The Gaming Den

Almaz wrote:Because that literally is every thread in the Gaming Den, hogarth.

Crissa laments the "end of D&D" in 2006. Don't you just hate long, drawn-out endings?

lol shadthread is shadthread

hogarth wrote:

Almaz wrote:Because that literally is every thread in the Gaming Den, hogarth.

Crissa laments the "end of D&D" in 2006. Don't you just hate long, drawn-out endings?

Newbies. In 2003 I was saying on the USENET that 3.5 would irrevocably split D&D's player base and usher a new dark age of heavily house-ruled / customized games where people were no longer sure if they're even talking about the same game.

(in b4 somebody posts a "2nd edition is where the game jumped the shark" rant)

hogarth wrote:

Almaz wrote:Because that literally is every thread in the Gaming Den, hogarth.

Crissa laments the "end of D&D" in 2006. Don't you just hate long, drawn-out endings?

YEP! Except for meta-threads or discussion of real world stuff (i.e. talk of anything but RPGs and the RPG industry), basically all TGD threads have been essentially reactions to the perceived "end of D&D" and the lamentation of them. It's like an ongoing swan song.

Even if we profess hatred of it, we define ourselves by it.

nockermensch wrote:

hogarth wrote:Crissa laments the "end of D&D" in 2006. Don't you just hate long, drawn-out endings?

Newbies. In 2003 I was saying on the USENET that 3.5 would irrevocably split D&D's player base and usher a new dark age of heavily house-ruled / customized games where people were no longer sure if they're even talking about the same game.

If you scroll down in the same thread I linked:

"I remember the same argument back in the mid-1980's. I must be getting old."

Lord Mistborn wrote:Since this is the aberrant posters thread now why is that I in particular am the focal point of so much butthurt? It seems like sometimes people are even going against the Den's party line just because I'm the one posting it.

I've felt this notion as well, where people would disagree simply just to disagree. Likely in the hope of creating discussion, as they require an opposing force (even if they must create one). This idea is kinda reinforced by a quote by Frank suggesting the Den does this on purpose? Either that, or people are changing the past paradigm of the Den's thoughts on things to something else, which case most prior lurkers didn't get the memo. I also find it sad of how some posters feel it fit to demean a poster due to their low posting count. As poster like Infected Slut Princess has shown for example, posting count is not correlated to quality and worth of ones ideas. To those who've done such, should feel embarrassed for such idiocy, and cease that nonsense immediately.

That said, Mistborn is basically the Den-meme spouter of this forum. Generally mimicking what the forum consensus on a matter, agreeing with whatever Frank says, and basing on what the Den has said about a certain subject in the past for his responses. What bothers me, is when you make short phrased claims that ye never back-up, explain, or otherwise follow up on, even when asked multiple times to do so. Thusly, leaving decent amount of potential discussion out for no real reason at all. As well as jumping to conclusions that would even hurt good ideas, such as your discussions with Caedrus have shown.

I don't get where people saying ye talk like Shadzar is coming from, but maybe people also dislike you as ye come off as not having an identity of your own? As well that ye may seem to be all talk, but ye don't have the capabilities to bring credibility to what you say?

Aryxbez wrote:This idea is kinda reinforced by a quote by Frank suggesting the Den does this on purpose?

I'm not sure what you are getting out of that post that concerns you.

Aryxbez wrote:I also find it sad of how some posters feel it fit to demean a poster due to their low posting count. As poster like Infected Slut Princess has shown for example, posting count is not correlated to quality and worth of ones ideas.

1) I have never seen anyone deride someone for low post count, where has this ever come up?

2) While I agree that infected slut princess is a poster of absolutely no value, 248 posts isn't exactly a lot. Surely you could find someone with more posts who is worthless, or someone with a small number of posts who is worthwhile.

Aryxbez wrote:

Lord Mistborn wrote:Since this is the aberrant posters thread now why is that I in particular am the focal point of so much butthurt? It seems like sometimes people are even going against the Den's party line just because I'm the one posting it.

