A few reasons why I'm not entirely with the OSR crowd.

[Agrippa]

As a preface I have a copy of the free artless version of Goblinoid Games Mutant Future, along with PDFs of BFRPG (Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game) and Dark Dungeons. The latter two are OSR clones/semi-clones of BECMI with MF being a lawyer friendly mod of Gamma World. I'm okay with things like THAC0, descending armor class and class based experience progression. I've even developed a fondness for for morale, henchmen and yes, percentile thief skills. Imagine a PC starting out with an 80% base chance of climbing 100 ft. of sheer surface with few or no easily visible handholds or climbing gear.

With all that out of the way there are also things from newer D&D additions and some non-D&D I'd like to add. First something along the lines of jump rules. Okay, I mean Tome jump rules, but jump rules none the less. Add in 3.5 psionics as magic, vestige/spirit binding and Tome of Battle plus homebrew sublime discplines. Then top it off with using Next's Advantage/Disadvantage system with an Exalted inspired stunt system.

On these issues altogether I'm at odds with the overall OSR community, as far as I know. Part of this is the idea that warrior classes are strictly the casual or noob, used by players who "just wants to roll some dice, drink beer, and have fun with his friends isn't going to play a complicated class like magic-user." That and they somehow seem to think Wuxia is newer than R.E. Howard's Conan, Krull and Soloman Kane, the Chutulu Mythos, Jack Vance's Dying Earth and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser! I'm not content with warriors, whether they're called fighters or any other name simply being the non-thinking casual play class. That's my main difference with the OSR.

[Rhynn]

So... why don't you make that game?

That's the OSR way.

[Tengu_temp]

I understand you completely, Agrippa. I also hate this anti-fighter, pro-wizard bias many people have.

I suspect it's ulterior; RPG players are nerds, wizards are nerds. Therefore, by playing a game where the nerds rule and the jocks suck, they're engaging in a wish-fulfillment/revenge fantasy where they're finally the top dog! I think it's stupid and juvenile.

This tends to come with a (un)healthy dose of looking down on players who play fighters as intellectually inferior. Also bonus ignorance points for not realizing the amazing superhuman feats fighter-types often performed in European myths, and bonus racism points for brushing aside the same thing they did in non-European ones as weeaboo fightan' magic.

[Agrippa]

So... why don't you make that game?

That's the OSR way.

I said I'm not entirely with the OSR. Nor am I entirely with any other RPG movement. There maybe some people in the OSR movement/loose association who agree with me, I don't know. By the way I am working on kit bashing some of my favorite D&D elements together. I just can't do a decent layout for it yet.

[TuggyNE]

I said I'm not entirely with the OSR. Nor am I entirely with any other RPG movement.

Shades of Treebeard.

As long as you don't end up letting RPG Saruman wander off to cause trouble in the RPG Shire I think you'll be fine, though.

[Libertad]

I understand you completely, Agrippa. I also hate this anti-fighter, pro-wizard bias many people have.

I suspect it's ulterior; RPG players are nerds, wizards are nerds. Therefore, by playing a game where the nerds rule and the jocks suck, they're engaging in a wish-fulfillment/revenge fantasy where they're finally the top dog! I think it's stupid and juvenile.

This tends to come with a (un)healthy dose of looking down on players who play fighters as intellectually inferior. Also bonus ignorance points for not realizing the amazing superhuman feats fighter-types often performed in European myths, and bonus racism points for brushing aside the same thing they did in non-European ones as weeaboo fightan' magic.

This isn't entirely confined to the OSR. It springs up in the Pathfinder fanbase, too.


Now, I think that there's two major camps: the ones who are up front that non-magic classes should be less powerful and that this is the kind of game they want.

The second one insists that the classes are "equal" due to the limits of Vancian casting, and view martial power-ups as overpowered while wizard nerfs are terrible. A good example is the 4th Edition backlash of "neutering the wizard."

