Quote from: StormBringer;629346I was puzzling over similar when I was thinking of ranting about stuff over on Google+.  Mostly, I think it stems from the 'role playing rules as operating systems' mentality, but there is something else to it, I think.  3e and 4e players love to throw the 'nostalgia' accusation around, but I can't see anything but nostalgia in the fevered defense of using those same mechanics in the newer games.  Talk about fear of change, the game that essentially kicked off the OSR movement was primarily a d20 clone.

Perhaps there is a new sanity gripping the industry.  Maybe gamers will stop treating the new version as "D&D OS X".  Mearls might be catching on to the idea that they should be designing games that people want to play featuring mechanics that do what they are intended.

Ironically, rediscovering old-school rules styles just drives home that even OSes aren't as automatically "better" as people assume.

Going back to basics and making a deliberately TSR-ish D&D-clone with Hulks and Horrors gave me the same feeling I got when I first discovered OS-9 and QNX and went "Why in fuck are we using this bloated shit, when we could use something faster, easier, and that fits on a floppy disk?!"

Quote from: J Arcane;629373Ironically, rediscovering old-school rules styles just drives home that even OSes aren't as automatically "better" as people assume.

Going back to basics and making a deliberately TSR-ish D&D-clone with Hulks and Horrors gave me the same feeling I got when I first discovered OS-9 and QNX and went "Why in fuck are we using this bloated shit, when we could use something faster, easier, and that fits on a floppy disk?!"

Exactly.  I recently moved from GNOME to xfce, and it's noticeably more responsive.  I don't stick with the the original TSR rules from nostalgia; they are faster, more responsive, and it frees me up to focus on everyone having fun instead of poring over countless splats to see what a feat or spell does.

Quote from: Piestrio;629321Sure, but if you want to play D&D you should just play D&D.

True up to a point, but with anything as complex as an RPG there's always going to be the "stone in my shoe" problem - "I like everything about this game except this one thing here". If someone wants to play D&D with no combat healing, or no magical healing at all - well, why not? It's no odder than playing, say, Dark Sun, and that was an official setting.

That being said - magical healing (and especially combat healing) was a much smaller deal in TSR D&D compared to 3e anyway.

If I was designing my own D&D Heartbreaker today, I would probably remove combat healing (and maybe even the Cleric class). But as long as D&D Next winds it back to more TSR-era levels (i.e. no more healing wands) I'll be happy.

For natural healing we always rule that you get your level back in hit points each day. Total rest gives you 1d4 more. In fact in our last game the DM ruled the same for Cleric healing spells.

Doesn't work so well if you've got 20-30 levels as an achievable aim. But works fine for 1-12th or 13th, which is about as far as we normally get in older editions.

Quote from: One Horse Town;629402For natural healing we always rule that you get your level back in hit points each day. Total rest gives you 1d4 more. In fact in our last game the DM ruled the same for Cleric healing spells.

Doesn't work so well if you've got 20-30 levels as an achievable aim. But works fine for 1-12th or 13th, which is about as far as we normally get in older editions.

Well don't forget that in the TSR editions you usually stop getting an extra hit dice per level around 10th level, and just get a couple of HPs at most from then on.

Quote from: Piestrio;629364Then play something else?

I know it sounds harsh but I really don't understand the sentiment that D&D should be a sorta shitty generic fantasy RPG rather than a unique and enjoyable game.

It's not like anyone is forcing anyone to play D&D rather than a game more suited to their tastes.

Let D&D BE D&D. If someone doesn't like it they can find and play a whole world of other games.

I know the bed has already been shit, so to speak, and we can't go back to 1999 but that doesn't mean we have to pile mistake on mistake.

I'm tired of the unspoken assumption that TSR D&D was broken and in need of fixing. Magic needs to be fixed, fighters need to be fixes, healing needs to be fixed, magic items need to be fixed, thieves need to be fixed, classes, XP, monsters, treasure, etc, etc, etc...

fixfixifixfixfixfixfix

Fix it until it doesn't resemble D&D.

I'm just happy to see someone say, "Hey, you know what? Maybe TSR D&D wasn't this huge pile of shit that we thought it was for 13 years"

+1. This is what I've been saying for a while.

Quote from: Grymbok;629396True up to a point, but with anything as complex as an RPG there's always going to be the "stone in my shoe" problem - "I like everything about this game except this one thing here".

Yes, and those are exactly the sort of things Referees and players can change at their game table with houserules.

The cleric being a dud class that few people want to play has been a thing since I started playing back in the 80s.

The thing is, clerical healing is very easy to replicate using house rules. All you need is something (magical or not) that works more or less like Cure Light Wounds, and is a limited resource that can only be replenished occasionally.

We played one game where the entire party was composed of thieves and it worked just fine.

Quote from: Piestrio;629330I know it's passe nowadays but I LIKE D&D. I like all the little bits that make it different and unique, all the little bits that it's so fashionable to hate on; vancian casting, armor making you harder to hit, forever increasing hit points, classes, levels, arcane/divine magic, clerical healing, etc....

