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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:09:46 GMT -5
I've talked about this extensively. There are two methods of creating a challenge in a RPG: challenging the player and challenging the character. Combat has, since the beginning been mainly about challenging the character whereas, exploration and social interactions were mainly focused on challenging the player. The reason for this is that describing how you search a room or where you go in the dungeon doesn't require mechanics. Neither does talking to NPCs. These things can be effectively represented through player/DM interactions. Player challenge was favored in early D&D which is why you saw so many monsters designed to look like different monsters (gas spore & adherer) or regular dungeon objects (mimic & piercer). OD&D is about challenging the player, challenging the character came along later in other games. Combat in OD&D was about challenging the player, i.e. strategy, tactics and common sense, it changed from that when other play styles came along later on. OD&D was about playing smart and thinking about what you were doing, reflexive attack everything that moves was a post OD&D thing. Starting with the second generation of RPGs, particularly Runequest, you started to see a much higher emphasis on challenging the character instead of the player. Here you start seeing character skills for searching and negotiating. Possibly, this is due to the fact that you now have game written by people who have been playing RPGs much longer and who might enjoy playing an inexperienced character. At this point, "character knowledge" became a bad thing that players were expected to pretend didn't exist. But OD&D is not a second generation RPG, and that dumbing down of the game is not an improvement, it is the opposite. You don't need mechanics to play an inexperienced character. If you want to do that, just make the choice and act on it. You don't have to rewrite and change the focus of the game to do that, it is possible to make deliberately bad decisions if you want the character to blunder around. But pretending that "character knowledge" is a bad thing and pretending that you don't know things, how is that in any way fun? Oddly, player challenge made a return, but now it's in the form of system mastery, where a player's knowledge of class features, rules, and combos is expected to determine success or failure. That's why it might seem like rolling for things that could be decided by gameplay seems like a modern, min-max type of thing. But all of that is not "system mastery", that is a euphemism for min-max munchkin gaming. The idea that a player has to memorize hundreds of pages of rules to have a chance of success is not my idea of fun. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:15:07 GMT -5
Consider two characters, one with below average scores and one with above average scores. The player of the character with below average stats will know that should that character die, he will most likely get a much better character in exchange. Thus he will be rewarded for dying. Likewise, the player of the above average character will be punished more for dying as his new character will likely be worse. Thus, the player with the below average character will be encouraged to act in a risky fashion or, more likely, to simply sacrifice that character to help his fellow adventurers. I don't think I would want to play with someone who thought so illogically as that. There is no reason to think like that, I want to play with people who are going to do their best. If you are going to sacrifice yourself, it would make sense if you were blocking a door to give the rest time to escape. But doing stupid things is not a sacrifice, it is just doing stupid things. |
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 21, 2018 18:18:58 GMT -5
I almost always had more fun with low stats than with high. High stats make part of the game easier, but it feels more rewarding to win as the underdog. Mid-level stats are part of what balances the mechanics of the game, especially in modern play where the DM is constantly making players roll stat checks, I mean, where is the fun of success being the norm? To combat this I started having players do stat checks with 4d6, and you want to talk about some angry people! All over a stat check? I ended up fixing the problem by creating STAT eating monsters; cheap I know but it became a crisis.
I don't get it. BITD we never made stat checks, it just guided us in role-playing, but players where just the same as they are now. If it ain't a 16 the guy is retarded. I personally hated playing super-characters and never understood the need to always have them.
Another modern drama is the feeling of letting your team down when you roll poorly. It is a random number that we have no control over, but people feel horrible for doing it and sometimes lie about it, which defeats the purpose of rolling to begin with. Today there is a huge emphasis on Team play, but what about the personal game? I look over even AD&D rules and I can see it there, but it rarely appears in actual games anymore. I look forward to seeing how the players in my game react to treasure as XP now. THeir previous strategy was always to keep a treasurer. My players have made it an art form to work like a team, probably to the point where they mastered the system. I think that it is nice to change things up.
