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9 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2012 - 10:46PM
#121
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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And we'd best ignore the fact that both puncuated equilibrium and gradualism were extremes of a continuum which can best be expressed as "the rate of evolution varies depending upon the conditions the population is experiencing at the time."
Carl
hehe it's not a perfect explanation but I see the Internet's impact on human society to be extremely disruptive, and I was only young in the 80's. The whole computer revolution transformed our behaviour so radically that I think we could see the past 20 years as a condition that would speed up the rate of change relative to the 20 years before that. Gaming is an interesting subject here because it is seen in many ways to be an anachronism and as a medium it changes quite a lot slower than many other mediums of expression and entertainment out there. It provides contrast.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 25, 2012 - 10:53PM
#122
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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Let's me explain this clearly.
If you play a campaign that is played by thousands of players like the Living Greyhawk. If you try to change something illegally, then you doing it wrong.
If you playing a homebrew campaign, but you have a house rule that ruining your players fun then you are doing it wrong.
It's important to make that distinction, I think. Attempts to create huge campaign worlds like Living Greyhawk are always interesting to see but I feel that on the whole it's created a bad atmosphere for people who want to put their own stamp on the game. It's strengthened the sanctity of the rules and makes it so people aren't invited to modify them like they did before.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 12:00AM
#123
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2008
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I only got as far as page 5 so this might have been covered already, and I wonder what people's experiences are if it has not been addressed already. In particular, new DMs...
Telling people that they are playing the game wrong is very different to feeling like you are playing it wrong yourself. IMO, there are a lot of reasons why one might feel like they are playing it incorrectly.
I started playing in 3.5 and started DMing when 4 came out. As a new DM I felt that I was playing it wrong a lot of the time when I wasn't proficient with the rules and making mistakes. I didn't have the confidence to assert a ruling when I did a particular action and a rules-lawyery player would point out that something I did was counter to what was written in the rules (this is Karma I guess because I used to do this a lot as a player, often to squeeze every bit of advantage I could for my party, not something I am proud of in hindsight).
Anyway, the game would grind to a halt as rules would be consulted. The issue that I had is that because 4e was far more tactical than 3.5, I felt obliged to follow the rules to the letter lest I upset the carefully balanced system.
That, I think, is playing the game wrong. Where the fun suffers because the letter of the law MUST be consulted. But that's not really the rules fault, it's more my lack of confidence as the DM to ditch the rules as a crutch.
As I gained more confidence and became more familiar with the rules, the situations where this would happen became much less frequent. However, as a DM running 4e, I am still disinclined to say Yes when someone wants to use a combat power for a something other than what I see as it's intent. E.g. a player asks "Can I use angelic alacrity to shift after my attack instead of before?" with the clear intention of using it to facilitate retreat. "No - that's not what the power says." But that by doing so I feel I am playing the game wrong by not saying "Yes" to everything, as I feel like I am directed to do by the DM guide. On the flip side, saying yes may go against the intention of the designers in creating that power, which again feels like playing it wrong.
For these reasons, I think that a clearly codified, letter-of-the-law, possible-to-play-at-community-events "right" version of the game is important. It gives support to new DMs who might not be all that steady in their confidence in bending the rules. At the same time, it needs to be flexible enough to be open to creative interpretation that's not going to stiffle ingenuity. Again, on the flip side, it needs to be clear enough to prevent abuse.
When I knowingly go against the intentions of the designers, I feel like I am playing it wrong. If I see a hole that needs patching, I will patch it with a house rule but I still worry about messing the system up inadvertently and playing it wrong. So yes, I think there is a way to play it "wrong" but it's not up to others to tell me what I am doing is wrong.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 1:03AM
#124
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Date Joined:
Jun 21, 2012
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@Tallius I like the cut if your jib. Just curious though, isn't part of the fun knowingly going against the intentions of the designers to see how you can make it work? It makes for a volitile session sometimes but when it works it's really interesting to see and players sometimes enjoy messing around with a new set of variables. I like that you've made a distinction about whether something feels wrong to the DM, 'cause I think going against your gut is probably wrong too. I don't think the DM is under any obligation whatever to keep to the rules though, and as you said trying to do it exactly to the letter can lead to tedium ruling the day. Oh, I guess you could be playing it wrong by insisting that the DM follow every printed rule to the letter 'cause the buck's gotta stop with the DM. D&D can't be a democracy when it's in session; that's what forums like this are for.
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 1:29AM
#125
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Date Joined:
Sep 26, 2001
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That's what Mr. Mearl's 'crystal clear' guideline is about: telling you the one right way to play that he's desiging the game to balance at, that D&D would be perfectly balanced were it not for all those damned players /doing it wrong/...
Thats one thing that we can agree on.
But it is starkly at odds with 5e as some kind of all-inclusive panacea edition.
No, Mike has said that if you only like one version of DnD then you should play that. So if you hated 0DnD, BECMI, ADnD, 2e and 3e but loved 4e then you should just play 4e because, as we have seen, DnD Next certainly has influence from all the different editions.
However if you loved DnD in general then DnD Next could be the all-inclusive panacea edition that they are advertising.
That doesn't even make sense. Seriously, it's outright self-contradictory. The worst part is, I'm not even sure you're 'putting words in his mouth' - he really might be trying to say that: D&D NeXT is for everybody! (Just not anybody who already prefers 4e or 3e or 2e or 1e?)
