That said, having intelligent monsters collect potions of healing, scrolls of Raise Dead is not contrary to "Gygaxian Credibility". Curative magic is just as useful to the players' foes. Of course, it is also realistic that the monsters use it themselves if given the opportunity.
Possible loot items that total jump the rails for "realism" or "naturalism" or whatever? Tomes and Manuals of ability adjustment.
It's not the concept so much as the particular language I felt uneasy about. I've seen too many threads derailed by someone construing "I play an authentic game" as meaning "you other people are doing it wrong" that I'd prefer to use a phrase that has less chance of a negative misconception, although I'm not sure what that could be - Gygaxian Credibility? Oldschool Realism?
Language is certainly important. If you say "this is the way to have an authentic game", then what are you implying about games not played that way? That they are not "authentic"? Then what are they?
synonyms for "authentic": authoritative, convincing, credible, faithful, true, trustworthy, valid
antonyms for "authentic": counterfeit, fake, false, falsified, unauthorized, ungenuine, unreal
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Language is certainly important. If you say "this is the way to have an authentic game", then what are you implying about games not played that way? That they are not "authentic"? Then what are they?
synonyms for "authentic": authoritative, convincing, credible, faithful, true, trustworthy, valid
antonyms for "authentic": counterfeit, fake, false, falsified, unauthorized, ungenuine, unreal
Which is one of the reasons I prefer 'realistic,' even if some like to chortle maniacally when it's used in reference to a world-setting involving wizards, gods and dragons. Some people bend over backwards to take offense at the use of words like authentic, since one person saying 'X feels more authentic to me' translates in their twisty bendy logic as 'OMG! I like Y, which means you just called me a big fat lying faker! And also smelly!'
Versimilitude has the advantage of being harder to take offense to (like authentic) *and* being harder for the 'missed-the-point' crew to giggle at (like realistic).
'Suspension of disbelief' is another good term, as it's possible to refer to the mechanical workings of a double dire spiked flailing chain as violating your suspension of disbelief, even in a world with flying multi-tonned fire-breathing spellcasting lizards, since a hunk of non-magical metal, even in a fantasy world, is still a hunk of non-magical metal, and should act at least remotely like we would imagine a hunk of non-magical metal would work in the real world.
For me, this is one of the turn offs of 4E. In my eyes, the monsters have become more hollow, something less than they were before. They feel like a bunch of Lego-like blocks which are snapped together to create an array of abilities and effects (roles) and skinned with a name instead of being driven by an interesting motivation and back story and using their abilities to achieve their ends. Sometimes half the fun is figuring what a monster could do with their abilities and then seeing how it plays out in the campaign. With 4E, it seems to me like the meta-game elements are too heavy-handed (frex., in the enforced balance of the classes).
I find this to be 100% true in experience. As I have ran 4e since it came out, I have in all seriousness ran an entire portion of an adventure, used different minis (lizardfolk and such in place of goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres) and the players never knew the difference. I find this to be true about the classes aswell, as I made a "Monk" out of a ranger and simply renamed everything and said it was kicks and punches instead of sword blows and you would never know the class was a ranger. This to me kind of bothered me, that it's so easy to strip the car and steal it's stereo and you could still drive it....
In the end I find myself missing the old ways, missing the vancian casting I thought I hated, missing my overpowered wizards and clerics, and heck even missing my crappy Bard. In the end, after months I've decided to mostly step away from 4e, except for the occasional one-shot, and come home.
Sure. The DM is supposed to be trying to be fair about all this after all and make interesting and exciting adventures. Hence the concept of Polders which one finds in most old style D&D adventures. But its up to the players to find the Polder or to use the Polder and if they don't, or if the characters just got unlucky in an encounter that should not have been so tough then the DM does not step in to bail them out.(nods) I think we're on the same page, here.
And I think we agree that the idea of polders, and treasure placement, etc. is something of a nod away from simulationist play, for the sake of getting a party of PCs who aren't starting every adventure at 1st Level.
I'm not really sure that most of the time the existance of a Polder is really all that much of a movement away from a simulationist environment in terms of the conventions of adventure design. I don't really ever remember thinking to myself...wait a minute I need to add a Polder to this adventure. One makes adventures with a certain amount of variety in mind (and that might be more were the move away from simulationist play occurs - why have any variety?) and in so doing the Polders kind of naturally evolve. Not everything is a fight because that'd be boring so there are secret sanctums of good stashed into places dominated by evil just as evil has secret places of their own stashed in places dominated by good. Or you might have the evil that wants to work with you because you and it have a common agenda etc. Its only after they are written that the DM might recognize that they a Polders.
