Attention Grognards: Mechanics and Playstyle

[Mike_G]

Do mechanics really influence playstyle?

I mean, all that much?

I'd like to hear mostly from the grognards. How differently do you play 3e from 1e?

I've played since 1980, as have most of my current group. We're old, arthritic nerds, so we hang with other old, grey, arthritic nerds. Honestly we don't play nay differently than we did in older systems. We don't have Batman or Codzilla, or a "Build" planned for 20 levels before we name the character. We play Fighters for more than 4 levels, and sometimes even Monks. We use Sword and Board or Two weapons if we like the concept and it fits our idea for a character. We don't have four encounters per day, or assume exact WBL. We give noogies to anybody who thinks about the Spiked Chain or Armor Spikes.

I'm sure people do play the way 3e is characterized, and that's cool. But 3e doesn't force you to play that way.

We like not having the awful 1e rules like racial level caps, and not dealing with incompatible systems within systems, like the AD&D Pummeling chart, so for us, D20 makes us happy.

It just seems that a number of posters seem to feel that having consistent rules for stuff makes players into rules lawyering munchkins who demand the DM dance for them.

I think playstyle is much less influenced by mechanics than the AD&Defenders seem to want to believe.

[Matthew]

Heh, I thought a thread like this might be on the way.

The short answer is that I do think mechanics influence playstyle, not so much for experienced players, but certainly for people who are 'cutting their teeth' on an RPG.

Stuff like feats, skills, squares, non simultaneous movement, CR tables, wealth by level charts, inherent imbalances between character classes, lengthy, discrete and closed rule systems do seem to encourage a mode of thinking that then influences playstyle. The epitomy for me is perhaps "You enter a 10' x 10' room", "Okay, I search each 5' Square wilst taking 20'.

D20 is designed to encourage and reward 'rules mastery' and it succeeds on both counts.

[Mike_G]

I knew I could count on you.

Heh, I thought a thread like this might be on the way.

The short answer is that I do think mechanics influence playstyle, not so much for experienced players, but certainly for people who are 'cutting their teeth' on an RPG.

Possibly. That's why I wanted to knwo if your style changed through the editions (other than hopefully becoming more mature over the years). It would be interetsting to know how the average new gamer plays differently as well, I suppose.

Stuff like feats, skills, squares, non simultaneous movement, CR tables, wealth by level charts, inherent imbalances between character classes, lengthy, discrete and closed rule systems do seem to encourage a mode of thinking that then influences playstyle.

See. I like feats and skills. They're ways for non spellcasters to do stuff other than roll to hit. I agree they could have been done better, but I like the concept of having Improved Disarm as a feat, if that fits your character. I had a Paladin who took it, because he'd rather capture and redeem you than kill you. Disarming in AD&D was asking my DM to glare at me and snarl "Oh just roll percentile, I guess!" and make come crap up.

CR tables and WBL are guidelines, and nice in theory. There should be some way to gauge how much stuff a 10th level PC should have, and what;s appropriate. It's nice for a new DM.

And I like consistent rules.

The epitomy for me is perhaps "You enter a 10' x 10' room", "Okay, I search each 5' Square wilst taking 20'.

D20 is designed to encourage and reward 'rules mastery' and it succeeds on both counts.

OK, for me, I see two layers. The Roleplaying layer, where you say what your character does, and the mechanics layer that the DM uses to arbitrate those actions.

In our group we have "A cynical ex soldier in the Royal army who chafed under the rules and struck out on his own" Not a Fighter1/Warblade6/Lion Totem Barbarian 3 who will take his next 3 levels in Ranger before Prc'ing to....

We'd say "I search the crap out of this room. That damn kobold must've gotten out somehow."

This is all I know of gaming.

I'd like to hear from somebody who actually plans his Batman list out for exactly four encounters per day, and threatens the DM if he doesn't get WBL in treasure.

[bosssmiley]

I've played since 1980, as have most of my current group. We're old, arthritic nerds, so we hang with other old, grey, arthritic nerds.

*1989, so shows due grognard gnollengrom to Mike_G*

Mechanics influencing playstyle? (good question) Yes and no (cop out answer )


"Yes" in the sense of the 3rd Ed rules lending themselves to flashy, high-power action scenes in a way that earlier editions perhaps sometimes didn't. For example, compare early edition level drain to 3rd Ed version. What player in their right mind would go toe-to-toe with a wight, vampire or other level drainer back in the day? Now - between restoration and the 'two bites of the cherry' negative level rule - there's much less systemic punishment of genre-appropriate heroic action.

