the same amount of time to fill a vessel? And this is yet another conflicting explanation of what is going on. ... This bit is a little bit ranty, I managed to catch myself before I started screaming about where is the logic.


TL;DR: If you dislike D&D's magic system, don't accuse the Vancian system of vague metaphysics, call it flavorless, and blame it for Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards; instead, blame AD&D for focusing too much on backwards compatibility and WotC for missing a great opportunity to clean up its flavor and mechanics.Actually it is not the Vancian part of it that give me the problem. Actually that part, on its own it actually pretty interesting. But as I zoom out, I don't see how it connects to anything.
The Main Point:
Ultimately my issue with D&D's magic system is that if feels like an explanation for the mechanics. This works great in a wargame where you are trying to create a thematic justification for the more strategic aspects of the game. In a role-playing game you want to do at least a little bit in the other direction, explore the theme in mechanics. D&D doesn't do that, all the weird edge cases that come up tend to be made into the most sterile solution (see releasing spells). The explanations usually go just far enough to explain what is going on, but not enough to make it seem alive. And on top of that the explanations are not always consistent.

So yeah, there are good parts to D&D magic, but it all comes together to form an explanation that works if you stay zoomed out. But for me, if I zoom in on someone who uses magic for a living (that is, I play a caster) I am just left wondering because I don't have enough detail to fill in what happens at that level. I, for instance, cannot accurately describe what my wizard character would actually be doing during that hour of spell preparation time at the beginning of the day.

Anonymouswizard
2016-08-12, 09:00 AM
Related question: are there any "rules-heavy" games that don't have a system mastery demand associated with them?

Kind of. More rules-heavy games tend to ask for more system mastery, but in many of them it's more important to have a similar level of system mastery as the GM does, because otherwise you end up with one of the following outcomes:
-If you have more system mastery than the GM then the game either becomes a) so easy as not to be fun anymore or b) you play a intentionally suboptimal character in order to not cause problems*.
-If you have less system mastery than the GM then the game becomes much harder for you.

Now, there are games where system mastery isn't as important. Legends of the Wulin is theoretically as complex as D&D 3.X, but is much more streamlined and comes out at somewhere between rules-medium and rules-heavy (depending on definition), and due to the way character creation is set up everybody is going to be around the same level of power (warriors are slightly better in combat, but only if they can pull off maintaining their Chi Conditions, and even then an average party can throw around enough beneficial Chi Conditions to make it even), and will either have more in-combat power and versatility, or more out-of-combat versatility, although the latter allows for a very different way of doing combat. However, it's nowhere near as heavy as say Anima, where picking the wrong class at character creation can eat up a lot of DP, or The Dark Eye, where it's nonobvious what's useful to first time players (sure I could get all Combat Techniques up to 12 easily, but really I should leave all except for 2-4 at 6 to sink more points into useful skills).

* This is where I am at the moment in a game of D&D 5e. Despite having the least play experience of the group, I have most rules understanding, and so if I played a wizard I could potentially debuff encounters into nothing. Another player is just as good at char-op as I am, but his concepts go for gimmick over practicality, so he's playing a bizarre halfing bard/rogue(/monk when we get to higher levels) multiclass, while I'm specifically using a character that, while good, needs a few more levels (I get Extra Attack when we hit character level 6, and then I can take more levels of cleric), and have been banned from using the powers from my level of cleric (....'because I haven't been inspired yet', despite being the only PC who is deeply religious).

Airk
2016-08-12, 09:23 AM
Yes.

If I have two tactical options, one with a 74% chance of success, and the other 86%, of course I'll pick the 86%. (Though likely what precisely would happen would be different, so I might go for the 74% chance if the success result is better.)

But there's no reason you need the exact percents for this. You don't care that one is 74% and one is 86%. You care that one of them is more likely to work than the other.

If you have a dice pool system, and you have one roll that needs 4 successes on 6d6 and one that needs 3 successes (or one action that needs 3 successes on 5d6 and one that needs 3 successes on 6d6), you can easily tell which one is more likely to work even though you have no idea what the exact percents are. The exact percents don't add anything to your decision making. And this is more immersive, because your fighter isn't calculating that he's got a 75% chance to hit with his sword, or a 67% chance to hit with his axe, but he has an instinctive feeling that the sword is more precise.


