As I’ve noted before, you cannot please them all. D&D 3.5 turned out to be too complicated for me after a while. The game turned into “some sort of hideous Kabuki Improv/Extreme Chess hybrid that has little to do with the blood and thunder I want” – I spent less time preparing for the game and so we all spiraled down to the lowest common denominator of a combat heavy game with fights taking hours to resolve.
Resolved to change this, I wanted to return to M20 or a variant thereof. But as my little survey shows, most of my players seem to prefer D&D 3.5. Here’s what I think the reasons are:
1. Character creation and development is a little mini-game within D&D that some people enjoy very much. I don’t mind this, unless it’s imposing a burden on me or the (few) players that don’t enjoy it as much.
2. Character differentiation using the mechanics is perceived to be very important. I don’t mind this either.
One player spoke up against the “hit-points are spell-points” rule in M20.
The good news is that nobody seems to miss complicated per-skill tables of DC suggestions, nobody seems to enjoy multiple attacks with lots of dice being rolled, while some people indicated that they enjoyed battlemaps, nobody voiced a strong preference for battlemaps, nobody enjoyed tons of buff spells, nobody wanted detailed initiative rules.
This is good news. It means that there might be more solutions out there. I decided to go look for a simple combat engine that still offers more class differences. I took Labyrinth Lord along to Costa Rica and play a bit with Claudia. Labyrinth Lord is a retro-clone based on the B/X set by Moldvay, Cook, and Marsh; see Robert Fisher’s D&D ID for some context.
Labyrinth Lord seems to have it all:
1. You can buy it on amazon.de
2. You can download a PDF for free from the Labyrinth Lord website
3. It has simple combat rules (no action types, no detailed movement rules, no feats, multiple attacks restricted to monsters)
4. Monsters stat blocks are very simple
5. It has Vancian Magic
6. It has less buff spells; Bless, Shield, Protection from Evil, Resist Fire, and many others still exist but the ability buffs are gone, Prayer is gone, the generic Protection From Energy & Resist Energy are gone
7. There is no magic item creation and no price attached to magic items
8. It has classes (Clerics, Dwarves, Elves, Fighters, Halflings, Magic-Users, Thieves); there is no separation between race and class
9. If players want even more options, there are extra classes @ 50¢ in the Labyrinth Lord section on Your Games Now (Bard, Monk, Paladin, Ranger) or for free on Lulu (Warden)
10. There’s a forum to ask questions
Labyrinth Lord section on Your Games Now
I’ll have to think about it some more.
#RPG #Old School #Labyrinth Lord
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I don’t get it. Why not just play good old fashioned Basic _ Expert D&D from the 80s?_
– PhilJones 2008-11-27 00:11 UTC
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Why not just house-rule m20? or m74?
@PhilJones: my guess would be price, but I haven’t tried looking for those systems myself. A lot of the retro clones capture the feel of OD&D while retaining the OGL license, which is essential for community-driven product development.
– Jeff Horn 2008-11-27 05:37 UTC
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Yeah, Basic _ Expert D&D from the 80s would require us to hunt for the books on Ebay. Back in the eighties we played The Dark Eye._
As to house rules: My players wanted more spell descriptions instead of a single line each, they wanted more mechanical differences between classes, they wanted more character options... I might as well just choose a different system, I think.
– Alex Schroeder 2008-11-27 07:28 UTC
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This is indeed quite a conundrum. 3rd edition is a rules lawyer’s paradise, and my last gaming group definitely reveled in it, because we all liked to optimize/min-max/power-game to some extent. But we also decried some of the more broken rules/spells/fiddly bits, and tried to fix and tinker with them.
I think your variant m20 rules look pretty good, except I miss skills and some of the race/class differentiation. I guess most of those can be achieved with window dressing and role-play.
Maybe it is time for an entirely new genre? Taking a step back away from D&D might be refreshing. I’ve played a bit of Mage and Champions, and those were a lot of fun. I really want to play Exalted, but haven’t found a group or the time to run it. And I am intrigued by Star Wars SAGA, though that something of a 3.5/4e hybrid, definitely a d20 game, so similar mechanics, but new genre assumptions and tropes.
