Quote from: J ArcaneWell, it's not as if that's terribly common.  RPGnet is the biggest TRPG forum on the internet, bigger than both Wizards' and ENWorld combined.  The odds of someone having found this place without having heard of RPGnet are pretty damn small.

Maybe most of have heard of it, but a lot of us haven't come up with affectionate nicknames for it. EN Worlders call it "EN World," after all.

I have to say the Mordenkainen et al. argument is persuasive. Also, Akrasia, HD progression IS infinite in OD&D--I didn't think so either but I looked it up.

Maybe somebody could tell us about OD&D high-level gaming vs. 3.x Epic level gaming--differences, similarities, so on.

For one thing, pre-3.x (OK, pre 2E) your PC is not a walking feat-and-gadgets tree. How did earlier editions express teh awesome of L15+ mechanically, or failing that, how did players make up for it?

Magic items were way more important in high-level 1e. And also could equalize weaker characters with stronger ones.

You did still have giant lists of immunities, saving throw bonuses, etc.

Buffs were few and uncommon back then, that's a huge difference with 3e.

Fighters at very high levels in 1e are insanely tough, the two weapon fighting penalties don't matter with say a +3 battleaxe in one hand and the Sword of Kas in the other, you're getting 4+ attacks per round all of which hit and which the girdle of storm giant strength adds like +14 to each.

I think actually playing high level fights in 3e is by and large more fun but prepping them was easier in 1e, and you could get through many more in a session.

Some interesting responses on a little board that recently spun off from DF:

http://odd74.proboards76.com/index.cgi?board=menmagic&action=display&thread=1183265978&page=1

The "Cal Tech campaign"? What, with Feynman as DM? W00t!

The fun with OD&D/1e high levels ties into the gonzo thread, not this one.

I had a crazy-ass DM one time at the Los Altos Library who had us fight all 111 (I think it was had been discovered at the time) TRUE elementals - you know, the ones from the periodic table. (This was the game where my m-u, about 20th level or so at the time, reincarnated as a pit fiend after getting killed.) Hydrogen and Helium weren't bad at all, but by the time we got up into Plutonium, the Lanthanides, it was a bad scene all around. Huge radiation damage + blink + big hit dice, yuck.

Or the thing with Hargrave's game where they got a bolo tank and brought the whole dungeon down on their head.

It's got to be fast and free and only partly in line with the mechanics - close enough that you still think you're playing this game, but not always close enough that you really understand what the hell that means.

Quote from: J ArcaneWell, it's not as if that's terribly common.  RPGnet is the biggest TRPG forum on the internet, bigger than both Wizards' and ENWorld combined.

I wonder where you came up with that figure since ENWorld has more subscribers and daily vistors than RPGnet by several fold and Wizards has several fold more than ENWorld.

Quote from: ColonelHardissonMaybe most of have heard of it, but a lot of us haven't come up with affectionate nicknames for it. EN Worlders call it "EN World," after all.

Count me as another who, while I've heard of RPGnet, and looked at it a few times, I've never found it an interesting or fun enough site to participate in. I came to this site in it's original Nutkinland days, frequented ENWorld while NKL was out of commission, came back when it rose from the dead, and stayed for the RPGsite. It took me a bit to figure out what tbp meant, but eventually got it through context.

Quote from: Caesar SlaadI wonder where you came up with that figure since ENWorld has more subscribers and daily vistors than RPGnet by several fold and Wizards has several fold more than ENWorld.

http://www.big-boards.com/kw/roleplaying/

RPGnet is ranked 5th, and in terms of actual posts, as despite smaller userbases, it has more activity than both Wizards and EN World, at 7439145 posts.  

EN World and Wizard's, despite their larger userbases, each come in at about half of that number each in terms of actual activity.

Quote from: J Arcanehttp://www.big-boards.com/kw/roleplaying/

RPGnet is ranked 5th, and in terms of actual posts, as despite smaller userbases, it has more activity than both Wizards and EN World, at 7439145 posts.  

EN World and Wizard's, despite their larger userbases, each come in at about half of that number each in terms of actual activity.

That's a meaningless metric and is much more likely due to the clean-up ethic of the maintenance staff than actual activity.

RPGnet still has post #1 from when it transferred to VBulliten. (A side effect of apparent poor maintenance is that they scrapped real search and went to the crappy board tracker long ago.)

Quote from: Caesar SlaadThat's a meaningless metric and is much more likely due to the clean-up ethic of the maintenance staff than actual activity.

RPGnet still has post #1 from when it transferred to VBulliten. (A side effect of apparent poor maintenance is that they scrapped real search and went to the crappy board tracker long ago.)

QuoteSome boards on your list don't have 500000 posts. How come?

These boards had the 500000 posts at some point, were included in big-boards by then and for some reason lost part or all of those posts (server crash, hacking, pruning). We keep track of these boards although they do not fit the requirements anymore.

THe tracking at big-boards still keeps track of posts that have been lost or deleted in their total count.

It really doesn't matter though.  I only brought it up because it's just plain patently stupid to act offended just because someone dared to assume a person has heard of the site, and it's not the first time it has happened here, and I'm even seeing the same names doing it.

Sidenote: Most Germans take a dip into RPG.Net after reading reviews up there.
99% leave after their first foray.

Go, figure.

*Ahem*

On the issue of level-capping, I think it's an interesting idea. While D&D has apparently always had the implication that the game and the players progress to high levels, I don't see why capping players at a level to preserve a certain style of play as so horrible. It's be like playing basic D&D and all you could afford were the Basic and Expert sets.

QuoteIt's be like playing basic D&D and all you could afford were the Basic and Expert sets.

Wow, by that logic, it would be even better if you had only money for the basic set?
Or no set at all?

Wonderful.
:rolleyes:

Quote from: SettembriniWow, by that logic, it would be even better if you had only money for the basic set?
Or no set at all?

Wonderful.
:rolleyes:

I found the game just as fun when I only had the Basic and Expert sets. You work with what you got, and it can be hard to miss what you don't have. Or are you claiming that that basic D&D is incomplete, less fun, or even useless without the full set? Because that would be all kinds of wrong.

This sounds like a simple solution to some game styles to me.  If you're not playing just to advance, why keep advancing?  It also force really experience characters to be more broad than specialized.

I'd add two very small tweaks.  I'd remove level requirements to feats and I'd allow multiple copies of skill feats to stack.  The latter would allow a player to advance their skills if they really want to, though for most it wouldn't be worth it.