Quote from: tenbones;847231Not gonna lie. I miss the uneven XP tracks of Ye Olde Schoole.

Which brings up another thought I hadn't considered...

Remember in 2e when they Complete Splats landed, they had those lists of XP bonuses that were specific to each class? I remember a lot of people in the 3e era onward griping about those... but I remember a lot of my players loving the shit out of those because it made them *do* things actively in our games for the pure greedy sake of earning experience... and it fit within their character's class motifs.

So the Thieves were always sneaking around, trying to figure out ways to get gold (gold gained through thievery was XP!) Fighters were always trying to kill shit in single-combat. Mages were always trying to concoct their own spells. Clerics are always creating their own rites and ceremonies. And it created in-game conflicts that help drive the game.

It required a little extra book-keeping but... wow... am I looking at that with Rosy-colored glasses? I remember my players always being excited about it. Am I just tripping out?

I didn't play 2e long enough for any of that to really matter but there's nothing stopping DMs from awarding characters more XP and in-game prestige for doing those things. A Fighter who calls out an opponent in Single combat gains all the XP of that monster instead of dividing it up among his allies and he gains renown from those who witness the spectacle. Wizards and Cleric developing their own spells gets more spells! I guess I don't see a reason why later editions can do the same thing that 2e did?

Quote from: tenbones;847231It required a little extra book-keeping but... wow... am I looking at that with Rosy-colored glasses? I remember my players always being excited about it. Am I just tripping out?

Ugh. Micro ad-hoc XP awards. Too much of a headache to track properly, and if you do then the time spent doing that detracts from what is going on in the game. Players are constantly doing stupid pet tricks to earn treats, and if you have a table full of them doing it an once it becomes a major pain in the ass.

This is why I just ignore the inspiration mechanic in 5E. Players fixating on doing whatever it takes to earn a cookie constantly turns the whole session into a ( # of players) ring circus trying to get applause.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;847242Ugh. Micro ad-hoc XP awards. Too much of a headache to track properly, and if you do then the time spent doing that detracts from what is going on in the game. Players are constantly doing stupid pet tricks to earn treats, and if you have a table full of them doing it an once it becomes a major pain in the ass.

I want to remember it like this... but I don't. I remember it being the opposite.

I never found it a pain in the ass to keep track of either. Most of the time, the players did it themselves and helped tally it up at the end, but I had veto power on it.

They did do the stupid-pet-tricks thing... but of course in doing so, it often got them into trouble in the game, which only added more to the game. Some sobered up on it and learned to do it when it mattered to their characters, other's were blatant whores about it... but often paid the iron-price for it.

HMMM... maybe I should re-visit it. Anyone else think it was a pain in the ass?

I don't keep track of players' XP.  If I don't trust them to be honest and accurate they aren' t invited.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;847146If you aren't accustomed to treating D&D as a game rather than some collaborative wish fulfillment storytelling exercise then no the concept wouldn't resonate with you.

Going up in level in the game is an indication of victory, not just something that happens automatically every X sessions. If you don't use XP and just level everyone up at "appropriate" times then you have left a lot of the game aspect out of play and thus the levels have less meaning. If the levels have less or NO real meaning to the player then the only solution is to keep piling on widgets for the character.

It is a huge difference in approach to play, and not everyone enjoys the game aspects anymore. Make of that what you will.

Very well, lets consider game design.  Since I know more about board games than you can even imagine, this should be a very enlightening discussion for you - if you were capable of listening.  Since I have a sneaking suspicion you're one of those people who likes to argue on the internet more than you like actually learning things, I tend to doubt you'll learn anything, but I like to behave like people aren't blithering idiots until they remove the last little bit of doubt.

One of the principles of any long game is that it should evolve over the length of the game.  Through the Ages, Twilight Imperium, Descent, Dungeon Lords, Twilight Struggle, these change and evolve over the course of the game.   Turn 8 of Twilight Struggle simply does not look like turn 1 - and why should it?  The Late War is a very different beast, and a good game provides progression and change.

