Quote from: Lunamancer;973916The assumption that in 5E they would be fewer and lesser power than 1E. Not my assumption. Others brought that into this thread.

Yes, 5e also works with 1e frequency of items, though best still to cap at +3 weapons/armour.

Quote from: Lunamancer;973767Incidentally, consider an elven mage, having hit max level at level 11. All the years this character has just to devote to building magic items. As we've discussed here a bit, as levels get higher, rounds get fewer, and casting times get longer, devices are the key to a mage's potency. It makes it hard, then, for me to think the elf is at a disadvantage here.

Quote from: Skarg;973818Are you saying that having a level cap of 11 is not a disadvantage?  Can a human mage not just as easily decide to spend time making magic items? Aren't the resources used to adventure not really the same as those used to craft items?

Quote from: Lunamancer;973822The resource in question is time. An Elf has a lot more of it.

If you mean from lifespan, doesn't that only apply in those campaigns where a set of human and elvish PCs survive and play for more time than a human's healthy lifespan?

Quote from: Skarg;973976If you mean from lifespan, doesn't that only apply in those campaigns where a set of human and elvish PCs survive and play for more time than a human's healthy lifespan?

You could literally make that argument about anything. Aren't clerics only good in campaigns that have gods? A DM is certainly entitled to create a game world that doesn't have them. Dragonlance was sort of like that for a while. Is it really an AD&D thing, with its section on where cleric spells come, to nerf the cleric? Or was it really the DM who did that?

Quote from: Lunamancer;974029You could literally make that argument about anything. Aren't clerics only good in campaigns that have gods? A DM is certainly entitled to create a game world that doesn't have them. Dragonlance was sort of like that for a while. Is it really an AD&D thing, with its section on where cleric spells come, to nerf the cleric? Or was it really the DM who did that?

No, I mean from the perspective of disadvantage to players of elf PCs vs human PCs in a campaign that isn't liable to run more than 30 years of game time. Maybe you were thinking in terms of NPC demographics, or starting high-level PCs with some balance system where the elves get to start with making magic items because they are assumed to be much older and so have time to have created items, or...?

Quote from: S'mon;973953Yes, 5e also works with 1e frequency of items, though best still to cap at +3 weapons/armour.

The +3 limit is advisable to avoid breaking the bounded accuracy system.

Items are otherwise somewhat self-limiting, since many require attunement and that can only be three; most seem less powerful than the corresponding 0e/1e items but that may be my misremembering.

Quote from: Skarg;974031No, I mean from the perspective of disadvantage to players of elf PCs vs human PCs in a campaign that isn't liable to run more than 30 years of game time.

Isn't liable? As long as we're playing a guessing game, the smart money is that the campaign never runs long enough for level limits to even come into play in the first place.

Maybe elves just suck at magic in AD&D.

Quote from: Dumarest;974221Maybe elves just suck at magic in AD&D.

Well, they're not Tolkien elves.  But if you assume the older adult elves are all fully dual or triple multiclassed at max level...ouch.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;973834

Quote from: Christopher Brady;973830So the question I guess I must ask, and I want to state that I'm asking in earnest:

Do 'you' (as in anyone who reads the Gronan post above) think it's good or bad that Gygax 'lost control' of his game?

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;973834Not good, not bad.  Just "is."

It was inevitable if it ever sold more than its original 1000 copies.  I just think it's interesting to be able to put a finger on a spot and say "here (in my opinion) is where it happened."  (or, more likely, here is where we see that it has happened)

And that's a really good question.  Thanks for asking it.

This interaction warmed my heart.

Quote from: Lunamancer;973836I think it comes down to this...

"However, as D&D became more and more popular, more and more people wanted 'official recognition' of the way they played."

Gary is often cast as having a "my way or the highway" attitude. But the truth is he wanted people to play however they chose; that the context of his attempt to preserve the integrity of D&D was to defend against those who wanted their own ways to be recognized as official. As to whether I think it was good for Gary to lose control of his game in a general sense, I would say he never intended to control it, nor did he. Do I think it's a good thing that Gary lost control of his game to these narcissists specifically? Absolutely not.

I don't think we can say for certain that these individuals were specifically narcissists.   They were bouncing around in a brand new space without any visible boundaries nor anyone enforcing any. Regardless, if it were not these specific individuals, it would be others soon after. Gronan's piece showcases how all these other games ran afoul of a buying audience that kept wanting to push the power level. EGG could have seen that coming (and all sorts of people I'm sure have opined that they would have if they had been in his shoes, and I really don't think any of us can know that). Seeing it, he could have integrated steps into the game to moderate them (perhaps a more rigid xp system) but I'm not sure that would have changed anything. I really don't know if the game would have been the success it was if it were designed to head off all the problems it ended up facing. Part of the beauty of the game is the organic development of both game and gaming community, complete with squabbles, turf wars, and fighting for control of the community and the narrative, etc. etc. I don't think roleplaying would have become the thing it has if it had all been smooth and pristine.