As someone who has spent a lot of time working on homebrew systems and analyzing existing systems, and creating new material for existing systems, and so on, the math is CRITICAL for me.

I absolutely have to know what a +1 bonus or a change in difficulty or whatever really means for the game's mechanics.

Picked up a copy of Yggdrasill, and I could tell fairly quickly that the creators had not done their math -- the average character will not, on average, pass an average difficulty characteristic "test".
.

Math is CRUCIAL on the game DESIGNER side. but the exact numbers are generally irrelevant on the player side.


To be fair, noncombat skills have existed in one form or another since OD&D: X-in-6 d6 rolls as class features for certain classes in OD&D, thief skills/backgrounds/sage specializations in 1e, nonweapon proficiencies in 2e, and Craft/Knowledge/Perform/Profession in 3e. D&D has never just been about being a badass adventurer--even at its most dungeon-crawliest, it also involved wilderness survival and exploration, army-raising, kingdom management, and the like--so stripping out everything not directly relevant to combat or moving between combats isn't going back to pre-3e D&D, it's going back to Chainmail.

I disagree; Being a badass adventurer isn't only about combat. It's also about overcoming wilderness obstacles, and deciphering arcane runes, and walking on narrow ledges next to perilous ravines and the like. But it is NOT about how many silver pieces you can make by playing the lute or whether or not you can run a farm. You have to differentiate non-combat skills from non-adventuring skills. D&D4E has a full suite of adventuring skills.

Khedrac
2016-08-12, 02:02 PM
I thought Rolemaster is more like Rollmaster and a pain to actually calculate with?
Rolemaster had tables for (nearly) everything. How the game actually played totally depended on the DM

Some GMs could make it fluid and fun (unless something got a kill crit on your character at level 1, or you rolled a kill fumble).
Other GMs find it unbearably painful trying to find the relevant tables which makes it just as bad for the players.

Both the Rolemaster GMs I played with were the first sort and I had no idea how they did it - I still have the greatest of respect for them for that.
I still have no idea how (or if) they managed to track xp according to the rules. You get xp for everything - damage taken, damage dealt, crits delievered, death etc.

As I said, it is very rules heavy, but the players just roll the relevant skill, the DM has to know what everything means and how it works.
Yes, you can use spells more or less effectively (e.g. don't worry about getting good at casting a fireball if all your attack skill is with bolt spells not balls, you won't hit anything with it) but since each class is separate (as I said, no cross-classing) there's not much system mastery one can use beyond choosing a good class for what you want to do.

CharonsHelper
2016-08-12, 02:16 PM
But there's no reason you need the exact percents for this. You don't care that one is 74% and one is 86%. You care that one of them is more likely to work than the other.

They exact difference matters if they accomplish different things.

Airk
2016-08-12, 03:19 PM
They exact difference matters if they accomplish different things.

I'm not sure I follow. Can you elaborate or give an example where it matters precisely how different the chances of success are?

CharonsHelper
2016-08-12, 03:25 PM
I'm not sure I follow. Can you elaborate or give an example where it matters precisely how different the chances of success are?

In D&D terms (not because it's the perfect example, but because it's likely a common terminology) if you're up against a will o wisp.

Say you have a 40% of hitting the will o wisp's AC with your sword, and you have a 30% chance of grappling it. You should probably go for the grapple because it's the better way to actually finish it off, but it's a bit of a judgment call.

BayardSPSR
2016-08-12, 04:48 PM
But there's no reason you need the exact percents for this. You don't care that one is 74% and one is 86%. You care that one of them is more likely to work than the other.

...

Math is CRUCIAL on the game DESIGNER side. but the exact numbers are generally irrelevant on the player side.

As a designer, I care about every fraction of a percent. But as a GM and even as a player, the number still matters. Knowing the difference between a +1 that changes p(good) from 5% to 10%, and a +1 that does the same from 50% to 55%, is important beyond knowing that +1 is better. Likewise, knowing the magnitude of the difference between the differences matters.