More generally the "Yes" answer still holds. I don't play D&D3 the way I play CoC, or FS, or WFRP, or Hong Kong Action Theatre. The play style is always influenced by the question of what will work for the character within the constraints of the game world, as modelled by the given system. HKAT, for example, lends itself to (and actively rewards) mad, overblown stunt work and "Rule of Cool" gestures. WFRP or CoC...not so much. What works in the former would look ridiculous - and be immersion-breaking - in the other two. I suppose it comes down to what the game incentivises and rewards.

"No", in the sense of the system constraining you to a particular play style. You *can* still run sewer crawls, noir-ish, horror or low fantasy stuff in D&D3, just by keeping the characters short of the expected WBL curve given in the DMG, or by upping the CR of the opposition. It's not part of the RAW, but the potential is there.

Of course, an attitude that "Well, the rules are more guidelines really" (after Cptn Barbossa) always helps. Once I've mastered a game system I'm terrible for constantly tinkering with it until it fits my preferred style of play (a little pulpy, with added swashbucklery bits and awesome affect for colour). The RAW are not sacrosanct and will be merrily panel beaten into a more useful form when required.

To veer off on a tangent here (as I do so often and so d@mn well!):

Spoiler

Show

I suppose it all boils down to what the expectations of the players are. No player likes seeing their character suck, fail, lose or die pathetically: almost everyone plays to play a hero. If you have players who've been raised on the (almost wholly) adversarial and goal-oriented MMORPG (PvM or PVP) model before coming to D&D I can see where the stereotype of the out-to-win munchkin rules lawyer with their optimised game-breaking 'build', the type who regards the GM (rather than the BBEG) as his opponent, would arise. Goodness knows, I've seen the type myself. They usually turn into half-decent gamers once they adjust their existing genre knowledge to the style required by a new (to them) medium.

Rules written in a cut-and-dried pseudo-legalese, ones that require fewer DM judgement calls than older rulesets, seem to give rules lawyer types carte blanche to wave the (flawed) RAW about as the Word of God. But that's not exactly a problem exclusive to the newer editions, is it? Some people just need Rule 0 cited to them again and again until it sinks in.

We give noogies to anybody who thinks about the Spiked Chain or Armor Spikes.

Wedgies for double weapons myself.

[Kvenulf]

As another old fogey who started about the same time as you did (getting old, can't remember exact date), I am glad to see others around here.

Personally, I think playersmake more of a difference than mechanics. Some people will rules-lawyer the original "Paranoia", and can munchkin in "Call of Cthulhu". Others can play any system reasonably, w/o doing either.

3e does reward this sort of behaviour, but I refuse to.

[Matthew]

I knew I could count on you.

Happy to serve.

Possibly. That's why I wanted to know if your style changed through the editions (other than hopefully becoming more mature over the years). It would be interetsting to know how the average new gamer plays differently as well, I suppose.

Right, gotcha. Yes, my style started to change when I started playing D20. At first we tried playing it as though it was AD&D, but we ran into problems that had just never cropped up before and started using a 'battle map' (honestly, I quite like visual dungeon representations), combat became more of a mechanical and uninspired chore, I found I was visualising what was on the table instead of the action in my head. Don't get me wrong, we used miniatures and counters sometimes before D20, but they were never the crutch they felt like in D20.

See. I like feats and skills. They're ways for non spellcasters to do stuff other than roll to hit. I agree they could have been done better, but I like the concept of having Improved Disarm as a feat, if that fits your character. I had a Paladin who took it, because he'd rather capture and redeem you than kill you. Disarming in AD&D was asking my DM to glare at me and snarl "Oh just roll percentile, I guess!" and make come crap up.

Yeah, I get that, but I hate them. It's the 'build' and 'character resource' management stuff that really drives me up the wall with D20. I spent so much time fiddling on with feats and skills to get them to do what I wanted them to, and when I realised I could just over rule the rules and have them do what I wanted, then I realised there was no point in having them at all. Castles & Crusades really helped me see that a lot more clearly.

Players seem a lot more insistant that I include new rules from books they have just bought for D20 and they sometimes seem really overexcited about the prospect of level advancement. I see that as symptomatic of D20, even when we were in our early teens we never expected the rate of advancement that seems to be normal now. That's something that I think is encouraged by the way the rules are set up, though it was obviously a trend in prior editions as well (though if somebody started telling me about their 20th level character I usually marked them as a munchkin).

CR tables and WBL are guidelines, and nice in theory. There should be some way to gauge how much stuff a 10th level PC should have, and what;s appropriate. It's nice for a new DM.

