Decline Where my Bubbles Gone?

[Lhynn]

Except minmaxing your stats at character creation. Although I suppose most AD&D-heads don't even consider that powergaming.

I powergamed the shit out of the system, it had nothing to do with minmaxing tho. Every system ever designed can be powergamed, thats never been an issue, the issue is wether its fun to powergame it.

Is there anybody here BTW who actually rolled up a character like it's actually described in some of the older rulebooks? I.e., 3d6 for each stat, no reordering or shuffling points around, then pick the class which best fits the spread?

I did a couple times, throwaway characters. The DM did have me start the story as the same level character than the party, i was one of the two enemies theyd have to face to beat it. My stats were awful, i didnt have a chance in hell of beating the party statistically speaking, and the DM knew it, we (me and a friend that also got there late and didnt have characters in that campaign) were supposed to be a distraction. A lot of things came into consideration with my awful throws, ended up being a fighter, ended up picking sword and shield and a crossbow, the heaviest armor i could afford, and because we knew where the fight would take place, we set up a small ambush to wear them down before attacking them.
Put up a good fight, it was us 2 vs 4 of them and i was the last one to fall, only 1 of them made it out of that fight concious. (we could have killed a couple but i was aiming to win the fight, not harm the party permanently).
We were fighting against characters that rolled 4d6, drop the highest and reroll 1s, so they had a yuge advantage. I did remember getting a couple crits in a row in that fight, and saving when i really needed to, overall had a blast.

We did that when we first started playing. Quickly discovered that it was just... not fun.

But it is, really fun. you just dont get to play what you want to play. But it can still be extremely fun, and in a way its a great feeling, making a character concept on the fly, and running with it, being constantly aware of your weaknesses and compensating for them.

So we started the 4d6-and-drop-the-lowest-score-then-reorder dance like everybody else.

Thats fair enough, comes down to your own preference tho, the manual gave you several options to handle it.

It is a really dumb attribute system.

Nope, its p. great. Not the greatest ive ever seen but it gets the job done and adds a lot to the game.

 

[Prime Junta]

Lhynn you still haven't answered those two questions. I don't think a meaningful conversation can be had until you do. It'll just be "no you're wrong" back and forth.

Thing is, I have a clear idea of what I want from a PnP RPG system. Until I know if you do too, and what that idea is, we have no basis for discussion. Thus far I'm not able to infer any general principles from what you've been saying, other than that you like rolling lots of dice.

What do I want from a PnP RPG system?

1. Simplicity. Rules should be simple to understand, easy to remember, and simple to apply.
2. Parsimony. The minimum number of rules should cover the maximum range of gameplay situations.
3. Consistency. Rules should build upon each other and work the same way whenever possible.
4. Intuitiveness. Rules should produce results that feel intuitively right, and should not produce results that violate common sense.
5. Focus. A system should know what its core gameplay is, and make that as fun, interesting, and fluid as possible. Secondary areas should be addressed by general guidelines that allow for arbitration and improvisation.

How about you?

 

[King Crispy]

1. Simplicity. Rules should be simple to understand, easy to remember, and simple to apply.
2. Parsimony. The minimum number of rules should cover the maximum range of gameplay situations.
3. Consistency. Rules should build upon each other and work the same way whenever possible.
4. Intuitiveness. Rules should produce results that feel intuitively right, and should not produce results that violate common sense.
5. Focus. A system should know what its core gameplay is, and make that as fun, interesting, and fluid as possible. Secondary areas should be addressed by general guidelines that allow for arbitration and improvisation.

You just decribed AD&D.

 

[Lhynn]

What do i want from a PnP RPG system?

I want for it to be fun. What else? Everything else is just a laundry list of shit that doesnt really matter as separate elements. Ive said time and time again that it comes down to execution.

Simplicity. Rules should be simple to understand, easy to remember, and simple to apply.

Why? what does simplicity add? what does it take away? You need to understand that its all a give and take, if you simplify your system something will be lost, if you make it more complex other things will be lost. Finding the balance is important.
Also a systems complexity can add a lot to a games themes and feel if it resonates with the setting.

Parsimony. The minimum number of rules should cover the maximum range of gameplay situations.

Again, give and take, it makes it easier to keep track of, but every answer to a gameplay situation being the same means that every gameplay situation will feel similar, and you definitely want to avoid this, it needs to feel like an adventure, and nothing destroys that more than repetition. I think this is one of the main reasons that while you almost roll a D20 in AD&D, you sometimes want a high result, and sometimes a low result. When you are trying to bend bars or use thieving skills you use a d100, etc. These situations are unique enough that changing die adds to it.

Consistency. Rules should build upon each other and work the same way whenever possible.

What does this even mean? Rules should definitely build upon eachother, feel like a whole, but then again, most subsystems should do this, it adds depth to the game. Work in the same way? not really, changing rules and mechanics if you are fighting in space, or in a lake, or in the middle of the forest, or inside a cave, all these things are fun, they keep the situations fresh. Magic itself should be about changing the rules of the game, or making them work in a different way.