Practical Question:In my early days of DMing, somewhere about 1981 or so, I wrote up stats for a kind of Laernian dog creature: when struck, it would split into two, with each copy having taken half damage. At the time, that seemed like a neat ability, but probably not so overwhelming.
(Because college kids in 1981 didn't do a lot of playtesting and development...)
So, when I was playing in my friend's campaign, he sent four of these at our 3rd-Level party, with 25 hp per dog, and his description of the fight did not mention that they were duplicating themselves until the top of Round 2, when we were looking at ten of them, each with 20 - 25 hp.
Oh my.
Now, that was an encounter that was much tougher than the DM realized when he placed it there. This wasn't going to be a TPK because of bad die rolls: we were rolling pretty well. This wasn't going to be a TPK because we weren't playing well: we were using smart tactics and trying to use the terrain to our advantage. This was going to be a TPK because the DM had very badly miscalculated the lethality of the encounter.
What do you see a Naturalist DM doing, while running that encounter?
I have a story similar to this involving cockatrices. I guess it depends on just how bad everything turned out to be. Usually the players still overcome the DMs error in my experience, or they manage to get away because players are resourceful but in those few cases where the DM has really really screwed up and its clearly unfair and the results are going to be catastrophic. Well in that case I guess the DM bites the bullet and admits to screwing up and fixes things. Simulationistic styles of play are a means to an end, essentially they result in the players behaving in certain ways in your campaign, and if you have screwed up so badly that this is being damaged then I'd roll it back or change it - I'd just make sure that the players understand that whats going on is not some kind of realistic outcome of events but is essentially DM and player intervention to fix a problem at the game table - we are no longer our characters but players and a DM trying to fix a game, even if we agree to posit some in game explanation to make this part of the story. In other words 'guys don't change how you have been playing up to this point 'cause that was the correct way to deal with my campaign but this one encounter - yeah I screwed the pooch and I am going to fix that...I'm willing to take your input on how to do that best'.
Language is certainly important. If you say "this is the way to have an authentic game", then what are you implying about games not played that way? That they are not "authentic"? Then what are they?
synonyms for "authentic": authoritative, convincing, credible, faithful, true, trustworthy, valid
antonyms for "authentic": counterfeit, fake, false, falsified, unauthorized, ungenuine, unreal
Which is one of the reasons I prefer 'realistic,' even if some like to chortle maniacally when it's used in reference to a world-setting involving wizards, gods and dragons. Some people bend over backwards to take offense at the use of words like authentic, since one person saying 'X feels more authentic to me' translates in their twisty bendy logic as 'OMG! I like Y, which means you just called me a big fat lying faker! And also smelly!'
Versimilitude has the advantage of being harder to take offense to (like authentic) *and* being harder for the 'missed-the-point' crew to giggle at (like realistic).
'Suspension of disbelief' is another good term, as it's possible to refer to the mechanical workings of a double dire spiked flailing chain as violating your suspension of disbelief, even in a world with flying multi-tonned fire-breathing spellcasting lizards, since a hunk of non-magical metal, even in a fantasy world, is still a hunk of non-magical metal, and should act at least remotely like we would imagine a hunk of non-magical metal would work in the real world.
My difficulty with say Verisimilitude and Suspension of Disbelief (but not say credulity) is I think that they really apply well to many styles of D&D gaming which might not be striving for authenticity. I think the Spiked Chain example is a very good one in considering this point since I suspect that spiked chains, while unrealistic, don't actually get in the way of a great many peoples Suspension of Disbelief.
... and the players never knew the difference. I find this to be true about the classes as well, as I made a "Monk" out of a ranger and simply renamed everything and said it was kicks and punches instead of sword blows and you would never know the class was a ranger. This to me kind of bothered me, that it's so easy to strip the car and steal it's stereo and you could still drive it....
BBBBut... but... but.. isn't that one of the strengths of any good ruleset? Not that i'm a 4E cheerleader, but the ability to easily shemp or recast any monster, NPC, power, item, person, place or thing REGARDLESS of the underlying ruleset is an immensely powerful tool that, IMHO, MANY DMs often overlook. IMHO...
If OD&D == Rules that have no internal consistency; then I'm glad things have moved on. Fortunately, I think there was a method to the OD&D madness (rulesets) - albeit a collection of misunderstood methods...