I agree, but I think it's a fly trap. People grow reliant on guidelines as though they are rules. Not everyone, but it happens. I don't need them and I don't want somebody having false expectations as to what is 'normal', nor do I want to buy adventure modules that assume such huge amounts of wealth (this was, admittedly, also a problem in AD&D, but I think the extent of the problem was substantially lower).

And I like consistent rules.

Me too, but not necessarily interdependent rules. I should probably mention that I think critical hits are a terrible idea.

OK, for me, I see two layers. The Roleplaying layer, where you say what your character does, and the mechanics layer that the DM uses to arbitrate those actions.

In our group we have "A cynical ex soldier in the Royal army who chafed under the rules and struck out on his own" Not a Fighter1/Warblade6/Lion Totem Barbarian 3 who will take his next 3 levels in Ranger before Prc'ing to....

We'd say "I search the crap out of this room. That damn kobold must've gotten out somehow."

This is all I know of gaming.

Fair enough. That's how we used to play in Hero Quest and I am sure we did it in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, as well as Dungeons & Dragons. I recently had a D20 player ask me if he could 'take ten' in a cavern he was searching. It took a little while for me to explain why not.

[Farmer42]

Edit: For a summary of my post, look at the first lone or so of bosssmiley's spoilered section.


I'm not really a grognard and have nowhere near the experience as you guys, but I'm one of those gamers who collects different systems and plays a little bit of everything, and I agree with Matthew about the game systems influencing beginning players.

3.5 was my first ruleset. I started playing three years ago, after stumbling upon a game while getting some food after football practice. Later that year I was introduced to V:tM, my second ruleset and in that game we had the ST (Who played many different systems but mainly 3.5) myself, another freshaman friend playing in his second RPG, and a third who had started with Vampire. You could see th difference inour approaches to characters and our goals and how we expected those to come through. the two of us who were new to gaming in general basically tried the most random things we could think of at times (no so strange considering my char was an 8th gen Malk...) while the experienced WoD player was much more paced and organized.

Recently I was introduced to HERO5e by the experienced oWoD player and I've found that I absolutely love the system. Now, what I have learned from these and the various one offs and demos I've played since I started gaming and attending GenCon is that there are vastly different play styles, and that often the system encourages certain play styles and how you learned to play RPGs in general will influence how you play, even after becoming a more experienced gamer. OWoD players tend to slightly paranoid, Paranoia players even more so ("Dude...somethings watching us...""Erm...who are you and how'd you get into my hotel room?"), but each style of gamer brings something new to the table.

What I found truly fascinating was that my gaming group's version of Josh is only a CharOp nut in 3.5 He like the rules for HERO, GURPS, and V:tM but he doesn't powerbuild in those systems, despite the relative ease of doing so, especially in HERO.

[Jayabalard]

Do mechanics really influence playstyle?

Yes, but I think that it's mostly the mechanics of the first system, or first few systems that someone plays.

So people that start off playing systems that have a rule for every situation, and reward you for rules lawyering are more likely to worship the holy RAW than someone who started off playing a looser, less defined system.

[Reel On, Love]

We'd say "I search the crap out of this room. That damn kobold must've gotten out somehow."

This is all I know of gaming.

I'd like to hear from somebody who actually plans his Batman list out for exactly four encounters per day, and threatens the DM if he doesn't get WBL in treasure.

I plan my Batman list to last as long as possible--nobody really assumes every day must have four and exactly four encounters. I don't threaten the DM if we don't get WBL (my last game was in the Dark Sun setting, and we were way short), but if it's consistently too low/high, I'll point that out to make sure it's intentional.

I'd say "I search the crap out of this room. that damn kobold must've gotten out somehow." And then add, to the DM, "I'll take 20 on each square."

[Cainen]

Do mechanics really influence playstyle?

Frankly, yes. They do. I'll say it first - I've never been a fan of using tightly-woven mechanics, and instead just prefer to use the system of choice's success resolution when it's called for - it's more work for the GM, sure, but it also makes the game much more enjoyable.

See, to use an example that has been used before - there's a difference between "Rathos observes the trap mechanism for a quarter of a minute, then breaks the silence by wedging a steel spike in an exposed gear" and "I roll 1d20+8 for Disable Device."

Looser or even nonexistent mechanics will engender a different style of play than mechanics for every occurence under the sun. If you're not using every rule in the 3.X books, that's fine - but remember, you can do that with any other system too, and some don't even require that kind of change from their standard.

There's a noticable amount of difference between the amount of rules for 2E and the amount of rules in 3E, and there's a noticable difference in quality - many, MANY 1E and 2E rules were just bad, and often were tossed out. Because of that, a lot of things in the older editions came down to working things out with the GM one-on-one, no dice involved - that's considerably different from what usually happens in 3E.