It seems that even more significant than than powergamers was the flood of those from the sf and fantasy fandom who had no roots in wargaming and didn't care much about how Gygax and co. intended the game to be played.

They took the 'make of it what you will!' maxim in OD&D to heart and started crafting their own versions and worlds, hence T&T, the Perrin Conventions, Manual of Aurania, RQ, GW, et al. Pretty notable though that they almost all prominently recognize Gygax and Arneson in even the earliest drafts of their systems. Seems a lot of resentment towards Gygax and TSR in fandom and the zines had more to do with TSR's strict and zealous enforcement of their copyright (however needed) and the SPI debacle. Many people were coming from a kind of 'open source' way of thinking and encountering the increasingly corporate approach of TSR.

Our group has been playing 3e for 14 years or so. We've had the same group forever, our core three including DM going on 25 years. We're currently at the point now where we retire our characters at 12th level if we get that far of course. By this point we as players usually want to try something new, (who doesn't love rolling up new guys?) and combat gets bigger and certainly takes a lot longer. I think it's gotta start being a pain running a higher level campaign as well too.

Quote from: rawma;974033The +3 limit is advisable to avoid breaking the bounded accuracy system.

Items are otherwise somewhat self-limiting, since many require attunement and that can only be three; most seem less powerful than the corresponding 0e/1e items but that may be my misremembering.

Most are somewhat lesser powered in some way. But they did away with itels with limited charges and instead most now have a small allotment of charges that regenerate per day. Though a few will burn out if you expend the last charge. But overall they do feel a little toned down. Which is good as aside from a few exceptions, nothing is class locked.

Quote from: GrabtharsHammer;974492Our group has been playing 3e for 14 years or so. We've had the same group forever, our core three including DM going on 25 years. We're currently at the point now where we retire our characters at 12th level if we get that far of course. By this point we as players usually want to try something new, (who doesn't love rolling up new guys?) and combat gets bigger and certainly takes a lot longer. I think it's gotta start being a pain running a higher level campaign as well too.

This definitely makes 3e/PF suck less. My experience has been the best 3e/PF campaigns I've run had a hard level cap, either restricted to the PF Beginner Box (so 10th) or explicitly limited to 10th for two 3e games. A hard cap that applies to NPCs too (& limit monsters above CR10 accordingly) works very well, player characters get to be big dogs at 9th-10th when the game is still mostly workable.

I broke my "cap at 10" rule to run a 3e/PF Adventure Path 2014-2015, Curse of the Crimson Throne, it finished at 14th level and I certainly regretted the last 4 levels.

Quote from: Willie the Duck;974306I don't think we can say for certain that these individuals were specifically narcissists.   They were bouncing around in a brand new space without any visible boundaries nor anyone enforcing any. Regardless, if it were not these specific individuals, it would be others soon after.

My dissatisfaction isn't aimed at any specific individuals. The narcissist element certainly exists today as well. What I see as problematic is it being normalized. Let me try to explain it this way.

Suppose I've got some nice, harsh old-school rules. And suppose I'm not a harsh DM. Suppose I'm more moderate. As a consequence, I may tweak things, break rules, and fudge dice rolls, and when I do those things tend to favor PCs more often than not. I might make the observation that this creates a particular dynamic between myself as DM and the players--that the players may view me as being "on their side." My role in the game is friend to the players. And so when I decide to exercise my creative license, I get a lot more latitude. The players seem a lot more trusting and open-minded. The end result is we all have more fun. Not because the rules are a perfect match to my style; they're not; but because of the dynamic between DM and players which is probably a lot more important than rules when it comes to having fun.

Parallel this with the narcissistic ideal that we should all just go out and find the RPG whose rules most closely fit our individual preferences. Well, if I'm the same moderate DM, I'd be playing with a moderate rules set. No longer would I be bending the rules to favor the players. The rules already match how I want to run things. I'd just be faithfully executing them. That's my role in the game. So now when I decide to exercise my creative license, players cry foul.

As fashionable as it may be for old-timers to blame newbies and millennials for this attitude, the fact is all they know of TTRPGs is whatever the current version of D&D is. And that's something that's been re-designed by old-timers who have convinced themselves that they are making improvements.