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BBBBut... but... but.. isn't that one of the strengths of any good ruleset? Not that i'm a 4E cheerleader, but the ability to easily shemp or recast any monster, NPC, power, item, person, place or thing REGARDLESS of the underlying ruleset is an immensely powerful tool that, IMHO, MANY DMs often overlook. IMHO...
Yeah, but IMHO, it's one thing to use the stats for a bastard sword and call it a katana, but it is an entirely different thing when you start using the stats for a ranger and call it a monk!
Being able to recast things in that much of a drastic fashion (without anyone being able to tell), loses much of the internal consistency of a game and its setting...
The reason, is that there should be a tangible difference between the various classes (just as IRL, there are differences between the various professions such as police officer or doctor)...
No, the game is not "real life", but we as DMs try to emulate the real world in as many ways as possible within our campaigns (at least that is what I strive to do, and from what I've ascertained, most of the DMs on this thread seem to be trying to do the same in some shape or fashion as well)...
Again, IMHO...
-That One Digitalelf Fellow-
Hiya.
BBBBut... but... but.. isn't that one of the strengths of any good ruleset? Not that i'm a 4E cheerleader, but the ability to easily shemp or recast any monster, NPC, power, item, person, place or thing REGARDLESS of the underlying ruleset is an immensely powerful tool that, IMHO, MANY DMs often overlook. IMHO...
A good rules system allows this, and the changes make a difference in how the game plays, yes. A bad rules system allows this and the changes make no difference in how the game plays. I see 4e falling into the later.
IMHO, a rules system that isn't supposed to be 'generic' (ie, 4e) shouldn't try to be in the "all things equal" camp. If they were going for this, they should have just named the classes "Class A, Class B, Class C and Class D". Then they could have described Class A as "Front Line Melee", Class B as "Back-line Missile", Class C as "Magical Caster" and Class D as "Stealthy Support". Then they could have just slapped in basic 'powers' (ie, "Class A; Power 1; Damage Strike I (At Will, Melee, 2[w] + Str"). This would allow the player to "flufficize" his characters power...for his Class A, Power 1, Damage Strike I attack he could say its his "Upward Slash" attack where he winds up like a golf swing, attempting to eviscerate his opponent.
However, if they had done it that way and not called them "Fighter", "Ranger", "Warlock", etc., then it would have been even *less* like D&D...so they put names on their generic classes and powers, hoping that folks either didn't notice or didn't care that virtually all the classes powers are drawn from a small handful of actual "things", and simply renamed. I think this is why so many people are trying 4e then putting it back on the shelf and going back to their previous campaign/game. The initial "Hey, that's kinda cool!" feeling VERY quickly wears off and they're stuck looking at a pile of muli-colored marshmallows thinking, "Hey yeah, they're different colors, but they all taste the same...".
'realistic,'
Versimilitude
'Suspension of disbelief'
The more I think about it, the more I agree that these terms are preferable. Although, I still think "naturalism" is ok too, perhaps it takes a little more explaining, and natural/naturalistic may be less troublesome than naturalist. (Naturist, as has already been noted, is right out...). {Nods towards pres man and his thesaurus}
JRM:
Would "Gygaxian Credibility" be another way of saying it? Are we talking about a trustworthiness/integrity that inspires belief in the pseudo-reality of the game?
I'm not sure...it strikes me as pretty close to "credibly Gygaxian." "X has Gygaxian Credibility" sounds like a descriptive evaluation in regard to whether something is Gygaxian, regardless of whether that Gygaxian thing inspires belief in the secondary reality.
I find this to be true about the classes aswell, as I made a "Monk" out of a ranger and simply renamed everything and said it was kicks and punches instead of sword blows and you would never know the class was a ranger.
Well if you are still using the stats for a sword but calling it a punch, then of course things are going to seem strange.
an article I wrote back in June
I wonder what you think of these definitions of role-playing, given your article.
The basic definition from Wikipedia:
"In roleplaying, participants adopt and act out the role of characters, or parts, that may have personalities, motivations, and backgrounds different from their own. Roleplaying, also known as RP to some, is like being in an improvisational drama or free-form theater, in which the participants are the actors who are playing parts, and the audience."
American Heritage:
n.
Psychology.
1. A therapeutic technique, designed to reduce conflict in social situations, in which participants act out particular behavioral roles in order to expand their awareness of differing points of view.
2. An instance or situation in which one deliberately acts out or assumes a particular character or role.
Barron's Business Dictionary:
Simulation exercise where the participants act out specified roles in a dramatization of an event or situation. The purpose of role playing is to achieve better understanding of a situation by experiencing a realistic simulation. Role playing is useful as a training exercise.
