Quote from: Sommerjon;544328There is?  Where is this implied setting located at?

Equipment lists.  Magic item descriptions, particularly the artifacts and relics.  Treasure type tables.  Which races you can play and which you can't.  The spells with proper names in them.  The classes that come with implicit organizations attached to them (Thief's Guild, Assassin's Guild, Druidic hierarchy, Bardic colleges).  The domain rules.  The wandering monster tables.

Quote from: jrients;544420Equipment lists.  Magic item descriptions, particularly the artifacts and relics.  Treasure type tables.  Which races you can play and which you can't.  The spells with proper names in them.  The classes that come with implicit organizations attached to them (Thief's Guild, Assassin's Guild, Druidic hierarchy, Bardic colleges).  The domain rules.  The wandering monster tables.

Ah, but he used big red text to call bullshit.

By the rules of 3rd grade that's going to be tough to refute.

Quote from: Piestrio;544417Maybe my DMG is special but it's filled with tables and examples. It talks about what towns and wilderness areas are like, it talks about what kind of people you can find in different places. It talks about the different races and how they act and live, etc...

If that's not "implied setting" I don't know what it.

"Looks like we got ourselves a reader."  :hand:

Quote from: Sommerjon;544328There is?  Where is this implied setting located at?

I read through the big 3 books and fail to see this implied setting . . .

Then stop wearing your ass as a ski mask.

Should clear that problem right up for you.

Quote from: Sommerjon;544328There is?  Where is this implied setting located at?

It's been said already but basically every random table, every description of wandering monster types per climate or level or whatnot, all these elements point to a default repartition, probabilities to meet, inhabitants of a world that is... implied. Implied setting.

See also the structure of spells pointing out to the existence of the planes, their names and structure. See references to the Layers of the Abyss in the DMG text.

See also the actual names of spells and magic items. Stuff like "Mordenkainen" and "Bigby" and "Melf" and "Heward". The "City of Brass". "Gaxx". "Vecna". The Wind Dukes of Aaqa and the great battle of Pesh. References to the "Nyr Dyv" and the world of Greyhawk.

I mean. I'm just scratching the surface here. I did this by scanning the pages for like 2 minutes. Stop being a total idiot dude.

Quote from: Sommerjon;544328I read through the big 3 books and fail to see this implied setting, however this part does jump out at me
"APPROACHES TO PLAYING ADVANCED DUNGEONS & DRAGONS
A few brief words are necessary to insure that the reader has actually obtained a game form which he or she desires. Of the two approaches to hobby games today, one is best defined as the realism-simulation school and the other as the game school. AD&D is assuredly an adherent of the latter school. It does not stress any realism (in the author’s opinion an absurd effort at best considering the topic!). It does little to attempt to simulate anything either. AD&D is first and foremost a game for the fun and enjoyment of those who seek to use imagination and creativity. This is not to say that where it does not interfere with the flow of the game that the highest degree of realism hasn‘t been attempted, but neither is a serious approach to play discouraged. In all cases, however, the reader should understand that AD&D is designed to be an amusing and diverting pastime, something which can fill a few hours or consume endless days, as the participents desire, but in no case something to be taken too seriously. For fun, excitement, and captivating fantasy, AD&D is unsurpassed. As a realistic simulation of things from the realm of make-believe, or even as a reflection of medieval or ancient warfare or culture or society, it can be deemed only a dismal failure.  Readers who seek the latter must search elsewhere. Those who desire to create and populate imaginary worlds with larger-than-life heroes and villains, who seek relaxation with a fascinating game, and who generally believe games should be fun, not work, will hopefully find this system to their taste."

This paragraph, I do not think it means what you think it means.

There's a little thing called context you might have heard about. This paragraph is written as a response to specific criticism about the D&D game that led to the creation and publication of other games, which then competed with D&D, on one side, and to respond to some of the most hardcore wargamers who wanted a greater accuracy of the D&D simulation (sometimes the same guys, I'd wager).

