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Post by ripx187 on Aug 16, 2018 19:20:46 GMT -5
The BTB crowd are mastering a system. Before one can tinker, they must understand the rules and how they function. They are not at fault, they are victims of a specific market. This is a very complicated game which takes time to learn, and it doesn't help when you are exposed to rule systems which micromanage the user. Honesty, I don't think that I could run anything beyond 2e. Not by the book, anyway. The game evolved into a commercial market while I was learning. I believed the professionals at TSR and WotC. It isn't that they want to get rid of really good DM's. I think that all of those rules and micromanagement is meant to improve play, allow somebody who doesn't know what they are doing to run a decent game. I know that when I first started DMing I skipped the basics and ran right in there screaming. I had played for years, I was blessed in that department! I had played all of the classes, getting a feel for them and even mastering some! I got to watch how other Dungeon Masters ran their games and became a very competent player! I had acquired a deep understanding of the player's handbook, I wrote notes in it. I had two Handbooks to choose from, I prefer the older one. I corrected what needed to be corrected in my PHB. I grew up on a diet of rules! And we kept adding more! As far as DMing goes, I had help up to the point where I surpassed them. Most of the DM's that taught me the game were now sitting in front of me as players. They themselves preferred playing, while I enjoyed administering the game. I don't know if you know this or not, but the 2nd Edition AD&D DMG is not a very helpful product. I mean it is! The advice and odd rules are there, but more than half of it is filled up with Magic Items that are never going to see any use what-so-ever! I didn't run it by the book, even back then. We didn't really play campaigns, we started characters at mid-level and played with them for a few weeks then made new ones. I'd write stories and get frustrated and make all of the mistakes that DM's are supposed to make. I even got so frustrated that I quit entirely! When I returned, I had a new attitude, and I was BTB DMing and it was working! Those games were better than the ones that we had been playing. I found the 1e DMG and it changed everything. We had a great time! But there was one more mistake that I really had to make before improving as a DM, and that was over preparing. I was moving at an incredible pace and eventually burned myself out and had to quit again and rethink my approach. I had access to much better and like-minded folks than me. I enjoyed the creative side of things, but within the context of specific rules. I gained the ability to see what they were, and how they worked. The formulas were right there, they just needed to be understood so that I could run monsters without a book, create my own content which enhanced the system. I was looking deeper than ever into the system until I could actually start to see that there was some meddling going on. The designers were being less than honest with users, and there was a blueprint hidden in there which interfered with the system for no real reason other than to sell more products. I also identified the older game which was hidden inside of these rules and was trying to tease it out. That was when I met Rob Kuntz, and The Perilous Dreamer and all of these other guys who were doing incredible things with a system that I had been told was unusable. I never intended to change my btb style, it just kind of happened. Because I had mastered the 2e rules, OD&D made perfect sense to me. I was in the process of removing the bulk of spells which by 2e had already become over bloated, I have no doubts that it is even worse now! Point being, one has to understand the rules before one can break them. I'm not a genius! If you were to hand me those little OD&D pamphlets 10 20 years ago and expect me to make a game happen, I wouldn't have been able to. How these guys got it done with just those products is worthy of the deepest respect. Now, how far could I have gotten on my own if the books had just done their job, instead of selling me more books? Would D&D even be around today if they had not created a solid marketing plan which allowed them to do it? I doubt it. Back in the day, I needed stuff spelt out for me. Playing the story-driven games taught me timing and pacing. Playing a horrible module has its own lessons. Each trip and each failure taught me more than the books did. Eventually, the BTB guys will break that code too. It is a shame that that step is there now, but it is. Let me clarify, I have zero problem with by-the-book play especially if you are new to a game as it does behoove you to know how the system works before you tinker with it. That said, my criticism is aimed at people who infer that BtB play is the way that OD&D or some other RPG should always be played and if you are house ruling something you are trying to fix a perceived flaw that isn't there - in their not so humble opinion. Or the people who insist that unless a clone isn't as close to humanly & legally possible to the original RPG it should not be considered a proper version of the game. My criticism is the elitist my way or the highway attitude among some grognards connected to the OSR and Old School RPG community in general. See, I don't consider those guys to be competent. A Dungeon Master should be grounded in the basics, but have the ability to shore up play quickly and seamlessly so that it doesn't interrupt the game nor become the game. No rule set is complete, thank god! What do you do when a player does something that is not covered by the rules? Do you allow it? Do you stop the game and look it up? Do you say, "No" because you don't know how? A competent Game Master knows that the players should be interacting with the setting, not the rules. I do call myself a Dungeon Master, and I think that it is telling that Gygax suggested it. If we don't master the rules, then we are enslaved by them. |
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Post by Q Man on Aug 16, 2018 23:23:37 GMT -5
I've always thought that an all Ranger campaign waging guerrilla warfare against the incursion of monsters would be a lot of fun. I'd like to see a good Ranger writeup. What do you think would make a good ranger Q Man ? I would say whatever Colinouchou writes up would be good for me considering what he has done so far. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 17, 2018 17:44:42 GMT -5
Fooled you, didn't I? It was not so much vast experience, it was more like "making every mistake imaginable." That's why I like TnT's method of awarding more Adventure Points for FAILING something. Up to a point. If you try to accomplish something by doing the same thing over and over, you're an idiot. Or a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
If you have experience? You make fewer mistakes. But, the only way to get experience is to make mistakes.