QuoteGronan's piece showcases how all these other games ran afoul of a buying audience that kept wanting to push the power level. EGG could have seen that coming (and all sorts of people I'm sure have opined that they would have if they had been in his shoes, and I really don't think any of us can know that). Seeing it, he could have integrated steps into the game to moderate them (perhaps a more rigid xp system) but I'm not sure that would have changed anything.

I don't think that would be a good idea, either. Who exactly is the "audience" anyway? It's a collection of people, but the audience this year is not the exact same people it was last year, nor will it be next year. Not only that, but when you get down to looking at individual people, their preferences this year are not necessarily the same as it was last year or will be next year either. In my own experience, I tend to notice that younger gamers and less experienced gamers are more likely to enjoy playing at very high levels. Older gamers and veterans prefer something more grounded. But they can and often do evolve while sticking to the same system.

If my observations are true in general and not just anecdotal, then you'd have to expect the audience to seem to demand more high level stuff when the audience is growing. It's not actually true that they do want more high level stuff. The audience has simply gained more new "immature gamers" than it has graduated older "mature" gamers. But if you want to keep retention high, though, then you do have to hold the line. AD&D 1st Ed worked just fine. I played it up to the high 20's in terms of levels.  I can't see any reason why it wouldn't continue to work in the 30's and 40's. But once you decide to return to playing a more grounded campaign, the game works great for that, too. That's one of the comments I made earlier in the thread, that low level, mid level, and high level are all distinctly different feels you get from the same exact game. The game has that flexibility to accommodate the player as his play style and preferences evolve.

QuoteI really don't know if the game would have been the success it was if it were designed to head off all the problems it ended up facing. Part of the beauty of the game is the organic development of both game and gaming community, complete with squabbles, turf wars, and fighting for control of the community and the narrative, etc. etc. I don't think roleplaying would have become the thing it has if it had all been smooth and pristine.

I'm all for organic development. And I think that's exactly what Gary was going for. Vying for the stamp of "official" however seems the exact opposite of organic development. I am not convinced RPGs have benefited from nerds squabbling and behaving badly. It's hard to evaluate a counterfactual and compare it to what would have been. It reminds me of economic journalist Jim Grant's parable of what if one of Cleopatra's loyal servants had at the time of her death liquidated just $100 worth of her wealth and saved it at interest at a mere 2% per anum, the entire world's population could divvy up that account today and we'd all be trillionaires. It's a fun story, but there's also a real truth to it. A study done of peoples retirement accounts during the greatest market growth in history revealed the average rate of return was less than 2% on account of people panicking out of the market, or trying to buy low and sell high and having horrible timing. It's easy to look back at the one great trade you made and say, "It's a good thing I timed the market right that one time," when in reality if you'd just left everything be, things would have been far better.

Quote from: Lunamancer;974530Parallel this with the narcissistic ideal that we should all just go out and find the RPG whose rules most closely fit our individual preferences.

I don't see that as the narcissistic ideal. There are arguments for and against finding/creating an RPG tailor made to your preferences, but I don't see how it is narcissistic.

QuoteAs fashionable as it may be for old-timers to blame newbies and millennials for this attitude, the fact is all they know of TTRPGs is whatever the current version of D&D is. And that's something that's been re-designed by old-timers who have convinced themselves that they are making improvements.

I am a strong proponent of the concept that there is nothing new under the sun, and that the newbies of today are not particularly worse than the newbies of yesteryear. But I'm not following the linkups here. Are you saying that the newbies of today are playing (well, now) 5e, which is an old-timer's improvement on TSR-era D&D?

QuoteI am not convinced RPGs have benefited from nerds squabbling and behaving badly.

Very probably not, although again, I'm not sure that trying to head this off would have been either successful nor productive.

QuoteIt's hard to evaluate a counterfactual and compare it to what would have been. It reminds me of economic journalist Jim Grant's parable of what if one of Cleopatra's loyal servants had at the time of her death liquidated just $100 worth of her wealth and saved it at interest at a mere 2% per anum, the entire world's population could divvy up that account today and we'd all be trillionaires. It's a fun story, but there's also a real truth to it. A study done of peoples retirement accounts during the greatest market growth in history revealed the average rate of return was less than 2% on account of people panicking out of the market, or trying to buy low and sell high and having horrible timing. It's easy to look back at the one great trade you made and say, "It's a good thing I timed the market right that one time," when in reality if you'd just left everything be, things would have been far better.

Maybe I'm having a bad reading comprehension day, but I'm again not seeing the connecting line between this accurate seeming story of market timidity and what it is supposed to be an allegory to. If you have the time, could you re-clarify? Thanks!