This is not a problem if that's what you want in a game and are honest about it. But it becomes a problem when you denigrate people of different play-styles or you act intellectually dishonest: using anecdotal evidence as fact, ignore the math behind the game, victim-blaming players and DMs when the game mechanics don't perform the way the game says they do ("your 3rd Edition Fighter PC just has no imagination when the Wizard and Druid outclass him all the time!").


Now, some OSR games break the mold:

Lamentations of the Flame Princess gave the Fighter and Specialist (Thief) classes some unique abilities while making magic riskier and removing a lot of traditional spells.

Flying Swordsman RPG is a wuxia-flavored game where all classes get cinematic fighting abilities.

[The Oni]

Both of those camps are incorrect, of course; both Wizards and Fighters are underpowered compared to Truenamers.

[Libertad]

Both of those camps are incorrect, of course; both Wizards and Fighters are underpowered compared to Truenamers.

An important thing to consider is often these discussions get confused when players of different Editions start talking.

3rd Edition really widened the caster/noncaster gap to unprecedented levels, so a lot of old-school gamers can see such complaints as exaggerated, in part because a lot of pre-3.X magicians were saddled with more limitations. In pre-3.X games, spellcasters could do a lot less: every spell in Basic was effectively a full-round action, attacking the spellcaster at all in some Editions negated the spell automatically, and there were a lot less splatbooks out full of even more spells to add to one's repertoire.

Naturally, there's a lot of old-school gamers who do realize that 3rd Edition magic is balls-to-the-wall crazy once they became aware that many of these limits do not exist in said edition.


Food for thought: Some of the longest and most frequent "Fighter vs. Wizard" threads on D&D forums revolved around 3rd Edition. There's far less discussion of this kind in other Editions, but it does happen.

[obryn]

Something I read on another forum, paraphrased...

D&D is, historically, extremely prone to put "anything that an average person can't do with some training" into the "magic" camp. This, unfortunately, includes some stuff that actual real highly-talented and highly-trained people can do.

(Horrifyingly, they often use themselves as the models for what is or isn't possible. Like tying a mouse cord around their wrist to see if a wrist strap helps ready a weapon faster.)

It also breaks classes down into two broad categories of "can do magic" and "can't do magic," with the second camp almost defined by its inability to do magic. So if you're in the latter camp, then you're subject to all the restrictions above - basically, whatever some game designer of questionable physical fitness can imagine him- or herself doing, maybe after fiddling around for 20 minutes.

And that's why Fighters can't win. They need to be almost breathlessly mundane in everything they do, otherwise it's magic and they're not a Fighter anymore.

[Libertad]

Something I read on another forum, paraphrased...

D&D is, historically, extremely prone to put "anything that an average person can't do with some training" into the "magic" camp. This, unfortunately, includes some stuff that actual real highly-talented and highly-trained people can do.

(Horrifyingly, they often use themselves as the models for what is or isn't possible. Like tying a mouse cord around their wrist to see if a wrist strap helps ready a weapon faster.)

It also breaks classes down into two broad categories of "can do magic" and "can't do magic," with the second camp almost defined by its inability to do magic. So if you're in the latter camp, then you're subject to all the restrictions above - basically, whatever some game designer of questionable physical fitness can imagine him- or herself doing, maybe after fiddling around for 20 minutes.

And that's why Fighters can't win. They need to be almost breathlessly mundane in everything they do, otherwise it's magic and they're not a Fighter anymore.

The mouse cord thing was later revealed to be a joke by Jason Buhlman, but the fact that so many people assumed otherwise underlined this issue. The Pathfinder game designers are very quick to nerf overpowered martial options (or options that are merely overpowered under a situational set of circumstances) but do comparatively little to nerf some of the more egregious spellcasting options.

I do like a lot of things about Pathfinder, but Paizo often misses the forest for the trees at times.

[obryn]

The mouse cord thing was later revealed to be a joke by Jason Buhlman, but the fact that so many people assumed otherwise underlined this issue. The Pathfinder game designers are very quick to nerf overpowered martial options (or options that are merely overpowered under a situational set of circumstances) but do comparatively little to nerf some of the more egregious spellcasting options.

