More Criticism

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Jason Thompson at 2005-04-04 09:32:17
Converted from Phorums BB System

The ideas posted here sound like the old D&D "basic" set.

While I see the need for a "basic" D&D set which is a good introduction for new players, the idea of having the "basic" set be the same thing as the core rulebook, and shunting SO many vital things off to expansions, seems particularly irritating and crafty. It may be good from a "let's sell a bunch of crap" splatbooks sense, but it sounds like it would be aggravating from an actual play standpoint. I'm imagining having to flip through various rulebooks to figure out some vital rule which isn't included in the very pared-down "basic" book. (I think the current 3 books are pretty concise, all things considered.)

A few particular things:

* The idea of setting all "D&D" in some specific "fantasy continent" is irritating and unnecessary. I *hate* the idea of a "single D&D world". Even D&D 3.5 is only nominally set in Greyhawk. The whole POINT of playing RPGs is being able to create your own world to your own specifications, not to play one of a million PCs wandering around Norrath or TORG or wherever. Even when I was eight years old I understood this. I really don't think that players just starting out need to be spoon-fed quite so much.

(Although who knows? Maybe I'm wrong. :/ )

* The idea that D&D needs "rules simplification" is also, IMHO, silly. A million computer and video game RPG players, who play with levels, classes, and tons of complicated numerical attributes, can't be wrong. (Now, of course, they don't actually have to roll dice to calculate all the variables, but... ;) ) 3.5's rules regarding things like Reach, Disarm, Grapple, Sunder, Tumble, Attacks of Opportunity, etc. are all like a blessing from heaven (IMHO), helping me as the DM figure out how to adjudicate such things. I LOVE 3.0/3.5 COMBAT RULES! THANK YOU, 3.0 DESIGN TEAM, FOR MAKING D&D COMBAT FINALLY MAKE SENSE! Now granted, I've had players who find such things unnecessarily nitpicky. But I, personally, find them incredibly enjoyable, both as a player and a DM.

D&D *was* originally a tactical wargame, after all. If you want to be able to role-play a combat scene entirely without number-crunching and "Hmm... I need to move 5 feet over here to be able to do this," YOU NEED TO PLAY A DIFFERENT GAME.

Tactical combat is a major part of D&D's appeal to many people, and as someone who enjoys both pure role-playing AND tactical combat, it breaks my heart to hear so many role-playing purists dismiss it.

Which brings me to my final point... I love all kinds of RPGs. I've played KULT, CALL OF CTHULHU, the White Wolf games, SHADOWRUN, WARHAMMER FRP, this and that. If I want to play a game which is very role-playing-y and doesn't have complicated combat rules, I'll simply play something other than D&D. The one thing I *don't* like is people proposing unnecessary, sweeping changes to D&D when they should just be playing a different game which is more to their liking, or making a new game. (A very hard thing to do in the market, I know, but...) D&D is D&D. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Despite the fact that I like 3.0/3.5's tactical combat.... The one thing in this article that I agree with is that Wizards' current marketing of D&D relies too much on miniatures sales. Although I understand why they're doing so, for the aforementioned crafty marketing reasons.

Jason

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Charlie Dunwoody at 2005-04-04 10:16:12
Converted from Phorums BB System

Jason,

I found your post informative. The majority of posts I read about D&D seem to consist of a desire for easier play through less rules. Your post may be the first time I've read someone thanking the 3.0 design team for reach (and AoO).

Actually I agree with you that the majority of DMs want to create their own worlds. I'm one of them. I would simply like to see more depth in D&D rather than more width.

For instance, instead of including an oriental class in each Complete book, I would rather have seen more rules and roleplaying information on existing classes. I have more prestige classes than any DM could have use, not to mention a player of only one character. I'd rather have ten examples of the world of Greyhawk prestige classes than twenty unique prestige classes that I have to figure out how to fit in without knowing anything about what world they would enhance.