Intuitiveness. Rules should produce results that feel intuitively right, and should not produce results that violate common sense.

What does this even mean? sure, rules shouldnt violate common sense, but sometimes you dont need to write those rules, you have a human (or subhuman sometimes) DM there. We are not playing magic the gathering here.

Focus. A system should know what its core gameplay is, and make that as fun, interesting, and fluid as possible.

Sure. But for example you have games like rolemaster which have tons of charts and tables to make every roll result more detailed in a simulationist sense, and while it interrupts fluid gameplay it adds detail. Its all a give and take. Comes down to what you are willing to sacrifice to make something possible.

Secondary areas should be addressed by general guidelines that allow for arbitration and improvisation.

Sure, but in this sense most modern systems dont allow this flexibility, this is the reason rules lawyering is a thing nowadays. And that every retard that comes from playing 3rd and 4th edition wants to apply their rule lawyering on 5th edition and find that the rules dont really let them.
5th edition was a return to simpler time, with more clear but less specific rules that leave a lot of room for the DM to apply his own criteria.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Lhynn you still haven't answered those two questions. I don't think a meaningful conversation can be had until you do. It'll just be "no you're wrong" back and forth.

Thing is, I have a clear idea of what I want from a PnP RPG system. Until I know if you do too, and what that idea is, we have no basis for discussion. Thus far I'm not able to infer any general principles from what you've been saying, other than that you like rolling lots of dice.

What do I want from a PnP RPG system?

1. Simplicity. Rules should be simple to understand, easy to remember, and simple to apply.
2. Parsimony. The minimum number of rules should cover the maximum range of gameplay situations.
3. Consistency. Rules should build upon each other and work the same way whenever possible.
4. Intuitiveness. Rules should produce results that feel intuitively right, and should not produce results that violate common sense.
5. Focus. A system should know what its core gameplay is, and make that as fun, interesting, and fluid as possible. Secondary areas should be addressed by general guidelines that allow for arbitration and improvisation.

How about you?

I kinda detest point one. Streamlining very often is just dumbing down something, just with a prettier name. Also if you don't want all those pesky rules, you'd better off playing improv.
Also all this points are great for casual players, but casual players are kind of a cancer to TRPGs. You can argue if you like, but TRPG are extremely nerdy hobby which attracts geeks, nerds, freaks, and trannies. Of all of the above only two later categories sometimes have problems with complex rules, especially if they came to playsession for attention whoring. Do you really need to cater to them though?

Anyway, it's not like AD&D is so unituitive and horrible that you need changing it. I manged to grasp its fundamentals without knowing much English, just by playing EoBs, Dark Sun and Dungeon Hack. Most of the non-english speakers who were born in 80s, and are posting here, probable were the same.

 

[Infinitron]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

 

[Howdy]

So which PnP system best facilitates having sex? Like cyber sex, but with each other... in the same room. Together.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

So which PnP system best facilitates having sex? Like cyber sex, but with each other... in the same room. Together.

FATAL. Roll for anal circumference.

 

[pippin]

tfw no crpg using the FATAL system

 

[Prime Junta]

I want for it to be fun. What else? Everything else is just a laundry list of shit that doesnt really matter as separate elements. Ive said time and time again that it comes down to execution.

In that case, we have nothing to talk about, since 'fun' is entirely subjective.

 

[Prime Junta]

I kinda detest point one. Streamlining very often is just dumbing down something, just with a prettier name. Also if you don't want all those pesky rules, you'd better off playing improv.

It can be, and one design decision that needs to be made is what the right amount of complexity is. Do you abstract damage out as hit points, or do you model injuries? If you model injuries, to what degree do you model them?

However, in most cases it's not even a matter of streamlining. It's a matter of not putting in complexity for the sake of complexity. For example, there's no actual reason for AD&D's bizarre STR stat that counts up from 1 to 18, then from 18/01 to 18/00, then up from 19 again. The only reason it's that way is historical: somebody thought the original 3-18 spread didn't allow for sufficiently Conan characters, so they added the percentages; then someone noticed that the percentages didn't account for actually superhuman strength, so they added the numbers up from there. AD&D is like this all over the place: the systems are at the same time unnecessarily complex, and that complexity fails to serve any useful purpose. It's all completely arbitrary, just a stack of rules and sub-rules piled one on top of the other.

All of it only makes sense from a historical perspective. OD&D is a pretty neat system. It's also highly limited: it's designed to arbitrate dungeon crawls in dungeons built from standard features. There's a feature called "iron bars," so the system has a rule for "bending iron bars." It doesn't allow for iron bars of different strengths, or bronze bars, or steel bars. It doesn't have to, because that's not what OD&D is about. AD&D however is much more ambitious: it's about adventuring in general, not just dungeon-crawling. However, instead of having actual designed systems covering this added scope, it has a pile of modifications and additions on top of the old rules plus a bunch of optional subsystems. It even has two completely unrelated, alternative, and optional systems for resolving non-combat tasks -- non-weapon proficiencies and secondary skills -- neither of which really works. You've got page after page of lists of specific things, and no general rules for arbitrating any situation that's not specifically addressed in the rules.

