Quote:
Originally Posted by Lev Lafayette
You're right; exceptional strength only and they have to be fighters to get that.
Eh, typo on my part. You're right again. Well spotted.
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Flattery will get you nowhere.
I wonder whether having an overly elaborate rule system with many special cases may sometimes encourage a game's players to defend it more vociferously. After all, it's human nature to want to believe what they're doing is worthwhile so if you have a game which needs a lot of time invested into it to play does that mean it's players will be less inclined to think that they've wasted their effort? But then the 1st edition rules aren't really any more complicated than many other systems, they just have a lot more 'stuff' in them than most.
Anyhow, I find myself agreeing with most of SteelCaress's points.
The Fantasy Trip was the first RPG I ever played, and I still have fond memories of it. It has a few rule weaknesses exploitable by an evil player (such as I was in those days), and it didn't scale very well for powerful characters. AD&D leaving many aspect of the game more or less up to the DM and players' whim was one of the things I liked about it. I think SteelCaress is quite right when he complains about D&D 3.0+ putting too much of a 'straightjacket' on play and having a disconnect to the real world. My main gripe is the encounter section of the DMG which basically says the players should have X encounters to go up each level with monster of Y lethality who possess Z amount of treasure, and its insistence on how much treasure a character of a given level should possess. It reads more like instruction than advice, and in my humble opinion that sort of thing should be left entirely to the DM. As for the "disconnect from the real world" I think the worst case is the rule that if a character jumps or swings more than their movement allowance they stop and hang in midair until their initiative on the following round. What on earth were they thinking? But if you ignore small elements like that I think the d20 rule system is a lot better than the previous editions being a lot more consistent and clearer.
I don't think it's just Marketing that makes D&D so successful, though. I think the game is more like the 'Microsoft Windows' of roleplaying - it's universally available and pretty easy to use, most other users have at least some familiarity with it, at many outlets its the main (or only) product available, the system may have flaws but they don't usually get in the way of it delivering what you want, the developers invest a lot into R&D and advertising, and later editions of their product include a number of features that, are "inspired" by their some of rivals' work.
As for beers... the only Budweiser I'd care to drink is the Czech original, but real ales are nicer!