Is making decisions based on calculated probabilities realistic in a simulation of a fast-paced, high-stakes decision-making process? No - though it could arguable be seen as a representation of the little things a character knows that a player can't, due to abstraction (tempo, length of stride, state of sweat on forehead). And if you're playing a tactical game, rather than a simulation, you would be foolish to make decisions based on intuition.

Hell, even outside of tactical gaming, it matters. Let's say you're choosing between a 1d12 greataxe and a 2d6 greatsword. Knowing the probabilities of the two will give you exact knowledge of how swingy and how effective the use of both is going to be, and lets you choose which is the kind of feel you want to have in a fight. Now imagine comparing both of those to 3d3 and 5d2 weapons; it may not be immediately obvious what's more effective. If you are, you'll be able to work out how optimized your group is, who's punching above or below their weight, who ought to be doing better and is only getting screwed by the dice, and so on - all things that need to be accurately perceived for the social health of the group. Of course, you won't necessarily want or need to do every single calculation for this, but playing with unintuitive dice mechanics will make it more difficult to estimate things quickly and accurately. The exact number may not often matter, but being able to work out the exact number certainly does.

Quertus
2016-08-13, 02:40 PM
And that is really how I feel about it. As BayardSPSR said, the fact you have to think outside the box to get it to do what you want really shows that it is not meant for that. If your best stories of D&D are not combats, you should consider switching systems. Personally I would gladly trade the third way I have to hit someone with a sword (or the forth ability I have to set them on fire) for an ability that reflects... well anything really. The traditional woodworking my character inherited form her parents, the ability to make good clothing, the random ancient language my wizard learned as a student.

Yes, D&D has non-combat. No I'm not saying we should rid it of combat. But for me the balance is way off.

Hmmm... Personally, I like for games to have parts where you have the opportunity to think outside the box. Like how the 2e Swiss army fighter carries a bag of flour (although that's pretty well inside the box of standard, tried and true tactics at this point). But you don't have to think outside the box for D&D combat - unless the monster is straight up immune to your attacks!

You do, however, generally have to think outside the box for puzzles - something I suspect everyone will agree is historically a strong part of D&D gameplay.

I'd say my best D&D moments are role-playing - whether that role-playing occurred inside or outside of combat.


To BayardSPSR: I think I know what your getting at (role-play doesn't stop when combat starts)... and now I can't help but wonder how I could modify how I play chess to represent how my characters would play it.

But here is the thing, the amount of stuff you can say in combat about your character is very small for the amount of time it takes to play it. Further more if the thing I want to say about my character is "I have no idea how to fight" then 4 encounters a day of hiding behind the paladin are going to get boring.

I never tried it for chess, but I actually built the Magic the Gathering decks I thought some of my characters would most enjoy playing.

If you're going to get bored of hiding behind the paladin, don't play that character. Me, I never get bored of Quertus cowering behind the party reading his book while the more competent combatants handle that... combat thing.

You can say all kinds of things about your character in combat, by what they say, how they choose their targets, how they fight, how they work with others, how they react to innocents in danger or surrendering opponents, when and how they flee, how they adapt to new challenges, etc. I agree it's inefficient, but... IME, so is anything else where the whole party is getting to demonstrate who they are. Here, at least, you get the added joy of playing a war game while learning about everyone's character.


Sorry, that was the opposite of what I was trying to say - my intended point was that the combat game you're constantly playing eats up a lot of time that could be spent roleplaying, making in-character decisions, resolving conflicts, increasing tension, etc.

If you're not roleplaying, making in-character decisions, resolving conflicts, or dealing with tension in combat...



Your quite right about "roll under" system not being a good simulation, but it makes it much simpler than "modifier"systems.

You find "roll under" systems much easier than, say, d20? Hmmm... I may have to find some 7-year-olds to experiment on test that theory out.


There are some that say the fewer rules governing RP, the more flexible and easy RP gets. Some games have no rules regarding whether NPCs successfully lie to your character, you merely interpret their words as truths or lies based on your judgment.

Myself, I think of it less in terms of the sheer mass of rules and more in terms of how effective existing rules turn out to be. For the different editions of DnD, I feel that alignment, used in a sane way, can be a very effective tool for enhancing RP while the rules for convincing people and lying have tended to be very bad for RP.

My stance is, alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs. So, tough audience. Sell me on this idea that alignment can enhance RP.