I've felt this notion as well, where people would disagree simply just to disagree. Likely in the ope of creating discussion, as they require an opposing force (even if they must create one). This idea is kinda reinforced by a quote by Frank suggesting the Den does this on purpose? Either that, or people are changing the past paradigm of the Den's thoughts on things to something else, which case most prior lurkers didn't get the memo. I also find it sad of how some posters feel it fit to demean a poster due to their low posting count. As poster like Infected Slut Princess has shown for example, posting count is not correlated to quality and worth of ones ideas. To those who've done such, should feel embarrassed for such idiocy, and cease that nonsense immediately.

That said, Mistborn is basically the Den-meme spouter of this forum. Generally mimicking what the forum consensus on a matter, agreeing with whatever Frank says, and basing on what the Den has said about a certain subject in the past for his responses. What bothers me, is when you make short phrased claims that ye never back-up, explain, or otherwise follow up on, even when asked multiple times to do so. Thusly, leaving decent amount of potential discussion out for no real reason at all. As well as jumping to conclusions that would even hurt good ideas, such as your discussions with Caedrus have shown.

I don't get where people saying ye talk like Shadzar is coming from, but maybe people also dislike you as ye come off as not having an identity of your own? As well that ye may seem to be all talk, but ye don't have the capabilities to bring credibility to what you say?

Summarizing, the actual Den is just a trap. Newcomers won't be welcomed and interesting discussions carry the fate of being destroyed by trolls, be them with a low or high number of posts.

Kaelik wrote:

Aryxbez wrote:I also find it sad of how some posters feel it fit to demean a poster due to their low posting count. As poster like Infected Slut Princess has shown for example, posting count is not correlated to quality and worth of ones ideas.

While I agree that infected slut princess is a poster of absolutely no value, 248 posts isn't exactly a lot. Surely you could find someone with more posts who is worthless, or someone with a small number of posts who is worthwhile.

Aruuxberz was clearly saying I am a high-value poster, despite my low post count. Obviously.

I would probably have more posts if I didn't spend so much time at the abortion clinic.

fectin wrote:

shadzar wrote:I think this fails on quite a few levels in the case of D&D. While some players may feel like this, they might not understand what D&D is or was to begin with.

So, hardcover books weren't part of D&D originally either. It would be more than a little silly to argue that a different binding on the rulebook changes whether or not the game you're playing is D&D. I feel the same applies with any other game trappings too, like what your group dynamic is.

this is just stupid and you should feel stupid for saying it. a book is a book, a collection of pages with writing. the writing in those pages always contained D&D. technology of the written medium means little. jsut as people like PDFs for quicker searching or other digitized means, like myself using the HLP files from CR-CD-ROM, it is all written word.

shadzar wrote:First, D&D isn't one persons story. The authoritative control is spread around between all people, that means NO player has more control than another.

Why? That's certainly a way you could play, but I'm not convinced it's the only way. Even within the same group, some campaigns focus more on story and are more DM-driven, while others are more sandbox-ey and more player driven.

why, because it is a cooperative game. in MOST cases the DM has more control over what is present, but then the players have ABSOLUTE control as to how their charactes handle what is presented, so the control is balanced. if a single player is trying to make it all about him, then he has issues and probably shouldnt be doing a "social activity" such as playing D&D. you can write from the POV of anyone int he game, but via playing, your ass better be working with the rest of the group, or they should boot you from the game and the house/store you are playing at.

shadzar wrote:Now both of these have probably existed since the beginning of gaming and even further back as a bad ref could easily make a player of any sort of game feel put out. So why did the game need such a drastic change to remedy this? What did the game change to form new-school from the old to remedy this?