By having a sample, easy to use, world, a DM could plug and play pieces and parts of that world into their own. Want a desert culture but don't have time to do the research? Use the one from the Basic world. Want to see some sample gods and churches? Use the gods from the Basic world as an example.

Or, if you don't have time to create a world of your own right now (or if you're running a game at a convention) feel free to use the Basic world and expand it or change it as you desire. All those prestige classes and religions have a home so you can use as few or as many as you like and have some roleplaying background to latch the ideas onto.

What I like about having a base world is that if you do invest in the rulebooks, over the years the world will grow with the rules. Rules and roleplaying will grow together, as opposed to now where rules dominate. Modules could be set in the Basic world, making them easily portable to other settings. Or a DM could pick up a book here or there and gradually see an entire world taking place.

You could use just the rules as a toolkit and the world info as examples. Or you could use the world if you're strapped for time. You'd have a lot of roleplaying depth along with the rules you like.

Charlie

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Jason Thompson at 2005-04-04 11:23:41
Converted from Phorums BB System

Hello,

Thanks for not replying in as rude a manner as my initial post... ;)

I don't see the need for a "base world." Actually, more specifically, I don't see how a "base world" differs from what D&D already has (in all its iterations to some extent, but especially 3.0, which, I think, is the only D&D setting which specifically names a "base world" (i.e. Greyhawk)).

All the stuff you're talking about -- having the "world grow with the rules", etc. -- is already the way the game works. *Everyone's* world grows with the rules. Unless they're running a very tight game in a specific setting, *every* DM who buys a new supplement figures out how the new supplement's monsters, classes, and spells could fit into their campaign world. I'm running a campaign set in my own world, yes, but it's not like I'm saying "Oh no, there are no monsters from the MONSTER MANUAL in my world! I made them all up myself and I'm proud of it!" ;) That would be silly.

The very existence of the D&D rules, the classes, the races, the monsters, the spells, presupposes a certain "shared world." It's unnecessary to make it explicitly so. To do so, only encourages a kind of "shared world" metagaming which either leads to:

(1) online-RPG-like worlds which are basically just big dungeons where everything is totally static; worlds where the players and DM don't feel any power (or, if they're used to that kind of thing, desire) to actually CHANGE the world

(2) TORG-SHADOWRUN-WHITE WOLF-like "scripted" settings which are overly plotted and overly driven by "big events" ("Dewd, you're still worshipping Heironeous in your campaign? Don't you know he got killed by Vecna in the continuity? Your game sucks!")

Obviously I think both of these options are mistakes.

It sounds more like you're complaining that there is *too much* material to work with -- both rules and background -- in the existing 3 Core Rulebooks. In which case, I couldn't disagree more. I think they're pretty much perfect as they are. I'd never want to use ALL the races and classes and stuff that exists in all the "splatbooks"... obviously Wizards is just going to keep making up more and more classes and races and stuff ad infinitum to try to sell new products... but for the core books, I want my money's worth. I want a LOT of information in those core books.

It might be an interesting business decision to make the "core rules" available in a smaller package for a smaller price, but I'd be wary of it. If you start cutting stuff down too much, you risk eliminating all the cool, weird, interesting stuff which makes the game fun. Who HASN'T bought a RPG rulebook which was too short, too incomplete, simply because the makers were obviously trying to save their best stuff for some crappy supplement which they could sell separately? ("Here's five sample classes. For more classes, pick up the CLASS HANDBOOK!") Is there anything worse?!!?

And I don't think that "too much information" or "too many options" is going to turn players off. Maybe "too many rules" might, but I think that's unlikely as well. Like I said, I love the 3.0/3.5 combat rules, and I'm not alone.

(I also think that if you're gonna post on rpg.net, the majority of people here are going to come from more of an "anti-rules" standpoint as opposed to people on, say, "enworld".)

Yes, of course the world should grow with the rules. But you don't want to reduce the rules-- and the world-- down to the point where the core "toolkit" consists entirely of a fighter with a sword standing in a 10x10 room staring down an orc.