Good to know! But it fits right in with Sean "let's nerf the monk a little more" K. Reynolds, so I guess the joke was just a bit too believable.

[Tengu_temp]

D&D is, historically, extremely prone to put "anything that an average person can't do with some training" into the "magic" camp. This, unfortunately, includes some stuff that actual real highly-talented and highly-trained people can do.

Yeah. And even if we go beyond that and look at various myths, legends and stories, we can see that acts of superhuman ability are hardly the domain of spellcasters. Look at what the various Celtic or Hindu heroes achieve, and few of them wield any kind of magic; most are simply that good.

But nope. DND thinks that if it's not something a normal human can do, then it's magic. This is why I like Tome of Battle - because it completely shatters this preconception.

[Libertad]

Look at what the various Celtic or Hindu heroes achieve, and few of them wield any kind of magic; most are simply that good.

You read my essay, didn't you?

[Thrudd]

The thing is, not everyone wants to play D&D as a cinematic action game, or as a story about mythological heroes. For the most part, OD&D, Basic and AD&D were not this, at least not until very high levels (Immortals part of BECMI). It is more a simulation of a fantasy world rather than a vehicle for telling adventure stories. While the characters of D&D are meant to be more heroic than the common man, increasingly so as they gain levels, it is just that their combat actions are abstracted down to a single die roll rather than having game mechanics which describe every technique and weapon stance they know. When you roll that D20 and score a hit, the player or DM could describe the combat details in any way they want. The very fact that you actually have a chance of hitting and defeating these creatures makes the character an heroic individual who can do things most people can't. But describing the cool actions was not the sole focus or purpose of the game, it was exploring a fantasy world and challenging the players against that world to solve problems and see how long they can survive.
I Love a good cinematic game, too. Feng Shui is one of my favorites, I love Hong Kong action movies, and Wuxia is great fun. But my D&D is not about wuxia or action movies. So I am fine with OSR and AD&D rules where combat actions are abstracted rather than represented in detail by disassociated mechanics like action points and 4e style powers.

Different rules for different purposes.

[Rhynn]

The thing is, not everyone wants to play D&D as a cinematic action game, or as a story about mythological heroes. For the most part, OD&D, Basic and AD&D were not this, at least not until very high levels (Immortals part of BECMI).

Yeah, OD&D has very specific literary inspirations, and the capabilities of adventurers follow them fairly closely, originally.

But then again, Supplement IV describes Cu Chulain as possessing awesome abilities, and there's absolutely nothing stopping anyone from letting their PCs gain similar powers (or even start with them).

[Talakeal]

I understand you completely, Agrippa. I also hate this anti-fighter, pro-wizard bias many people have.

I suspect it's ulterior; RPG players are nerds, wizards are nerds. Therefore, by playing a game where the nerds rule and the jocks suck, they're engaging in a wish-fulfillment/revenge fantasy where they're finally the top dog! I think it's stupid and juvenile.

This tends to come with a (un)healthy dose of looking down on players who play fighters as intellectually inferior. Also bonus ignorance points for not realizing the amazing superhuman feats fighter-types often performed in European myths, and bonus racism points for brushing aside the same thing they did in non-European ones as weeaboo fightan' magic.

So what group do I fall under? I always play fighter type characters, and cant stand ToB or 4e style powers.


Why is "badass normal" not a valid character concept?

Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, James Bond, even Batman fall into this category. Even older heroes like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Achilles fall into this category the majority of the time, only occasionally performing feats of superhuman strength or endurance.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

[squiggit]

Why is "badass normal" not a valid character concept?

Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, James Bond, even Batman fall into this category. Even older heroes like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Achilles fall into this category the majority of the time, only occasionally performing feats of superhuman strength or endurance.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

I'd have to disagree completely... all of those examples fit better under the ToB/4e paradigm than the "I make an attack" 3e/PF philosophy.

[Scow2]

Actually, those guys are on par with 4e-style abilities.

