D&D

[Arvok]

Numbers are guidelines. Even a really high skill modifier can be adjusted by this amazingly simple tool called the Situational Modifier if players are seeking to power game. Numbers also do not prevent the ability to role play, much as spell selections should not as a priest.

Again, there is the problem that players will complain (and not without some justification) that they should be allowed to use these abilities into which they have dumped a lot of skill points.

 

And there is always the annoying possibility that a player might roll a natural 20...

[Arvok]

I don't allow most Charisma-based skill checks ("Role-Play, don't Roll-Play" I always say), Magic is much harder to come by (Enchanted Weapon is again a 4th level spell, Enchant an Item is 6th, and Permanency is 8th, with the loss of Constitution, etc.), and I've reinstated race restrictions and minimum ability scores (in the real world you can't be a chemist with a 60 IQ, you're then just a guy who plays in a lab).

 

Perhaps it has never occured to you, but not every player is a charismatic diplomat, nor are all players super-creative.

 

Why should this limit them to what types of characters they can play? Why shouldn't Bob the half-wit be allowed to play a diplomatic character even if he isn't the most creative and wordy person. I'll always dish out bonuses for a well-roleplayed situation, but I don't disallow all charisma based rolls. Doing so would be the equivalent of throwing out all strength based rolls simply because my little brother can't lift more than 20lbs. but is playing a character with an 18 strength.

 

Forcing players who are not intuitively creative and articulate to play characters who are are likewise uncreative and unituitive when it comes to problem solving and diplomacy pigeonholes them into the power-gamer role that you seem to despise so much.

 

As far as the various D&D races being minor variations on the same shade of colour (ie. Humans), I'd have to strongly disagree, I'm not even sure where to begin to refute this idea, because as far as my perceptions are concerned nothing can be further fromt he truth, in terms of gameplay I honestly believe the new rules set has injected the various races with a huge dose of flavour that makes them extremely unique. Just because you can play a Dwarf-Wizard doesn't mean that such characgter are common, or anything but a rare freak of nature. If you deem Dwarven wizards taboo you can either forbid your players from playing such a character, or you can (more creatively) make that sort of character an extreme abnormality who has to deal with the social reprocussions of being a 'freak' from the perspective of his fellow Dwarves (in the case of a Dwarf Wizard at least).

 

I for one think 3.0+ (while hardly the best ruleset on the market) bar-none the best D&D rules set that has ever seen the light of day.

Well, because Bob the half-wit will do a lousy job of it. The whole point of Role-Playing is to use your creativity and imagination. A parapalegic can realistically play a Half-Orc with a 19 Strength, but someone with an 87 IQ is not going to be able to play an Elven Wizard with a 16 intelligence. If somebody lacks the imagination to effectively play a "mental" character but still likes the idea of fantasy games, why not introduce him to Magic: the Gathering?

 

Let's be honest, most of us gaming geeks have below average Charisma scores. If one of my players attempts to charm his character's way out of a situation I ignore the booger hanging out of his nose and remember that the character has a 17 Charisma--if he role-plays it well.

 

My main point is that WoTC attempted (from what I can tell) to broaden their appeal and their market share by changing the game so as to attract the not-so-smart gamer. Before 3e (and M:TG and Diablo, etc.) the typical gaming geek was smarter than the average bear. Maybe this is why he became a gamer in the first place; because he had trouble making "normal" friends (you know, the social stigma attached to being one of the smart kids and all that). It does seem to me (and I don't have anything to back this up other than my own personal experience) that there has been a drop in the intelligence of gamers coincident with the advent of 3e. This could just be due to society's overall decline in intelligence as we lower school standards for kids, but I'm going to continue to blame WoTC since they screwed up the game I love.

[Qwyksilver]

Per alignment - A lawful good diety with a lawful neutral cleric is not that outrageous, not is a neutral good cleric of the same god. If someone wanted to be lawful evil, then that is not allowed.

 

Look at religion and faith in modern times. How many variants are there of Christianity? Look at what some of those faiths consider to be sins, and what others don't. The priest/minister/pastor all speak for their god, but their voices and beliefs can be significantly different just within this one faith yet still maintain most of the same basic tenets. They all worship presumably the same god. Schisms occur in major religions for just this very reason.