I don't want to. You do it. I'll even toss in an Exaltation as a bribe. |
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Post by Bartholmew Quarrels on Aug 23, 2018 17:06:20 GMT -5
I dislike the assassin most of all, followed by druids. Assassins are evil by nature and druids IMC are amoral by nature (basically sociopaths). The only Druid known in my Ruins of Dorgand is as you describe.  What else could they be?  |
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Post by Bartholmew Quarrels on Aug 23, 2018 17:07:50 GMT -5
I dislike the assassin most of all, followed by druids. Assassins are evil by nature and druids IMC are amoral by nature (basically sociopaths). You have good taste I guess Starkist doesn't want me then.  |
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Post by mao on Aug 23, 2018 17:55:35 GMT -5
I guess Starkist doesn't want me then. You are dating yourself w this joke (oh and lol) |
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Post by Bartholmew Quarrels on Aug 23, 2018 18:30:18 GMT -5
I guess Starkist doesn't want me then. You are dating yourself w this joke (oh and lol) I'm one of the oldest people on this forum, so I am not denying it. |
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Post by mao on Aug 24, 2018 4:58:04 GMT -5
You are dating yourself w this joke (oh and lol) I'm one of the oldest people on this forum, so I am not denying it. Yea, and I am middle to low end at 58 |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 24, 2018 8:33:58 GMT -5
I'm one of the oldest people on this forum, so I am not denying it. Yea, and I am middle to low end at 58 Sorry mao, but you are older than dirt too, young dirt, but still old. |
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Post by mao on Aug 24, 2018 8:41:27 GMT -5
Yea, and I am middle to low end at 58 Sorry mao , but you are older than dirt too, young dirt, but still old. You know new dirt has more poop n it.......... |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 24, 2018 8:47:34 GMT -5
Sorry mao , but you are older than dirt too, young dirt, but still old. You know new dirt has more poop n it.......... Yeah, I do know that, seems appropriate to me. |
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Post by mao on Aug 24, 2018 9:02:37 GMT -5
You know new dirt has more poop n it.......... Yeah, I do know that, seems appropriate to me. Lol |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 24, 2018 12:13:42 GMT -5
I guess Starkist doesn't want me then. Sorry, Charlie. |
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Post by secretsofblackmoor on Aug 24, 2018 14:46:46 GMT -5
Personal musings on how I do things... I adhere to the idea that "A player can try anything, but not always successfully", I play a very simple game. Since meeting players who don't even allow Thieves into their games, I am pondering that as well. My main complaint is that it's all related to inflation and labeling. I run lethal games and you are wasting your time creating character back story. I feel that back story is earned through play, thus character classes are a good generalization about someones training, but the specializations of the other classes are something that can be developed individually over time. It seems to me that based on the idea of sub-classes these classes are merely expanding things and inflating things. Fighter - paladin - ranger -etc M.U.- illusionist - whatever... Cleric - Whatever goes here after that Thief -  Most classes seem to get more Whompum. So the Assassin is really more of a specialized hybrid thief/fighter. The Paladin is like a cleric/fighter to me, but also a leader class. But what these classes do is give out a lot of bonus ability that seems to exceed everyone else's ability. And at the same time, classes such as the monk, do not fit my type of Fantasy. It always seems weird to have these asian martial arts dudes wandering around and fighting giant critters. The idea of a monk punching a dragon and killing it at one blow... Whatever. FYI I double, and even triple my dragon stats because I like dragons to be really mean old dudes that players keep away from. I think it is worth considering that in a pure Class based system, you cannot min-max. Once you start adding lots of fiddly stuff into a set of rules, or more specifically conditional rules, you end up with a situation where players are essentially trying to game the system. I am a fairly early player C.1976. And even when AD&D came out, things changed. My players were no longer just enjoying the ride, they wanted more of everything. And I could no longer play my game in the style I was accustomed to. People began to rules lawyer my world. I bought all the first release AD&D books, I ran maybe 2 adventures and decided that the D&D system was such a poorly designed piece of garbage that I quit playing D&D after that; must have been in 1979. We played a lot of home ruled E.P.T. instead and used melee wizard as the combat system. Since then I've realized that the core component being RPG, the only system that truly works within a make believe framework is OD&D. Now I just don't ask questions about the rules and just play and have fun. The rules that were never clarified for me, I make my own rulings on. As an example, thief backstab. Well, I think the thief has to sneak up and do a back stab. None of this, I run around behind it and back stab it. Personally I don't have time to worry about these things anymore. So my classes are limited because I use: LBB's, Greyhawk, 1st ed. MM. and Judges shield. The result is that we have FTR's, M.U.'s, CLR's, THV's, Paladin's. I could go on and on, but my live levels are being drained by the evil Internet wights. i must move on. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 24, 2018 15:57:14 GMT -5
"Evil" and "internet" are redundant if you have Comcast, otherwise you're more wight than wrong.
