Quote from: tenbones;1138788I'm curious, what do you do about economy?

Because I'm pretty careful about my "bog standard" D&D games. The *vast* majority of most citizenry are on a silver-standard. The assumptions of D&D are that most (at least in 1e/2e) made about 3gp a month in coin/goods for wages. So when my players come across "treasure" and it's hundreds of gold... it's a huge deal. It's funny because when new players that are used to the free-and-loose notion that everything is in these nebulous "Gold Pieces" - then start dropping gold around a village, and everyone starts bending over backwards... they love the attention... until they realize that sometimes they flood the area with gold and it starts "attracting attention".

It puts a social-face on the act of having hard-currency, and sometimes they don't realize that a casual tromp through town doing what they think is no big deal, is the equivalent to the everyday NPC's of rolling up in their Ferarri's and "making it rain" when they drop 2gp for a meal (that costs a copper). I get a lot of mileage out of enforcing the social and economic value of a "gold piece" without having to reward them for XP-per-GP.

I've done it in the past mind you - usually for Rogues and the PC's that help them pull off capers. But generally I don't do it.

Well, most of my games take place in the Forgotten Realms. If they roll up to a small town, I emphasize how the townspeople see them as a big deal, but if they're in a city the power level is such that a lot of people are slinging a lot of money around. So I don't really worry about that part -- though my games are almost always levels 1-5, so there isn't THAT much gold being acquired.

When it gets higher levels I understand the amount of gold you need to have to level up can get astronomical, but I'm pretty much never there.

Though if you're worried about that, you could just make it Silver for XP or even copper for XP and downscale the worth of treasure they get. Instead of a vase worth 100 gp that gives them 100 XP, they find a vase worth 100 silver that gives them 100 XP.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1139068Gaining gold for XP in OD&D was genius, especially when you combine the concept with wandering monsters. The game instantly evolves from just having "encounter after encounter" to tactical and strategic thinking about how to steal the most treasure by using the least resources.

Agreed.  Warning: Long post to follow!

I think one of the overlooked factors in the frequent arguments over player agency in RPGs in general, and D&D in particular, is its representation in the rules.  Some DMs may be gifted with players who, as soon as the rolling of characters is completed, have an idea of what their characters want and a plan as to how to gain it in the game world.  I most frequently see this happen among players who have played in a campaign for a long period of time, or at least in the same game "world" for a long time.  This is most probably because their familiarity with the fictional world gives them a set of expectations as to how the world works and where the solutions of their problems can be found.

For example, imagine that you pulled up your online bank statement and discover that someone had fraudulently charged your account for a large sum of money.  Because you live in this real world, you know that you should contact the bank and possibly the police.  You know that most banks have contact information available on their websites.  You know that most police departments have units assigned to investigate financial crimes.  You know the minor steps to take in order to make major steps possible (recovering your money and having the responsible person arrested).

Now imagine your characters discover that some of their wealth has been stolen from the bank that they have been using.  Without a lot of handholding from the DM (or a familiarity with the game world that comes from long term engagement in the setting with a lot of different background material having been imparted), the characters will probably have no idea how to recover their money.  Does the bank offer any magical services to help find the culprits?  Is there a relevant law enforcement agency to help?  What steps should they take, and in what order, to help with this problem?

So, you see, in most cases, even "player generated" adventures (and by this, I mean adventures that come from the players deciding what their characters will pursue) are still mostly bound by what information, strategies, tactics, and guides can be imparted by the DM.  It may not be as "railroady" as a published adventure or "save-the-world" type adventure, but it is still dependent on the DM providing a framework for the goals to be achieved, including the steps taken to do so.  A character who desires a magic sword, for example, and researches how to gain one is basically asking the DM, "Tell me what steps I need to take in order to get X." Even hex crawls are not immune to this, as no matter what the players choose to do, they are bounded by the world the DM has created around them.