 

 

And with skills. It is up to the player to role play the situation as I mentioned with Diplomacy. The game isn't broken because your players can't role play a situation, they are. And you as the DM are the final arbiter. You need to be an enforcer of situational/conditional modifiers. If they want to think just because they have a +50 Diplomacy and 38 Charisma their character can walk up smeared in feces and expect to see the king, then as a DM, you need to politley remind them that the game is more than a number, and have the character tossed out of the keep if they are lucky, and into a dungeon if not. You are the DM.

 

On skill based checks, 20 is not an automatic success, and in many cases, it's still not even enough to be successful with a decent modifier at lower levels.

[Qwyksilver]

Actually, one of the guys in my gaming group growing up was dumber than a bag of doorknobs. That was back in the day of just Dungeons and Dragons. Not even Advanced.

[Arvok]

One of the reasons there are so many sects of Christianity is because there are disagreements over the interpretations of scripture. In a world where deities are overtly active in their followers lives on a day-to-day basis one would expect there to be a lot less confusion about the deity's will.

 

I still can't comprehend a Lawful Good Deity with spokesmen who don't consider it necessary to be Good.

[Arvok]

I'm not saying everyone who ever played D&D back in the "good old days" was a genius, just that overall they were smarter.

 

Case in point: I had a campaign with a player who wanted more than anything to be an Elf so he could become a Bladesinger. He was all about making a full attack and casting a spell in the same round. His character died before he could fulfill his dream, but in another campaign he was runnning an Elf spellcaster and once cast Aracane Mark on an opponent during a combat because he couldn't think of anything else to do.

 

Stupid, uncreative people generally don't do very well role-playing anything but "Grog smash" type characters.

[Xindra]

Perhaps it has never occured to you, but not every player is a charismatic diplomat, nor are all players super-creative.

 

Why should this limit them to what types of characters they can play?  Why shouldn't Bob the half-wit be allowed to play a diplomatic character even if he isn't the most creative and wordy person.  I'll always dish out bonuses for a well-roleplayed situation, but I don't disallow all charisma based rolls. Doing so would be the equivalent of throwing out all strength based rolls simply because my little brother can't lift more than 20lbs. but is playing a character with an 18 strength.

 

Forcing players who are not intuitively creative and articulate to play characters who are are likewise uncreative and unituitive when it comes to problem solving and diplomacy pigeonholes them into the power-gamer role that you seem to despise so much.

It is easy for me to imagine what it would be like to be strong, although I am not a she-bear. However, I have played with people who are not intelligent (and I'm not claiming to be at the top of the intel chain, but it is difficult to play with a person who is on or below the bottom rung of that ladder but who wants his PC to be Stephen Hawking). I am a firm believer that players revert to what it is they know best, especially in clutch situations - if that is emotional rather than logical or well-thought-out responses, then their ability to effectively play a character with a high intel level is going to be compromised.

 

For example, a player who claims a +17 in diplomacy approaches a guard and "attempts to make friends." When the DM asks what the PC does, he says, "I roll - and I got a 37. Did it work?" Well, yes, technically it did work. The player rolled high enough to make the check, etc. However, as the DM, I have to repeat, "A roll isn't enough. What do you do?" Even with a 37, trying to make friends with the guard by humping his leg isn't going to earn you any friendship points...unless the guard is just strange.

[mooseyjoe]

Let's be honest, most of us gaming geeks have below average Charisma scores. If one of my players attempts to charm his character's way out of a situation I ignore the booger hanging out of his nose and remember that the character has a 17 Charisma--if he role-plays it well.

 

Before 3e (and M:TG and Diablo, etc.) the typical gaming geek was smarter than the average bear. Maybe this is why he became a gamer in the first place; because he had trouble making "normal" friends (you know, the social stigma attached to being one of the smart kids and all that).

 

I am getting the impression that certain people among us have a longing for the days when only social failures who couldn't hack it in the real world role played. Just because some gamers aren't as smart as others doesn't mean that they can't play intelligent roles. You have said that you have no problem with real life low charisma players playing the role of a charming character. What is the problem with the village idiot playing the role of a smart wizard? They may make some funny mistakes in the process, but so do socially inept gamers who try and engage in diplomatic situations. It is the JOB of the DM to make sure that all players can fit in and play the role of any character witch will fit the story. If this means that you need to fight a few oozes, or guide the roleplaying of your less socially talented players, then so be it. As the DM it is your job to make sure everyone is having fun, including yourself. If you have an overly predetermined notion of how the story is supposed to work or how the characters are supposed to act, then you should sit by yourself and write novels, not play games.