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Post by hedgehobbit on Jun 21, 2018 18:20:11 GMT -5
Incorrect. Or, correct only if nobody is using tactics. ESPECIALLY not from the beginning.
When I say "Combat", I'm referring to the rules needed to determine if player A hits monster B which is, at least in D&D, is determined almost entirely by what's on the character sheet. Combat requires a mechanical solution do to the inability to actually act it out. This, again, is in contrast to talking to NPC which can be completely resolved through the player and DM actually talking and, thus, doesn't require a mechanical solution. Which, again, is why D&D has rules for combat but doesn't have rules for talking. I consider deciding when and how to attack to be more of the exploration part of the game than the combat. Combat is how you determine whether your plan works. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:21:10 GMT -5
If all characters are basically equal, then there's no incentive to play recklessly, nor is there a fear that a freak die roll might cost them their 1 in a 1,000, high roll character. All players will treat their characters with an appropriate amount of respect, which, from my experience, greatly increases immersion. I have never played with anyone who had to be bribed with high stats to treat their characters with an appropriate amount of respect. Everyone I have ever played with fully immerses in the game regardless of the stats and no one does things to deliberately get killed for no reason other than they don't want to play a character with low stats. ]I'm not disagreeing. Just stating that the idea that greek god stats are required started in old school D&D. Originally OD&D That is simply not true. It came after the 3LBBs. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 21, 2018 18:24:21 GMT -5
40+ years later, here we are, still discussing mechanical methodology. Meanwhile millions of children across the globe are mastering their imaginations in the pursuit of fantasy. D&D then and now: Fantasy Role Playing Game ---- Fantasy Role Playing Game
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Post by hedgehobbit on Jun 21, 2018 18:33:54 GMT -5
But OD&D is not a second generation RPG, and that dumbing down of the game is not an improvement, it is the opposite. Why do you assume that me mentioning another game, which represents a shift in gaming away from the priorities of OD&D, that I'm attacking OD&D? |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:53:40 GMT -5
But OD&D is not a second generation RPG, and that dumbing down of the game is not an improvement, it is the opposite. Why do you assume that me mentioning another game, which represents a shift in gaming away from the priorities of OD&D, that I'm attacking OD&D? Maybe it's the trying to use a skill based non-D&D game to prove that the way characters are generated in OD&D is bad wrong fun and implying that challenging the character with mechanics and lots of dice rolling is in some way superior to challenging the player. Challenging the character boils down to, "Well you've been playing for three years and you still don't know how to do anything except roll the dice and find out if you succeeded on your attempt, instead of the player describing their action and the DM being able to make a ruling without dice being rolled. Sure you roll to hit, but if you described something clever, then you chance of success is better, based on smart play instead of a bonus for inflated stats. One is earning something and the other is being given something. IMO earning things is more fun that being handed something because I have never learned how to play better than I did a year or two years or three years ago. |
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Post by hedgehobbit on Jun 21, 2018 18:56:24 GMT -5
I would like to the the article your refer to as to what he specifically said, but even if Gygax said that, it contradicts OD&D itself or else they would have just put in a method of Chargen in Men & Magic that guaranteed all high stats for all players if that statement is true and that is not what they did. The quote in question is on page 20. However, the discussion about OD&D starts on page 18. www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/europa6-8.pdfThere is an interesting observation by Sandy Easin about a player's knowledge of the rules on page 22 that IMO is one of the most profound things said about RPGs. It's so obvious to me but it seems to be completely rejected by the RPG community at large. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:56:50 GMT -5