So, what tends to happen (in my experience), is that the players would rather just get rid of the middle man, and wait for the DM to provide a motivation for their characters, since he's going to have to get you from point A to Z, anyway.  Even my players who are very good roleplayers and have a specific character goal in mind generally just give me the overaching goal and expect me, as the DM, to give them the step-by-step instructions as how to get there.

I think this is a reaction to the changing mechanics of D&D, especially in the new editions.  Honestly, what most of the players want is for their characters to progress, and that is usually defined by gaining levels.  While you might play with the unicorns who would be perfectly fine if they stayed 3rd level for the entire multi-year campaign, my group (most of whom I've been playing with for 35+ years) would revolt.  Because D&D doesn't have a defined "winning" condition, I would say that the vast majority of the people I've played with (both in my home group and in various "organized play" leagues) see "winning" as synonymous with "gaining power and levels."  This undefined win-condition is also behind the growth of published adventure paths and the like.  It gives the players a motivation for their characters to do the things that earn them experience.  Think about it.  If you discovered a world-shaking power was threatening the very lives of you and your friends, the vast majority of us would run like hell!  But running from danger, becoming a shopkeeper, and any other path to wealth and/or power doesn't "win" D&D.  So players are looking for reasons to do the dangerous things that DMs put in front of them in order to justify gaining xp in order to get closer to "winning."  Hence the "murder hoboes" who wander around looking for reasons to fight (for xp) and solve other people's problems (for xp).

I think the real benefit of the original gold to xp rule was that it solved both of the previous problems I've talked about.  First, it gives a clear connection between an activity characters can perform in the game world and the meta-game gaining of power conferred by experience points.  If I want to "win," find treasure and take it (and maybe spend it, depending on the rules).  This solves the extended sophistry necessary to justify many of the illogical responses necessary by a character to put themselves in a position to gain xp ("Sure, king, I'll volunteer to go down into the cave no one has every returned from and solve your problem, rather than just riding off and starting a haberdashery in order to make my fortune")

Secondly, it helps bridge the knowledge barrier of the steps to take in order to reach the characters' goals.  Most players can come up with methods of getting money, especially if the setting is full of monsters with treasure, dungeons with treasure, banks and wealthy nobles to rob, etc.  They actually have more choice as to how to go about getting rich than they do in "defeating the dread lich X," which is likely to come with a list of necessary steps that the players are dependent on the DM to provide.

This is one of the greatest weaknesses in 5e, in my opinion.  Treasure is completely superfluous in 5e, unless the DM comes up with their own mechanics and/or money-sinks.  There's no reason to seek wealth, other than the most basic motivation most people have to become wealth, and certainly no reason to risk much for it.  The lack of use for treasure in 5e has narrowed the focus of the game down to dutifully following the plot the DM hands to you.  Sure, you can play the game differently, but not without the DM reinventing the rules to give the treasure and its acquisition some reason.

So I think that people dismiss the genius of gold = xp too quickly.  They get caught up in the apparent "metagaming" aspect to realize that all of the other solutions to lack of player/character motivation are just as metagamey, but with less mechanical support in the game.  The more games I play, the greater the genius of the pioneers of RPGs seems to be...

2e had all the options, and also suggested you could cap XP per session so as to avoid massive level skips (such as from high lvl arties power leveling new members from Big Mobs or Big GP). It really was/is a discussion of table preference and campaign best practices over strict system. I could see a GM running that GP=XP to its logical conclusion, without training (also a mentioned option), because they think it is fun!... only to have a few players chafe against the mixed expectations.

This is why "Same Paging" the table (getting everyone on board; clarifying the expectations) is useful. Can this too end up a mired slog through social politics? Of course, especially as we've seen with the rise of the "X Card" (which is the exact opposite of clarifying expectations beforehand, too passive for my tastes).

That said, I recommend people try Standard Rules (Rules as Written, RAW) at least once to see whether they enjoy it. That baselines helps when adjusting later.

Quote from: Luca;1139080Yep. The platonic ideal dungeon sortie of OD&D is entering the dungeon, robbing everyone blind, and exiting it, without having a single round of combat.