Does it mean you can't run 3E like I'd prefer it to? No, it doesn't.

Does it mean that the average 3E game runs like I'd prefer it to? Definitely not.

I'd like to hear mostly from the grognards. How differently do you play 3e from 1e?

I'm not technically a grognard - too young for it - but I certainly do prefer how I played 2E to how I've been playing 3E. Not every group is accepting of every playstyle. And as a matter of fact, my playstyle differs vastly between the two - I don't recall a single 2E GM making me touch the dice if it was unnecessary. It's sort of an unspoken law that you'd play things out without rolling unless you were in combat. In every single 3E game I've played in to date... I've made more rolls for each game - individually! - than I made in several 2E games put together. Checks for spot, checks for listen, checks for move silently, checks for spellcraft, checks for diplomacy, etcetera... Often, I make checks for things that can be handled more gracefully by a tiny bit of elbow grease.

It's a wholly different experience, and frankly, I don't appreciate it when the common train of thought is heading the other way.

I'm sure people do play the way 3e is characterized, and that's cool. But 3e doesn't force you to play that way.

It doesn't mean it's not encouraging you to do it, either, and it also doesn't mean that the system is style-neutral. Your preferred style of play may not even be compatible with your gaming group, and that can cause even MORE problems.

We like not having the awful 1e rules like racial level caps, and not dealing with incompatible systems within systems, like the AD&D Pummeling chart, so for us, D20 makes us happy.

Completely understandable. I'm not too fond of Castles & Crusades because it still has holdover problems while retaining a lot of what I prefer not to deal with from d20. I don't think either of the AD&D systems were perfect, though. In fact, this brings me to a point. Many of the 2E players I had known had houseruled the system so it played better, and as a result had managed to grab onto a system they enjoyed. 3E was more of a replacement than an upgrade, and not every change was good. Mechanically, there was no reason to switch... but they weren't going to get any new material and they weren't going to have any decent number of new people who wanted to play with them, among other things.

It just seems that a number of posters seem to feel that having consistent rules for stuff makes players into rules lawyering munchkins who demand the DM dance for them.

It's not consistent rules that are the problem. It's rules for everything under the sun, which is the key difference between what you're perceiving and what I - and what many other players - mean.

[Reel On, Love]

See, to use an example that has been used before - there's a difference between "Rathos observes the trap mechanism for a quarter of a minute, then breaks the silence by wedging a steel spike in an exposed gear" and "I roll 1d20+8 for Disable Device."

Why is Rathos so sure that that won't trigger the trap or make it explode in his face?
What about magical traps?

(Why does a trap have exposed gears anyway?)

[Cainen]

Suspension of disbelief, of course.

[Charity]

*settles in with his pipe and slippers*

Now just to go against what all my respected peers have said. I have played a lot of different games, probably 20 odd differant rule sets and I'm going to have to say I don't think the rules do influnce play style. You know I can't help myself Matt...
I will add though that I am not sure I'm on board with what is being described here as play style. Taking a 20 searching isn't a playstyle it's a character action. I view play style to be more the roleplay/hack'n'slash mix, the amount of description you use for your character actions and event resolution, the amount of character interaction/player interaction.

All of these things I have found to vary much more with personel than system, some of my friends are happy to rant for two hours in a mockney accent about the cost of rope these days, others just want to hand over the cash and leave town so they can wade knee deep in orc guts.

[Jimp]

The only way in which mechanics have influenced my playstyle would be the ability they give me to represent a character concept. If the mechanics give me the chance to make a concept particularly effective or they give me an idea for a concept then I'll go for it. Otherwise I'll just find another way to make the concept work.
I'm lucky though in that my IRL group is pretty experienced and knows when the crank the power level up or down depending on the party and on making everyone in the party feel useful by getting to use their abilities. In this respect there has never really been an over dependence on mechanical efficiency.

[Matthew]

I'm not too fond of Castles & Crusades because it still has holdover problems while retaining a lot of what I prefer not to deal with from d20.

Yeah, I hear that sometimes. I think is best expressed as "I don't like the stuff they kept from AD&D or the stuff they introduced from D20". My biggest gripe is the 'Siege' engine, but I also know that said engine is a huge draw for former D20 players. Fortunately, the Siege engine is very easily removed from the game with virtually no repercussions [i.e. it is not an interdependent part of the rule set].

I will add though that I am not sure I'm on board with what is being described here as play style.

That sounds like we need to define 'play style'.