Even Warhammer 40K follows this (and that's hyper low evolution by board gaming scales).  Although the armies don't evolve, as the battlelines clash, the game fundamentally changes.  Reserve units and powers get expended, vehicles explode, squads lose strength.  As the board changes, people have to change and evolve their strategies.  

This is good design.  Good long games change and evolve, because changing and evolving offers the players new options.  Like peeling back layers of the onion, you can use old things in new ways, and new things to solve old problems.  

Incrementing numbers doesn't do this.  One does not change the decision to hit an Owlbear because one has +4 to hit rather than +3.  It's not a new decision, it's slightly better at doing an old decision.

If you're proposing that D&D learn from game design, then I suggest D&D learns from game design.  Because we have come so far from Axis and Allies that it's hard to even document every evolution.  And trotting out a 40 year old design and saying "yep, they nailed every bit of it, perfect game" is an excellent way to get laughed at.

Quote from: GreyICE;847276If you're proposing that D&D learn from game design, then I suggest D&D learns from game design.  Because we have come so far from Axis and Allies that it's hard to even document every evolution.  And trotting out a 40 year old design and saying "yep, they nailed every bit of it, perfect game" is an excellent way to get laughed at.

SH!  You're talking about the 'bad kind' of Evolution!  Don't do that!

Quote from: GreyICE;847276Very well, lets consider game design.  Since I know more about board games than you can even imagine, this should be a very enlightening discussion for you - if you were capable of listening.  Since I have a sneaking suspicion you're one of those people who likes to argue on the internet more than you like actually learning things, I tend to doubt you'll learn anything, but I like to behave like people aren't blithering idiots until they remove the last little bit of doubt.

One of the principles of any long game is that it should evolve over the length of the game.  Through the Ages, Twilight Imperium, Descent, Dungeon Lords, Twilight Struggle, these change and evolve over the course of the game.   Turn 8 of Twilight Struggle simply does not look like turn 1 - and why should it?  The Late War is a very different beast, and a good game provides progression and change.

Even Warhammer 40K follows this (and that's hyper low evolution by board gaming scales).  Although the armies don't evolve, as the battlelines clash, the game fundamentally changes.  Reserve units and powers get expended, vehicles explode, squads lose strength.  As the board changes, people have to change and evolve their strategies.  

This is good design.  Good long games change and evolve, because changing and evolving offers the players new options.  Like peeling back layers of the onion, you can use old things in new ways, and new things to solve old problems.  

Incrementing numbers doesn't do this.  One does not change the decision to hit an Owlbear because one has +4 to hit rather than +3.  It's not a new decision, it's slightly better at doing an old decision.

If you're proposing that D&D learn from game design, then I suggest D&D learns from game design.  Because we have come so far from Axis and Allies that it's hard to even document every evolution.  And trotting out a 40 year old design and saying "yep, they nailed every bit of it, perfect game" is an excellent way to get laughed at.

Wow.  Apples and drill presses.

Quote from: GreyICE;847276If you're proposing that D&D learn from game design, then I suggest D&D learns from game design.  Because we have come so far from Axis and Allies that it's hard to even document every evolution.  And trotting out a 40 year old design and saying "yep, they nailed every bit of it, perfect game" is an excellent way to get laughed at.

First, I still enjoy Axis & Allies.

Second, while RPGs like OD&D and B/X and their variants are NOT perfect games, they provide the fantasy RPG experience I want far better than most of their more modern relatives. Those old games nailed the experience I enjoy while the newer games generally do not come nearer as close.

Can systems be improved? Sure, but I am only interested in those improved systems if the result is pretty much the same experience I get out of those old games. If the improvements change the play into something I enjoy less, they are not improvements for me.