On one hand, I don't like how vicious the 4e optimization scene can be. On the other, I love how often the fighter gets plugged and held up in it. (Every weapon-based striker wants to be a Fighter. No other defender is as sticky as a Fighter, etc... and the Fighter has nothing even CLOSE to supernatural in its abilities... except maybe it's "Come and get it" attack.)

[Morty]

So what group do I fall under? I always play fighter type characters, and cant stand ToB or 4e style powers.


Why is "badass normal" not a valid character concept?

Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, James Bond, even Batman fall into this category. Even older heroes like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Achilles fall into this category the majority of the time, only occasionally performing feats of superhuman strength or endurance.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

Because fighters who can do nothing more than attack over and over again fail at portraying them.

The biggest problem with a lot of the people griping about how fighters should be "realistic" isn't so much the demand for realism (although it certainly is a problem) but the thundering ignorance of just what realism is. Look at Riddle of Steel - it's as gritty and realistic as you can get, and yet every combat-trained character there is more interesting than any AD&D fighter. When I look at AD&D fighters, I don't see "skilled men with swords". I see boring piles of hit points.

[obryn]

Why is "badass normal" not a valid character concept?

It is, in many systems. Those tend to scale back magic, among other things.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

The rules of 3.x D&D, basically.

Yeah, OD&D has very specific literary inspirations, and the capabilities of adventurers follow them fairly closely, originally.

Foul on the play. Gandalf.

[Talakeal]

I thought we were talking about OSR games in general, not any specific game or edition.


Yeah, 3.5 fighters really suck, although the concept isn't terrible, they just need way better saves, skills, and way more feats than t hey are given. Now, many of the spells are also broken and make non casters redundant, but that is a problem with the casters, not the fighter.

As for the 4e fighter, i don't like being pigeon holed into a defender role and only having four or so abilities to choose from. Also many of the encounter powers should be things a fighter can attempt more than once per combat and the daily abilities seemed a bit over the top.

[obryn]

As for the 4e fighter, i don't like being pigeon holed into a defender role and only having four or so abilities to choose from. Also many of the encounter powers should be things a fighter can attempt more than once per combat and the daily abilities seemed a bit over the top.

I think there are other workable implementations, but the basic theory - Fighter Gets Cool Moves - is (IMO) just about essential to keep them anywhere near parity.

Another great example other than 4e? BECMI/RC. Yeah, I know. Oddly enough, it's the next Fighter-friendliest edition of D&D. And that's the "basic" line!

[Hiro Protagonest]

As for the 4e fighter, i don't like being pigeon holed into a defender role and only having four or so abilities to choose from. Also many of the encounter powers should be things a fighter can attempt more than once per combat and the daily abilities seemed a bit over the top.

Fighter has like, five different variants. You can play a higher-defense Guardian Fighter, a Brawler that zips around the battlefield and sacrifices some defense for greater control, or focus more on the striker part with Great Weapon or... I can never remember what the other two-handed fighter is called.

I can understand complaints about Encounters and Dailies (you should probably be able to spend an action point or Second Wind to recharge an encounter power, or something like that). Essentials has classes with more focus on at-wills, although they tend to be a bit more boring (with the exception of the Ranger replacement, since Ranger is the most boring when played optimally).

[Talakeal]

Fighter has like, five different variants. You can play a higher-defense Guardian Fighter, a Brawler that zips around the battlefield and sacrifices some defense for greater control, or focus more on the striker part with Great Weapon or... I can never remember what the other two-handed fighter is called.

I can understand complaints about Encounters and Dailies (you should probably be able to spend an action point or Second Wind to recharge an encounter power, or something like that). Essentials has classes with more focus on at-wills, although they tend to be a bit more boring (with the exception of the Ranger replacement, since Ranger is the most boring when played optimally).

I only played 4E twice. Once as a fighter when the game first came out and a couple of years later as a barbarian. I am sure there are a lot of options I missed, I am just stating my experience with the game as I saw it.


Anyway, I created another thread to discuss what options they feel a mundane character should have rather than derail this one:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=330976

[Rhynn]

Foul on the play. Gandalf.