Nod. Its like the people who say that they never liked DnD until 4e - it just does not make sense.
What wouldn't make sense about that? There's a whole group I used to play storyteller with, and they despised D&D as the poster-child for the 'Roll' side of the role-not-roll thing - until 4e came out. Heck, if anything that sort of anecdote dovetails nicely with the "h4ter" claim that 4e "isn't D&D." 4e changed the game for a lot - mostly for the better, IMHO - and some people who didn't like it before those changes liked it after. Hardly strange or self-contradictory.
Love 4e? Concerned about its future? Join the Old Guard of 4e"You want The Tooth? You can't handle The Tooth!" - Dahlver-Nar. "If magic is unrestrained in the campaign, D&D quickly degenerates into a weird wizard show where players get bored quickly" - E. Gary Gygax
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 3:37AM
#126
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That's what Mr. Mearl's 'crystal clear' guideline is about: telling you the one right way to play that he's desiging the game to balance at, that D&D would be perfectly balanced were it not for all those damned players /doing it wrong/...
Thats one thing that we can agree on.
But it is starkly at odds with 5e as some kind of all-inclusive panacea edition.
No, Mike has said that if you only like one version of DnD then you should play that. So if you hated 0DnD, BECMI, ADnD, 2e and 3e but loved 4e then you should just play 4e because, as we have seen, DnD Next certainly has influence from all the different editions.
However if you loved DnD in general then DnD Next could be the all-inclusive panacea edition that they are advertising.
That doesn't even make sense. Seriously, it's outright self-contradictory. The worst part is, I'm not even sure you're 'putting words in his mouth' - he really might be trying to say that: D&D NeXT is for everybody! (Just not anybody who already prefers 4e or 3e or 2e or 1e?)
Nod. Its like the people who say that they never liked DnD until 4e - it just does not make sense.
What wouldn't make sense about that? There's a whole group I used to play storyteller with, and they despised D&D as the poster-child for the 'Roll' side of the role-not-roll thing - until 4e came out. Heck, if anything that sort of anecdote dovetails nicely with the "h4ter" claim that 4e "isn't D&D." 4e changed the game for a lot - mostly for the better, IMHO - and some people who didn't like it before those changes liked it after. Hardly strange or self-contradictory.
You see - even the explanation does not make any logical sense.
Pro DnD Member of the Axis of Awesome Fighters: Using socks to kill monsters since 2012 DnD Next: Now with more then 4 minutes of Roleplay per gaming hour Spoiler:
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"If you can't make an interesting human fighter, then you aren't ready to play anything else yet" Edymnion
"The idea of resting up between encounters to fill-up on hit points and spells struck my meta-gaming nine-year-old as a distinct possibility. "Are you mad?" says my seven-year-old "This place is full of monsters!" "jamesgrahamuk
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Sometimes that story is short and sometimes it is long. They can be tragic, comic or absurd. Some teach. Some are just to fill the empty spaces in our lives. Rarely it is a transcendent fugue only half remembered but wondered at. And frequently: "it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." -William Shakespeare
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 11:03AM
#127
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Date Joined:
Aug 15, 2009
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You see - even the explanation does not make any logical sense.
While I played (A)D&D editions 1-3.x, I did so under duress: it was the system being played by my gaming friends, and convincing people to try others was like pulling teeth. I never liked those editions, for a number of reasons, among which were difficulty in realizing character concepts (often, dilettantes & dabblers) using their mechanics and the significant imbalance between character classes.
When 4e came along, it was the first edition of D&D that addressed the two specific issues mentioned - character concept and class imbalance - as well as numerous other issues I had with prior editions.
I like the heroic fantasy genre in general, but I always found the specific implementation of that genre using (A)D&D 1-3.x to be lacking. So, yes, in my case, 4e was the first edition of D&D that I liked.
“If the computer or the game designer is having more fun than the player, you have made a terrible mistake.”
-Sid Meier
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9 months ago ::
Sep 26, 2012 - 11:43AM
#128
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I often get myself into trouble on these forums, so I'm going to start out by stressing that this is only my opinion. I don't expect anyone to agree with it.
CarlT mentioned how DnD was played about 30 years ago and I second that. I played tabletop DnD from roughly 1983-1987. My dad was the DM and I played with him and my older brother. After a few years, school considerations took precedence, so I stopped playing. In the 2000's I started playing the Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights series of PC games that were based on the DnD ruleset. The computer took care of all the mechanics, so I didn't have to worry about them. The games were a lot of fun.
They no longer make DnD computer games that have an offline, solo player option. I therefore, decided to attempt to replicate my experience with the computer games using the pen and paper game. An additional motivation was to create my own setting and campaign, instead of using the FR.
DnD has obviously changed a lot across the different editons. 4e is particularly tactical, as Mike Mearls has pointed out in his "Many Faces of DnD" article. I consider that a pity, since I am fundamentally a "storytelling" person. Regardless, in many ways I consider 4e to be an improvement over previous iterations of the game.
I think DnD Next provides a great opportunity to return to the more open-ended play of the early years of DnD. I'm looking forward to the result. Maybe after they release the "kernel" rules they can release an "essentials" or "basic" ruleset.
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