Examples:

1) I like my D&D combat to be very fast (average of 10 minutes or so, 20-25 minutes max for the occasional, important "boss combat"), somewhat abstract, and have no interest in a tactical minis game in the middle of my RPG. Modern versions of D&D have combats that take far longer than I like, often all but require minis and battlemats, and stress what I call "rules-manipulation tactics" where tactics aren't a "simulation" of real world tactics but are the tactics of knowing and using the game rules to the best advantage.

2) I do not consider games mechanics interesting. In an RPG, I want the rules to fade into the background so I can focus on the game world, the adventure, and what my character is doing in it. The more I have to think in game mechanics, the less interest I have in the rules. Modern versions of D&D tend to have all sorts of "game mechanics gadgets" one has to learn and carefully manipulate which requires studying the rules. I want players to simply say what their character is doing and the GM tells them the result or what to roll. Players should not have to read the rules (let alone master them) to do this.

3) I want character generation to be fast and simple without needing system mastery to build a character. Modern versions of D&D make character creation far too complex and time consuming for my interests.

4) I want player skill to matter in the actual play of the game far more than character skill. Modern versions of the game tend to make character skill trump player skill.

5) I have no interest in the type of game balance that modern versions of D&D stress. I don't want characters than are always able to do well no matter what the task. I do not want set-piece encounters designed around the abilities of the PCs.

Etc.

So while there have been many changes many people consider "improvements" in D&D over the last 40 years, many of the "improvements" changed the play experience greatly -- and into something I do not enjoy playing.  My point: what is an "improvement" to D&D and what is not is subjective opinion far more often than it is objective fact. It's only an improvement if it makes the game better for the style of play you enjoy -- no matter what game design theory might say.

Quote from: tenbones;847231Not gonna lie. I miss the uneven XP tracks of Ye Olde Schoole.

Which brings up another thought I hadn't considered...

Remember in 2e when they Complete Splats landed, they had those lists of XP bonuses that were specific to each class? I remember a lot of people in the 3e era onward griping about those... but I remember a lot of my players loving the shit out of those because it made them *do* things actively in our games for the pure greedy sake of earning experience... and it fit within their character's class motifs.

So the Thieves were always sneaking around, trying to figure out ways to get gold (gold gained through thievery was XP!) Fighters were always trying to kill shit in single-combat. Mages were always trying to concoct their own spells. Clerics are always creating their own rites and ceremonies. And it created in-game conflicts that help drive the game.

It required a little extra book-keeping but... wow... am I looking at that with Rosy-colored glasses? I remember my players always being excited about it. Am I just tripping out?

They were, and are, fun!

And compared to the +10% for high stats, +% for in-class behavior was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cooler. Besides, outside of +% there was fixed XP value rewards for pursuing in-class goals. It was in the 2e DMG Experience chapter, so if +% was tiresome bookkeeping, a fixed +50 or +200 is a complete non-issue alternative.

My rosy tint glasses makes everything so nice... The past was glorious, filled with unironic Rubik's cubes, CDs in jewel cases, Tab cola...

Quote from: RandallS;847296First, I still enjoy Axis & Allies.

Nothing wrong with that, but when we compare it to Memoir '44, A Fire in the Lake or Fortress America we start to see that the old dog has not aged quite so well.  

Quote2) I do not consider games mechanics interesting. In an RPG, I want the rules to fade into the background so I can focus on the game world, the adventure, and what my character is doing in it. The more I have to think in game mechanics, the less interest I have in the rules. Modern versions of D&D tend to have all sorts of "game mechanics gadgets" one has to learn and carefully manipulate which requires studying the rules. I want players to simply say what their character is doing and the GM tells them the result or what to roll. Players should not have to read the rules (let alone master them) to do this.

I would somewhat agree.  Exploder Wizard was the one who suggested that by doing so you are a "treating D&D as a collaborative wish fulfillment storytelling exercise" and that you have lost sight of the fact that D&D is a game.  