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Post by Hexenritter Verlag on Aug 24, 2018 17:17:16 GMT -5
Personal musings on how I do things... I adhere to the idea that "A player can try anything, but not always successfully", I play a very simple game. Since meeting players who don't even allow Thieves into their games, I am pondering that as well. My main complaint is that it's all related to inflation and labeling. I run lethal games and you are wasting your time creating character back story. I feel that back story is earned through play, thus character classes are a good generalization about someones training, but the specializations of the other classes are something that can be developed individually over time. It seems to me that based on the idea of sub-classes these classes are merely expanding things and inflating things. Fighter - paladin - ranger -etc M.U.- illusionist - whatever... Cleric - Whatever goes here after that Thief - Most classes seem to get more Whompum. So the Assassin is really more of a specialized hybrid thief/fighter. The Paladin is like a cleric/fighter to me, but also a leader class. But what these classes do is give out a lot of bonus ability that seems to exceed everyone else's ability. And at the same time, classes such as the monk, do not fit my type of Fantasy. It always seems weird to have these asian martial arts dudes wandering around and fighting giant critters. The idea of a monk punching a dragon and killing it at one blow... Whatever. FYI I double, and even triple my dragon stats because I like dragons to be really mean old dudes that players keep away from. I think it is worth considering that in a pure Class based system, you cannot min-max. Once you start adding lots of fiddly stuff into a set of rules, or more specifically conditional rules, you end up with a situation where players are essentially trying to game the system. I am a fairly early player C.1976. And even when AD&D came out, things changed. My players were no longer just enjoying the ride, they wanted more of everything. And I could no longer play my game in the style I was accustomed to. People began to rules lawyer my world. I bought all the first release AD&D books, I ran maybe 2 adventures and decided that the D&D system was such a poorly designed piece of garbage that I quit playing D&D after that; must have been in 1979. We played a lot of home ruled E.P.T. instead and used melee wizard as the combat system. Since then I've realized that the core component being RPG, the only system that truly works within a make believe framework is OD&D. Now I just don't ask questions about the rules and just play and have fun. The rules that were never clarified for me, I make my own rulings on. As an example, thief backstab. Well, I think the thief has to sneak up and do a back stab. None of this, I run around behind it and back stab it. Personally I don't have time to worry about these things anymore. So my classes are limited because I use: LBB's, Greyhawk, 1st ed. MM. and Judges shield. The result is that we have FTR's, M.U.'s, CLR's, THV's, Paladin's. I could go on and on, but my live levels are being drained by the evil Internet wights. i must move on. I really enjoyed the post & even though I came into RPGs in the mid 80s I found myself coming back to OD&D for many of the listed reasons. Have an exalt! |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 24, 2018 18:49:29 GMT -5
Many of us here never left OD&D for other games and some of us use very little that is not the 3LBBs. Many of us use mainly just three classes. IMO a lot of what makes up a Paladin not counting the extra powers is the standard I expect from a cleric. You mentioned dragons, here is what our founder wrote about dragons, please note he provided for Dragon PCs for a player that wanted one and he also provided for the ancient force of nature type as the dragon ages. Dragons -compiled from other posts of mine plus new material (this is the original admin, not me) |
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Post by mao on Aug 28, 2018 10:32:11 GMT -5
The only Druid known in my Ruins of Dorgand is as you describe. What else could they be? Ah, I like to bask in druid hate, my all time big hated class. |
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Post by Harry Wolf on Aug 28, 2018 23:10:57 GMT -5
"Evil" and "internet" are redundant if you have Comcast, otherwise you're more wight than wrong. But two wrongs still don't make a wight. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Aug 29, 2018 0:07:11 GMT -5
But two Wongs do.  |
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Post by El Borak on Aug 30, 2018 14:06:33 GMT -5
But two Wongs do. Groan, you had to go there. |
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Post by mormonyoyoman on Sept 14, 2018 14:33:23 GMT -5
Sadly, I found no Ditko interpretation of Wong. Not even a Wight.