Taking a 20 searching isn't a playstyle it's a character action.

Absolutely true. However, how the DM handles searching a room is subject to play style. D20 encourages its mechanisation, whilst AD&D is more neutral on the subject, encouraging direct interaction with the environment as a means to resolving a task.

[Charity]

D20 could and does accommodate situational modifiers +2 to your search for mentioning the chandelier in your search. lower DC if you say you are emptying out the plantpots in the conservatory etc, it needn't be mechanical, and you could just as easily make it mechanical in any system. 'We turn the room upside down searching everything' rinse, repeat.

I do recognise where you are coming from, (well to some degree) any game that has a skill system which is closely defined and has narrow skill sets can prompt people to shortcut through the often repeated checks. Thing is, I'm not sure thats a bad thing, if you have to describe every action in minute detail it can ruin the character interaction with players just listing actions to hit certain keywords.

[Matthew]

Of course (you don't need to remind me about circumstance modifiers ), but I think the very idea of a numerically systemised methodology is a problem. There's a great example in the 3e DMG that illustrates this point, I will see if I can find it.

Found it. DMG, p. 32.

General versus Specific

Sometimes a player will say, “I look around the room. Do I see anything?” and sometimes she’ll say, “I look into the room, knowing that I just saw a kobold dart inside. I look behind the chair and the table, and in all the dark corners. Do I see it?” In both cases, the DM replies, “Make a Spot check.” However, in
the second example, the character has specialized knowledge of the situation. She’s asking specific questions. In such cases, always award the character a +2 bonus for favorable conditions. It’s good to reward a character who has knowledge that allows her to ask specific questions.

The way I play, if the Kobold is hiding behind a chair and the player explicitly looks behind the chair he will find the Kobold. That is to say, the Kobold isn't abstractly hiding in the room.

Thing is, I'm not sure thats a bad thing, if you have to describe every action in minute detail it can ruin the character interaction with players just listing actions to hit certain keywords.

Very true, and some level of mechanisation is useful, but it shouldn't be the primary method of task resolution (at least not for me). Why bother figuring out how a trap works when you can just use a skill to disarm or bypass it? Of course, it obviously depends what you want out of the game.

[SamTheCleric]

The way I play, if the Kobold is hiding behind a chair and the player explicitly looks behind the chair he will find the Kobold.

Well, since the kobold no longer has cover or concealment relative to the target, he can't be hiding... so you would find the kobold.

[Matthew]

Well, since the kobold no longer has cover or concealment relative to the target, he can't be hiding... so you would find the kobold.

Great example of what I don't like about D20. I don't need concealment rules to tell me that a Kobold who has no cover to hide behind is visible to a player character (given sufficient light, of course ). He either is, or he isn't. To put it another way, the cumbersome systemisation of the game is what I object to.

A sleeping character stabbed by an assassin (not the prestige class) should not be subject to a 'coup de grace', he should be automatically killed (barring some miracle or deus ex machina).

[Rutee]

Isn't Hide or Stealth supposed to be dynamic? The Kobold doesn't wait to be found, but rather attempts to move around the chair to keep from being found? I prefer modifying dice rolls based on wording (And definitely hate the idea of Dungeon Crawling left to GM discretion; I am not a mechanical engineer. I am not a trapsmith. Why in the name of the Gods would I want to rely on /my/ knowledge of things I generally have no clue about the inner workings of? My character almost certainly knows more about that crap then me) I generally prefer to modify dice rolls based on spiffy ideas or good description.

[Matthew]

Isn't Hide or Stealth supposed to be dynamic? The Kobold doesn't wait to be found, but rather attempts to move around the chair to keep from being found?

There surely must be some degree of that assumed (though in an action by action environment there are problems to adjudication), the degree depends on the level of abstraction you desire. Certainly, any die result can be explained away, but the point is that D20 encourages 'dice resolution' over 'environmental interaction.'

I prefer modifying dice rolls based on wording (And definitely hate the idea of Dungeon Crawling left to GM discretion; I am not a mechanical engineer. I am not a trapsmith. Why in the name of the Gods would I want to rely on /my/ knowledge of things I generally have no clue about the inner workings of? My character almost certainly knows more about that crap then me) I generally prefer to modify dice rolls based on spiffy ideas or good description.

It is definitely a preferential thing, and I am not advocating one approach over another (except as regarding my own preference). To explain, traps and such things are designed to be 'puzzled out' for game purposes, so you don't actually need to know anything about traps to 'solve' them. Just like you don't usually have to be good at 'riddles' to figure them out. Mind, I'm not saying there should be no consideration of character at all. If the player of the Rogue decides to do something 'crazy' with regard to a trap, the DM (after a roll if preferred) could tell him "Talus doesn't think that is likely to work".

