Ozreth's page

Diego Rossi wrote:

Ozreth wrote:

Set wrote:

so much that the mechanics like 'per encounter abilities' or whatnot weren't constantly snapping you out of the immersion/experience/fantasy adventure story like a stagehand caught on stage midperformance.

And early 3e had very little of this, and when it did it was mostly per day stuff, not per encounter. Later 3.5 and then especially Pathfinder added a lot of the "dissociated" mechanics.

3e (and previous editions) had facing. The 360° sight is one of the things is one of the things that always feel a bit off, together with the "6 seconds round" that allows you to do more than the old 1 minute round of AD&D.

My first edition I ran and played was D&D 3rd Edition, and facing was not a part of D&D 3.0.

The 6-second round was definitely a part of 3.0, but got more attention with 3.5 and the introduction of the swift action.

It’s true that it didn’t have legitimate facing, but miniatures were considered to have “face”, which made movement very awkward. When the transition to 3.5 happened there were heated debates about this and the prevailing argument in favor of round based was “why have square and rectangular bases that imitate facing without actual rules for facing?”

From the 3e PHB:

“Face

How much area a character occupies in combat. Face is essentially the border between the square or rectangular space that a character occupies and the space next to it. These faces are abstract, not "front, back, left, and right," because characters are constantly moving and turning in battle. Unless a character is immobile, it practically doesn't have a front or a left side-at least not one that can be identified on the tabletop.”

Regarding the 6 second round: for many years people complained about the 1 minute round and how little you actually did in that time. This is mostly because people failed to understand that the rounds emulated a LOT of combat happening and your roll to hit was just to see how much damage came out of a lot of combat that you didn’t actually see unfold. This is how units in Wargames worked.

People wanted the actions they rolled for to better represent the actual actions their characters were taking, which is how most other RPGs were doing it. This was finally acknowledged in the 2e Combat and Tactics book which I think changed it to 10 seconds?

There’s a funny story about Cook and Tweet spending hours making Skip Williams imitate everything a character could do in a certain amount of time with a stopwatch and they ended up with 6 seconds seeming about right.

Swift actions weren’t in core 3.5 but came pretty soon after in a couple of the splatboooks. My group still plays a 3e/3.5 hybrid and we don’t use swift or immediate actions.

Diego Rossi wrote:

Ozreth wrote:

Set wrote:

so much that the mechanics like 'per encounter abilities' or whatnot weren't constantly snapping you out of the immersion/experience/fantasy adventure story like a stagehand caught on stage midperformance.

And early 3e had very little of this, and when it did it was mostly per day stuff, not per encounter. Later 3.5 and then especially Pathfinder added a lot of the "dissociated" mechanics.

3e (and previous editions) had facing. The 360° sight is one of the things is one of the things that always feel a bit off, together with the "6 seconds round" that allows you to do more than the old 1 minute round of AD&D.

I feel like every edition has stuff I liked, and stuff that I tried very hard to forget, like weapon speed factors and those weird armor class adjustments based on weapon type, or whatever (which I'm not describing well, because we never used them!). Ug. 1st edition had some real nit-picky pain baked into it!

Adjusting your initiative count based on what spell you were casting, and being able to be interrupted if someone had a fast weapon speed weapon capable of reaching and interrupting you, like a thrown dart? Yeah, fun. NOT.

Slowly but surely, these things have fallen away. Some of them, like Vancian casting and alignment, I never thought were going to die, but hey, the future slowly slouches towards Bethlehem, it seems.

The 360 view I feel makes sense when you consider that the explanation for founds has always been that characters are ducking, weaving,parrying etc. and that it isn't just one swing per round. They are active and moving. This is the 3e to 3.5 explanation for round bases and removal of facing (which wasn't legitimate facing in 3e anyways). If they are constantly moving in a round then it makes sense to me that they are not just facing one opponent the entire round.

I love Vancian casting because I am a fan of Dying Earth and all of the other Sword & Sorcery that the game was based on. The further back you go you find that most of the mechanics and flavor of the game can be tied to this or that S&S author. It was a literary game meant to emulate Sword & Sorcery, and we lost a lot of this over the decades. The game now is self-refferential, rather than having roots in literature, which was far more interesting. But nobody reads anymore, the designers of current D&D and PF are far removed from this literature tradition, and now we've ended up with imagery like you see on the cover page of paizo.com. And 5e is just as bad. A shame.

so much that the mechanics like 'per encounter abilities' or whatnot weren't constantly snapping you out of the immersion/experience/fantasy adventure story like a stagehand caught on stage midperformance.

And early 3e had very little of this, and when it did it was mostly per day stuff, not per encounter. Later 3.5 and then especially Pathfinder added a lot of the "dissociated" mechanics.

GURPS is also a tabletop RPG system designed to be played without computer support and it is far, far, far better at simulationism than Pathfinder is. I recall Gygax back in the day was quite clear on D&D being gamist rather than simulationist and I think later editions of D&D haven't particularly improved on simulationism. If simulationism is what you are after, to my understanding Pathfinder is really the wrong system to be playing. Yes, Pathfinder is mechanically dense, but it isn't terribly good at simulationist gameplay.