I was pointing out that if you evaluate D&D purely as a game, not only is the "dead level" mechanic poor, the mechanics as a whole are poor.  Games are not meant to fade into the background, they are meant to be an engaging experience on their own.

Quote from: GreyICE;847301I was pointing out that if you evaluate D&D purely as a game, not only is the "dead level" mechanic poor, the mechanics as a whole are poor.  Games are not meant to fade into the background, they are meant to be an engaging experience on their own.

Card games, board games, and sports games certainly are -- and they are also competitive. However, I believe RPGs need be neither mechanically engaging nor competitive. The type of RPGs I most enjoy fit what is usually/often the second dictionary definition of the word "game": "an activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime" as opposed to "a competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules".

I see RPGs as way of experiencing an alternative world created by/ran by a referee as a character in that world as opposed to something competitive thing centered on rules.

However, in general, I do not think much of modern game theory as it calls many popular games that many people enjoy playing poorly designed (e.g. Monopoly). To me, useful game theory should explain why a game is popular so other such popular games can be created. Game theory that basically says many popular games are poorly designed while extolling the good design of games that few like/play is useless as it is trying to tell people what they should really like as opposed to explaining what makes popular games click. It would be like a scientific theory that tells how the world should work in the view of its proponents instead of telling how the world actually does work.

"MY way of playing pretend elf is objectively better because REASONS!"

Quote from: Exploderwizard;846852When all that matters is what exactly you can do in a mechanical sense then no none of that matters.

The environment? You mean that scrolling two dimensional backdrop that exists only so that I can look awesome doing my kewl moves? What about it?

What matters is that MY numbers are biggerer and betterer so that I can compare them to other numbers and win challenges. Everything else is useless fluff! :rolleyes:

But when you think in exactly the opposite way.

The environment is rich and varied and the PCs occupy in in a wholly interactive way. They are part of the wheft and the weave of the world.
What matters is that my PC is a living breathing fully realised entity who may be expressed mechanically by some numbers on a sheet but in my mind and that of the other players is as understandable and complete as anyone of the players themselves ....

it still doesn't make sense that that there are "dead levels".

In the game world levels represent the fact that you have developed new skills and new abilities the nearest comparison is to get a qualification at school, or a promotion at work.
Each step on this scale should be accompanied by a mechanical benefit (obviously we are working in a level based mechanic so the improvements are already quantum in nature rather than realistically progressive).
Now the other side of this coin is that sometimes it takes a long time to learn something new and maybe you work for years and never really improve. However in a level based system that is represented by the XP you need to progress to a new level not the fact that the level is bereft of mechanical benefits.

So what you actually have in a game with dead levels is a system that panders to the needy players to feel like they are getting their frequent gold stars where as you might be better with fewer levels with more mechanical benefits.

Levels have 3 important meta game functions
i) They allow some balance - a scenario designed for 10th level PCs will be different that one designed for 2nd level PCs and a 10th level thief and a 10th level Wizard should both have a role to play in that scenario, both bringing skills to bear that will be useful
ii) They allow the game to package up a set of abilities for a particular class and then break it down in to different discrete levels of power to give a progression from novice to archetype
iii) they encourage people to show up each week by giving out gold stars for participation and depending on the group reward those that are "better" at the game with more gold stars

Number 3 quickly becomes the dominant one because really most players don't care about the world or imbue their PCs with any sort of depth they just want to kill more stuff faster with cool powerz. That is as true of the guy playing an Elven Fighter/MU in 1978 as it is of a girl playing a Dragonborn Paladin in 2015.

Quote from: GreyICE;847276Very well, lets consider game design.  Since I know more about board games than you can even imagine, this should be a very enlightening discussion for you - if you were capable of listening.  Since I have a sneaking suspicion you're one of those people who likes to argue on the internet more than you like actually learning things, I tend to doubt you'll learn anything, but I like to behave like people aren't blithering idiots until they remove the last little bit of doubt.