[Charity]

The way I play, if the Kobold is hiding behind a chair and the player explicitly looks behind the chair he will find the Kobold. That is to say, the Kobold isn't abstractly hiding in the room.

What have we told you about using up the nations precious reserves of 'common sense' on something as frivilous as a game.

Very true, and some level of mechanisation is useful, but it shouldn't be the primary method of task resolution (at least not for me). Why bother figuring out how a trap works when you can just use a skill to disarm or bypass it? Of course, it obviously depends what you want out of the game.

I think a happy medium is of course preferable, but harking back to my original point, I think it is very much the players (and to some extent their experiance) not the game that dictate how these things actually end up working. The game mechanics do what I want not the other way round.

[Matthew]

I think a happy medium is of course preferable, but harking back to my original point, I think it is very much the players (and to some extent their experiance) not the game that dictate how these things actually end up working. The game mechanics do what I want not the other way round.

Indeed, but that doesn't prevent the mechanics encouraging or enabling a particular style of play over another. The group dynamic is always more important than the rules, but the rules have their effect. If they are poor servants, then their service will be poor.

[hamlet]

Isn't Hide or Stealth supposed to be dynamic? The Kobold doesn't wait to be found, but rather attempts to move around the chair to keep from being found? I prefer modifying dice rolls based on wording (And definitely hate the idea of Dungeon Crawling left to GM discretion; I am not a mechanical engineer. I am not a trapsmith. Why in the name of the Gods would I want to rely on /my/ knowledge of things I generally have no clue about the inner workings of? My character almost certainly knows more about that crap then me) I generally prefer to modify dice rolls based on spiffy ideas or good description.

Yeah, having a mechanic to cover things that you have no clue about is kind of nice at times I suppose. But here's the thing: in my experience, when there's a mechanic at the end result that comes down to a dice roll or a chart or something, nine out of ten players will skip past it all and jump right to the roll and call it done. They MIGHT pay lip service to "I check under the table, behind the chairs, under the bed . . ." but in my experience, most don't even bother with that.

At the same time, while I don't know squat about mechanical engineering, I think I'm smart enough to make educated guesses about how a mechanical trap might present itself. Suspicious looking holes or slots. Exposed gears in a random place. A bit of something that looks loose or might slide away. I don't have to have an engineering degree to figure this stuff out, I just need to stop and think about it for a moment and, if all else fails, resort to "I poke it with my 10 foot pole and see what happens."

The problem with comprehensive integrated mechanics is, as Matthew pointed out, that things almost always end up boiling down to "roll the dice, get better than a 17" rather than having the player (and by extension, the character) interact with the world beyond the dice.

Another example that always bugged the snot out of me was the little set of skills "Gather Information" "Sense Motive" and "Bluff." All three of those were, IMO, the exclusive realm of character interaction and needed no mechanics. I tried, at one point a while ago, to run D&D 3.x and came to a point where an NPC gave the characters a bit of information. One of the players suspected he was lying (he was) and immediately demanded a sense motive check and asked "do I think he's lying?". My immediate response (after mastering the urge to smack the guy) was to say "I don't know, do you think he's lying?"

I see absolutely no reason to have codified rules for character social interaction. That's the "role" part of "roleplay." Yes, you can make the argument that your player might have the 18 charisma while you have, perhaps, a 9, but all that takes is saying so to the DM and asking that he take it into consideration.

[Charity]

The only way to prevent mechanical intervention from the rules is to have no rules, I guess if you go entirely systemless it would force a discursive style of play but it still wouldn't prevent the repetition of lists of actions to reproduce results...

I'll try saying that in a way I can understand when I re-read it.
I think in extremis, rules can influence gameplay, if there simply is not a skill system then of course the players will have to be more descriptive; but it will not prevent the mechanical repetition of those descriptions by players of actions that have been seen to have been successful. They will to all intents and purposes be taking a twenty in a long winded and verbose manner.

I agree that mechanics can be aggrivating and counter-intuative, but I'm not sure they can influence the way you approach a game...
Well if they influence other folk around here I guess they must, I just haven't really experianced as much myself.

[fendrin]

I'm not a grognard per se, but I started with acting (don't you dare tell me improv isn't roleplaying), then 11 (or so) years ago I started playing D&D. It was of course, AD&D 2e. Much fun was had. Then 3e came out, and much fun was had. Same with 3.5. I've tried Alternity, A few homebrew systems, d6, HERO (5e?), TriStat, Serenity RPG, Fuzion, Mekton Zeta, and more. I also participate in LARPs of various levels of free-forminess (everything form 'Rock-Scissors-Paper makes all determinations' to 'you have a 4 page character sheet with two dozen stats and special abilities, equipment cards, and a little clear plastic bubble with 2d6 in it').

