New to the Forge ~ My thoughts on RPGs
InkMeister:
Hey Josh,
I feel much the same as you regarding newer versions of D&D. It's not enough that you have 10+ classes to choose from, you also have skills, feats, powers, and spells. Pages and pages and lists and lists, full of little numbers and bonuses. In a way it is really cool - I liked Temple of Elemental Evil (the 3.5 D&D video game remake of the old module). It was cool controlling all those options in a video game. On the table top, it's a drag. I just want to focus on playing the game, not on reading menus and weighing a million options.
And like you, I've grown insanely frustrated with long combats in D&D. They get in the way of what most interests me; engaging with other characters, NPC's, and all sorts of interesting scenarios and environments. I want choices that matter. I, more often than not, want to avoid combat so that I can accomplish whatever it is that I really want. I like sneaking around and plotting and planning and negotiating - not simply killing, killing, killing. I especially like making some kind of plan, and seeing how it unfolds over time, perhaps without any combat at all.
I'm intrigued by the "old-school renaissance" D&D players, and the old editions of D&D. Maybe you should check out Swords and Wizardry. It is a free "clone" of original 1974 D&D, and makes it explicit in the rules that you should do what you want with the game. Make up your own monsters, classes, spells, items, etc. Add rules, or keep it barebones (as written, it is pretty damn barebones). Handle things ad-hoc if you like (as you seem to like). I've not had the chance to play it, but it appears to me that it might appeal to you. More and more I see Swords and Wizardry, and similar old D&D type games, as a strong option for introducing new players - free and very simple systems. There's also Microlite, and Searchers of the Unknown, which mostly do away with stats like Wis and Cha (in the case of SotU, there are no ability scores at all). These are free games also.
There is much that I find really ridiculous in every version of D&D. Still, there is a way the older, simpler versions call out to me. In some ways, there really isn't any system there to get in the way.
Nick
Adam Dray:
"In some ways, there really isn't any system there to get in the way."
Be careful not to argue that system doesn't matter. It does. Otherwise, you wouldn't use any rules at all and you'd just play freeform all the time.
But it's fine to argue that the system of a game takes play in a direction you don't enjoy. I think that's what you're saying newer versions of D&D do, compared to the old versions (say, Moldvay "red box" Basic D&D). Moldvay D&D is simpler in many ways but lacking in many ways, too. For example, if you want psionics, it just doesn't have any. It lacks specific rules for handling a variety of things that come up while exploring a dungeon. It has a /system/ for these things though: the DM decides. The rules make that system apparent, and that system has numerous pros and cons.
Points of contact with the system is one of those metrics that you can use to judge if a game is something you'd like. Maybe you want to be referencing the rulebook all the time; maybe you want to roll dice and consult your sheet constantly. Maybe rarely. It's a judgment call.
It's a judgment call until the system, played as described in the text, fails to do what the players expect of it. Then it's a failure of design.
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