In any case, this quote here is definitely a product of its time. It was the defense of D&D has a passtime that engages in Fantasy, and not this hardcore simulation so many criticized the game for not being.

Context, dude. Use your brain, if you have one.

Quote from: Piestrio;544417Maybe my DMG is special but it's filled with tables and examples. It talks about what towns and wilderness areas are like, it talks about what kind of people you can find in different places. It talks about the different races and how they act and live, etc...

If that's not "implied setting" I don't know what it.

When they say
"As the creator of a milieu, you will have to spend a considerable amount of time developing the population and distribution of monsters in dungeon and wilderness and in urban areas as well. It is highly recommended that you develop an overall scheme for both population and habitation. This is not to say that a random mixture of monsters cannot be used, simply selecting whatever creatures are at hand from the tables of monsters shown by level of their relative challenge. The latter method does provide a rather fun type of campaign with a "Disneyland" atmosphere, but long range play becomes difficult, for the whole lacks rhyme and reason, so it becomes difficult for the DM to extrapolate new scenarios from it, let alone build upon it. Therefore, it is better to use the random population technique only in certain areas, and even then to do so with reason...."
Or
"You may find it interesting to mix titles, invent them, and place the whole in the campaign setting you devise accordingly. Research in various histories will be helpful, as will be a copy of a good thesaurus."
Or
"There is nothing wrong with using a prepared setting to start a campaign. just as long as you are totally familiar with its precepts and they mesh with what you envision as the ultimate direction of your own milieu. Whatever doesn't match, remove from the material and substitute your own in its place. On the other hand, there is nothing to say you are not capable of creating your own starting place; just use whichever method is best suited to your available time and more likely to please your players. Until you are sure of yourself, lean upon the book."
Sure seems to run counter to what you say.  Giving examples in no way implies anything.

Quote from: jrients;544420Equipment lists.  Magic item descriptions, particularly the artifacts and relics.  Treasure type tables.  Which races you can play and which you can't.  The spells with proper names in them.  The classes that come with implicit organizations attached to them (Thief's Guild, Assassin's Guild, Druidic hierarchy, Bardic colleges).  The domain rules.  The wandering monster tables.

Really?
"Because of the unique nature of each artifact and relic, their powers are only partially described. You, the Dungeon Master, must at least decide what the major powers of each item are to be. This prevents players from gaining any knowledge of these items, even if they happen to own or read a copy of this volume, and it also makes each artifact and relic distinct from campaign to campaign."
My DMG seems to be different from yours.
As to your classes with organizations
Thief "Any thief character of 10th or greater level may use his small castle type building to set up a headquarters for a gang of thieves, and he or she will accordingly attract from 4-24 other thieves. However, this will bring the enmity of the local Thieves Guild,"the only time the thieve's guild is mentioned with the thief. Domain rules=optional, wandering monster tables you are encouraged to create your own.

Worthless thread just keeps getting more and more worthless.

To actually address the OP - Who gives a fuck.

Quote from: Sommerjon;544411You didn't 'prove' anything.

You just said something and people here would rather take the negative as gospel than actually try.

Swift action healing, self-healing, neutered save-or-dies, hit point bloat.  In 2e, your fighter might have 1 HP and be dead at 0 HP.  In 4e, that fighter has more HP and can go to negative HP.

Quote from: Sommerjon;544447Really?
"Because of the unique nature of each artifact and relic, their powers are only partially described. You, the Dungeon Master, must at least decide what the major powers of each item are to be. This prevents players from gaining any knowledge of these items, even if they happen to own or read a copy of this volume, and it also makes each artifact and relic distinct from campaign to campaign."
My DMG seems to be different from yours.
As to your classes with organizations
Thief "Any thief character of 10th or greater level may use his small castle type building to set up a headquarters for a gang of thieves, and he or she will accordingly attract from 4-24 other thieves. However, this will bring the enmity of the local Thieves Guild,"the only time the thieve's guild is mentioned with the thief. Domain rules=optional, wandering monster tables you are encouraged to create your own.