Which is fun for a while. But I think a lot of groups eventually move past that, and add more variety to their campaigns. Basic, for example, was built on the idea that you move from the Dungeon sortie, to overland adventures, to domain management.

Basic D&D had such a strong focus on robbing monsters blind without ever initiating combat, if possible, it didn't even have rules for stealth initially on its first printing. And when it finally added them, it was just one single class that could move about undetected, and it only had a piss poor chance to do it initially, until higher levels.

And before anyone brings it up, no, the existence of the Invisibility spell does not prove that therefore the focus of the game was to avoid fights and steal stuff, even if such spells could technically be used to such ends, since not everyone had access to them, even if they could potentially learn to cast them eventually. Could you make that the focus of the game in your campaign? Sure, but the system itself wasn't particularly geared to support that style of play.

I think people are projecting their own interpretation of the game into it, and presenting old D&D as this cornucopia of ingenious strategy built around just one thing, when in reality it wasn't particularly good at doing that one thing (at least stealthily, while avoiding a fight), and plenty of people used it to play hack n slash (which was far better supported by the system). Just because that's the way you played it, and XP for Gold particularly rewarded it, that doesn't mean other styles of play weren't also prevalent, possible or desirable. And it also doesn't prove that XP for Gold was an adequate tool to supplement XP out of combat, since that doesn't support anything but treasure hunting specifically (which is NOT the only thing that you can do in the game) and there's no guarantee that you would even find it.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139774Basic D&D had such a strong focus on robbing monsters blind without ever initiating combat, if possible, it didn't even have rules for stealth initially on its first printing. And when it finally added them, it was just one single class that could move about undetected, and it only had a piss poor chance to do it initially, until higher levels.

And before anyone brings it up, no, the existence of the Invisibility spell does not prove that therefore the focus of the game was to avoid fights and steal stuff, even if such spells could technically be used to such ends, since not everyone had access to them, even if they could potentially learn to cast them eventually. Could you make that the focus of the game in your campaign? Sure, but the system itself wasn't particularly geared to support that style of play.

I think people are projecting their own interpretation of the game into it, and presenting old D&D as this cornucopia of ingenious strategy built around just one thing, when in reality it wasn't particularly good at doing that one thing (at least stealthily, while avoiding a fight), and plenty of people used it to play hack n slash (which was far better supported by the system). Just because that's the way you played it, and XP for Gold particularly rewarded it, that doesn't mean other styles of play weren't also prevalent, possible or desirable. And it also doesn't prove that XP for Gold was an adequate tool to supplement XP out of combat, since that doesn't support anything but treasure hunting specifically (which is NOT the only thing that you can do in the game) and there's no guarantee that you would even find it.

Your mistake is in assuming that Old School RPGs needed rules for something in order for it to be viable.  This is a purely modern take on RPGs (there must be a rule, or it can't be done!).  Rules existed for two purposes back then: limits (how much can you carry, how many enemies are affected by this spell?) and probabilities (how likely is this to succeed, how hurt is he?).  Most of the things we did in game had no rules or rolls attached to them.  If you wanted to sneak up to the monster, you explained to the GM how you moved, to where, with what precautions.  If it seemed a sure thing, it happened.  If the DM thought there was a chance of failure, he told you to roll ("you've got a 2-in-3 chance of succeeding, so roll a d6...").  The need for stealth rules is a sign of how much hand-holding the modern gamer wants, not how much sneaking we did in D&D or AD&D.  I shudder when I get to a 5e table and ask the DM to describe the room so I can figure out where to search, and the DM responds with "roll perception and you find everything on a 14+".  Over-codification has its own dangers to role-playing...

