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Jul 21, 2012 -- 6:38PM, Homo_erectus wrote:

Jul 21, 2012 -- 6:05PM, Kung_Fu_Ferret wrote:

With all due respect to what Gygax and Arneson, thank god the game has evolved beyond its initial designs.  D&D has always assumed the party was realtively competent at thier endeavors, not so much that there was littel or no risk or chance of failure, but the early math didn't always support that.  You are right though, the game is about having fun, and its not fun failing at most everythign I attempt becasue the little bits of plastic with numbers on them say I suck.  I really want to know what kind of games rely on the PC's inneptitude to drive conflict , create challenges and present opourtunities for roleplaying.  Constantly putting the PCs up against obstacles they are not capable of overcoming just brings the game to a grinding halt.  The answer here will almost certainly be  "but roleplaying", yet roleplaying isn't talking your way around every obstacle, ability scores be damned.

First off, to clarify a typo, I've *never* played under the 3d6 system, though I have played under other rolling systems that were weaker than the 4d6 system. In my last long-running campaign I had a Samurai with my highest score (Strength) at 14, and had one score under 9. That was typical in the party, and we had no problems.

Clearly you and I seem to have a diference in opinion of what constitutes "relatively competent". Having scores that are only modestly above average does not seem to me to constitute "PC ineptitude". Besides, how is putting PCs against obstacles they cannot overcome because of the level of thier ability scores any different than giving them challenges above their level? Both are faults of the DM.

To me, roleplaying means that you put more of an emphasis on the stories you tell, rather than the monsters you kill, or the skill rolls you make. Not that those things have no importance in D&D, but I think it's good to have perspective - not having an 18 or 17 does not make a character unplayable.

Than what you're basically sayin is that PC's ability scores don't matter becasue a good DM will scale challenges accordingly. In that light reveling in having low ability scores is just as pointless as reveling in particularly high abilties.  What I disdain is the holier than thou attitude a lot of gamers present when disscussing how much better roleplayers they are for having low ability score.

Jul 8, 2012 -- 4:49AM, Verdegris_Sage wrote:

Strike the Next out of the title of the Thread and you will own the truth of it.
D&D is, was, and likely always will be a game of racial advancement and demonization.
In fact, D&D has almost universally maintained that your race determines whether you are good or evil. 
Genocide is heroic, so long as it is against these foul beasts which are evil, made by evil gods to do evil things.

Why?
Because it makes for easy iconography.
It's a game. It is far from realistic. It strives towards the absurd half the time (I'm looking at you Bat Guano napalm). 
Need evil for your good guys to crush? Cause not everyone role plays to have deep philosophical considerations about the morality of racial motivated slaying, we have pre-packaged evil.  Those who enjoy moralising largely jumped to games that actually focus on that when they became available. 
D&D doesn't need Gang-bangers, Nazis, or Commies. They have Orcs, Goblins, and Drow.
That's right, you can tell if an Elf is evil by the colour of their skin (unless they are a male with twin scimitars, but even he hates his own people).
This is all convienently colour coded for your smiting ease.  
If D&D tried to portray all races as developed and free willed, it would reduce many Adventuring parties to little more than Murder-Hobos. Homeless drifters, wandering through communities, killing indiscrimently for the hope of getting enough pocket change off corpses to fund their next alcohol and hired company binge. When all the victims in one area are gone, they move on to the next. 
Or better yet, they are the private military contractors hired to ruthlessly slaughter the minorities who are upset that large corporate entities are muscling in on their less advanced society. 

Who really wants to play a game like that?

No, we want to feel good and justified about our characters killing sprees. We don't want to agonize over whether that orc-spawn could have been innocent. We want our slaying and then we want our pay out, and we want to feel good about it. 

D&D Next, as I understand stated goals, is really, D&D Come Back people who jumped ship when WotC took over, or 4E came out.  The emphasis on nostalgia and harkening back to "what is Iconic D&D" is not looking to grab new players. It's putting the family back together. That family was built on (justified in setting) racism.

OK, I think that is one of the funniest titles ever given to adventurers: "murder-hobos". You win MY approval, good being.

What is the point about discussing averages while PCs by definition are not average? As a player I have no problems if the designers actually create a race with very big morphological and intellectual differnces between the sexes (they are reasonably common in RL*), or in fact, design races that are a bit more than a simple variation on humans. I find the idea of codifying such differences for humans a bit odd since ultimately the difference between an average human and an average PC is like night and day and avoiding a rather sensitive discussion by ignoring it a good choice.

* Although we have no comperative material, so we don't know how important things like living in small social groups with parent-child care and more or less similar sexes are to developing intelligence Than again, there is no argument about the existence of gods and magic in most fantasy settings if you don't want to, so whether or not evolution (or whether or not evolution exists in the first place) would allow intelligent ants is moot