I'm with Sett on grappling not working for me.  In my last big campaign we had a druid that would turn into a dire bear and grapple the shit out of everything.  It bogged down every damn fight.

Alas, has anybody experiences with the SAGA grappling?
It looks somehow streamlined, and is now only eligible via certain feats. Still I can´t wrap my head around how it´ll play out.

Quote from: SettembriniAnd we are dedicated, rules-savvy guys in that group.

Oh, believe me, I know the deal. We had some interesting discussions about that, too. Sometimes it still comes down to me just saying "No, you're wrong" -- which doesn't happen very often when it comes to rules. The problem is that we're still using most of the rules, so up til now nobody has found a good way to simplifiy things without throwing things out of balance.
Personally, I'd like to see even more rules, this time for monsters. The way a giant squid grapples is quite different from a Dire Wolf. Some maneuvers like in the Book of Iron Might would be neat.

Speaking of which, maneuvers are a good solution for newbie players, introducing optional and advanced rules in a unified manner. Feats would justa be a natural progression of that. If someone would do a basic game right now, I'd imagine cards would come into play heavily, with most players having a small "deck" of feats, spells and special abilities.

And well, SAGA just looks a bit too simplified. I'm not happy about Power Attack and Expertise being feats, now even basic grappling stuff has to be bought.

Calithena: We definitely think about these things a lot. When I helped work on the current basic set, we came up with a lot of different approaches we could try. We ended up going with a format similar to the one that came before, but it's something we think about a lot.

There would have to be a serious shift in the market for a game like BD&D to come back and exist alongside an AD&D type game. From what I understand, the two lines competed with each other. BD&D was at its best when it served as a gateway to AD&D.

I think the interesting side of the issue is that, IME, simpler games appeal to the most experienced gamers. I think that when people get into gaming, they have a lot of time and energy to put into it. As they grow older, and they have more responsibilities, then they start to want simpler, faster gamers. By the same token, an RPGer who wants to try lots of games or play lots of pick-up sessions probably wants simpler rules, too.

Those play patterns - play lots of different games; too little time to play any game in depth - are the marks of the guy who has been playing for years, not the beginning gamer.

Anyway, we'd never simply decide to abandon simplicity or ease of use in design because we like complexity. I like to think of D&D's rules as two sub-sets, the foundational rules that everyone needs to learn to play (movement, attacks, saves), and the "depth" rules that are essentially optional. You can learn from 0% to 100% of those rules, depending on your personal motivation. For instance, you can play a fighter with zero understanding wizard and cleric spells. Looking at SAGA, I think the trend is to make those foundational rules as easy to learn, remember, and apply, while keeping the "depth" rules interesting and fun.

So, grapple might be streamlined, but the special grapple feats give the wrestling character a lot of interesting options and the complexity needed to make them fun. Joe the Mage doesn't need to learn how the Turnbuckle Leap feat works, but the grappling fighter does (and wants to).

It boils down to this:  If there's really such a need for a basic D&D to bring people into the hobby, if the internet grognards aren't just lying through their teeth, then where are the newbies?

Where are the guys showing up on RPGnet or ENWorld who've been introduced to gaming through C&C, or Basic Fantasy, or True 20?  

Sure they don't have the marketing clout of Wizards, but if these people really were about introducing new people, surely that would make up for it enough that we'd at least see a few of them showing up?

But of course we don't.  Instead we see the same damn people talking about these games, all of whom have been in the hobby for a decade or more.

The "bringing in new gamers" bit is just a rhetorical ploy to spin it as something other than a purely selfish desire to get Wizards to basically rewrite history, and D&D, to suit their own tastes.

Quote from: J ArcaneWhere are the guys showing up on RPGnet or ENWorld who've been introduced to gaming through C&C, or Basic Fantasy, or True 20?

Are any of those games be marketed to newbies?  Are they in distribution channels where newbies will see them?

Quote from: jrientsAre any of those games be marketed to newbies?  Are they in distribution channels where newbies will see them?

I'm not talking about marketing.

I'm talking about people. The one's who claim to want a "basic game" to bring new people into the hobby.

There's already games out there that serve the same effective purpose as what they would want out of a new Basic D&D, so why aren't they just using that then?  

Go on, there's your game, now go do your side of the bargain, in bring in the new people.  Go run demos at shops.  Invite that fantasy loving cousin on your mother's side to your next game, or the new guy at work who's big into Harry Potter.  Set up a class at your next convention, targeted at the family members who get dragged along but aren't really gamers at all.