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139794Your mistake is in assuming that Old School RPGs needed rules for something in order for it to be viable.  This is a purely modern take on RPGs (there must be a rule, or it can't be done!).  Rules existed for two purposes back then: limits (how much can you carry, how many enemies are affected by this spell?) and probabilities (how likely is this to succeed, how hurt is he?).  Most of the things we did in game had no rules or rolls attached to them.  If you wanted to sneak up to the monster, you explained to the GM how you moved, to where, with what precautions.  If it seemed a sure thing, it happened.  If the DM thought there was a chance of failure, he told you to roll ("you've got a 2-in-3 chance of succeeding, so roll a d6...").  The need for stealth rules is a sign of how much hand-holding the modern gamer wants, not how much sneaking we did in D&D or AD&D.  I shudder when I get to a 5e table and ask the DM to describe the room so I can figure out where to search, and the DM responds with "roll perception and you find everything on a 14+".  Over-codification has its own dangers to role-playing...

Yes, I've heard such defense of early D&D rules before. Yet in this very post you tell me that:

QuoteRules existed for two purposes back then: limits (how much can you carry, how many enemies are affected by this spell?) and probabilities (how likely is this to succeed, how hurt is he?).

But conclude that:

QuoteI shudder when I get to a 5e table and ask the DM to describe the room so I can figure out where to search, and the DM responds with "roll perception and you find everything on a 14+".

...which deals with handling probabilities for success.

So this really isn't about modern games "hand-holding" players, but about modern games doing things differently from what grognards are used to.

These additions in the rules didn't come about from a need for hand holding, but from the need to define a character's talents and the impact that their abilities could have on their capacity to succeed in certain actions (because otherwise WTF was the point of ability scores?). Which was an issue that often came up in play when I played Basic (my 1st RPG) and the reason I couldn't run away from it fast enough when I discovered more elaborate games, including AD&D 2e--which still had the problem of treating stealth like some exclusive ability only thieves or rangers could attempt, but at least had better options for defining character talents, as well as more options for customization.

And games featuring skills aren't even a modern thing, because they already existed since the early 80s (if not late 70s) all over the place in games other than D&D. It was only D&D that always lagged behind in these areas.

But none of this really addresses the issue of whether old D&D truly supported such styles of play all. All that saying that a DM could (arbitrarily) assign me a 2 in 3 chance on a d6 tells me is that DMs could house rule it by DM fiat. Which barely places old D&D a notch above Cops & Robbers.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139774Basic D&D had such a strong focus on robbing monsters blind without ever initiating combat, if possible, it didn't even have rules for stealth initially on its first printing. And when it finally added them, it was just one single class that could move about undetected, and it only had a piss poor chance to do it initially, until higher levels.

And before anyone brings it up, no, the existence of the Invisibility spell does not prove that therefore the focus of the game was to avoid fights and steal stuff, even if such spells could technically be used to such ends, since not everyone had access to them, even if they could potentially learn to cast them eventually. Could you make that the focus of the game in your campaign? Sure, but the system itself wasn't particularly geared to support that style of play.

I think people are projecting their own interpretation of the game into it, and presenting old D&D as this cornucopia of ingenious strategy built around just one thing, when in reality it wasn't particularly good at doing that one thing (at least stealthily, while avoiding a fight), and plenty of people used it to play hack n slash (which was far better supported by the system). Just because that's the way you played it, and XP for Gold particularly rewarded it, that doesn't mean other styles of play weren't also prevalent, possible or desirable. And it also doesn't prove that XP for Gold was an adequate tool to supplement XP out of combat, since that doesn't support anything but treasure hunting specifically (which is NOT the only thing that you can do in the game) and there's no guarantee that you would even find it.

I think that you are trying to look at DnD through a very progressive lens that does not reflect the actual play experience very well.

For example.  The current POV of many players is that if it is not written on your character sheet that you can not do it, so in that case if you do not have a stealth skill then you would be right that you can not 'move silently' through the dungeon.

However in DnD the challenge was actually to the Player rather then the Character.  So if a Player wants to get past a guard dog then what can he think up that would let him sneak past.  Can he throw the dog some meat from his rations?  Can he go around the dog and climb in through the back window?  Can he activate his Mini Magic Castle item that grows into a real castle and use it to squash the dog?  The whole point was, the dog does not have any treasure so is there a way to by pass it without losing any hp rather then lets all run in together and have the guard dog fight.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139829I think that you are trying to look at DnD through a very progressive lens that does not reflect the actual play experience very well.