True, but as Dragonchess player implied, with 3.x you get some level of simulationism without losing the D&D, which is a sweet spot for many. Moving to GURPS or other much more simulationist systems throws all the D&D traditions out the window. Compare 3e to AD&D and you can see where Tweet, Cook and Williams took all the elements they liked from Rolemaster, GURPS, Runequest, Ars Magica etc and applies it to the D&D chassis. Which is what brought a lot of D&D players back into the fold after they left 1e or 2e for the above or similar systems.

3.x gives a mix of gamist, simulation and narrativist elements. Some much more than others, but it’s all there to varying degrees and I think that’s why it is so popular, although I don’t even like using those terms. We beat them to death throughout the 00’s.

For me to get the appropriate nostalgia hit it would involve going way back to AD&D which is markedly inferior.

I suppose I wonder if it has been so many decades since trying it, why do yu deem it inferior? At the very least, the quickness, simplicity of rules (in combat, at least), modularity and how easy house ruling is etc can be seen as a boon for AD&D 1/2e in the face of 3.x/PF1e, no? Not to mention characters staying within a reasonable power level at all levels, without loads and loads of abilities and feats and skill piling up to keep track of, especially during combat rounds. And the ease of running monsters! You can run a plant monster like an assassin vine, for example, without having to then go and look up all of the "plant traits" and keep track of those on top of everything already on the stat block, and thats just a simple example of a low level monster.

Arkat wrote:

To move on to PF2e would mean another huge investment. My friends and I are all approaching 60 years old. We're tired of buying new versions of games.

We're happy with PF1e, so that's what we're sticking with.

I have the same sort of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" approach. And PF1 has so many more possibilities than D&D 5th ed.

And I am even older, 64, and should properly be referred to as a "Great Old One". Memory declines with age and learning new systems becomes more difficult. So does sorting between different versions of the same system.

I am still playing the 1st iteration of Vampire and Werewolf. Another of my favourite games is Star Wars d20 saga ed. Sadly, aside from World of Darkness [which is still having new material produced despite there being a newer version] these games are dying as far as players go.

64, nice! Did you move through all the editions? Have you ever gone backwards and tries TSR editions again?

I am ideologically committed to player character-non-player character transparency, and PF1 gives me that.

Interesting, care to extrapolate on why such a commitment?

Ozreth wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Ozreth wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Lord Fyre wrote:

- Sunk Cost into PF1E.

This.... I'm way too tired of buying thousands of dollars worth of game systems just because there's a new hotness on the market.

Well, theres old D&D in consideration in the convo as well.

Well, if you want to have that conversation - IMO - 3.5/PF1 are simply the best versions up to that point of D&D.

Fair enough, what system did you come from before moving into 3.x?

of Actual D&D I've played

Basic
1st ed
2nd ed
3rd ed
3.5
4th
5th

I've also played many other FRPGs, including
Rolemaster
S&S
Amber
Ars Magica
GURPS
MERPS
Zweihander
Conan

plus a number of sci-fi and super hero RPGS.

All of the games have various merit - the actual D&D titled games have tons of merit due to how prolific they are - I've traveled the world and been able to find play groups - not so much with other games.

that being said, I think Rolemaster is the best game system, but difficult to find players. 3.5/PF1 has an extensive following even still and it's easy to find games, and IMO is better than what has succeeded it, not to mention the lack of desire to reinvest in more gaming books.

Awesome. And being a Rolemaster fan definitely translates into being a 3e fan from what I have seen of RM, though I’ve not played it.

Ozreth wrote:

TxSam88 wrote:

Lord Fyre wrote:

- Sunk Cost into PF1E.

This.... I'm way too tired of buying thousands of dollars worth of game systems just because there's a new hotness on the market.

Well, theres old D&D in consideration in the convo as well.

Well, if you want to have that conversation - IMO - 3.5/PF1 are simply the best versions up to that point of D&D.

Fair enough, what system did you come from before moving into 3.x?

Pathfinder 2nd Edition dropped power-fantasy gaming in which the heroes are superior than everyone else due to optimization. The designers attempted to balance gameplay accurately, and they made sure that no character is grossly more powerful than the average for their level. Thus, a well-designed 4th-level character cannot defeat a squad of 2nd-level town guards, and will struggle against a 4th-level monster. My players are okay with this, because they prefer to win through teamwork rather than power, but some players who try PF2 are disappointed that they cannot win the campaign during character creation.

There’s the in between option of the groups who play 3.x as the designers intended and don’t look for loopholes or min max, and DMs who lay out what options are available in their game so that it doesn’t turn into a situation where players can “win the campaign.”

One thing that was lost in the early 2000s is the fact that the designers did not intend for their to be new classes beyond core. The new way to multi class and the addition of feats was supposed to allow you to make enough fantasy archetypes that you wouldn’t need a bloat of classes. You’ll notice that the first four 3e splat books did not have classes.

When Tweet, Cook and Williams were pushed out of 3e by Hasbro shortly after its release, the trajectory changed. 3.5 and later PF are not how the game was intended to be treated by its 3 core designers.