Gandalf the 5th-level magic-user, you mean? Lord of the Rings isn't exactly a major inspiration, though: we're talking Poul Anderson, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Lin Carter, Sprague de Camp, R. E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, H. P. Lovecraft, Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, and so on.

The heroes of all these stories - and, indeed, of The Lord of the Rings, and of Norse sagas, etc. - are generally relatively "mundane."

Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, James Bond, even Batman fall into this category. Even older heroes like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Achilles fall into this category the majority of the time, only occasionally performing feats of superhuman strength or endurance.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

These guys, too.

[Knaight]

I'd have to disagree completely... all of those examples fit better under the ToB/4e paradigm than the "I make an attack" 3e/PF philosophy.

They also fit really well under, say, the REIGN paradigm - which most distinctly doesn't have powers. They fit well under the Burning Wheel paradigm - which most distinctly doesn't have powers. The Riddle of Steel fits them perfectly as well, and I'm pretty sure the rest of that statement is obvious by now.

They fit better under the ToB/4e paradigm than the "I make an attack" philosophy for the simple reason that the base combat system of D&D sucks like vacuum next to a pressure leak*, and that adding powers to it at least makes it less terrible.

*As the focus of the game. If fights are supposed to be a minor, incidental thing that happens occasionally it's fine. Basically, it worked for what it was initially intended for, combat grew in focus, and it then began to lack, so patches were applied to reduce the extent it blew.

[Rhynn]

They fit better under the ToB/4e paradigm than the "I make an attack" philosophy for the simple reason that the base combat system of D&D sucks like vacuum next to a pressure leak*, and that adding powers to it at least makes it less terrible.

*As the focus of the game. If fights are supposed to be a minor, incidental thing that happens occasionally it's fine. Basically, it worked for what it was initially intended for, combat grew in focus, and it then began to lack, so patches were applied to reduce the extent it blew.

This is exactly why old-school D&D combat is great. It takes me 5-15 minutes to run a fight in ACKS. If I wanted a game with a focus on interesting combat, I sure as heck wouldn't use D&D...

[Knaight]

This is exactly why old-school D&D combat is great. It takes me 5-15 minutes to run a fight in ACKS. If I wanted a game with a focus on interesting combat, I sure as heck wouldn't use D&D...

Hence the footnote, yes. That said, there are other games I vastly prefer for the job over old school D&D that are every bit as fast if not faster. Mostly Fudge.

[Morty]

The Riddle of Steel fits them perfectly as well, and I'm pretty sure the rest of that statement is obvious by now.

TRoS doesn't have powers, but it certainly makes it feel like a combat-trained character is actually capable of controlling the flow of combat. No edition of D&D other than the fourth has made fighters feel like more than a pile of hitpoints and basic attacks, in my experience. I'm fine with them being down-to-earth, and in fact I find it vastly preferable... but I can't stand them being boring.

[Beleriphon]

Conan, Aragorn, King Arthur, Indiana Jones, James Bond, even Batman fall into this category. Even older heroes like Gilgamesh, Beowulf, and Achilles fall into this category the majority of the time, only occasionally performing feats of superhuman strength or endurance.

Why are none of these heroes good enough to take part in a tabletop adventure?

Conan, King Arthur, Indy, James Bond and Batman don't tend to operate in a world where people change reality on a whim. Well except Batman... stupid Bat-Mite. These are character that live in a mundane world that shares a lot more in common with our daily world than the typical D&D styled character.

As for ancient characters you do realize that Gilgamesh did things like punch mountains in half. He single handedly redirected the course of the Tigris so it stopped flooding Uruk. He's basically the Mesopotamian version of Herakles. Beowulf was so awesome he fought Grendel naked because it wasn't fair if he wore armor, and then he tore Grendel's arms off! Also Achilles is 100% immune to damage, he has DR/100000000 except on his heel. These are typical and usual abilities for these characters and they aren't really capture by D&D style fighters in any edition. The fighter type class is the closest class to model them because D&D only because they don't exhibit abilities that other classes have.