And there always is 4th edition... j/k 😄
– Adrian 2008-11-27 13:31 UTC
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Haha! :D 8D Ever since I read Monte Cook’s thoughts on 3rd ed design (Ivory Tower Game Design) I keep returning to it. D&D character building offers the same reward as *Magic: The Gathering* deck building, I guess. I’ve never played it because the concept does not appeal to me. And now I’m finding that this very aspect of D&D does not appeal to me, either.
Maybe taking a step back would work. I’m also interested in a Star Wars Saga edition game. I fear, however, that I’m not tired of the genre – not even of a D&D themed game – but I am tired of the rules. Some examples: There’s a DC to locate invisible opponents. There’s a rule to figure out what happens to your items if you fail your save with a natural 1. Character creation with Claudia was great fun as long as we talked about background & roles. When it came to the nitty gritty details, however, we spent two boring hours figuring out the details.
Omitting skills in my M20 variant was a conscious choice, based upon an essay I had read:
You don’t have a “spot” check to let you notice hidden traps and levers, you don’t have a “bluff” check to let you automatically fool a suspicious city guardsman, and you don’t have a “sense motive” check to tell you when someone’s lying to your character. You have to tell your referee where you’re looking for traps and what buttons you’re pushing. You have to tell your referee whatever tall tale you’re trying to get the city guardsman to believe. You have to decide for yourself if someone’s lying to your character or telling the truth. [...] Die rolls are much less frequent than in modern games. A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming by Matthew J. Finch
A Quick Primer for Old School Gaming
I heartily recommend the essay. It’s a free PDF download.
Another solution – if I don’t want to use Labyrinth Lord – would be to add some more character and race options to give players more mechanically significant choice.
– Alex Schroeder 2008-11-27 16:16 UTC
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The problem I have with the no dice approach to non-combat situations is that it tests player skill, not character ability. In battles with monsters, we don’t tell the DM how we are parrying the black knight’s attack, then stabbing him through a gap in his armor – we let die rolls and mechanics do most of the heavy lifting. I understand the historical reasons for this, but it seems like bluffing the ogre, or sneaking past the sleeping dragon, are just as integral to the fantasy adventure experience, and no less challenging and difficult than combat, in the “physics” of the game world.
If I want to play the smooth talking, sneaky scoundrel, but as a player at the table I tend to be tongue-tied or just plain quiet, how do I pull that off? Maybe for M20 Hard Core, you could have tasks based on STR, DEX, and MIND checks. Roll a d20 and add your bonus or penalty, with DCs of 5/10/15/20 for tasks ranging from easy to near-impossible. Modify by ± 2 for good ideas or difficult circumstances, for example, and you are done.
I guess I support certain aspects of old school gaming, but more in the mentality, and less in the execution and mechanics. What the line is that separates those two is difficult for me to articulate, however.
– Adrian 2008-11-27 23:14 UTC
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The combination of D20 and Star Wars makes me shudder. It’s combat system, hit points and levels just don’t feel right for space opera. But I can greatly recomend the original D6 Star Wars from West End Games. It’s one of the best RPG of all times in my opinion. It captures the mood of the first three films perfectly. Maybe I am even going to start a game some time...
– Peter 2008-11-29 22:03 UTC
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Regarding the old school feel and the difficulty of putting it into words: For some people, eg. James Maliszewski, having few rules, making things up on the spot, and challing players instead of characters seems to be the essence of “old school” – but what do I know, I really started playing with AD&D 1E and moved on to 2E pretty quickly. 😄
I’ve also enjoyed listening to him speak on a podcast, if you want to give it a try.
listening to him speak on a podcast
Peter, let me know if you do! I’d be interested in giving it a try.
I’ve heard of many problems with the WEG rules at higher levels (taking huge numbers of dice, for example), and extreme Jedi knight powers – but then again D&D has similar balancing problems at higher level. Thus, if you don’t care about balancing issues, no problem either way. And if you do, you’re screwed no matter what you do. 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2008-11-30 14:48 UTC
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A comment I recently found which I enjoyed:
Some players won’t want to play OD&D - at my games club my solution was to run OD&D (well, BECM) on my side of the screen, while my players play 3.5e on their side. That works fine. – S’mon ¹
– Alex Schroeder 2009-02-05 09:12 UTC