What are the essential parts of that change which you see? As far as I know, there are (broadly speaking) only two mechanical changes there: standardizing systems and codifying systems. Standardizing seems pretty clearly to be a Good Thing. Whether or not a percentile system is better than roll d20 + mod for stealth is debatable, but whether individually quirky systems are better than standard systems is rarely in question.
Second, games swung towards actually codifying interactions. I see that as an unmitigated good.

did you read the post you quoted parts from? the new-school design is focused on giving as many fiddly-bits to players as possible. now this could be from a "lets-get-the-players-to-stop-bitching" standpoint, or a realization that the DM needs more material than the players, but the players outnumber the DM, so more product available for players means more revenue standpoint.... or worse, WotC actually thinks the game needs MORE parts to break because they don't understand the KISS model.

you are talking about a rule for everything, but neglect that AD&D started with pretty much that. Random Harlet Table anyone, ANYONE?

what i am talking about is how UA added proficiencies as an ADDITION, but not a requirement. ability checks still worked and were part of the "skills system" of (N)WPs.

when 2nd came about, and as i have had to explain to SO MANY people, this was included, BUT, optional. that is right, the entire chapter was optional. it was included in things that were made after for those that wanted to use it and took up little space in "ye olde statblock", but was so easily discarded because it was NOT needed by MOST.

Now i am not sure what happened with Steve Winter, or where his mind went or if it was the Blumes/LW, but 2.5 decided to be a system where those things that were NOT needed, would be a requirement to all. I know GURPS was popular at the time with its skill selection method so maybe it was for competition, but where is GURPS now? HELL for the most part you ask people who played before 1996 and they will tell you they tossed out half the weapon rules cause it was too fiddly with the turns having to screw with weapon speed and such. I know someone else has said that prior to WotC D&D was more about story, but they miss the point. it was about the ADVENTURE, not a single characters story. the setting bloat of horseshit like Planescape that shouldnt have existed like the nonsense Immortal's set is where PLAYERS jumped ship. the settings have little to do with the GAME, as they, like adventures are optional material.

mid-90s D&D took a turn from the adventure being the focus of the game, to the player-character. more effort was put into adding those fiddly bits that not everyone wants. not everyone wanted them in the start either, thus the game removed MOST of its combat simulationism, but is trying to add non-combat-simulationism?

why have things like feats/skills that add extra layers to having to play and remove weapon speed factor/spell casting time? all you are doing is trading one fiddly bit set that people could easily discard for another that that you CANNOT discard with your "codifying interactions". and these things really don't even help the game, they only help to tweak a bad character concept, so that everyone gets their own personal Dirzzt-clone, Conan-clone, Edward Cullen-clone, etc.

initially the game had enough information on the character to let YOU have a part to play in the world and story as the game mentioned..."wanting to be in control of someone like Conan, The Grey Mouser, etc. to participate in your own adventures." but now design has focused more on giving people their own "Drizzt-clone" for whatever fictional character they want to adapt to D&D-world whether it really belongs or not. that isnt what D&D is about. D&D isnt about "killing things and taking its stuff". never was. D&D is about the adventure and what you can do, now how much you can gain and not knowing what to do with the wealth you got, not about being a tool to help you write your fanfiction of your pet character. D&D is about being able to take part in an epic adventure like the Illiad, being a member of the Argonauts and riding with Jason, not being an armchair general pushing pawns around until one side kills all of the other, taking part of a shared story rather than sitting and reading a book.

D&D is/was WWID (what would i do) if i was in Conan's place and had my friends that are playing with me as the other people journeying with him. what we would do together and what would happen when we do it! that requires not minute and finite detailed rules for everything, nor perfect simulation, but ones own imagination to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the character and make a decision for what you would do IF you were that fictional character in that situation at the time.

D&D has become turn my dream visage of myself into a character so i can run through a world acting as the only hero of the story and.....me me me me, and it has come to be designed for that purpose.

tussock wrote:

Shadzar wrote:2. If your idea doesn't fit with this, then how do YOU see old-school design versus new-school design to be at the greatest separation point?

2nd edition isn't what I'd call oldschool, for a start. But the separation between 2nd and 3rd is in the "back to the dungeon" and "rewarding system mastery" philosophy in 3e vs the wall-of-text storybook worlds full of "bladesingers have annoying but undefined background responsibilities to compensate for their awesome power" of 2nd edition.