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Post by El Borak on Sept 14, 2018 17:04:25 GMT -5
Sadly, I found no Ditko interpretation of Wong. Not even a Wight. I was wondering if you were getting better, sorry to find out you are not, so we will keep hoping for your recovery. Hope your funny bone is better soon. |
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Post by hengest on Mar 25, 2021 0:27:06 GMT -5
The BTB crowd are mastering a system. Before one can tinker, they must understand the rules and how they function. They are not at fault, they are victims of a specific market. This is a very complicated game which takes time to learn, and it doesn't help when you are exposed to rule systems which micromanage the user. Honesty, I don't think that I could run anything beyond 2e. Not by the book, anyway. The game evolved into a commercial market while I was learning. I believed the professionals at TSR and WotC. It isn't that they want to get rid of really good DM's. I think that all of those rules and micromanagement is meant to improve play, allow somebody who doesn't know what they are doing to run a decent game. [...] Great post, have an exalt. Interesting and insightful look into one's own history as it intersects with the publishing history of the game. Most impressive. |
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 25, 2021 23:13:12 GMT -5
The BTB crowd are mastering a system. Before one can tinker, they must understand the rules and how they function. They are not at fault, they are victims of a specific market. This is a very complicated game which takes time to learn, and it doesn't help when you are exposed to rule systems which micromanage the user. Honesty, I don't think that I could run anything beyond 2e. Not by the book, anyway. The game evolved into a commercial market while I was learning. I believed the professionals at TSR and WotC. It isn't that they want to get rid of really good DM's. I think that all of those rules and micromanagement is meant to improve play, allow somebody who doesn't know what they are doing to run a decent game. [...] Great post, have an exalt. Interesting and insightful look into one's own history as it intersects with the publishing history of the game. Most impressive. It has been quite a while since I read this thread and it took a bit of a different path from where the OP started and where it was when I posted the first time in the thread. I suppose it should have been split into two threads in hindsight. Speaking of OD&D and not of later editions, I started house ruling from the get go. I read through the rules twice in a three day period (first and second read) and the ran my first game. (after I had been playing for a short time) I tweak every game I play and have from my earliest childhood memory, regardless of what the game is. if you play at my table there is always at least one house rule. I only play BtB when I am at someone else's table and have no choice in the matter. When I read any rule set for anything, if anything does not fit what I want to run, then I change it. |
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Post by hengest on Mar 26, 2021 21:15:45 GMT -5
True Black Raven , finally I respond to your OP. To my taste, these two above are the classes. The classes from which everything else is derived. I'm sure that I've read about how this was the case in the very early days, and that the cleric was added as a healing-bot. Not that I can remember the source now, but someone here will know. To me, these are the purest and most beautiful classes. They represent the poles of what we (players) really can do (fight, hit things) and can't do (use fantasy magic). A fighter and a magic-user together are everything you "need" for a potentially immersive and fun fantasy game. Or everything you need in terms of class. You have (potentially have, at least) the lowliest of soldiers (starting fighter) and the wizard in the tower influencing the battle (higher-level magic-user). That's not to say I hate other classes. But, as far as BtB / my experience with them goes, I'd rank them this way, from "most appealing" to "least appealing." Please note, this is not an attack on any class or a statement that people don't have great fun with them, even fun that I would enjoy. Just my impressions mixed with notions. These classes above feel like interesting, potentially engaging, fun classes. But they also feel like somebody's house rules that escaped and became canon. They feel like "frozen imagination" to me. Cleric is kind of in its own class, because it's so old, but honestly, the distinction between divine and arcane magic has always felt artificial. For various reasons, I just have no use for these classes. They don't grab me, they seem kind of to muddy the purity of the base classes. Illusionist? As The Perilous Dreamer said, I'd rather just see an unusual MU. Druid, honestly, I think should be an NPC class only. What a druid has to do with counting torches in a tomb, I just can't see it. Not that we have to be so literal in understanding these classes, but...I just don't see it. Monk...it's been said before. I think Monk also should be completely reimagined as an NPC class. Assassin, I agree, it seems should be a one-off NPC , but a necessarily evil class -- I don't like the sound of that at all. None of which is to say that these classes