Jason

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Jason Thompson at 2005-04-04 11:50:39
Converted from Phorums BB System

On another note.. I also think that your desire for more role-playing-intensive materials is at odds with your desire for more "basic", "generic" materials.

Aside from basic advice on "how to play and DM role-playing games" (which I think should be in the core rulebook, and which could probably be given more space than it currently has, I agree), there's not a lot that you can say about role-playing which isn't specific to a particular campaign world. I think when you're saying "role-playing", you mean "setting". (At least that's what I assume... I can't really imagine D&D including more info on how to role-play specific classes, for instance.) ("During D&D games, a player playing a fighter may enjoy miming swinging their weapon and shouting "Rarrrr!"")

I mean, say you introduce a new prestige class called the "Alchemist." Does anyone want or need 10 pages on how to role-play an alchemist and what purpose they serve in the world of Glorthamaraggar? Certainly not if the Alchemist is meant to be a "basic" class which a DM can plug-and-play into whatever setting they want. They want a simple description, followed by the *rules* regarding the Alchemist.

*Rules* are the stuff which is easy to convert from game to game, campaign to campaign. Setting is not.

For this reason, I appreciate Wizards keeping their rulebooks focused on rules, so that I can buy setting books put out by some other company which I trust better for that kind of thing, like Green Ronin's MYTHIC VISTAS line. (I probably buy more setting books than rulebooks, actually. Like you said, I'll never be able to use all the prestige classes I already have...! ;) But that's Wizards' problem for not putting out more settings which I like. Wizards has become the Rules company, for better or worse.)

In some of the "Complete" splatbooks they even includes notes with the prestige classes, suggesting how they could be integrated into an existing (non-Greyhawk) campaign world! I thought that was very cool of them.

Trying to add more setting-specific information to the base rules will just make the rules, and the entire game, less useable for people who don't want to play in the "base world". I mean, how would you "expand" the information about elves in the PLAYER'S HANDBOOK? 20 pages on various elf subspecies? ("Most elves live in a number of small villages by the Greenstream River which I will list now.... 50% of elves are woodcarvers and 25% are tailors... Jimmy the elf recently vanished from his home and his mother will offer a reward to any adventuring party who will find him... etc., etc.") Better to keep the PLAYER'S HANDBOOK info short & sweet, and then give people the option of buying "the big book of elves" or whatever.

Of course, maybe I'm misinterpreting what you mean and you DON'T mean that you want more setting information in the "base world" core books. In that case, I might need clarification.

To be honest..? I think subconsciously, what you're really trying to say is that you want YOUR world-setting to be the "Base" world. And I can't blame you since I would love to have more influence over the basic development of D&D too. ;) But oh well....

Thanks for an interesting post,

Jason

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Jason Thompson at 2005-04-04 11:53:25
Converted from Phorums BB System

Hmmm... you know... I think the BEAUTY of D&D is that it doesn't have a "base world." Practically every other RPG is set in a specific setting, but D&D alone (I think) is nothing but a big toolkit. ;) Who's to say that this isn't one of the reasons for its appeal?

Jason

[RPGnet Columns]

Post originally by Charlie Dunwoody at 2005-04-04 12:50:26
Converted from Phorums BB System

I investigated some at enworld. Here's a thread on marketing D&D:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=126798

Ironically, after reading through about fifteen posts I came across two or three suggestions for simplifying D&D to market it better (along with the idea of computer/tv/movie marketing). So I may not be so far off base as your post seems to imply.

I suppose Basic D&D could simply be a separate ruleset and the core three books would be needed to play AD&D. Of course, if you then got into the game through Basic, your Basic book becomes worthless.

Under my idea, you get Basic to play up to 10th level and don't need other books unless you want more. Advanced would get you the rest of the way. Instead of a PHB, DMG, and MM, you'd have three books with parts of each of the current core books in them based on level not topic. Basic would cover all rules to 10th (including monsters and magic items).

Charlie