Planescape is the height of 2nd edition. With its dozen inane factions, infinite number of infinite planes all with their own rules, and having literal magic tea parties with a Balor.

se this is what i call the wrong division. people see the numebr of settings and assign them as the system itself especially when they know better.

2nd wasnt designed by the settings nor for them. the settings jsut came like CPHs so those should be discounted in any serious discussion of ANY edition.

But 2nd edition is very different in style from 1st edition too, which is also very different from the BD&D/OD&D line.

i don't understand this. 1st came out with wilderness and such and people were already using it. "dungeon" meant where the action was, same in both 1st and second, thus why 1st could easily use any of the 2nd edition settings and 2nd could use any of the 1st edition dungeon crawls. neither was made solely for either though, it was the player choice where to adventure, but both were about adventure.

now the limits of "D&D" pretty much had it in the dungeon for the most part until CMI portions came about and OD&D was so heavily still based in wargames the "dungeon" again was just where the action takes place like the D&D facebook game. a grove of heavy underbrush trees could be simply a dungone cause you had "walls" of foliage in the forest to divide areas.

I doubt many people really played using the official 2nd edition game philosophy anyway, as it was fairly stupid and full of DM-power-trips.

what was this so-called philosophy you seem to describe, because i get the bad DMs existed and you are buttsore about having them, but where is it in the game? why is this attributed to 2nd so much when it was 1st edition that had Gygaxian "blue bolts"?

CCarter wrote:To consider 2E to be less story-centric than 3E you more or less have to conveniently ignore all the DM advice on how you should overthrow rules whenever you like and railroad like mad.

I am ignoring the bit about the accessories as they are NOT what makes an edition what it is so i discard them as much as possible and get back to the point... so i ask you also, where is it that 2nd does ANYTHING different than 1st or D&D in that the DM has majority control over the rules adjudication?

it was even given to me by someone for a thread around here where 3rd has the same exact thing in the PHB somewhere that the DM is the final rules arbiter.

another person buttsore over the bad DM they had and blame the edition for them playing in bad games?

3E was in part designed to increase player agency and also deal with bad DMs via codifying rules

so you are buttsore, as many others, and blame 2nd for the people you chose to associate with? got it.

, I don't believe this has anything to do with providing better 'stories' however. You can blame Skip Williams for this, not Robin Laws :

http://grognardia.blogspot.com.au/2009/ ... liams.html

well i always here the GNS stuff attributed to Robin, so the bit Skip mentions seems to be more of the same buttsore where people are playing "Player v DM" rather than playing D&D.

i agree with Mearls, wait. let me take a second to realize what i just typed and make sure this is not a typo.... yup it is correct as i typed it...

i agree with Mearls, that NO amount of rules will make a bad DM into a good one, as some people just are going to be bad DMs. the amount of rules with not fix the problem these people have with understanding the game, as some people are just going to be that way and think that is what the game is about. the DM will always be needed in order to play D&D and an AI will never be able to do it to borrow from a thread on another forum. an AI just can't provide what the multitude of group want at individual tables. you might be able to program an AI for a single group and it work great, but you would ahve to program one for each table that exists in order for it to work due to the nature of D&D and RPGs in general. this is why EQ had people actually acting as NPCs when the scripts couldn't handle live people playing as live people rather than following a script.

Mostly what I brought to the design effort from those days was a sharp sense of how things can go wrong. Whenever we came to a place in the rules where I knew DMs and players were going to clash, I'd tell a "campaign from hell" story, in which a character (mine or someone else's) was in peril and the DM made the most illogical and completely off the wall ruling you could imagine. I t[r]ied to be very careful that all the loose boards in the system were well nailed down.

this solves nothing. the fact that the DM came to the wrong conclusion means he didnt understand the rules, so making more doesn't help him understand any more just gives more chances for confusion. this is part of the player group interaction that should be solved between the actual players playing the game. Skip's horror stories are bad examples to use as it doesn't prove a problem with the game, just a problem with some players however large that number is.

books like "Creative Campaigning" that give ADVICE to DMs and just having better social skills in understanding the purpose of the DM is what HELPS to fix SOME of these DMs misunderstandings. turning the DM into a push-button response giver causes you to end up with 4th edition.

so i would say Skip was a part of the problem, wherein Robin might have understood WHY D&D didn't work for many people, BUT that doesn't mean D&D has to work for everyone. That is why some people prefer WoD, Warhammer, BattelTech, etc.