For example.  The current POV of many players is that if it is not written on your character sheet that you can not do it, so in that case if you do not have a stealth skill then you would be right that you can not 'move silently' through the dungeon.

And those players would be wrong, even according to the very rule books that include such skills, since Stealth is one of many actions that could be attempted without training--in basically any game from any system that includes them. Being skilled in it merely improves your chances when attempting such actions rather than being a requisite for them. This is an issue of player stupidity rather than the rules being an impediment for play.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139829However in DnD the challenge was actually to the Player rather then the Character.  So if a Player wants to get past a guard dog then what can he think up that would let him sneak past.  Can he throw the dog some meat from his rations?  Can he go around the dog and climb in through the back window?  Can he activate his Mini Magic Castle item that grows into a real castle and use it to squash the dog?  The whole point was, the dog does not have any treasure so is there a way to by pass it without losing any hp rather then lets all run in together and have the guard dog fight.

I've had people attempt stuff like this all the time. Doing stuff like this is practically the point of playing tabletop instead of video games, which are more limited in what you can do. People will often ask me about the environment to weigh their options, in case there's something they could use or somewhere they could climb to avoid obstacles or fights, or at least get into a better position before a battle. Of course, if one of the characters is a druid or ranger they would almost invariably try to use Animal Empathy on the guard dog, but even then they would probably use up one of their rations to improve their chances.

Having skills in the game does not prevent this, it merely expands your options or improves your chance to do stuff (such as climbing) you often could have attempted anyways.

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139825So this really isn't about modern games "hand-holding" players, but about modern games doing things differently from what grognards are used to.

These additions in the rules didn't come about from a need for hand holding, but from the need to define a character's talents and the impact that their abilities could have on their capacity to succeed in certain actions (because otherwise WTF was the point of ability scores?). Which was an issue that often came up in play when I played Basic (my 1st RPG) and the reason I couldn't run away from it fast enough when I discovered more elaborate games, including AD&D 2e--which still had the problem of treating stealth like some exclusive ability only thieves or rangers could attempt, but at least had better options for defining character talents, as well as more options for customization.

But none of this really addresses the issue of whether old D&D truly supported such styles of play all. All that saying that a DM could (arbitrarily) assign me a 2 in 3 chance on a d6 tells me is that DMs could house rule it by DM fiat. Which barely places old D&D a notch above Cops & Robbers.

"Old D&D" did support that kind of play, because we played it that way.

So, if the rulebook says you have a 2-in-3 chance of succeeding, that's somehow different than the DM saying it?  I don't get this whole "DM fiat" complaint.  I'd much rather trust the judgement of the person sitting at my table listening to my plan to evaluate my chances than to simply have the rules declare that my chance of doing X is based on my perception skill.  And before you start off with DMs adding modifiers, that's as much DM "fiat" as setting the chance.

The modern game IS different, though the entire point of WoTC talking about "rulings, not rules" is a recognition that changing the game has lost something it used to have.  The increase in consistency from having everything follow the same mechanical pattern has also destroyed some of the immersion of the game.  If you think "I'm rolling Investigation to search the room" is the same as "I see if I can move the idol to see if there is a secret compartment," then your definition of "role playing" is light-years away from mine (besides, why should my skill affect whether or not I can find the false bottom of the drawer when I say I'm looking for a false bottom, any more than it should help me find the false bottom when I haven't even said what I'm searching).  That might be "Cops and Robbers" to you, but a D&D where every event is determined by a roll against a previously determined value is a boardgame... just without the board.

I don't know why you think the term "grognard" is some kind of insult.  Not all old people are wise, but young people almost never are wise.  Wisdom takes experience.  Hell, half the problems in this world are caused by ignorant young people, who don't even know how ignorant they are, telling everyone who has lived a lot longer to shut up and move aside.  Then, after whatever dumbass thing they are attempting blows up in their face, they come running back to get bailed out and crying that we didn't protect them from their own stupidity.