Less talk, more action.  If you're really about bringing in the new gamers, some big company shouldn't have to do all the work for you.  If you've really got the enthusiasm for it, you'd be out there making a real effort.

But that's not really the aim, is it?

My personal fave (somewhat related to JArcane here) is all the people who talk about how they are introducing their parents to roleplaying, now that they've found the rules-lite secret or the game that's finally going to do it all.

I keep waiting for these "parents" and various senior citizens to appear. I mean, I see some age 40-50+ (or older) people gaming here and there.. but uh.. they've kinda been at it for a while.

I think either theyre kinda just spouting off, or they did that thing where they tricked or cajoled someone into playing and then reported that person (who will never touch an RPG again) as a new gamer.

Quote from: mearlsThose play patterns - play lots of different games; too little time to play any game in depth - are the marks of the guy who has been playing for years, not the beginning gamer.

That's strikingly at variance with (say) board- and card-games ... where experienced players are far more likely to play even a moderately complex game like Puerto Rico than beginners, and beginners are more likely to be recruited for a conceptually simple game like Jungle Speed.

Do you have any thoughts about why that pattern would be reversed for RPGs?  I've heard a variety of theories, none hugely inspiring to me.

Quote from: TonyLBThat's strikingly at variance with (say) board- and card-games ... where experienced players are far more likely to play even a moderately complex game like Puerto Rico than beginners, and beginners are more likely to be recruited for a conceptually simple game like Jungle Speed.

Do you have any thoughts about why that pattern would be reversed for RPGs?  I've heard a variety of theories, none hugely inspiring to me.

You can play a single RPG for decades. Most boardgames have a more limited shelf life, or you play them in small bursts. For instance, you might play Puerto Rico one night, and then next week play Carcossone. A couple weeks later, you break our Puerto Rico again. Alternatively, your boardgame night might be 3 or 4 different games.

Boardgames are a lot more casual than RPGs. At the end of the game, someone wins. The next game doesn't look back at the prior game to see what happened.

With RPGs, the real benefit they offer is that you can play the same PCs over and over again, and watch as the world and plot changes. If you played nothing but one shots, you'd miss out on one of the things that make RPGs more appealing to some people than boardgames or videogames.

Another thing to look at is that, really, a newbie who comes into a group can play even a game like Rolemaster without any issues. The other players are there to explain the rules to him. That's the nice thing about cooperative games, the rest of the group wants the newbie to learn the game.

With a competitive boardgame, it's a little harder to teach the game as you go. You don't have the GM there to make rulings or turn back the clock to make up for a rules mistake.

Mike - (I'm Sean by the way) - cool. Just two more points:

QuoteFrom what I understand, the two lines competed with each other.

If that's right, then that's definitely something WotC has to consider. The question when any company has two lines of a similar product is are you getting synergy or are you getting destructive competiton. The argument for synergy is that you reach out to more and different players who might benefit from different approaches, and if the gap between the two products isn't that big might wind up being consumers of both. The argument for destruction is that too many people who might have bought the cheaper product will settle for that and not buy as much other stuff. Both phenomena exist; the question is which is more economically relevant to the particular business and product, which nobody knows but you guys (and you guys may not even know it due to TSR's odd records, conflicting stories, etc.).

QuoteI like to think of D&D's rules as two sub-sets, the foundational rules that everyone needs to learn to play (movement, attacks, saves), and the "depth" rules that are essentially optional.

I think that this is true, but I had to learn almost all of 3e by playing for a couple of years before I figured out which parts separated out and which parts didn't. Approaching 3e with the 'toolkit' approach of 1e or OD&D tends to create problems because many subsystems are integrated.

I think that if you did want to do a low level D&D light you'd want to find mechanically elegant ways to actually pluck that stuff out and exhibit it to people up front.

However, there's the OGL, so maybe I'll shut up and go do it myself and start selling it on Lulu. I call dibs on "Caverns & Chimeras"! But of course it almost certainly won't make any real difference unless Wizards decides to do it.


J Arcane - I'm not interested in being the whetstone for your grinding axe,   but all of those games would do better for people if they had one thing they lack: the Dungeons and Dragons name. Barring some brilliant idea or millions for a risky gamble at creating a market for something new, it's the owner of the D&D IP who's going to do this, or nobody.

(Well, OK, unless someone designs a good open-ended Harry Potter RPG, maybe. But point is, options are limited, and they don't include me or you or even the Troll Lords, in all likelihood.)