I've had fun with most of those systems. Have they changed how I play the game? Of course, but not much. I describe my actions, then use the mechanics to find out what happens. Two interrelated but not interdependent halves of one whole. If a DM lets a player get away with 'I take 20 to search the room', that is a fault of the DM, not of the gaming system.

Seriously, folks, in the grand schema of roleplaying systems, AD&D 2e and d20 are more similar than they are different. AD&D 2e is not all that freeform or rules-light, and 3.5 is not all that complex or rules-heavy.

[hamlet]

The only way to prevent mechanical intervention from the rules is to have no rules, I guess if you go entirely systemless it would force a discursive style of play but it still wouldn't prevent the repetition of lists of actions to reproduce results...

I'll try saying that in a way I can understand when I re-read it.
I think in extremis, rules can influence gameplay, if there simply is not a skill system then of course the players will have to be more descriptive; but it will not prevent the mechanical repetition of those descriptions by players of actions that have been seen to have been successful. They will to all intents and purposes be taking a twenty in a long winded and verbose manner.

I agree that mechanics can be aggrivating and counter-intuative, but I'm not sure they can influence the way you approach a game...
Well if they influence other folk around here I guess they must, I just haven't really experianced as much myself.

I never advocated removing all rules, merely minimizing them.

In terms of social interaction, I don't want or need a set of rules telling me how character gather information or determine if somebody is lying. That can be played out without a single roll of the dice and done so far more effectively and engagingly.

However, if it came to the point where a mechanic is neccessary, AD&D had one. It was called Charisma and the ability check. It took up . . . 1 page of text whereas 3.x's version takes up something on the order of 4 times that, perhaps more.

[Matthew]

I think in extremis, rules can influence gameplay, if there simply is not a skill system then of course the players will have to be more descriptive; but it will not prevent the mechanical repetition of those descriptions by players of actions that have been seen to have been successful.

Perhaps, perhaps not. Certainly, players will likely establish verbally signified procedures for dealing with common hazards, but I view that as more 'fun' than describing what game mechanics you will use. I would rather hear "Talus takes a look down the passage with an eye for traps or secret doors" than "Talus takes twenty on a spot check, that's 31."

They will to all intents and purposes be taking a twenty in a long winded and verbose manner.

Well, no, it's not a play. Hopefully, they will be about as concise as 'I take 20 and search each 5' Square of the room.' If a probability needs to be determined or roll is required it should usually be much quicker than the D20 approach.

I agree that mechanics can be aggrivating and counter-intuative, but I'm not sure they can influence the way you approach a game...
Well if they influence other folk around here I guess they must, I just haven't really experianced as much myself.

It is hard to generalise. All I know is that they did begin to affect my style of play, but I do see that reflected elsewhere.

If a DM lets a player get away with 'I take 20 to search the room', that is a fault of the DM, not of the gaming system.

Only if the DM knows better can it be his fault. The game ought to tell him how to run the game, which it does. He cannot then be faulted for playing the game as presented.

Seriously, folks, in the grand schema of roleplaying systems, AD&D 2e and d20 are more similar than they are different. AD&D 2e is not all that freeform or rules-light, and 3.5 is not all that complex or rules-heavy.

Of course, but they are different enough for someone to prefer one over the other, and they do emphasise different play style methodologies. Seriously, it's not helpful to say AD&D and D20 are more similar to one another than they are to Spirit of the Century, that's a given. Does that make one absolutely better or worse than the other? Of course not, but recognition of their differences between systems and their interpretation helps us to understand why people prefer one over another.

To put it another way, the premise of this discussion is that they are very mechanically similar games, the question is why are they then different and why do they seem to be played differently (or indeed are they really played differently?).

It's kind of like trying to explain why I think the original Star Wars trilogy is better than the second Star Wars trilogy. Sure, they're more similar to one another than they are to Star Trek, but they are different enough for me to not really want to watch the second trilogy (or accept that it exists ).

[Rutee]

Yeah, having a mechanic to cover things that you have no clue about is kind of nice at times I suppose. But here's the thing: in my experience, when there's a mechanic at the end result that comes down to a dice roll or a chart or something, nine out of ten players will skip past it all and jump right to the roll and call it done. They MIGHT pay lip service to "I check under the table, behind the chairs, under the bed . . ." but in my experience, most don't even bother with that.