Now get off my lawn!

Quote from: VisionStorm;1139844Having skills in the game does not prevent this, it merely expands your options or improves your chance to do stuff (such as climbing) you often could have attempted anyways.

I disagree, like Eirikrautha mentioned, having skills shifts the game from the Player to the Character.  If you have a Perception skill that determines what you can find when you are searching then players are just going to roll their Perception skill.  If you dont have that skill then the Players have to think about how their characters are going to search the room.

Sure you can do exactly what you would do playing DnD when you are playing something with Perception but how does that help you if you have already rolled 14+ on your Perception skill?  The DM can only give you the relevant information once.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139872I disagree, like Eirikrautha mentioned, having skills shifts the game from the Player to the Character.  If you have a Perception skill that determines what you can find when you are searching then players are just going to roll their Perception skill.  If you dont have that skill then the Players have to think about how their characters are going to search the room.

Sure you can do exactly what you would do playing DnD when you are playing something with Perception but how does that help you if you have already rolled 14+ on your Perception skill?  The DM can only give you the relevant information once.

You can always go with the Dragon Quest technique of having the ability but explaining it in a rather non-standard way.  There's a whole section of the rules about it (4.3) that talks about some of the narrow cases where it is expected to be used.  The section ends with an injunction that the GM should not use a perception check more than once per hour.  That check is limited to a single character that the GM picks as most suitable to make it.  The last paragraph is this gem:

QuoteThe GM will stint those players who constantly request use of the Perception roll when it comes times for experience awards ... A player who allows dice-rolls to usurp his mind deserves no better.

Ha! Plus on all that, Perception is an ability score like strength, not a skill in DQ.  So everyone has it, but not necessarily to a great degree. It is mainly in there to provide boost to other abilities (spotting an ambush, seeing someone pick your pocket) which are detailed elsewhere in the rules and usually more defensive in nature than something the player rolls.  Basically, it exists for those times when the GM thinks he doesn't have a good way to give you the information your character would know in the game world but your player does not.  Or the GM thinks that giving you that information is slightly important but not really all that interesting to play out.  Using it as an actual perception check is a secondary function, almost an afterthought.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139861"Old D&D" did support that kind of play, because we played it that way.

Sure, and AD&D 2e also supported modern firearms, because I once house ruled one into the game, used by a trench coat wearing plane-hopping dimensional travel who came from the modern world (it was the 90s, gotta have a gun totting guy in a trench coat somewhere ). So AD&D 2e is a game about modern firearms despite not having anything about them in the core rules.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139861So, if the rulebook says you have a 2-in-3 chance of succeeding, that's somehow different than the DM saying it?  I don't get this whole "DM fiat" complaint.  I'd much rather trust the judgement of the person sitting at my table listening to my plan to evaluate my chances than to simply have the rules declare that my chance of doing X is based on my perception skill.  And before you start off with DMs adding modifiers, that's as much DM "fiat" as setting the chance.

No, the rules saying that you have a 2-in-3 chance of succeeding is the game providing actual supporting material for that type of action. If you have to make it up, and the system doesn't even provide guidelines for how to handle that specific type of thing, then by definition the game doesn't support it. Even if you somehow bring it into the game. You having a sports car in D&D because you house ruled one into the game doesn't make D&D a car racing game.

And no, I'm generally not the trusting type (in or out of the game). I've had plenty of DMing who didn't know WTF they were doing, which is one of the reason I usually prefer taking that job. But that's beside the point.