Too much; translation failed.

All I got is an obsession with taking it up the ass.

Kaelik wrote:I'm not sure what you are getting out of that post that concerns you.

It's the first sentence in his post, implies the nature of "Flame Wars" are done quite deliberate on here. Supporting my notion that people instigating conflict, just so they have points of contention to talk about, even if it's something they've long agreed with. I'd consider that being rather dishonest, opposed to letting arguments organically happen, they're forced, causing dissonance that Mistborn and I, are pointing out.

1) I have never seen anyone deride someone for low post count, where has this ever come up?

Not sure how I would efficiently find it, but funnily enough, I believe the cases at the time were made toward Lord Mistborn. I know Wrathzog had attempted once to dismiss him simply because he wasn't a long time poster like Frank, and resolved when I called him out on that.

infected slut princess wrote:

Kaelik wrote:While I agree that infected slut princess is a poster of absolutely no value, 248 posts isn't exactly a lot. Surely you could find someone with more posts who is worthless, or someone with a small number of posts who is worthwhile.

Aruuxberz was clearly saying I am a high-value poster, despite my low post count. Obviously.

Pardon the confusion, Infected slut princess is correct, in fact one of my favorite posters on here, and doesn't have that high of posting count, yet still has ideas of worth to say. Though finding other posters of lesser worth is simple enough, there was that whole "Roy-clone" and Shadzar. On a sidenote, I actually pronounce my username as "Arr-E-ax-bez".

Atmo wrote:Summarizing, the actual Den is just a trap. Newcomers won't be welcomed and interesting discussions carry the fate of being destroyed by trolls, be them with a low or high number of posts.

Well in the part ye were quoting, mostly just seems to be that Mistborn/Mr.GC/Shadzar have to watch out for there. When I started posting here, seems more I snuck in, as for awhile, no one really responded to any posts I made (assuming they were open for such). I expected to be unwelcome with overt aggression, but wasn't the case. So long as you're not actually saying stupid things like one would probably hear from most RPG fans (or...therpgsite for some famous examples), needn't necessarily feel disheartened to post here, should that be a concern of yours.

Aryxbez wrote:It's the first sentence in his post, implies the nature of "Flame Wars" are done quite deliberate on here. Supporting my notion that people instigating conflict, just so they have points of contention to talk about, even if it's something they've long agreed with. I'd consider that being rather dishonest, opposed to letting arguments organically happen, they're forced, causing dissonance that Mistborn and I, are pointing out.

You are an idiot. That is wrong in so many ways it requires a list.

1) Saying that a specific forum is not the place for flamewars does not mean that you deliberately start them in other places, it means you deliberately avoid starting them in that forum.

2) The fact that flamewars occur does not mean they are deliberately started by TGD. Many times people thread crash from other forums to whine that, for example, Apocalypse world is the best RPG ever and we are horrible people not jizzing our pants when we here it mentioned.

3) Even if people deliberately started flamewars, that still wouldn't be the same thing as saying that people argue something different than they believe. I only post on BG/minmax to start flamewars about how JaronK is dumb as shit. That doesn't mean I don't believe he is dumb as shit.

Aryxbez wrote:Pardon the confusion, Infected slut princess is correct, in fact one of my favorite posters on here, and doesn't have that high of posting count, yet still has ideas of worth to say.

Oh, then you are an idiot. Because infected slut princess has never posted anything worth reading at any time.

Aryxbez wrote:

Atmo wrote:Summarizing, the actual Den is just a trap. Newcomers won't be welcomed and interesting discussions carry the fate of being destroyed by trolls, be them with a low or high number of posts.