40+ years later, here we are, still discussing mechanical methodology. Meanwhile millions of children across the globe are mastering their imaginations in the pursuit of fantasy. D&D then and now: Fantasy Role Playing Game ---- Fantasy Role Playing GameTrue we are and yet not all of us know the best way to counter the proposition that the first ( Fantasy Role Playing Game) is bad wrong fun and the second (Fantasy Role Playing Game) is the only valid way to play. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 18:58:12 GMT -5
I would like to the the article your refer to as to what he specifically said, but even if Gygax said that, it contradicts OD&D itself or else they would have just put in a method of Chargen in Men & Magic that guaranteed all high stats for all players if that statement is true and that is not what they did. The quote in question is on page 20. However, the discussion about OD&D starts on page 18. www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/europa6-8.pdfThere is an interesting observation by Sandy Easin about a player's knowledge of the rules on page 22 that IMO is one of the most profound things said about RPGs. It's so obvious to me but it seems to be completely rejected by the RPG community at large. Thank you for the link, I will read it now. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 21, 2018 19:01:46 GMT -5
The quote in question is on page 20. However, the discussion about OD&D starts on page 18. www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/europa6-8.pdfThere is an interesting observation by Sandy Easin about a player's knowledge of the rules on page 22 that IMO is one of the most profound things said about RPGs. It's so obvious to me but it seems to be completely rejected by the RPG community at large. Thank you for the link, I will read it now. I posted his quote (and Gary's reactions to it) somewhere on these boards about a year ago. It is pretty good, in fact. |
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Post by hedgehobbit on Jun 21, 2018 19:13:15 GMT -5
Maybe it's the trying to use a skill based non-D&D game to prove that the way characters are generated in OD&D is bad wrong fun and implying that challenging the character with mechanics and lots of dice rolling is in some way superior to challenging the player. I'm merely saying that there was a shift in RPGs away from challenging the player to challenging the character. And that this shift occurred very early in the history of RPGs and, thus, this doesn't really represent a "new school" trend. I'm not making a value judgement on the shift, merely stating my observation. I think people get the idea that character challenge rules are new school simply because they worked their way into D&D around 3e. But to be clear, me saying that point-buy (or some sort of similar randomized system) is superior to 3d6-in-order IS a value judgement. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2018 19:17:10 GMT -5
That is a bold statement, but why are they terrible? I'm not saying that characters generated by 3d6-in-order are terrible. Just that randomly generating character that vary widely in ability score is inferior to systems where characters are basically equal. Consider two characters, one with below average scores and one with above average scores. The player of the character with below average stats will know that should that character die, he will most likely get a much better character in exchange. Thus he will be rewarded for dying. Likewise, the player of the above average character will be punished more for dying as his new character will likely be worse. Thus, the player with the below average character will be encouraged to act in a risky fashion or, more likely, to simply sacrifice that character to help his fellow adventurers. For example, I was playing through B1 and we found a room with a skeleton holding an obviously magical shield covered in an obviously bad yellow fungus. A player, whose character rolls were crappy, simply walked in, grabbed the shield and took the save. He ended up failing the save so he got a new, much better character and a +1 shield. If all characters are basically equal, then there's no incentive to play recklessly, nor is there a fear that a freak die roll might cost them their 1 in a 1,000, high roll character. All players will treat their characters with an appropriate amount of respect, which, from my experience, greatly increases immersion. Play with adults.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2018 19:19:14 GMT -5
When I say "Combat", I'm referring to the rules needed to determine if player A hits monster B which is, at least in D&D, is determined almost entirely by what's on the character sheet. Combat requires a mechanical solution do to the inability to actually act it out.
Nonsense and other similar words.
That is "dice rolling". Flanking, positioning, archery, observation -- these are ALL part of combat
Unless everyone involved is a conspiracy of dunces who know nothing of tactics.