QuoteJ Arcane - I'm not interested in being the whetstone for your grinding axe, but all of those games would do better for people if they had one thing they lack: the Dungeons and Dragons name. Barring some brilliant idea or millions for a risky gamble at creating a market for something new, it's the owner of the D&D IP who's going to do this, or nobody.

Wrong answer, and I've already addressed this.  You claim motive, but you've shown no evidence.  I want to see evidence.  

Stop putting the responsibility on everyone but yourself, and show me proof that you even really give a shit about "bringing in new gamers".

Uh - I run games for them? Did you see the Stormbringer post? One of the guys in that group was a new gamer and another one hadn't played for more than a decade; they're both playing together in another game regularly now.

I know Forge games are verboten here, but an ex-Mormon friend was so into the idea of Dogs in the Vineyard that she tried it as her first RPG and now she's painting minis and playing in my 3.5 game next month.

I'm starting a new public OD&D or 3.5 (haven't decided which 100%, but I'm pretty sure it will be 3.5) game next month for all comers at the local university or coffee shop (depending on which works better)?

Why do I have to prove myself to you? And even if I were a total gaming slacker, would it matter? Can't people think things are a good idea without devoting their lives to them? By that logic almost none of us care for example about healthcare or the war in Iraq because we're not spending much of our time trying to fix them.

I'm going to run 3.5 because it's D&D. People will want to play it because it's D&D. If they get into it they can buy things for it at the local store because it's in print. I would like to have something with the D&D name that required a little less DM backwork, because I design a lot of my own stuff from scratch, and because I don't like to take more than ten minutes to generate a new character for a new player in a casual gaming situation. I'm sorry that my preferences are so destructive to your tender sensibilities.

Quote from: mearlsWith RPGs, the real benefit they offer is that you can play the same PCs over and over again, and watch as the world and plot changes. If you played nothing but one shots, you'd miss out on one of the things that make RPGs more appealing to some people than boardgames or videogames.

I'm interested in this take on things, but rather than derail Calithena's thread, I've made a new thread to discuss.

Quote from: mearlsIt's important to remember that AD&D was pretty much the flagship game from the beginning. It received more support, sold more units, and had a bigger impact on the hobby. Basic D&D may have led a lot of people to go on and play AD&D, but there isn't much evidence that I've seen that says it had more players.

Had more regular ongoing players? Oh, I'm almost totally certain it DIDN'T.  And that, after all, is the fucking point.  People picked up red-box D&D, played it for a while, and then got suckered with the "advanced" label into buying the AD&D.  So TSR had sold them two games instead of one, without making them feel cheated.

That's how a basic set is supposed to work of course.

QuoteIn any case, basic D&D or a set like it *is* important in helping people go from not playing RPGs to playing RPGs. The thing is, once they've made that step it seems that most of them want something with the depth of D&D 3e. Now, that doesn't excuse the pointless complexity that lurks in 3e, but it does speak to the options and depth the game offers.

Yes, absolutely, I agree.
I was just saying that there's a real lack of the QUALITY introductory material that there once was that brought so much new blood into this hobby, and parts of that are due to WoTC business strategy that I think is possibly misfounded:  namely that you can't make a "Basic Set" that's got different rules from the regular D&D (making it an "introductory set" or a "tutorial set", but not a true Basic Set), and a lack of other kinds of introductory material.  Back in the 80s you had the D&D comics and you had the D&D Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books (which weren't nearly as good as Fighting Fantasy, but whatever, at least they existed).  
Mind you, I don't think that the comics or the Choose-your-own-adventure books would necessarily be the way to go in this day and age.  But one thing that could be is the Miniatures Game, which you're already doing great on, but it would be wise to make the Minis game tie into the RPG more (note, and not vice-versa which seems to be what you've been doing lately, with every D20 product becoming more and more minis-dependent than before, like replacing "feet" with "squares" etc... or shit, if you are going to pull that stuff at least do the same with tying the minis game closer to the RPG; don't make it seem like the RPG is the "Poor relation").
 

Quote(I've often toyed with the idea of taking the SRD and making a simplified version of D&D that kept or even enhanced the depth of play. Basically, strip down all the fiddly rules for climbing, flight, the details buried in the skill descriptions, and then increase the options for building characters.)

That's interesting, but frankly, I've seen your works, and I'm not totally convinced that you, Mike Mearls, would actually be capable of making a set of rules that were actually simple.  I'm not sure its in you.

Feel free to take that as a challenge.

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