Well in the part ye were quoting, mostly just seems to be that Mistborn/Mr.GC/Shadzar have to watch out for there. When I started posting here, seems more I snuck in, as for awhile, no one really responded to any posts I made (assuming they were open for such). I expected to be unwelcome with overt aggression, but wasn't the case. So long as you're not actually saying stupid things like one would probably hear from most RPG fans (or...therpgsite for some famous examples), needn't necessarily feel disheartened to post here, should that be a concern of yours.

TheRPGsite, i didn't knew that one.

*Googles it, find some JRPG topics, read one of them. Trolls.*

Welp. There is a troll trying to offend people because the topic is anime and manga oriented, then try to offend with "your username is anime, therefore it's bad", and such... Man...

shadzar wrote: I am ignoring the bit about the accessories as they are NOT what makes an edition what it is so i discard them as much as possible and get back to the point... so i ask you also, where is it that 2nd does ANYTHING different than 1st or D&D in that the DM has majority control over the rules adjudication?

it was even given to me by someone for a thread around here where 3rd has the same exact thing in the PHB somewhere that the DM is the final rules arbiter.

another person buttsore over the bad DM they had and blame the edition for them playing in bad games?

I don't think you have spent much time near AD&D 1E grognards then? Most hate 2E as much if not more than 3E or 4E, despite the rules similarities.
Tthe key thing that changed between the two is the DMing advice, but 2E also has a huge profusion of optional rules which let the GM shuffle the rules mid-game if desired to support the story. A natural 20 by a monster could mean normal damage, double damage, or a roll on the Combat and Tactics limb loss subtable, depending on what rules the DM is using; a character might die at 0 hit points or -10, hit or miss depending on whether they want to use Weapon Types vs. Armour Modifiers, go first or last depending on whether they're using the Speed Factor rules. So the GM has a fair bit of lattitude in making the PCs win or lose depending on 'the story' rather than the rules. Smoke and mirrors where the players think they're in trouble but are never really in danger.

3E isn't a 'story' game as more and clearer rules do not generate a 'story', either the PCs story or the DM's story, they give impartial results which are harder to fudge.

If we must go down the GNS crazy hole, 2E was usually considered to be an 'incoherent' system (storytelling advice over a hodgepodge of abstract metagame rules like hit points and spell levels, with occasional chunks of pseudo-realism like the weapons vs. armour tables), while 3E is closer to 'Gamist'.

i agree with Mearls, wait. let me take a second to realize what i just typed and make sure this is not a typo.... yup it is correct as i typed it...

i agree with Mearls, that NO amount of rules will make a bad DM into a good one, as some people just are going to be bad DMs. the amount of rules with not fix the problem these people have with understanding the game, as some people are just going to be that way and think that is what the game is about. the DM will always be needed in order to play D&D and an AI will never be able to do it to borrow from a thread on another forum. an AI just can't provide what the multitude of group want at individual tables. you might be able to program an AI for a single group and it work great, but you would ahve to program one for each table that exists in order for it to work due to the nature of D&D and RPGs in general. this is why EQ had people actually acting as NPCs when the scripts couldn't handle live people playing as live people rather than following a script.

Yeah anytime you're agreeing with Mearls you're in trouble. Mearls is a bad DM. For instance there's a recent livecast of Mearls playing 5E where 4 PCs are fighting ghouls. (Since you like butthurt here's the rpg.net thread on it;
http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?693 ... T-2-PM-PDT
where Mearls is using some badly designed monsters and decides to play them as idiots as DM, so they don't wipe out the party...

I've been here a while now without experiencing anything I'd compare to a hazing period despite my haphazard grammar and comically bad dyslexia. That obviously doesn't mean much since I'm just part of the peanut gallery and haven't really contributed to any grand designs but I do feel pretty comfortable saying that people won't invent reasons whole cloth just to threadshit the new guy.