Also, how have social skills / rules been a detriment to RP, in your experience?


I have never had any troubles with the alignment system. I don't know why everyone else does (beyond some particular "don't do that" cases)

It stopped being a problem for me when I started leaving that section of my character sheet blank, and stayed telling DMs that I was going to consistently RP my character's personality, and they could call that whatever alignment they chose to.

So, even if it wasn't a problem for you, like it eventually wasn't for me, what did it add to your games? What made it worth having?


For me, putting a "Good" entry in "Alignment" is often the only IC justification for taking the "plot hooks", otherwise I have a hard time not role-playing my PC's leaving the scene, and just going to safety and opening a tavern or something.
With the '70's Adventures I grew up on the PC's motivations were easy to justify; loot Dungeons to get rich. Now that the Adventures are largely "save innocents from evil", Alignment is often the only hat to hang on I can think of as to why my PC is willing to risk his neck (this is also why "hero" back-story comes hard to me, I just don't think in "hero").

So, if I don't have "good" written down for my alignment, that's justification to ignore an adventure? ... Is this why people have problems with evil characters? Because they don't know how to write plot hooks beyond, "you're good, so you'd do this"?


In D&D terms (not because it's the perfect example, but because it's likely a common terminology) if you're up against a will o wisp.

Say you have a 40% of hitting the will o wisp's AC with your sword, and you have a 30% chance of grappling it. You should probably go for the grapple because it's the better way to actually finish it off, but it's a bit of a judgment call.

And knowing 40/30 matters compared to, say, unlikely / slightly less likely why?

Vitruviansquid
2016-08-13, 03:48 PM
My stance is, alignment is the worst thing to happen to role-playing in the history of RPGs. So, tough audience. Sell me on this idea that alignment can enhance RP.

Also, how have social skills / rules been a detriment to RP, in your experience?


You could scroll all the way back to where you quoted me and then read the subsequent discussion we had in this thread about these topics.

Bohandas
2016-08-13, 11:01 PM
D&D also has the issue, not mentioned by the OP, that due to the way skill points are handled the order of what levels you take in what classes matters, which makes creating multiclass NPCs a pain

PairO'Dice Lost
2016-08-14, 04:04 AM
Gygax clearly states that the magic was always intended to be "Vancian", and used the word "memorized" to describe the process (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf).


Several elements, the unquestioned foremost being the magic system used in these games. To my way of thinking, the concept of a spell itself being magical, that its written form carried energy, seemed a perfect way to balance the mage against other types of characters in the game. The memorization of the spell required time and concentration so as to impart not merely the written content but also its magical energies. When subsequently cast — by speaking or some other means — the words or gestures, or whatever triggered the magical force of the spell, leaving a blank place in the brain where the previously memorized spell had been held. Because I explained this often, attributing its inspiration to Jack Vance, the D&D magic system of memorized then forgotten spells was dubbed by gamers “the Vancian magic system”.


Other people may be fine with this, but to me, it's infinitely silly.

I'm well aware of the origin of D&D magic, my point is that the word "memorized" does not describe Vancian magic, and that's the whole problem. That quote describes exactly what I've been saying--that it's not just a matter of knowing some words, it's the written spells themselves that have power--and "memorization" gives entirely the wrong idea, whether for D&D where spell preparation involves ritual pre-casting or in the original Vance where spells have pseudo-intelligence, take up residence in the caster's brain when prepared, and want to be cast.


But how does the spell go from 0 to full power in 6 seconds? What is the point of all that preparation then if nothing happens or gets built up during it? A now this calls to mind the metaphor of creating a vessel and then poring liquid into it. Because you can throw away an empty vessel without spilling any liquid. But then wouldn't the amount of power (liquid) be independent from the complexity of the vessel (spell level)? Why does it always take the same amount of time to fill a vessel? And this is yet another conflicting explanation of what is going on. ... This bit is a little bit ranty, I managed to catch myself before I started screaming about where is the logic.