 

The point of roleplaying is to be able to play the role of someone who is different from yourself, it is hard to be someone else, so we have stats and modifiers to help us do this. Unless we are going to work from scripts, we won't always be able to act more charming or more intelligent than we really are, so we role some dice to prove our characters can do it even when we can't. This is OK. If someone really has trouble playing a role, then it is always fine to go ahead and role the dice and them guide them through the RPing to arrive at the apropriate result

[Eric Swiftblade]

I understand what Avrok is saying. I dont allow my players to just make rolls and get away with anything.

 

EG: The group burst into a lord house, and the lord and his guards confronted them, demanding they leave. The rogue proceeded to kill him with a crossbow bolt, thinking he was the bad guy.

Soon they discovered the real bad guy and defeated them, only to end up surrounded by the city watch. The rogue (with the best diplomacy and bluff) attempted to talk his way out of it by saying..."I thought he was the bad guy".

I didn't even bother having him roll diplomacy.

 

The idea that it's "unfair" to deny a character access to a certain spell or group of spells is one of the things that really bothers me about 3e.

 

I dont think thats true. Rather than the rules restricting players to certain roles,(Eg: Dwarves cant have arcane magic. Half-Orc must be barbaric. etc) now its up to the players to restrict themselves. It's not the rules fault that there are players out there that abuse them, its the players fault.

[Arvok]

The idea that it's "unfair" to deny a character access to a certain spell or group of spells is one of the things that really bothers me about 3e.

 

I dont think thats true. Rather than the rules restricting players to certain roles,(Eg: Dwarves cant have arcane magic. Half-Orc must be barbaric. etc) now its up to the players to restrict themselves. It's not the rules fault that there are players out there that abuse them, its the players fault.

I heartily disagree. The other races' inability to advance in certain classes was part of what made them unique and alien. Men (the race of Man) are supposed to be the most versatile and adaptable race in D&D--that's part of their nature. The other races may have a bent for one or a few classes, but just lack Man's ability to do nearly anything. That's part of what makes each race unique (and why Man hasn't been overshadowed by the longer-lived races).

 

In the modern world, especially in the West, we believe anybody can become just about anything. Part of what makes each race different is that it lacks the ability to excell at certain things.

 

With regards to spells, I hate the idea that all clerics are equally good healers (ignoring the +1 caster level for the Healing domain, which isn't really that big of a deal). I hate the idea that a specialist wizard can choose his opposition schools (and that no matter what he'll have access to Wish). Certain schools of magic are intrinsically opposed to one another. I know DMs can force their players to choose the proper opposition schools, but they shouldn't have to create house rules for that.

[Lars Porsenna]

I heartily disagree. The other races' inability to advance in certain classes was part of what made them unique and alien. Men (the race of Man) are supposed to be the most versatile and adaptable race in D&D--that's part of their nature. The other races may have a bent for one or a few classes, but just lack Man's ability to do nearly anything. That's part of what makes each race unique (and why Man hasn't been overshadowed by the longer-lived races).

By what standard?

 

If I want to play a dwarven wizard, and I create a setting that makes one not just reasonable, but intrinsically logical, why should the ruleset I'm using tell me it's illegal? If I want to play an Elven paladin, why shouldn't I be able to? Why should all elves be tree-hugging archers? Why can't I play an elf based on GW's High Elves (which, in turn, seem to be inspired by Moorcockian Melniboneans)?

 

The point of 3e is to NOT limit the options of players and DMs, but to give them a framework to ENABLE them, not DISABLE them!

 

You wanna play a kobold paladin? Why not! If it makes sense in YOUR setting, go for it! The rules shouldn't bind your hands, but free them to create the game and setting YOU want to play, not the one Arvok want's to play.

 

You want to make your characters alien and unique? ROLE-PLAY them that way, don't just ROLL-PLAY them that way!

 

I think its a bit cheeky to complain about CHA based skills promoting roll-playing, and then turn around and complain that allowing (or even better, not forbidding) races because it erodes their "alieness" doesn't make sense, nor is it consistent.