CCarter wrote:where Mearls is using some badly designed monsters and decides to play them as idiots as DM, so they don't wipe out the party...

like i said, and i guess MEarls is proving using himself as best case of proof. NO amount of rules will make a bad DM into a good one.

my time on Dragonsfoot was fighintg the shit of people thinking 1e was god because Gary was god, and i even pissed off Frank Mentzer when i said it didnt matter how anyone tailored the Smurf entry i made for 2e MM to show the variation in heights from the data that existed.

the DM advice i see in 2nd always seemed less aggressive to me than 1st. i mean Gary points out NOT to get pressured by "barracks room lawyers" while second just states "the rules are only guidelines".

Gary was a hell of a lot more heavy handed and has the attitude in his writing of the wargamer trash.

the most i hear about 1st to 2nd is the demons and devils were renamed and monster power was changed... minor nonsense like that and half-orc as a PC race and the cavalier was gone...

it always was and still is hard for me to read the 1st edition books cause of there poor layout and font, so i would love to someone to point out some of these changes that make the DM be told to be a bigger asshole so they could be dissected. maybe someone should make a thread on that?

shadzar wrote:2nd wasnt designed by the settings nor for them. the settings jsut came like CPHs so those should be discounted in any serious discussion of ANY edition.

Of course it should. 2nd edition intended from the start to put half the class rules in the PH series, and half the DMs rules in the DMR series, to keep the page count down on the core books and give them a money stream later on. See also splitting up the Monster Manual into loose leaf. It was EGGs plan all the way back to 1985, and the company stuck with it.

Similarly, 2nd edition was all about the worlds, and they exemplify how the designers intended you to play it (such as with two backup characters because random disintegrate LOL in Darksun, or an ancient blood-curse that destined you to be king in Birthright).

tussock wrote:But 2nd edition is very different in style from 1st edition too, which is also very different from the BD&D/OD&D line.

i don't understand this.

I am aware.

I doubt many people really played using the official 2nd edition game philosophy anyway, as it was fairly stupid and full of DM-power-trips.

what was this so-called philosophy you seem to describe, because i get the bad DMs existed and you are buttsore about having them, but where is it in the game? why is this attributed to 2nd so much when it was 1st edition that had Gygaxian "blue bolts"?

EGG/1e tells players to ask the GM for everything not presented in the PHB, and tells the GM to be brave and try shit out. That Player-Giants are probably fine because people who use them get over-confident and the game punishes that quite naturally if you let it.

Zeb/2e tells players to listen to the GM because there are no rules (and the DM should change the rules between combats anyway) and to roleplay Steve the crap-covered-farmer conscientiously. It then tells the GM to rain equipment-destroying fire on anyone who dares try and use a rule to gain any mechanical advantage.

The 2nd edition DMG is a bad book, full of bad advice. Really. The 2nd edition PHB is a good improvement on AD&D, in that you can and should use it, other than every single thing marked "optional" (which should be read as "this is stupid and you should not use it"), and what they did to Mages and Bards and Assassins and Rangers and Fighters and Druids and ... oh, never mind then. Did clean up the rules but.

Well I can see how this works now by your citations. I can do this too.

3.0 tells players to suck WotC dick and stay on it for 14 years never questioning them or doubting them as game makers, but keep paying them to allow you the chance to keep sucking their dick.

See I can make unsubstantiated claims without sources all day long too, tussuck.

you are either drunk or stupid, again, because Gary in 1st put the comment about "BARRACKS ROOM LAWYERS" into the book, yet you try to blame 2nd for "rain equipment-destroying fire on anyone who dares try and use a rule to gain any mechanical advantage"

come back and try again when you have any real evidence except for the reaming you allowed your bad DM to give you without even offering you a reach around.

shadzar wrote: 3.0 tells players to suck WotC dick and stay on it for 14 years never questioning them or doubting them as game makers, but keep paying them to allow you the chance to keep sucking their dick.

I guess you finally figured out why I like 3.x so much.

Atmo wrote: Summarizing, the actual Den is just a trap. Newcomers won't be welcomed and interesting discussions carry the fate of being destroyed by trolls, be them with a low or high number of posts.