My DMG isn't different.  Your reading skills might be the issue.  No one here, as far as I can tell, has disputed the idea that any or all facets of the implied setting can be modified to fit a particular DM's project.  For example, I omitted all forms of armor more advanced than chainmail from my last campaign because it was set in a pseudo-England before the development of plate.

My ability to alter these setting elements (and Gygax's advice to do so) doesn't alter the fact that the Machine of Lum the Mad implies something about how technology and magic can interact, that the existence of hostile Thieves Guilds implies something about organized crime, that the racial sympathy/antipathy charts imply something about how often the various humanoid species encounter each other.  These implications are all over the AD&D books.  Just because you can't find them doesn't mean they aren't there.

My favorite example of how implied setting works in AD&D is the addition of the arquebus to the equipment charts in 2nd edition.  The introduction of gunpowder weapons totally blew away my playgroup at the time.  Our reading of the implied setting in the prior edition suggested that gunpowder was utterly alien to baseline D&D, except when you visited Boot Hill or Gamma World via planar shenanigans.

I think it is fair to say that in all the D&D PHBs and DMGs there are some implied default assumptions about the kind of setting the game is meant to support. This doesn't mean every campaign has to be forgotten realms or GH or that the GM shouldn't make his setting unique in a number of ways, but reading through the first three DMGs and PHBs at least (being less familiar with the 4E books I won't comment on whether it applies to them) is clear to me the writers assume quasi-medieval europe/dark ages with races pulled from tolkein mixed heavily with other sword and sorcery. There are more exotic elements as well. People can quibble over some of the details (maybe I am overplaying tolkein or other influences for instance), the key thing is to make a campaign that doesn't fit the default assumptions you need to do some work (and that is half the fun in my opinion).

I haven't been following the most recent posts too closely, so I don't know if I am really contradicting your point here at all sommerjon. I just saw some dispute about whether there is an implied setting in D&D and think it is obvious there are some implied assumptions.

That said, I see nothing wrong with breaking away from those assumptions to make a more interesting campaign world. One thing 2E really showed was the variety of D&D settings that are possible by taking the core classes and races and tweaking or modifying for taste. But it also showed you really do have to alter core things (races, equipment, magic items, spells, classes, etc) the further you go away from the games core assumptions. If you want to run D&D out of the box, then it is much easier to build your setting around the existing races and other material. Take settings like ravenloft, dark sun or spell jammer...they break away significantly from core D&D assumptions in their own way (not to mention exotic settings like Al-Qadim). But to do this well they made some major changes to the PHB.

Reading the original DMG, since it comes up an alot, one of the things that struck me was Gary seemed to build in some key setting ideas (a fighter, wizard, thief for example are setting components that shape what a campaign will look like) but he also talked about going off the rails for some truly unique campaigns people wouldn't even think of today (I can't recall the specifics but I remember he describing a really bizarre, almost alice in wonderland style, game he likes to run from time to time).

Benoist did point out the importance of context with the 1E dmg, and I don't think that can be excluded from this discussion. He also is writing at a time when the gulf between wargames (which could be heavily simulationist at times) and rpgs was a lot less obvious. Not to rehash the gamist/simulationist debate that seems to be brewing, but I think context applies here as well. Also while there are some serious Gary worshippers out there, a lot of us (while we admire him for his style and for being the first) don't take everything he says as revealed truth from on high. So posting clips of gary saying something doesn't really persuade me to change my position on anything (I think he was wrong on a number of things). By the time I started playing, I don't think anyone in my grew was running a Gary-esque campaign or viewing the purpose of the system through his lens (in fact when I started there was considerably more pull to make D&D more realistic like some of its competitors---most complaints at the time centered on believability, not playability.