It plays best when you play close to core and pick and choose what you allow.

Much like 3.5E, the game is better if you ban some parts of Pathfinder, use some small houserules, and selectively allow quality 3rd party (or 3.5E) content. But mostly you accept that the game is going to be unbalanced. The same went for 3.5E.

This is any edition of D&D whether OD&D, AD&D etc. Groups should always house rule and pick and choose materials that suit their companion.

Lord Fyre wrote:

- Sunk Cost into PF1E.

This.... I'm way too tired of buying thousands of dollars worth of game systems just because there's a new hotness on the market.

Well, theres old D&D in consideration in the convo as well.

As the title says. There are newer games (5e, PF2e). There are older games (AD&D 1e/2e, BECMI, RC, endless OSR clones and even games like Runequest and others).

I’m sure many of you came from 80s and 90s games. I’m sure many of you have tried the newer games.

What’s your history and experience with these games and what about the rules of the 3.x/PF1 system have kept it as your go to system, if it is?

Was intro'd to AD&D2e as my first delve into RPG's in 1983. I was hooked and not long after started DMing and was the go-to GM for many years after. Being in the USMC at the time, moving around, groups came and went, and I intro'd quite a few to the game over my service time. Never moved to 3.5 or 4.

Stopped playing around 1992, the desire came back around 2013, started looking for a game and group at FLGS and they introduced me to PF. Never looked back.

The level of detail in the options and mechanics without being burdensome in play scratches an itch for my preferred style for RPG's. The "smoothing over" effect that the 5e and PF2 ruleset has sorta leaves that need unfilled.

But I value the groups I play RPG's with more than the ruleset we play. I participate in those other games, but won't invest resources in them and don't think I'll ever GM them.

Do you mean AD&D 1e? 2e wasn’t out until I think 1989.

And you don’t think the mechanics become burdensome in play? The situational modifiers, spells and items affecting PC and NP stats having wripple effects throughout the whole character sheet etc. What do you do to mitigate such things because the above are some of my very few objections to the whole 3e system.

Ozreth wrote:

A fair amount of people seem to be glancing at the title and seeing 1 / 2 and missing the AD&D part. I’m not talking about PF2, but that’s ok! All thoughts welcome. Have enjoyed reading the responses.

You said "people that started with older editions of D&D, why do you still play PF1?" What's the alternative that you're questioning against (on Paizo's website) if not PF2?

Remaining with AD&D 1e or 2e mostly.

A fair amount of people seem to be glancing at the title and seeing 1 / 2 and missing the AD&D part. I’m not talking about PF2, but that’s ok! All thoughts welcome. Have enjoyed reading the responses.

However, as a total package, nothing beats the original format, and Pathfinder 1st edition executes that format the best. Even better than AD&D which I consider second best.

What's your reasoning behind placing AD&D second best? Why do you prefer running PF1e over AD&D as a DM?

Most of the thread is people asserting that they prefer running PF but with little explanation of why they prefer running those rules over the AD&D rules that they were running before moving to 3rd edition/PF1.

I totally agree with you that the old trope still can't be beat, for me at least.

In the 80s we played mostly by DM-fiat, as the "rules" by Gygax were haphazard, incomplete, fluid, grossly interpretable -- it was a much more free-flowing, free-form game where DMs had full control of the mechanics and how the game played. That was fine; we were young -- gaming was new.

It took a while before we switched to 2nd in the 90s but the game was much more "controlled" and "designed" -- and we got Really into 'story' and 'atmosphere' and character development. Effectively, we went from Gygax and Arneson to Tracy Hickman and Carl Sargent. And we had the FR novels.

3E was not appealing at all at first -- I remember looking at the invention of "Feats" (still by far the WORST design in the history of any universe that should be eradicated out of existence) and being flabbergasted at the design stupidity. But the d20 system itself, as a whole, is spectacular.

While true that the tragedy of losing Chris Pramas from the writing/developing of the Players' Handbook crushed the chance of near perfection from the 3.0 Core Three (by allowing a no-talent hack to finish it), and forced a quick need for 3.5 wherein the gross design errors of the 3.0 PHB could be corrected -- the d20 system itself was still absolutely great.

Sadly, WotC kept the hack that finished the 3.0 PHB for the 3.5 (while erasing the real talent from the company) and 3.5 didn't really get much better. Worse, WotC kept publishing more expansions -- each and every month -- wherein the latest "MTG Card" had to be more powerful, more 'broken' than the last.

As horrible as WotC was being for D&D, at least we had Paizo as the Silver Lining to make Pathfinder. A great start on fixing the problems with 3E and deleting all the 3.5 baggage that made it unplayable.

So now,.... Why do I still play Pathfinder and not PF2? Because for over 20 years I have been playing this d20 game and know it in-and-out. There is no need to try to learn a brand new system written, frankly, for an illiterate-friendly customer...

So in short you think that the core of the d20 system minus feats and a handful of other things that you hate about it is worth running it over AD&D 1e and 2e which you also know and ran? Your sweet spot seems to have been 2e.