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 21, 2018 19:24:15 GMT -5
I would like to the the article your refer to as to what he specifically said, but even if Gygax said that, it contradicts OD&D itself or else they would have just put in a method of Chargen in Men & Magic that guaranteed all high stats for all players if that statement is true and that is not what they did. The quote in question is on page 20. However, the discussion about OD&D starts on page 18. www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/europa6-8.pdfThere is an interesting observation by Sandy Easin about a player's knowledge of the rules on page 22 that IMO is one of the most profound things said about RPGs. It's so obvious to me but it seems to be completely rejected by the RPG community at large. Exalt goes to hedgehobbitTHIS IS BOSS!!!! |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 19:39:09 GMT -5
The quote in question is on page 20. However, the discussion about OD&D starts on page 18. www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/oldzines/europa6-8.pdfThere is an interesting observation by Sandy Easin about a player's knowledge of the rules on page 22 that IMO is one of the most profound things said about RPGs. It's so obvious to me but it seems to be completely rejected by the RPG community at large. Thank you for the link, I will read it now. OK, this article was published in April of 75 and he would have sent it to them at least a month or two before publication. He refers to the soon to be published Greyhawk supplement so he has already moved on from the original game where stats are no big deal and on to Greyhawk where now stats matter mechanically. High stats now have in game bonuses and low stats in game penalties which is a change from the 3LBBs. Then he points out that now that stats matter there is an advantage to taking the non-human characters that have built in advantages balanced by level limits. Would the character as a human advance he says "Possibly", in other words a good player can make it work and average or poor players are much less likely to make it work. He also lays out how to over penalize a player taking a Golden Dragon as a character to severely slow down advancement so as to make the player regret his choice by the regular characters advancing way faster. In other words, deliberately unbalance things. I am not a fan of that attitude by the DM. Sandy's comments are rather obvious things. We all know or should know that it is better if only the DM knows all the rules, the players do not need to know the rules and are better off not knowing them. It is harder to fully immerse in the game if you know everything that goes on behind the curtain. That is also the reason for the advice at the beginning of Men & Magic about making changes and introducing new things to keep the game fresh. Old school Refs/DMs have not rejected this info about player knowledge at all. In fact, it would seem to be reasonable to assume that rejecting it is proof that you are not old school, maybe that is too strong, how about proof that you lack common sense. The only reason for a player to read the rule book is if he wants to become a DM. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 19:46:25 GMT -5
Maybe it's the trying to use a skill based non-D&D game to prove that the way characters are generated in OD&D is bad wrong fun and implying that challenging the character with mechanics and lots of dice rolling is in some way superior to challenging the player. I'm merely saying that there was a shift in RPGs away from challenging the player to challenging the character. And that this shift occurred very early in the history of RPGs and, thus, this doesn't really represent a "new school" trend. I'm not making a value judgement on the shift, merely stating my observation. I think people get the idea that character challenge rules are new school simply because they worked their way into D&D around 3e. But to be clear, me saying that point-buy (or some sort of similar randomized system) is superior to 3d6-in-order IS a value judgement. The shift was concurrent with the introduction of modules and was a departure from old school play and old school sensibilities. You can run Greyhawk and challenge the player and if you have old school players they will not fall into the min/max trap and will still play like they did with just the 3LBBs. One style of play is old school and the other style of play is new school. The way the game plays between these two opposed extremes is very different. |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 19:51:04 GMT -5
I'm not saying that characters generated by 3d6-in-order are terrible. Just that randomly generating character that vary widely in ability score is inferior to systems where characters are basically equal. Consider two characters, one with below average scores and one with above average scores. The player of the character with below average stats will know that should that character die, he will most likely get a much better character in exchange. Thus he will be rewarded for dying. Likewise, the player of the above average character will be punished more for dying as his new character will likely be worse. Thus, the player with the below average character will be encouraged to act in a risky fashion or, more likely, to simply sacrifice that character to help his fellow adventurers. For example, I was playing through B1 and we found a room with a skeleton holding an obviously magical shield covered in an obviously bad yellow fungus. A player, whose character rolls were crappy, simply walked in, grabbed the shield and took the save. He ended up failing the save so he got a new, much better character and a +1 shield. If all characters are basically equal, then there's no incentive to play recklessly, nor is there a fear that a freak die roll might cost them their 1 in a 1,000, high roll character. All players will treat their characters with an appropriate amount of respect, which, from my experience, greatly increases immersion. Play with adults. Have an exalt! When I say "Combat", I'm referring to the rules needed to determine if player A hits monster B which is, at least in D&D, is determined almost entirely by what's on the character sheet. Combat requires a mechanical solution do to the inability to actually act it out. Nonsense and other similar words.