WOW. Sommerjon IS a total idiot, judging by his reading skills. My bad.

Quote from: jrients;544453My favorite example of how implied setting works in AD&D is the addition of the arquebus to the equipment charts in 2nd edition.  The introduction of gunpowder weapons totally blew away my playgroup at the time.  Our reading of the implied setting in the prior edition suggested that gunpowder was utterly alien to baseline D&D, except when you visited Boot Hill or Gamma World via planar shenanigans.

I found this interesting because I began GMing in 89 or 90 with 2E. While I had played 1E before that, most of my assumptions were developed by the 2E materials. And having gunpowder on the list created an interesting tension in most of my groups. On the one hand we initially looked to stuff like excaliber, conan and dragonslayer for inspiration (I don't know why but those three films just seemed to be really big influences on the people I played with). Yet gunpowder was in the rule book and received more and more play as the line developed. To the point that by the end of the 90s most of my own campaign settings had a clear renaissance-vibe in many regions, but kept pushing against other much more dark age aspects....so the final product tended to be a bit of a curious hodgepodge. And I think this was largely just me trying to make sense of the equipment list and setting material.

Quote from: B.T.;544450Swift action healing, self-healing, neutered save-or-dies, hit point bloat.  In 2e, your fighter might have 1 HP and be dead at 0 HP.  In 4e, that fighter has more HP and can go to negative HP.

Actually, monsters do more damage on average, which solves your first two points and your fourth, save-or-die is a stupid mechanic on both sides of the table because unless you're playing OD&D you get to go through a half-hour to an hour plus of chargen because of a single failed roll, rolled HP is a really really bad legacy mechanic that you don't see anymore because outside of people stockholmed into thinking it's ~*so great*~ it accomplishes nothing but presenting another barrier to entry.

Seriously, you present the idea that it's not as lethal because either you've never played it or you played it purposefully just to hate it more. I mean, come on, your spout of idiocy would be like me claiming that all OD&D could ever be was Fantasy Vietnam with 120 minutes of ambush setup before each 10 minute fight and that it was literally impossible to ever play it differently.

You make huge blanket statements based on a complete lack of any sort of knowledge and then try to place the burden of proof onto other people because you know you can't prove anything.

Quote from: Darwinism;544463Actually, monsters do more damage on average, which solves your first two points and your fourth, save-or-die is a stupid mechanic on both sides of the table because unless you're playing OD&D you get to go through a half-hour to an hour plus of chargen because of a single failed roll, rolled HP is a really really bad legacy mechanic that you don't see anymore because outside of people stockholmed into thinking it's ~*so great*~ it accomplishes nothing but presenting another barrier to entry.

Seriously, you present the idea that it's not as lethal because either you've never played it or you played it purposefully just to hate it more. I mean, come on, your spout of idiocy would be like me claiming that all OD&D could ever be was Fantasy Vietnam with 120 minutes of ambush setup before each 10 minute fight and that it was literally impossible to ever play it differently.

You make huge blanket statements based on a complete lack of any sort of knowledge and then try to place the burden of proof onto other people because you know you can't prove anything.

My experience with 4E was it was easier to avoid character death than previous editions (though to be fair it was pretty easy in 3e as well). The amount of healing seemed to blunt the danger. My experience with the game is somewhat limited so i wnt deny i could be wrong. It was never my major complaint about the edition but i my experienve of it and what i hear from friends who play and like it is it is a substantially less lethal game than say 1e or 2e (even 3e). But this would seem to be by design. My impression was they wanted to keep the players in the game more, so it really isn't an attack to say it is less lethal (most 4e fans i know seem to prefer a less lethal system which is a perfectly legitimate preference).

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544473this would seem to be by design. My impression was they wanted to keep the players in the game more, so it really isn't an attack to say it is less lethal (most 4e fans i know seem to prefer a less lethal system which is a perfectly legitimate preference).

As someone who played mostly 3.5 and 4e, this sounds about right.