Quote from: little meD&D is about gaining levels. You can't remove them. It's... not right.

Quote from: DirkHm...

How dare you quote my own hyperbole back at me!

I shouldn't have uttered sentence #1--that's Magister Settembrini's shtick. Me, I stand by #2 and 3. D&D isn't "about" gaining levels, but without them it's not/hardly D&D... until some genius comes along and proves me wrong with some brilliant alt-rules.

E6 in any case aren't those alt-rules. Because E6 says: Dear Reader, among other things D&D is indeed about gaining levels... until L6, at which point we drop them unceremoniously.

Bleh.

To me RPG´s are like Wine. Not that I´m a connoisseur in that regard, but let´s stick to it.

Let´s say D&D is a heavy red wine, surely with some very uniquely flavoured years of bottling.

What they are doing, is pouring water into it, until it has the strength and colour of a Rosé.

Sure you can do this. And still get boozed as much as you care for.

But why not drink a real Rosé instead?

Quote from: Nicephorusso you're saying that if someone likes D&D but doesn't like to play it the way you do, then they should play something else?  

I'm not sure "the way you do" has anything to do with it. D&D has lots of parts. Lots of things to fiddle with. If messing with a lot of inter-related elements doesn't appeal to someone, then D&D probably isn't for them.

Seanchai

I keep meaning to post to this discussion, but my home computer crapped out over the weekend in the middle of a format + reinstall so I've had to wait to get to work to post on RPG forums. I love my job.

Aaanyway, on the subject at hand, I'll admit I hated this idea to a degree that makes Sett's replies look like reasoned considerations of the topic. Couldn't possibly get behind it, not in a million years - D&D without high-level spells? Without roughing up demigods? Surely you jest!

But then I spent some time away from D&D and d20, playing some other games, just really playing the field. But D&D...she has a siren's call, you know? I found myself reading d20 forums again, browsing the SRDF to familiarize myself with it, trying to see if there was something in there that I still wanted to play. I read some articles about house rules, I talked to my players, I pondered over some old d20 stuff I've got.

Flash forward a month or so, to last week. I've just played a short dungeon to get our PCs prepped for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm digging on the system again, and up pop this thread. "Hello," says I, "D&D up to a low-mid level, then just feats? I do love feats." So my players and I are certainly considering it as it hits and solves just about every single problem we had with D&D 3e, and I'm composing an alternate SRD with all available feats, spells, races, rules, et. al., based on an E8 version.

This article, actually, really cemented my decision. 8th level is just enough ahead of those numbers that they can be legendary without giving the Lords of the Pit a wedgie.

Quote from: Christmas ApeThis article, actually, really cemented my decision. 8th level is just enough ahead of those numbers that they can be legendary without giving the Lords of the Pit a wedgie.

Oh my. Realism with D&D? What's wrong with you people?

Quote from: SosthenesOh my. Realism with D&D? What's wrong with you people?

We don't play to advance, I like my over-the-top looser in the rules than D&D can offer me, most of my players don't like over-the-top at all, and trying to map out every contingency for high-level story-breaker spells (teleports, resurrection, insta-kill, loads of scrying) is tedious for us.

But I love feats, and the core system of D&D 3 is really good, and nobody else has to suffer under it, so....

Chlorinated Water into the red wine, again!
No harm done, but why?
Why?

Quote from: Christmas ApeBut I love feats, and the core system of D&D 3 is really good, and nobody else has to suffer under it, so....

You're aware that there are other D20 games out there, right? Games that don't file like you're dancing with a quadruple-amputee supermodel?

I spent some time thinking about the why, just to humor myself. Some times before going to bed I figured it out.

Somewhere between 6th and 12th level, depending on the character and setting, comes the point where D&D interferes with the character I wanted to play. His gear starts to become unusual magic items (who ever imagined a character and thought "a helm of brilliance would be perfect!"?), his powers become more unusual (spellcasting rangers, psh!), and he generally ceases in significant mechanical ways to be the character I'd intended to play.

Your mileage may vary, but it simply wouldn't matter to me.


Edit: So I guess my response, Sosthenes, is "When she touched me with those four extra arms it made me uncomfortable, so she did it for us."
Edit Edit: And to Settembrini; I reject the analogy of D&D 3.x to wine. At most D&D is the press, and the play of the session itself a wine. The press I got in 3.5  had a bunch of extra fiddly devices and levers and settings, so this way I can pry them off and just make excellent wine.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI'm saying that low-to-mid-level D&D has the same things you think of as "problems" as high-level D&D.

It's a matter of degrees. Most of the things that make high-level D&D unbearable for many folks exist effect the game to a lesser degree at lower levels (feat bloat, for instance, is almost non-existant at 6th level, whereas a massive catalog of feats is a defining feature of many characters at 20th level). Why you're having such a hard time understanding this, I'm uncertain. The way that D&D 3x plays, especially behind the DM screen, changes significantly as PCs amass numerous levels of power.

As a DM I agree, as a player I'd feel seriously fucked and would plan to hit my DM over the head with a first edition WFRP book in a dark alley.

I'm thinking he shouldn't spring it on you, then.

And to a certain degree, this is prep. An E6 or E8 campaign is the kind of trial run I need to get my head around 3.x rules mastery. I'll play a while with a managable chunk of the rules, then go from there.

Quote from: Christmas ApeI'll play a while with a managable chunk of the rules, then go from there.

Erm, as opposed to what? You don're really have to play with the 7-20 level stuff until people reach that. The only thing you get with "E6" is additional time once you reach that plateau.

X-Mas Ape: have you been a player in a 1-20 regular 3.x campaign?

@Sosthenes: I find the first few levels rush right by, and there's little chance to learn all that much about the system before your combats get bigger, your enemies tougher, the attacks more likely to kill instantly...basically, my experiences at higher levels have never been able to let me crack open the underlying structure and taste the marrow before it wandered into dragons and finger of death territory. I believe this variant will. And, you know...I believe in the sweet spot. The prep part is a bonus, mostly I really like play at that level.

@Settembrini: No, I'll grant not. I've played 1st through 10th, 6th through 14th, 12th through 16th (separate campaigns), and we're gearing up for Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil with some prep adventures, so this one should be 1st through 14th. That said, chief, and you should know I mean in this in the nicest way possible: I don't give a half dried-out marmoset turd what you think D&D is supposed to be until you sit down at my game table to roll up a D&D character. At that point, our personal tastes regarding "proper" D&D can properly descend into nerd slapfight territory, rather than yelling our preferences at each other over the internet.