The idea of the caster being a vessel that you pour magic energy into, and then empty it of energy when the spell is cast, isn't really what Vancian is about. Think instead of a piece of complicated machinery, like a computer: you can have 99% of a computer assembled and plugged into the wall, but hitting the power button won't do anything until that last important piece is there--and once it is finally assembled the computer pulls all the necessary power from an external source, either an outlet or a battery, the circuitry itself doesn't generate the power. Likewise, power consumption and complexity aren't really correlated; you can have phones that hold days' worth of charge and massive supercomputers that suck down tons of power, but you can also have old clunky laptops that are power hogs and energy-efficient desktops that barely sip from the outlets.

Computing is actually a good analogy, since the Dying Earth series implies that magic is essentially a semi-sentient form of advanced mathematics and theoretical physics that can form into physical beings and is "programmed" through spells:


In this fashion did Turjan enter his apprenticeship to Pandelume. Day and far into the opalescent Embelyon night he worked under Pandelume's unseen tutelage. He learned the secret of renewed youth, many spells of the ancients, and a strange abstract lore that Pandelume termed "Mathematics."

"Within this instrument," said Pandelume, "resides the Universe.

Passive in itself and not of sorcery, it elucidates every problem, each phase of existence, all the secrets of time and space. Your spells and runes are built upon its power and codified according to a great underlying mosaic of magic. The design of this mosaic we cannot surmise; our knowledge is didactic, empirical, arbitrary. Phandaal glimpsed the pattern and so was able to formulate many of the spells which bear his name. I have endeavored through the ages to break the clouded glass, but so far my research has failed. He who discovers the pattern will know all of sorcery and be a man powerful beyond comprehension."

So Turjan applied himself to the study and learned many of the simpler routines.

"I find herein a wonderful beauty," he told Pandelume. "This is no science, this is art, where equations fall away to elements like resolving chords, and where always prevails a symmetry either explicit or multiplex, but always of a crystalline serenity."


"Cannot you change me?" cried T'sais. "You are a magician. Must I live my life out blind to joy?"

The shadow of a sigh penetrated the wall.

"I am a magician indeed, with knowledge of every spell yet devised, the sleight of runes, incantations, designs, exorcisms, talismans. I am Master Mathematician, the first since Phandaal, yet I can do nothing to your brain without destroying your intelligence, your personality, your soul—for I am no god. A god may will things to existence; I must rely on magic, the spells which vibrate and twist space."


Rhialto's attention had been distracted by Osherl in the matter of indenture points, and he had heard only a phrase or two of Sarsem's response: "—accuracy of high degree!" and "—occasionally a curious kinking and backlash in the inter-aeon sutures—"

Ildefonse had put another inquiry and again Osherl's attempts to secure advantage had diverted Rhialto's attention, and he had only heard Sarsem discussing what seemed to be mathematical theory with Ildefonse: "—often closer than the thousandth part of one percent, plus or minus, which must be reckoned excellent."


Magic is a practical science, or, more properly, a craft, since emphasis is placed primarily upon utility, rather than basic understanding.

This is only a general statement, since in a field of such profound scope, every practitioner will have his individual, style, and during the glorious times of Grand Motholam, many of the magician-philosophers tried to grasp the principles which governed the field.

In the end, these investigators, who included the greatest names in sorcery, learned only enough to realize that full and comprehensive knowledge was impossible. In the first place, a desired effect might be achieved through any number of modes, any of which represented a life-time of study, each deriving its force from a different coercive environment.

The great magicians of Grand Motholam were sufficiently supple that they perceived the limits of human understanding, and spent most of their efforts dealing with practical problems, searching for abstract principles only when all else failed. For this reason, magic retains its distinctly human flavor, even though the activating agents are never human. A casual glance into one of the basic catalogues emphasizes this human orientation; the nomenclature has a quaint and archaic flavor.
[...]
A spell in essence corresponds to a code, or set of instructions, inserted into the sensorium of an entity which is able and not unwilling to alter the environment in accordance with the message conveyed by the spell. These entities are not necessarily 'intelligent,' nor even 'sentient,' and their conduct, from the tyro's point of view, is unpredictable, capricious and dangerous.

The most pliable and cooperative of these creatures range from the lowly and frail elementals, through the sandestins. More fractious entities are known by the Temuchin as 'daihak,' which include 'demons' and 'gods.' A magician's power derives from the abilities of the entities he is able to control. Every magician of consequence employs one or more sandestins. A few arch-magicians of Grand Motholam dared to employ the force of the lesser daihaks. To recite or even to list the names of these magicians is to evoke wonder and awe. Their names tingle with power.
[...]
The magicians of the 21st Aeon were, in comparison, a disparate and uncertain group, lacking both grandeur and consistency.