This is the Den:

http://www.classichorrorcampaign.com/wp ... poster.jpg
Where your opinions go to be sodomized


http://cf.drafthouse.com/_uploads/galle ... mage_3.jpg
Dr. Frank continues with no inhibition towards creation of the ultimate

I'll be honest, having and reading a hard copy of 1974 Original D&D myself to figure out where the engine first supposedly came from (and Arneson's original notes/game are not available, so I don't really know how much Greyhawk differs from Blackmoor; so this is a second best option) that really Shadzar is both lying through his teeth, while also shitting the bed by claiming that players ruined the game by inserting their special snowflake character concepts into the game narrative.

In the '74 edition Gygax was already saying to the Game Referees that they should be allowing players to be Dragons (but only young ones, without lots of powers), Sprites, and other special snowflake characters.

Which, honestly, is sort of the whole point of this type of narrative exercise in the first place.

Unless the story is literally Dying Earth 2 "Eyes of the Overworld", and there's only a single player, a single game referee, and they're narrating the story of Cudgel the Clever being forced to complete a mission that they don't want to do, for an asshole that they don't like, because there's literally a rail-road plot inducing parasite attached to their character's liver who makes the PC helpless and wracked in pain as soon as they even hint at deviating from the railroaded plot... then you are never going to be able to tell the sort of pulled by the nose narrative that Shadzar insists D&D must be.

You're always going to be playing "some" sort of special snowflake character. Some merely being more disposable than others. Those with low stats who can't be 'real' characters like spellcasters, multiclassed, or dual classed, characters.

I'll be honest, the codification of how the physics works in the game engine was a massive step forward for 3e; and to be honest actually improved, increased, and made more robust the non-combat elements of the game engine than the previous editions "Roll under your stat? Great Success!" method.

This supposed "more roleplayey" aspect of 2e completely turns to a shit stew once you realize that once you have a 21 in any stat, you can justify doing anything with that stat; so long as you, the player, are clever enough to explain to the Game Referee why you should be able to make an unorthodox check which you can't fail.

Seriously, when I read that in the 1990's, and had not a clue about character optimization, I realized that if my rolled dice was a d20, and my stats could plausibly get past 20; that I could "tumble" for free, and it wouldn't have any sort of risk involved. Assuming the ground was relatively mundane. Instead of lava, or magical poison thorns; or magical poison thorns over lava.

Seriously Shadzar, 2e was more of a bullshit system because the players could just bullshit anything; and there was no measured rubric for success or failure.

Of course, granted, that D&D; being a wargame engine first, and an magical tea party add-on second; as an engine, only generates binary results is my currently largest problem with the engine.

The lack of being able to have any sort of graduation of successes is why I don't give a shit about thinking about it at all right now, or for a few years now.

However, even then, I'll still research the OD&D pamphlets, the BECMI books, and the 90's AD&D compilation; since they're formative pavingstone to the path that the RPG industry has carved. They're simply the larger flags on the ground that is littered with stones of all kinds, and they're not especially more useful than anything else on the path. It's just good to know what the most original source looked like at various instances.

Judging__Eagle wrote: Seriously, when I read that in the 1990's, and had not a clue about character optimization, I realized that if my rolled dice was a d20, and my stats could plausibly get past 20; that I could "tumble" for free, and it wouldn't have any sort of risk involved. Assuming the ground was relatively mundane. Instead of lava, or magical poison thorns; or magical poison thorns over lava.

That totally reminds me of something, actually...

Ability checks as saving throws
When a character attempts to avoid danger through the use of one of his abilities, an ability check can be used in lieu of a saving throw.
For example, Ragnar the thief has broken into someone's home when he hears a grating noise from the ceiling above him! He is going to need speed reactions to get out of the way, so a Dexterity ability check should be rolled to see if he avoids the trap.

The hilarity of this rule is that if the GM decides dodging should be of the 'like dodging a breath weapon or fireball' variety, you get a chance that depends on your level and starts out at as low as 1-in-20 depending on class (with up to a +4 bonus from Dexterity), while if they decide to use a Dex roll, it could be a 19-in-20. Likewise your 18 Con character might have a 25% chance or 95% chance of passing their Getting Drunk check depending on whether the DM decides its a Con roll or a saving throw.