Quote from: thedungeondelver;1083870But one thing I have never, ever understood is why some people don't want to change D&D's rules, they want to entirely and completely scrap D&D altogether so that all is left is the name "D&D" and some totally alien rule system is put on it.  I'm not angry about it, I'm really curious.  If you want a fantasy game where the stats are not S,I,W,D,C,Ch, start at a 3-18 range, character races come in at least Human, elf, dwarf, etc. (and others, if your game goes full on dragon-man, half-demon, teleporting elves, etc. that's your bag), then there's loads of games that do it.

This happens in board games too. The answers are usually fairly simple.

1: The person wanting a total overhaul wants someone else to design for them their "perfect" game. And for whatever reason they have locked onto a certain brand and want THAT to be the one overhauled totally. Most often done by people who arent designers. They have an idea what they want but not the skill so they try to get someone else to do it. And unfortunately sometimes they try to do this by overwriting an existing system. We see this pop up now and then during playtesting and a designer will try to alter the game to meet these demands, wondering why the game they are designing now looks nothing like that they intended or know how to design?

2: The person wanting the overhail wants to slap the title and possibly setting of some brand on THEIR game. This comes up fairly often. Its mostly a marketing ploy.

3: Or alternatively they want to run the setting with their favourite system. This is REALLY common and there is nothing wrong with it as long as they arent demanding that D&D switch over to the Gurps system or Gurps to scrap its system and start using the Traveller system.

Theres other reasons of course. One of which is just sheer maliciousness. Get the system totally changed just to fuck with the existing fanbase. Or to try and crash a company.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1083870I just see posts every now and again where people wanna throw everything away that makes D&D D&D except the name and I don't get that.  Is it a case of just wanting your not-D&D game to suddenly be the 800lb gorilla?

Because the D&D name gets sales if you're a company, and players at your game table if you're a DM. Even if it's in substance something else, the name will get money in pocket and bums on seats.

It's like how people on Instagram tag celebrities in the hopes of getting more people look at their post.

Quote from: Omega;1083910This happens in board games too. The answers are usually fairly simple.

1: The person wanting a total overhaul wants someone else to design for them their "perfect" game. And for whatever reason they have locked onto a certain brand and want THAT to be the one overhauled totally. Most often done by people who arent designers. They have an idea what they want but not the skill so they try to get someone else to do it. And unfortunately sometimes they try to do this by overwriting an existing system. We see this pop up now and then during playtesting and a designer will try to alter the game to meet these demands, wondering why the game they are designing now looks nothing like that they intended or know how to design?

2: The person wanting the overhail wants to slap the title and possibly setting of some brand on THEIR game. This comes up fairly often. Its mostly a marketing ploy.

3: Or alternatively they want to run the setting with their favourite system. This is REALLY common and there is nothing wrong with it as long as they arent demanding that D&D switch over to the Gurps system or Gurps to scrap its system and start using the Traveller system.

Theres other reasons of course. One of which is just sheer maliciousness. Get the system totally changed just to fuck with the existing fanbase. Or to try and crash a company.

Pretty much. I mean, we get it... Somebody 'discovered' that there's other ways of doing stuff, and like a recent convert they gotta evangelize their new truth. Many of us have already been there and done that -- and in the end came back because the grass was not any greener, and our new truth nowhere near as profound as we thought.

I think it's mostly a growth phase, so mostly reason 1. There's been a few number 2, particularly during the first few years of the rise of Storygames. Threes are harder to find as DIYers usually have less interest in proselytizing than running their game, but you'll find the rare duck who wants to replace a brand wholesale with 'their vision'. There were (are?) a few crusaders, particularly TBP, for rallying the masses to the banner of their latest hotness... but people should have better sense than to follow such zealotry, especially over "Let's Pretend!"

Trond committing social suicide :

Because people like the idea of D&D, because of history and its reputation, but all the editions actually suck in one way or another?

To me, the essence of D&D has very little to do with the specific ruleset and much more to do with the tropes: Rangers, Paladins, glass-cannon fairy folk, extra tough earth dwellers, specialized heroes, etc. There are lots of different rulesets that can support these tropes, and all of them feel like what I'd call "D&D" in its more generic sense.

Quote from: Trond;1084021Trond committing social suicide :

Because people like the idea of D&D, because of history and its reputation, but all the editions actually suck in one way or another?

That may be a bit strong, but there are a lot of things that the game has been inspired by, has inspired, pretended to do or been misunderstood as doing that it's really not well suited to.

Quote from: Trond;1084021Trond committing social suicide :

Because people like the idea of D&D, because of history and its reputation, but all the editions actually suck in one way or another?

Well, I'm not taking you to harsh task, but then "you" don't want the game, you just want whatever game you want to be the game everyone plays.