The Main Point:
Ultimately my issue with D&D's magic system is that if feels like an explanation for the mechanics. This works great in a wargame where you are trying to create a thematic justification for the more strategic aspects of the game. In a role-playing game you want to do at least a little bit in the other direction, explore the theme in mechanics. D&D doesn't do that, all the weird edge cases that come up tend to be made into the most sterile solution (see releasing spells). The explanations usually go just far enough to explain what is going on, but not enough to make it seem alive. And on top of that the explanations are not always consistent.

So yeah, there are good parts to D&D magic, but it all comes together to form an explanation that works if you stay zoomed out. But for me, if I zoom in on someone who uses magic for a living (that is, I play a caster) I am just left wondering because I don't have enough detail to fill in what happens at that level. I, for instance, cannot accurately describe what my wizard character would actually be doing during that hour of spell preparation time at the beginning of the day.

That's fair. Like I said before, I don't disagree that D&D's flavor came after the mechanics and were made to fit them, or that other systems' intertwined flavor and mechanics can make for better in-world explanations. I just object to the ideas that Vancian magic is a poorly-thought-out veneer slapped on top of the rules (when it's quite internally consistent and there's plenty of supporting flavor within and preceeding D&D) and that it's a uniquely D&D problem (when every game suffers from the same problem to some degree and many games are worse).


I disagree; Being a badass adventurer isn't only about combat. It's also about overcoming wilderness obstacles, and deciphering arcane runes, and walking on narrow ledges next to perilous ravines and the like. But it is NOT about how many silver pieces you can make by playing the lute or whether or not you can run a farm. You have to differentiate non-combat skills from non-adventuring skills. D&D4E has a full suite of adventuring skills.

And I disagree that it's not important to have rules for non-adventuring stuff (which I called "noncombat stuff" rather than "non-adventuring stuff" because that's the term you used originally). If nothing else, you need to be able to tell how good someone is at growing food, building things, or making a living for the mid-level domain management stuff that has, again, been part of D&D since the beginning, but it's also relevant to low-level adventuring: building things like vehicles, weapons, traps, and the like with Craft can have a huge effect on adventures, and Perform and Profession (along with Gather Information and things like business and affiliation rules) often feature heavily in urban and intrigue campaigns.

Now, I agree that adventuring and non-adventuring stuff shouldn't necessarily use have to the same resources; Secondary Skills in 1e and Nonweapon Proficiencies in 2e were entirely separate from class abilities and advanced independent of level, after all. But they should be in the game in some form.

Cluedrew
2016-08-14, 07:59 AM
I never tried it for chess, but I actually built the Magic the Gathering decks I thought some of my characters would most enjoy playing.

If you're going to get bored of hiding behind the paladin, don't play that character. Me, I never get bored of Quertus cowering behind the party reading his book while the more competent combatants handle that... combat thing.The Magic: The Gathering decks are cool. Still... although I might be committing the Playgrounder's Fallacy but this is about D&D so... how long do those combats take and what are you doing during that time? It is not the problem of hiding behind the paladin, but that if all I do (regularly) is say "I hide behind the paladin" and then sit back for an hour, that is going to wear thin eventually. It may depend on the frequency and length of combats, both are pretty high in D&D. But then if it works for you, go for it.

Also I made some other comments explaining what I felt I got out of alignment, have you read those? Is there and additional details you would like?


That's fair. Like I said before, I don't disagree that D&D's flavor came after the mechanics and were made to fit them, or that other systems' intertwined flavor and mechanics can make for better in-world explanations. I just object to the ideas that Vancian magic is a poorly-thought-out veneer slapped on top of the rules (when it's quite internally consistent and there's plenty of supporting flavor within and preceeding D&D) and that it's a uniquely D&D problem (when every game suffers from the same problem to some degree and many games are worse).It is more like a well thought-out veneer rolled out over the rules. Let's try this as a summery: It does what it does well, but I just don't think it does enough.