My experience is frankly the reverse.

At the same time, while I don't know squat about mechanical engineering, I think I'm smart enough to make educated guesses about how a mechanical trap might present itself. Suspicious looking holes or slots. Exposed gears in a random place. A bit of something that looks loose or might slide away. I don't have to have an engineering degree to figure this stuff out, I just need to stop and think about it for a moment and, if all else fails, resort to "I poke it with my 10 foot pole and see what happens."

If it's that easy to find, it's not a very good trap.

The problem with comprehensive integrated mechanics is, as Matthew pointed out, that things almost always end up boiling down to "roll the dice, get better than a 17" rather than having the player (and by extension, the character) interact with the world beyond the dice.

No, that's the problem with comprehensive mechanics when you only play the mechanics.

Another example that always bugged the snot out of me was the little set of skills "Gather Information" "Sense Motive" and "Bluff." All three of those were, IMO, the exclusive realm of character interaction and needed no mechanics. I tried, at one point a while ago, to run D&D 3.x and came to a point where an NPC gave the characters a bit of information. One of the players suspected he was lying (he was) and immediately demanded a sense motive check and asked "do I think he's lying?". My immediate response (after mastering the urge to smack the guy) was to say "I don't know, do you think he's lying?"

I never understood this. Why would you roll only for combat, of all things? Notwithstanding that DnD mechanics devalue interpersonal reaction, do you think that combat is somehow less difficult then dealing with people in an intricate sense?

I see absolutely no reason to have codified rules for character social interaction. That's the "role" part of "roleplay." Yes, you can make the argument that your player might have the 18 charisma while you have, perhaps, a 9, but all that takes is saying so to the DM and asking that he take it into consideration.

To be quite charitable to my fellow players, I'm more concerned about when the player has 12 Cha. and the character has 20 or 30. I deal in larger then life games; There is absolutely no way for the players to have anywhere near the skill of the characters.

[hamlet]

Rutee: I'm not going to do a line by line, those kinds of posts get bothersome.

Your experience with d20 is obviously different than mine. I don't know why that is. Maybe it's because I've only managed to find the worst d20 players around (and, indeed, they tend to be pretty awful in my neck of the woods, to the point of parody actually), or maybe it's just that in my area, all of the "good" players prefer the older or more esoteric systems like AD&D or Arduin. I don't know. But my experience with 3.x and d20 has been (with the exception of Star Wars which does freakishly well under d20) universally bad.

I do think that, as a whole, the d20 system encourages a more mechanically minded game and play style. All the options and choices are lined up for you along with the implications and you choose from among them. In my experience, character actions are more often motivated largely or entirely based on mechanical benefit rather than character development. It feels more and more, to me, like I'm playing a board game with an RP element than I am playing a role playing game. It even pervades character creation where character choices without mechanical benefits/drawbacks are less good than ones that involve some kind of bonus. I will never understand that.

On the other hand, I see AD&D and its ilk, with their dearth of concrete situational rules, as encouraging a more improvisational, situational kind of style and one that is less concerned with the "how" of things getting done and more concerned with the "what." As in my example with the social skills from 3.x, a 2nd edition player would, upon getting the feeling his character was being lied to would not ask the DM for confirmation of it, but might immediately decide his next action (whether that was to confront the NPC, or push for more information, or quietly inform his comrades of his suspicion, or whatever).

Again, this is all in my experience as these are based on actual examples.



As for traps: yes, good traps are often undetectable to the untrained eye, but that's why there's theives' skills. They're there because those guys are trained at detecting the undetectable. On the other hand, simple caution can help to warn adventurers of potential traps that are less than stellar. A ten foot pole run along the ground in front of the lead party member is a great way to find trip wires and pit traps. Using it to jab at a suspicious chest or door is also a great way to avoid bodily harm. Also good for deadfalls, collapsing ceilings, pressure plates, thin ice, tiger traps, and poking mysterious oozes.

I've been a member of an adventuring party that doesn't have a professional thief in it, but we still manage to avoid 90% of traps with simple precautions like these and have even managed to figure out the workings of some well enough to reset them as the situation demanded.


As for vastly different abilities of players and PC's: yes, that can be an issue, but is less so for AD&D for a couple reasons. First, ability scores only went up to 25 in that game. A strength score of 19 was considered super human while a 25 was strong enough to overpower a deity. Second, all one has to do if they are so far below what their character is is to consult the DM and say "you know Lum the Magnificent is very charismatic (CHA score of 35) and I'm, you know . .. not . . . can you help me figure that into the role playing part?"