Edit: BTW I'm a non-English speaker who was born in the 1970s. I figured out D&D and AD&D too. For a long time I didn't even question the system at all, since there were no other RPG systems available to me -- there wasn't even a store where you could buy the damn things, so whenever somebody went to the US we had a shopping list for them and then passed around the things as Xeroxes. It was loads of fun.

 

[Lhynn]

In that case, we have nothing to talk about, since 'fun' is entirely subjective.

Indeed.

Theres no such a thing as a formula to make something good or fun, it always comes down to every individual choice and how it impacts on the game as a whole. People can find faults on fallout 1 systems, but that doesnt change the fact that it is a fun game that holds up perfectly in 2016.

 

[Maculo]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

But then I will have to keep tabs on two threads of drama, instead of one, holistic drama thread.

 

[Prime Junta]

Theres no such a thing as a formula to make something good or fun, it always comes down to every individual choice and how it impacts on the game as a whole. People can find faults on fallout 1 systems, but that doesnt change the fact that it is a fun game that holds up perfectly in 2016.

No, there isn't a formula. If there was, all games would be fun and good.

It is, however, possible to do both analysis and design. I have had loads of fun playing PnP AD&D as well as other games, but it's not an undifferentiated muddle of fun. I can point out things that contributed to the fun or detracted from it. For example, I do not like it when looking up or applying rules unnecessarily interrupts the flow of the game, or when a player has misunderstood the rules and I have to stop and explain how it works, or when the group wants to do something that's not covered by the rules and there are no general guidelines to help resolve it. I mean sure, you can improvise, but if you have to do that a lot, what's the point of having rules in the first place?

You know what I dig most about AD&D? The notion of the multiverse linked together by the Planes. It gives everything a big, overarching, deep logic that lets me resolve all kinds of weird situations in ways that remain consistent and true to the setting. There's room for literally anything there, and if you like, it's possible to link all of it together. Now that's a structure that's simple, parsimonious, elegant, and rich. Al-Qadim wouldn't be the same without the connection to the Elemental Planes -- the vortices, traveling to the City of Brass on the Elemental Plane of Fire, all the rest of it. And it has fuck all to do with the mechanics -- which die you roll against which check in which situation. That's the kind of logic I want to see in a system as well.

 

[ᚱᚨᚷᛖᚠᚢᛈ]

PnP is not games, morans.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

Meh, it's the Codex. No way this thread was going to survive without getting hilariously derailed into autism.

 

[Excidium II]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

Meh, it's the Codex. No way this thread was going to survive without getting hilariously derailed into autism.

When is Prime Cunta getting ejected?

 

[tuluse]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

Meh, it's the Codex. No way this thread was going to survive without getting hilariously derailed into autism.

When is Prime Cunta getting ejected?

When will people admit AD&D sucks

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Wasn't AD&D 1E made, in part, to knock Arneson off the cover (and royalties)?

Wasn't AD&D 2E published to limit Gygax's royalties after he was ousted from TSR?

Live by the sword I guess.

 

[Kz3r0]

Wasn't AD&D 1E made, in part, to knock Arneson off the cover (and royalties)?

Wasn't AD&D 2E published to limit Gygax's royalties after he was ousted from TSR?

Live by the sword I guess.

Please donìt interfere with their autism by pointing out that commercial enterprises follow business logic not nerd logic.

 

[Lhynn]

Please donìt interfere with their autism by pointing out that commercial enterprises follow business logic not nerd logic.

Who here is denying that?

 

[Kane]

DarkUnderlord JarlFrank Crooked Bee FFS split this out to the Gazebo forum or something

Meh, it's the Codex. No way this thread was going to survive without getting hilariously derailed into autism.

Plus this thread lacked the ubiquituous what is an rpg? discussion.

 

[Prime Junta]

Wasn't AD&D 1E made, in part, to knock Arneson off the cover (and royalties)?

Wasn't AD&D 2E published to limit Gygax's royalties after he was ousted from TSR?

Live by the sword I guess.

Yep.

Also consider the various supplements with class kits and such. The locked-in, on-rails class system doesn't serve the player particularly well, but it's awesome if you want to sell more books. While this may have been a fortuitous side effect of the general clusterfuck that is AD&D, I think it's telling that they went out of their way to create a similar system in D&D3. Prestige classes aren't necessary from a design PoV at all (if you wanted to give players the possibility to take awesome-button high-level abilities, you could've baked those into the feat system directly), but they're brilliant if your objective is to sell more books.

 

[Excidium II]

Selling the exact same books again is the main reason behind most new edition releases in RPG world.

 

[Haplo]

But the Prestige classes / kits do add a lot of flavor and shape the archetype. Not to mention the powergaming possibilities... They are very worthy additions IMO.