That is "dice rolling". Flanking, positioning, archery, observation -- these are ALL part of combat
Unless everyone involved is a conspiracy of dunces who know nothing of tactics. Have another exalt! |
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Post by Keyone1234 on Jun 21, 2018 19:59:18 GMT -5
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 21, 2018 20:02:59 GMT -5
Insisting on playing with high stats is neither new or old school, nor is it bad fun. I personally feel that it changes the game but we low stat fans are, and never had been, the norm. Can we convert munchkins? I don't know. I think that it depends on the stat and what people want to play. A fighting man with an INT of 5 is okay, but a cleric with a STR of 8 is not. Everybody wants high CONs and high DEX. Why? Because of the rewards that goes with them. Roll a poor CON and you are going to get punished severely by the rules. A DEX of 3? Missle weapons are out. CON of 3? You are doomed. Why this was built into the game is beyond me. If it is such a bad thing to roll a 3 on CON, then why are we allowed to do it? Having CON sucked off of you by a magic baddy seems to be why 3 is there, this does suggest that we should be rerolling 1s at least once.
Is a character with a super low CON even fit to be a dungeon delver? Probably not, but what if you can keep this guy going through play? What does that say about your skill as a player? You are going to have to learn how to limit the dice rolls, you are going to have to play smart. This is not for novice players; in fact, it is kind of showing off. That is why we low staters do what we do. Yes, we eventually run out of luck. We crash and burn. We laugh about it while rolling up a new character. That is a difference too: The high staters might be getting more attached to their characters than we are. That is a thing too.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2018 20:13:10 GMT -5
IMHO stats are largely superfluous in TLBB-OD&D. One of the "old guard" (mentzer IIRC) stated he often gives Convention game players all 18's or all 12's for stats to highlight exactly that. Any rolled PC in OD&D can be a viable character. Again ... my opinion but that opinion is based upon 40 years of play.
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 21, 2018 20:36:34 GMT -5
Yes. The pertinent quote by Gary about such things, which if applied to this particular sub-thread would make it, on the main, moot. In the meantime Fantasy slinks forward from the background where it had been exiled to...  |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2018 20:52:01 GMT -5
Yes. The pertinent quote by Gary about such things, which if applied to this particular sub-thread would make it, on the main, moot. In the meantime Fantasy slinks forward from the background where it had been exiled to... Agreed! Rather than arguing about playing ... play more! |
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 21, 2018 21:20:37 GMT -5
I will never forget being pulled to the side for playing in this manner (smart and describing what I do) by a DM who told me that I was hogging the spot-light. He said that I took too long to figure things out and I was slowing everybody else down. It was an eye opener. As a player, my play-style is not excepted at all tables; especially the hurry up and dice games.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2018 21:22:14 GMT -5
Wow, that's unfortunate. I hope you found another table/group after that little pep talk. |
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Post by dilvish on Jun 21, 2018 21:38:04 GMT -5
I will never forget being pulled to the side for playing in this manner (smart and describing what I do) by a DM who told me that I was hogging the spot-light. He said that I took too long to figure things out and I was slowing everybody else down. It was an eye opener. As a player, my play-style is not excepted at all tables; especially the hurry up and dice games. Isn't tolerance a beautiful thing? The one way street of new school gaming. We are expected to tolerate them, but they kick us out of their games. |
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Post by ripx187 on Jun 21, 2018 22:29:08 GMT -5
Wow, that's unfortunate. I hope you found another table/group after that little pep talk. Yeah, I DM games that I'd like to play and have no problems finding and keeping players. I've stolen players from him who never went back. I also introduced the game to younger people and they hate that style of gaming as well. I don't know where that attitude comes from. |
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Post by robkuntz on Jun 21, 2018 22:31:29 GMT -5
Wow, that's unfortunate. I hope you found another table/group after that little pep talk. I don't know where that attitude comes from. It comes from the BORG. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Jun 22, 2018 7:19:51 GMT -5
I honestly think hedgehobbit is stating observations and not advocating one way or the other and that we need to not let this stray into insults by assuming things about his intent. Please and thank you.
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