One of the principles of any long game is that it should evolve over the length of the game.  Through the Ages, Twilight Imperium, Descent, Dungeon Lords, Twilight Struggle, these change and evolve over the course of the game.   Turn 8 of Twilight Struggle simply does not look like turn 1 - and why should it?  The Late War is a very different beast, and a good game provides progression and change.

Even Warhammer 40K follows this (and that's hyper low evolution by board gaming scales).  Although the armies don't evolve, as the battlelines clash, the game fundamentally changes.  Reserve units and powers get expended, vehicles explode, squads lose strength.  As the board changes, people have to change and evolve their strategies.  

This is good design.  Good long games change and evolve, because changing and evolving offers the players new options.  Like peeling back layers of the onion, you can use old things in new ways, and new things to solve old problems.  

Incrementing numbers doesn't do this.  One does not change the decision to hit an Owlbear because one has +4 to hit rather than +3.  It's not a new decision, it's slightly better at doing an old decision.

If you're proposing that D&D learn from game design, then I suggest D&D learns from game design.  Because we have come so far from Axis and Allies that it's hard to even document every evolution.  And trotting out a 40 year old design and saying "yep, they nailed every bit of it, perfect game" is an excellent way to get laughed at.

Whew!  Aren't we fancy?

I'm no board game guru or anything so I will have rely on 35 years of gaming to explain this in a bit of detail.

Good games change and evolve. This is true. The original editions of D&D did a much better job of doing this meaningfully than those that came after. I am speaking of change in a very material way.

 A low level adventurer is scrounging for a bit of loot, looking to gain power and influence. As he/she rises in level that power and influence become evident in the game world. Followers are attracted to the character, a stronghold is established, land cleared of monsters, and the character now wields actual political power.

The game changes in a very real sense, not because a new widget to club monsters gets added to the ability inventory, but because the actual dynamic of play changes from beating up monsters for gold to the complexities of governing, political maneuvering, and partaking in large scale conflicts that shape the history of the game world. OD&D got this dynamic shift right out of the gate.

Lets flash forward to a more evolved form of the game. Twenty six years of rpg game designing have passed and along comes a shiny new 3E game, all streamlined with the lessons that past editions have taught. Now we can finally have a game that evolves over the length of the game. New kewl powers, feats, prestige classes- YES! We have an endless buffet of widgets to add to our characters from level 1 to 20.

So at level one we are fledgling adventurers, going into holes in the ground to beat up monsters. As the game progresses, we continue to go into holes to beat up monsters. At high level we go down holes and continue to beat up monsters. They are much tougher monsters, and we have the option to bash them with the old schmababicker that we had at level one, or the shiny new bramasgonger that we just got at level 13! Wow!  What evolution!  What a dynamic shift in the play experience. Where once we only had a handful of options, now we have 47 different ways to do the exact same thing!

Doing the same thing for 20 levels even if you have a million different ways to do it doesn't seem like meaningful change to me. Not compared to the brilliance of a 41 year old design that incorporated small scale tactical skirmishing that morphed into a complex game of strategy and diplomacy in the endgame.

Quote from: jibbajibba;847322it still doesn't make sense that that there are "dead levels".

I have to think that there may be a simple reason why people did not consider a level in which one only gained hit points to be a dead level in OD&D, B/X, and even 1e but they do in more modern versions today. I think hit point inflation is the major reason hit points are no longer seen as a major benefit.  Another hit dice was a major increase in survival power compared to the monsters in OD&D/Greyhawk, B/X, or 1e.

In later versions of the game, monsters started getting more and more hit points, so another hit die for a character did not seem to be that much of an improvement. In older versions of the game that 4.5 average increase in hit points for a fighter actually did mean the fighter could successful take on monsters he could not before. As the hit points for monsters inflated, that 4.5 hit point average increase started meaning less and less compared to the monsters. That is, the increase in hit points no longer really enabled the character to do noticeably better in the game (as it had in early editions).