And yes, the DM adding modifiers to your skill rolls (or setting a difficulty number) is a type of DM Fiat (one usually based on guidelines provided by the game). But the issue isn't the existence of DM Fiat, the issue is complete and utter reliance on it for almost anything to even exist in the game.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139861The modern game IS different, though the entire point of WoTC talking about "rulings, not rules" is a recognition that changing the game has lost something it used to have.  The increase in consistency from having everything follow the same mechanical pattern has also destroyed some of the immersion of the game.  If you think "I'm rolling Investigation to search the room" is the same as "I see if I can move the idol to see if there is a secret compartment," then your definition of "role playing" is light-years away from mine (besides, why should my skill affect whether or not I can find the false bottom of the drawer when I say I'm looking for a false bottom, any more than it should help me find the false bottom when I haven't even said what I'm searching).  That might be "Cops and Robbers" to you, but a D&D where every event is determined by a roll against a previously determined value is a boardgame... just without the board.

Oh boy...there's a lot of unpack here. And almost none of it mentioned anywhere in my post. Basically you're laying out a straw scenario where you (hypothetically) attempt a very specific action (move an idol), hoping to get a very specific outcome (find a hidden compartment; which you have no way of knowing even exists) which somehow is an indictment of skills, because some DM somewhere could hypothetically make you roll Investigate for that. Except that it entirely depends on the situation.

If the idol can be easily removed and there in fact is something hidden below it, or whatever, then obviously you should not have to roll for it. But that's the way skill systems are supposed to work, and EVERY single game that uses skills specifies that somewhere in the section dealing with skill rolls. You're not supposed to make rolls for automatic stuff (EVER! In ANY game) and if the DM makes you roll (assuming it's truly an automatic thing, and there isn't more to it) then the problem is with the DM, not the rules that already tell you not to make fucking skill rolls unless they're necessary.

Now, on the other hand...if there's some sort of trick to moving the idol, or if it's not the idol itself but some other related thing that triggers the hidden compartment (assuming one even exists), then yes, that might require an Investigation roll. But if fiddling with the idol is along the right track to find whatever is there then you should get a bonus (or low difficulty number), since you're already in the right area, you just need to figure out how to trigger the mechanism or whatever.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139861I don't know why you think the term "grognard" is some kind of insult.  Not all old people are wise, but young people almost never are wise.  Wisdom takes experience.  Hell, half the problems in this world are caused by ignorant young people, who don't even know how ignorant they are, telling everyone who has lived a lot longer to shut up and move aside.  Then, after whatever dumbass thing they are attempting blows up in their face, they come running back to get bailed out and crying that we didn't protect them from their own stupidity.

Now get off my lawn!

Nothing about your loaded post is an indication of wisdom.

Quote from: Shasarak;1139872I disagree, like Eirikrautha mentioned, having skills shifts the game from the Player to the Character.  If you have a Perception skill that determines what you can find when you are searching then players are just going to roll their Perception skill.  If you dont have that skill then the Players have to think about how their characters are going to search the room.

Sure you can do exactly what you would do playing DnD when you are playing something with Perception but how does that help you if you have already rolled 14+ on your Perception skill?  The DM can only give you the relevant information once.

I disagree with your disagreements. Sometimes skill checks are necessary and sometimes they're not. And sometimes specific player actions are supposed to negate the need for skill rolls.

If you specifically try to move an idol and there in fact is a hidden compartment beneath it--with NO special trick to reveal it (just lift the idol and it's there)--then you're not supposed to need a skill roll and the DM that asks for one is an idiot. And the players that insist on a skill roll in lieu of maybe lifting up the idol right in their face are also idiots. These are user problems, not bugs in the software.

To quote your original statement (which is where this tangent started):

QuoteBasic D&D had such a strong focus on robbing monsters blind without ever initiating combat, if possible, it didn't even have rules for stealth initially on its first printing. And when it finally added them, it was just one single class that could move about undetected, and it only had a piss poor chance to do it initially, until higher levels.

You are wrong about this.  Rules were not a necessary indicator of the game's actual play.  Everything else you have said (and I have responded to) is irrelevant next to this point.  No matter what other things you try to throw out to obfuscate this point, it does not matter.  Your initial statement is incorrect on its face.