Surely that's one of the strengths of a class-based, highly modular, game system.

Like clerics as they are? Great, play one. Want a healing class that works in a different way? Okay, design and play one of those instead (And we'll assume, for the sake of argument, that you don't simply want to play "Cleric +1", because how boring is that as a design). Everybody can potentially get to play the type of class they want, without impinging on anyone else's choice of class.

Old school healing is fine.

New school play is what causes it to seem broken.

Fight, fight, fight, and fight again is a playstyle OPTION that requires lots of healing to maintain.

Don't want to play clerics? Find options to achieve your objectives that cause less bleeding.

Quote from: Piestrio;629316http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20130218

Thank god.

I fully expect the usual suspects to flip their shit at the notion that 30+ years of D&D wasn't fundamentally in need of fixing.

In fact TCO and others are already whining in the comments just moments after the the article was posted

It warms my little heart it does.

This is a great article and to me shows they get it in a big way. Nit just in terms of satisfying those of us who believe cleric only healing isnt a problem, but because they recognize so much of the debate and infighting is centered around this question, that a truly modular approach would need to start with cleric heals but have options to accomodate those who find cleric only heals a serious problem.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629320I think you need an alternate model for a more S&S or swashbuckler feel where you don't want a cleric in the party though.

But that is what he is suggesing. He is only talking aboutnmaking the default cleric only heal, but looks like he plans to provide plenty of options you can add in. I am actually hoping instead of splats,mwe get thirty one flavors of D&D. Maybe they will be out a swashbuckling book (i would definitely play that). But I think the core book is going to have a lot of 2E style tags and method 1,2 and 3 tags.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;629428Old school healing is fine.

New school play is what causes it to seem broken.

Fight, fight, fight, and fight again is a playstyle OPTION that requires lots of healing to maintain.

Don't want to play clerics? Find options to achieve your objectives that cause less bleeding.

See I don;t want fight fight fight. I don't want magical healing because it doesn't fit the games i want to play. that includes wands and other nick nacks.

I want my games to feel like the books I read. None of those books from swords against Lankhmar, to Game of Thrones to The Blade Itself has magical healing. So I don't want it.
Now the problme swith doing that indside D&D is stuff has to shift about. For me the easiesr method was to look at the rules and see what HPs really were. If you do that then the fact that they can recover quite fast makes sense. In my games there are HP and wounds.  HPs recover fast, not 4e fast but 10% per hour. Wounds heal slower and have a death spiral.
Been playing what I call 'D&D' for 15 years like this and I like it.

I really like the idea that there are some templates you can apply to the D&D ruleset that makes into a game for different people. I don;t need the core game to be any different from AD&D to be honest but I like the idea that you can dial in separate bits and peices. You want musketeers use these variants you want Dark Sun use these you want Planescape use these what is wrong wioth that?

I seriously don't get it.  From the beginning, D&D has been about playing with what rules you wanted.  To see so many people absolutely throw a shit fit because they are saying, "You still get healing like hit dice if you want, but it's optional" is baffling.

Grow up people.  You still get what you want.  Crying that your particular tastes aren't core makes you come off as a spoiled entitled brat.  I don't like Hit Dice.  Guess what?  So I don't play with that rule.  It's literally that simple.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;629443I seriously don't get it.  From the beginning, D&D has been about playing with what rules you wanted.  To see so many people absolutely throw a shit fit because they are saying, "You still get healing like hit dice if you want, but it's optional" is baffling.

Grow up people.  You still get what you want.  Crying that your particular tastes aren't core makes you come off as a spoiled entitled brat.  I don't like Hit Dice.  Guess what?  So I don't play with that rule.  It's literally that simple.

Yup.

Quote from: jibbajibba;629435See I don;t want fight fight fight. I don't want magical healing because it doesn't fit the games i want to play. that includes wands and other nick nacks.

I want my games to feel like the books I read. None of those books from swords against Lankhmar, to Game of Thrones to The Blade Itself has magical healing. So I don't want it.
Now the problme swith doing that indside D&D is stuff has to shift about. For me the easiesr method was to look at the rules and see what HPs really were. If you do that then the fact that they can recover quite fast makes sense. In my games there are HP and wounds.  HPs recover fast, not 4e fast but 10% per hour. Wounds heal slower and have a death spiral.
Been playing what I call 'D&D' for 15 years like this and I like it.

I really like the idea that there are some templates you can apply to the D&D ruleset that makes into a game for different people. I don;t need the core game to be any different from AD&D to be honest but I like the idea that you can dial in separate bits and peices. You want musketeers use these variants you want Dark Sun use these you want Planescape use these what is wrong wioth that?

I just want D&D to be D&D.

When I want a more S&S feel with low magic and no magical healing then I use GURPS. Skilled combat characters can use defenses to avoid getting wounded in the first place.

Its too much to ask the D&D core game to be everything to everyone.