 

BTW, I still don't find your argument about clerics valid. Again, its all about the role-playing. What's the difference between a Christian cleric and a Shinto priest? Not a whole lot (both can't cast spells!)...except in their cultural background and religious rites. But then, that's not really the way 3e works to begin with, to whit: the Druid exists as a seperate class now, and in OA we have a class for the Sohei , so if you want to create a Yamabushi of the Ikko-Ikki, there's the class you should take. Under this paradigm. Clerics veering too close the the Christian model? Not surprising if that's what they're modelled after. THe 3e approach is to NOT shoehorn different archetypes into a handful of classes, but rather provide the tools neccessary to play those archetypes closer to what they are, including providing different classes. Then again, you could just roll up a cleric, outfit him with a naginata and scale armor, call him a Yamabushi, and focus your spell selection on those that emphasise purity and divination, and role-play the rest.

 

Damon.

[Eric Swiftblade]

I heartily disagree.

Luckily we are allowed to do that.

 

Personally, I prefer to have the open framework, and then work any restrictions into house rules.

 

From what you say, you'd prefer the restrictions set into the rules (eg previous Ed).

 

This is what is called a difference of opinions. And thats fine with me.

 

I actually though that Cure was a Good spell for quite a while and that evil clerics couldn't cast it.

I think the main difference there is that good clerics are better healers than evil, because every spell slot is a healing spell for a good cleric. Evil clerics must waste their slots on such spells.

Though any evil cleric firing off healing spells left and right would certainly be losing touch with his diety in my games...only heal for your own benefit.

[Glen]

**edit** Eric posted while I was writing mine. We're essentially saying the same thing. **end edit**

 

Arvok, All the things that you have listed as reasons why 2E D&D is better than 3E, are precisely the reasons why I think 3E is better than 2E!

 

You argue that the lack of restrictions takes away roleplaying. I argue that it actually frees the player to roleplay! The reason that I drifted away from D&D was the cookie-cutter classes and races.

 

My biggest peeve from 2E was race limits for demi-humans: do all elves and dwarves get lobotomies when they hit 12th level?!?! Do they lose their capacity to learn? It was a poorly designed mechanic from the beginning.

 

My second biggest peeve was the lack of skills to choose from. (Let me qualify that statement; I quit playing D&D before the Players Options books came out).

 

3E is a better game for me and the group I game with. It finally allows the players to branch out. In 2E a fighter was a fighter. If there were two fighters in the group, the only difference between them (disregarding equipment) was their ability scores, and possibly race. ????? What? Does every fighter in the world go to the same fighter school? Ok, ok, weapon specialization let you differentiate a bit.

 

Sure, you could roleplay that your fighter character was an archer fighter, but mechanic wise, your character was almost no different from any other fighter.

 

3E gives you the mechanics to back up and support the differentiation. 2E penalized a player for roleplaying anything other than a cookie-cutter character. 3E does not.

 

oh, and 90 posts in one month?!?! Go outside and look at the sun for a bit!

just joshing you, 'cause its taken me two years to get to 300-something posts. You're gonna blow by me before we hit August!

[Qwyksilver]

As far as I'm aware, clerics aren't simply wind-up toys or hand-puppets for gods (no, not even for Banjo).

 

 

Yeah though I walk through the valley of Roy being really pissed.  I shall fear not thwacking as my lute and my banjo they comfort me.

 

All hail Banjo and his high priest Elan!

[spiritual_exorcist]

Men (the race of Man) are supposed to be the most versatile and adaptable race in D&D--that's part of their nature.

 

They still are far more versatile in 3rd edition, they simply arn't the only race that doesn't have artificial level limits. Humans gain an extra feat at first level, gain extra skill points, and have the ability to multiclass more freely than any other race in the game. To me this is enough to showcase them as the most flexible race in the game.

 

I'd never let a character say, I'm going to try and finesse the guards and make a roll. The player would have to either tell me what they said to the guard, or (as is very often the case) they would have to tell me what sort of angle they wanted to take. I'm of the opinion that a player doesn't need to recite word by word exactly what their character says, often this is the case, but often I allow my characters to describe how they want to go about coercing someone without actually having to do it word for word.

 

Here is a question, do you make players playing a Bard character pull out an insturment when their character does? What if they sing to inspire their comrads. Perhaps I'm niave, but usually i simply allow the player to state 'I begin recite my latest tune describing how the party overthrew King Blacknard in the last adventure in order to fill them with confidence'.