D&D evolved from an expanded wargame to a role playing game.  It did so with the expectation that the players would describe their characters' response to situations in the game world and the DM would adjudicate the results.  Because of its chassis was built on a wargame, the combat of the game was more formalized than some other parts of the game.  That formalization did not preclude the other parts of the game from being important, commonplace, or even more prominent than the combat.  This is the game that I played in the early eighties, and I am willing to bet it's mostly the same as the way the game was played by many of the other "grognards" on this board.

I'm sorry that you have had bad DMs ("Show me on the doll where the DM touched you...").  That in no way means that DM judgment is a bad thing, or that formalization of the rules can prevent bad DMing.  This was one of the ideas behind 3e, and it was just as stupid then as it is now.  You can have any opinion you want about how games can be structured or what kind of gameplay is most fun for you.  But assertions that D&D and AD&D players back then had or didn't have certain strategies, tactics, or playstyles simply because the rules did not formalize those styles is wrong.  Period.  I can tell you that my groups spent far more time trying to avoid combat or rig it in our favor than we actually spent fighting.  It was far safer and more profitable.  Many of the published adventures of the time would have been unplayable by characters of the "expected" levels if stealth, subterfuge, NPC interaction, and logistical planning, none of which was codified to any appreciable degree compared to the rules for combat.  So even TSR expected that style of play...

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139895To quote your original statement (which is where this tangent started):



You are wrong about this.  Rules were not a necessary indicator of the game's actual play.  Everything else you have said (and I have responded to) is irrelevant next to this point.  No matter what other things you try to throw out to obfuscate this point, it does not matter.  Your initial statement is incorrect on its face.

I'm not the obfuscating anything here. You responded to my post and I replied to what you responded. That you were WRONG about those responses does not mean that I was obfuscating anything. You bringing it back to my original point, however (which is fair enough, in and of itself), then failing to acknowledge you were wrong, and implying that I'm somehow obfuscating anything (which is not as fair)...obfuscates things.

I'm also not sure how making a technically accurate statement (Basic D&D didn't have stealth originally; thieves, once introduced, were the only class that could do it) is incorrect on its face.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139895D&D evolved from an expanded wargame to a role playing game.  It did so with the expectation that the players would describe their characters' response to situations in the game world and the DM would adjudicate the results.  Because of its chassis was built on a wargame, the combat of the game was more formalized than some other parts of the game.  That formalization did not preclude the other parts of the game from being important, commonplace, or even more prominent than the combat.  This is the game that I played in the early eighties, and I am willing to bet it's mostly the same as the way the game was played by many of the other "grognards" on this board.

To this I would add that the fact that D&D evolved from wargames is precisely the reason why many of these rules (such as non-combat skills) didn't exist in the first place. Wargames didn't need those rules. So it took the experience of playing RPGs for people to discover a need for them. And the fact that there was such widespread demand for them is the reason most other early RPGs that followed D&D had them, as well as the reason why later editions of D&D eventually included them.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139895I'm sorry that you have had bad DMs ("Show me on the doll where the DM touched you...").  That in no way means that DM judgment is a bad thing, or that formalization of the rules can prevent bad DMing.

It's a good thing I never argued this. And even clarified that in my last post. But, OK.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139895This was one of the ideas behind 3e, and it was just as stupid then as it is now.  You can have any opinion you want about how games can be structured or what kind of gameplay is most fun for you.  But assertions that D&D and AD&D players back then had or didn't have certain strategies, tactics, or playstyles simply because the rules did not formalize those styles is wrong. Period.

It's a good thing I didn't argue this either. I said that the rules didn't support those styles of play, and also that people were projecting their own interpretations into the game. Not that no one ever played that way.

Quote from: Eirikrautha;1139895I can tell you that my groups spent far more time trying to avoid combat or rig it in our favor than we actually spent fighting.  It was far safer and more profitable.  Many of the published adventures of the time would have been unplayable by characters of the "expected" levels if stealth, subterfuge, NPC interaction, and logistical planning, none of which was codified to any appreciable degree compared to the rules for combat.  So even TSR expected that style of play...

OR maybe TSR didn't know how to properly gauge the recommend levels for their published adventures. Particularly given that this was a new style of game.