It's not just D&D (though D&D gets the lion's share of it). Most any game I like will eventually have some person show up and tell you how it would be better if it were more like X (usually some new hotness game that person would rather be playing). Why they want to try to change the game I like, rather than just go play their Savage Worlds/Fate/PBTA game still baffles me.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1084026Well, I'm not taking you to harsh task, but then "you" don't want the game, you just want whatever game you want to be the game everyone plays.

Struggling to parse that, but I think I get it. Sort of. Have you ever tried to like a book or a film (or whatever) without getting into it? D&D is of course THE classic RPG out there that everyone knows about. Gygax used this for what it was worth (he even called it the "granddaddy" of all RPGs as early as 1st AD&D if I remember correctly). I think a number of people would like to like it (it's supposed to be the awesomest) but don't.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1083870Not edition warring (much).

OD&D, Basic (of any stripe), "D&D", AD&D 1e, 2e, 3rd Edition D&D, 4e (yes, even 4e) and 5e were/are all identifiably D&D.  I don't particularly like 3rd or 4th edition, I'm kind of tepid on 5e, but at the end of the day they do what they should do, and among those criteria is "Be identifiably D&D".

But one thing I have never, ever understood is why some people don't want to change D&D's rules, they want to entirely and completely scrap D&D altogether so that all is left is the name "D&D" and some totally alien rule system is put on it.  I'm not angry about it, I'm really curious.  If you want a fantasy game where the stats are not S,I,W,D,C,Ch, start at a 3-18 range, character races come in at least Human, elf, dwarf, etc. (and others, if your game goes full on dragon-man, half-demon, teleporting elves, etc. that's your bag), then there's loads of games that do it.

I just see posts every now and again where people wanna throw everything away that makes D&D D&D except the name and I don't get that.  Is it a case of just wanting your not-D&D game to suddenly be the 800lb gorilla?

Genuinely curious.

Edit: sounded harsher than intended!

**
The existence of the OSR isn't just down to a desire to return to simpler rules and simpler (dungeon-doorkicking) scenarios, but also an effort to re-visit the game styles that existed decades before.

I get it, even if I am not much of an advocate.

That said, I'm going to be running U3: The Final Enemy shortly. Back in the day this was a slightly new-fangled (read: British) approach to AD&D adventuring, a lot more mystery and diplomacy than usual. But even that module has "for 8-12 characters of levels 3-5" on the cover.

No-one plays that way any more.

It was pretty silly then (a whole army of players sat around the table) - but we didn't know it, and just had a blast.

But in 2019 the small-army approach doesn't really hold up at all. The adventure is fine, but I'm having to change all sorts of concepts to make things more playable in 2019.

Case in point - there's a building with four or more secret doors, and every lockbox is locked and trapped.  Back in the day we delighted in scouring every flagstone, every wooden wall panel, and took ages checking every box for the inevitable traps. We loved every minute of it.


But my 2019 players were openly mocking that after the first few instances...and I don't blame them. And it's immediately apparent it's not the game they want to play, it's not the game I want to play. We want more flow, more interaction, faster pacing for everything. We want deep political and interpersonal investigations, we want fights with challenges brought on by environments and the spell/action mechanics of bad guys. (Edit: and you can't do that stuff with an army of players)

For the most part the early D&D edition rules don't support that stuff, not overtly at least. The six stats simply don't mesh well to that stuff. And you can argue that 5e isn't great for it either, but it's certainly closer. But the other thing is that we have forty years of other games that DO support that stuff, and it's not surprising that people would like to see some of those elements catered for in their group's game of choice (i.e. D&D).

Ultimately D&D isn't a great tool for the game that people want to play. But it succeeds nonetheless, especially 5e, because it gets close enough for most people, most of the time.

Quote from: Trond;1084030Struggling to parse that, but I think I get it. Sort of. Have you ever tried to like a book or a film (or whatever) without getting into it? D&D is of course THE classic RPG out there that everyone knows about. Gygax used this for what it was worth (he even called it the "granddaddy" of all RPGs as early as 1st AD&D if I remember correctly). I think a number of people would like to like it (it's supposed to be the awesomest) but don't.

Well I'm going just come to a fine point: if you rip the entirety of a thing out of the thing and leave it with nothing but the name, regardless of what you call it, it isn't the original thing anymore, no matter how much people insist it is.  I can tell people "We're going to play D&D" and instead take out Battletech, and tell them, well, this is what I want out of D&D, so this is what I call D&D, and I'm wrong.  And, likewise, so are people who want to throw out D&D's central pillars (6 stats, alignment, the magic system, rolling to-hit, armor classes whether descending or ascending, class based systems, and so on) except for some vague fantasy tropes.  If I serve you spaghetti in a soup bowl I can insist all night that it's soup but that doesn't make it so.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1083870I'm not angry about it, I'm really curious.

Not angry about it? Just curious? Who are you and what have you done to our Delver?!