shouldn't exist, or shouldn't be published, or shouldn't be played. But when I look at the "base game" that seems delightful to me -- or the idea of the "base game" that looks delightful and promising to me -- these classes aren't there. I guess what these remarks -- purely my own impressions, often based on very limited experience -- show is that I'm uncomfortable with the proliferation of "official" classes. And of course the proliferation of "official" rules. There's no problem with bizarre and detailed rules -- when I first encountered Powers and Perils recently, I was pretty excited. I guess because it's a tiny niche game, not in print, supported by a small core of enthusiasts. So it seems like a homebrew system. I guess even all the TSR stuff that I don't much care for is also a homebrew system, but...brewed by many people and then sold. Overall it's not the proliferations of classes, rules, dice, rolls, anything that I don't like. I guess it's this kind of crystallization of rules, this notion (not widely held on this board) that there is a BtB, that players should interact with the system, that you should know how you're going to play when you sit down as a new player at someone's house. On the other hand...I don't mean to knock these things in a dogmatic way. I mean that I don't love the idea of them for play. I think sitting down at a table (or a forum) to play a kind of imagination game, is pretty awesome, regardless of whether you're playing some kind of awesome Dave Arneson proto-D&D, Powers and Perils, OD&D with half the pages missing, a White Wolf game circa 1997, or 3.5 BtB. I don't think I've said anything here so new, but there, I said it. Bard* - special note. I have never played a bard or been in a game where someone did. I have no understanding of this class even when I read the description, so I try not to have an opinion. Again, seems like an NPC to me, but hey, why not play it. Maybe we should have a campaign where all the players play NPC classes and the ref runs all the PC classes.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Mar 26, 2021 21:42:51 GMT -5
I think the blue is more than just a typo, it fills like a complete thought is missing. Thee, I assume, should be though?
You said
That is a later aberrant view of playing a cleric. Clerics were not intended to be healing-bots, they were a counter to undead, specifically the vampire (IIRC as a PC) in Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.
You said
The Bard was introduced in The Strategic Review Vol. 2, No. 1 in Feb 76 and the other referee in our group started playing one immediately and played it to the hilt. The original Bards are a lot of fun, very over powered and a minmaxers dream. They make the ref step up his game in the hands of a skilled player. These days it seems like everyone makes the Bard about sex, but we never went there. I will address the Bard more when I do the review of that issue of The Strategic Review.
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Post by Morton on Apr 24, 2021 16:24:52 GMT -5
Of all the OD&D classes that were introduced in the various sources, which ones do you like, which ones do you dislike and why? What do you see as the pros and cons of having or not having them in your campaign? Fighting-Men
Magic-Users
ClericsThief Paladin Ranger Assassin Ranger Druid Monk Bard Illusionist I use the ones in bold, I don't use any others. The Thief, that is just every adventurer irregardless of alignment, it is just spelled wrong. Paladins, that is just a cleric played properly. Most people being evil play clerics as neutral or even chaotic. In my game Clerics are played as Lawful Holy Warriors or they are Chaotic Evil wanting to work up to High Priest, if not killed promptly by other players. Ranger, that is just a well-played Fighting Man. Assassins? Really?! Get out of here evil person and don't come back. Druids are Magic-Users focused on nature spells (hippie tree huggers). Monks, those are celibate Clerics played angry and frustrated. Bards, drunken Fighting Men who "think" they can sing and who "think" they can do magic. Illusionists, are just drunken, prankster Magic-Users. |
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Post by True Black Raven on May 29, 2021 0:44:01 GMT -5
I too think that these and the Bard are better as NPCs rather than PCs |
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Post by True Black Raven on May 29, 2021 0:47:53 GMT -5
The Thief, that is just every adventurer irregardless of alignment, it is just spelled wrong. Paladins, that is just a cleric played properly. Most people being evil play clerics as neutral or even chaotic. In my game Clerics are played as Lawful Holy Warriors or they are Chaotic Evil wanting to work up to High Priest, if not killed promptly by other players. Ranger, that is just a well-played Fighting Man. Assassins? Really?! Get out of here evil person and don't come back. Druids are Magic-Users focused on nature spells (hippie tree huggers). Monks, those are celibate Clerics played angry and frustrated. Bards, drunken Fighting Men who "think" they can sing and who "think" they can do magic. Illusionists, are just drunken, prankster Magic-Users.  Morton, that is a hoot. The last few are really funny and the Paladin and Ranger are on point. |
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What else could they be? 