But I get you. These people are out there. In some cases, it is a plain desire for "I wish my game was king of the hill, and not yucky old D&D". You could see this in some parts of the 4e fanbase, e.g. on RPGNet and Something Awful (but particularly Something Awful). Actually, wishful thinking about completely remaking A/D&D has been a thing as long as I have followed the RPG hobby, and most certainly before that. Warlock, the soulless CalTech OD&D variant was first released February 1975 (simultaneously with Greyhawk!), under the slogan "How to Play DandD Without Playing DandD". I will not even mention Runequest, just watch that Lindybeige video (you know the one). "Official D&D" gets a kind of name recognition (and network externalitiesssssss) no other RPG does. Not Vampire, not Pathfinder, D&D. So D&D matters to everyone who wants to remake the hobby in their preferred image.

Sometimes, it is more legitimate - someone can start with D&D's basic rules framework, or even keep a lot of it, but arrive at a completely different place. Bully for them. I would say there is an enormous difference between people doing something that works for them and their friends, and people trying to stake a claim on "this is what real D&D was always supposed to be about, but those dumb people could never get it right".

Quote from: Motorskills;1084031Edit: sounded harsher than intended!

**
The existence of the OSR isn't just down to a desire to return to simpler rules and simpler (dungeon-doorkicking) scenarios, but also an effort to re-visit the game styles that existed decades before.

I get it, even if I am not much of an advocate.

That said, I'm going to be running U3: The Final Enemy shortly. Back in the day this was a slightly new-fangled (read: British) approach to AD&D adventuring, a lot more mystery and diplomacy than usual. But even that module has "for 8-12 characters of levels 3-5" on the cover.

No-one plays that way any more.

It was pretty silly then (a whole army of players sat around the table) - but we didn't know it, and just had a blast.

But in 2019 the small-army approach doesn't really hold up at all. The adventure is fine, but I'm having to change all sorts of concepts to make things more playable in 2019.

Case in point - there's a building with four or more secret doors, and every lockbox is locked and trapped.  Back in the day we delighted in scouring every flagstone, every wooden wall panel, and took ages checking every box for the inevitable traps. We loved every minute of it.


But my 2019 players were openly mocking that after the first few instances...and I don't blame them. And it's immediately apparent it's not the game they want to play, it's not the game I want to play. We want more flow, more interaction, faster pacing for everything. We want deep political and interpersonal investigations, we want fights with challenges brought on by environments and the spell/action mechanics of bad guys. (Edit: and you can't do that stuff with an army of players)

For the most part the early D&D edition rules don't support that stuff, not overtly at least. The six stats simply don't mesh well to that stuff. And you can argue that 5e isn't great for it either, but it's certainly closer. But the other thing is that we have forty years of other games that DO support that stuff, and it's not surprising that people would like to see some of those elements catered for in their group's game of choice (i.e. D&D).

Ultimately D&D isn't a great tool for the game that people want to play. But it succeeds nonetheless, especially 5e, because it gets close enough for most people, most of the time.

That's very interesting. Why do you think it can't be done with a larger group of players?

Quote from: thedungeondelver;1084035Well I'm going just come to a fine point: if you rip the entirety of a thing out of the thing and leave it with nothing but the name, regardless of what you call it, it isn't the original thing anymore, no matter how much people insist it is.  I can tell people "We're going to play D&D" and instead take out Battletech, and tell them, well, this is what I want out of D&D, so this is what I call D&D, and I'm wrong.  And, likewise, so are people who want to throw out D&D's central pillars (6 stats, alignment, the magic system, rolling to-hit, armor classes whether descending or ascending, class based systems, and so on) except for some vague fantasy tropes.  If I serve you spaghetti in a soup bowl I can insist all night that it's soup but that doesn't make it so.

Oh yes, I agree. Also related; I wish people would stop asking "how do I do [ thing that does not resemble D&D that other games do better] with D&D?" Of course in some cases it might be because they like the system, but many are just extremely stuck on the name D&D.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1084039That's very interesting. Why do you think it can't be done with a larger group of players?

My campaign currently has seven players plus the DM (me), that's basically two too many, but since we are often one or two players down, it works out neatly. Even when we have a full squad, it's mostly manageable. So I'm not saying it can't be done, I'm saying it's a different game, or at least a game that requires different play-style.

IMO 5e works best with 3-5 characters, and in fact I think that is stated somewhere, I think that's recommended headcount in Phandalin for example.

Tactically, positioning is more important with only a few characters. Strategically there's enough differentiation between the 5e classes that with only a few characters the players have to work to plug gaps. With lots of classes present, there are fewer strategic challenges.

But beyond that, it's about screen time. If I have eight players/characters, I can only give them half as much attention as when I have four. So everything becomes more rushed, less intimate. More likely, I have to manage the game completely differently, and with say 12 characters - as recommended by U3 - I'm playing a much different game. I'm simply not going to be able to have significant one-to-ones with players.

In fact it's going to need to be much more by rote - and people were used to doing exactly that back in the day, it was called "marching order" for a reason.
These days, I don't worry so much about marching order, it's not that important to me, nor to my players. General positioning, for area effects etc, is much more important.