To me, it sounds like the definitions cover what people tend to put down under "Narrativist" and "Simulationist," though with a skew towards the latter.
an article I wrote back in JuneI wonder what you think of these definitions of role-playing, given your article.
All related; of course it's talking about role-playing in different contexts from gaming. But that's a good point - even in other contexts, role-playing is sometimes done for more "acting"/narrativist purposes and sometimes for more "simulation" purposes. In fact, the latter is very common (besides shrinks), us corporate types have been to many a training class where you have role-playing exercises to simulate negotiations or other interpersonal interactions for learning purposes.
Arguably, inside a corp or shrink-style role-playing exercise, one participant is being more narrativist in their stance - the shrink or leader (or DM, in gaming) as their stance is often less "in character", they are more consciously constructing a scene, and the subject is in a more simulationist stance, trying to work through the interpersonal or emotional "reality" of the situation.
an article I wrote back in JuneI wonder what you think of these definitions of role-playing, given your article.
All related; of course it's talking about role-playing in different contexts from gaming. But that's a good point - even in other contexts, role-playing is sometimes done for more "acting"/narrativist purposes and sometimes for more "simulation" purposes. In fact, the latter is very common (besides shrinks), us corporate types have been to many a training class where you have role-playing exercises to simulate negotiations or other interpersonal interactions for learning purposes.
Arguably, inside a corp or shrink-style role-playing exercise, one participant is being more narrativist in their stance - the shrink or leader (or DM, in gaming) as their stance is often less "in character", they are more consciously constructing a scene, and the subject is in a more simulationist stance, trying to work through the interpersonal or emotional "reality" of the situation.
Well, you made me haul myself off the couch and over to the OED. RPing is an older term in pyschology than in gaming. I thought that's what it would say, but now we know. I'm surprised to not find a business example...but I only have the shorter OED. So the term was adopted by games, apparently from psychology, I would think due to its meaning.
an article I wrote back in JuneI wonder what you think of these definitions of role-playing, given your article.
All related; of course it's talking about role-playing in different contexts from gaming. But that's a good point - even in other contexts, role-playing is sometimes done for more "acting"/narrativist purposes and sometimes for more "simulation" purposes. In fact, the latter is very common (besides shrinks), us corporate types have been to many a training class where you have role-playing exercises to simulate negotiations or other interpersonal interactions for learning purposes.
Arguably, inside a corp or shrink-style role-playing exercise, one participant is being more narrativist in their stance - the shrink or leader (or DM, in gaming) as their stance is often less "in character", they are more consciously constructing a scene, and the subject is in a more simulationist stance, trying to work through the interpersonal or emotional "reality" of the situation.
Having been trained as a Shrink I think its worth pointing out that role-playing in this context, and I suspect in a business context, is really pretty shallow compared to role playing in RPGs. Your usually simply trying to change kind of response or belief with another kind of response or belief.
Instead of responding to the customer with ingrained response X studies have shown that responding to the customer with response Y is likely to increase sales by 6% for a business type example. In psychology you might want to convince the consumer (thats what we call the patients) that their flawed belief in X is wrong and replacing that belief with belief Y will improve their life.
Whats really happening is that 99% of the persons behaviour and beliefs are left out of the picture and one behaviour or belief is changed. Once thats done you move on and try and change another behaviour or belief while holding everything else in check. Obviously humans are to complex for this to completely work out but thats the basic idea.
I think acting is a lot closer to what we do in role playing then anything in business or psychology and 'pretend with rules and dice' probably closer still.
Having been trained as a Shrink I think its worth pointing out that role-playing in this context, and I suspect in a business context, is really pretty shallow compared to role playing in RPGs.
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I think acting is a lot closer to what we do in role playing then anything in business or psychology and 'pretend with rules and dice' probably closer still.
This has been a fascinating thread, so far. My thanks to all of the previous posters for their insightful discussion.
I can't speak from the psychology side, having been neither trained in the profession nor under the care of one who has.
I have experienced it in the "business" context, as part of leadership and management training. The classroom scenarios I experienced would place one student in the "primary" role with one or more other students in "supporting/adversarial" roles. Each participant would have specific goals and information (which may or may not match what the other participants "know" about that role!). The student acting in the "primary" role would then be critiqued by the instructor and the rest of the class on effectiveness and technique. Apart from the lack of dice and the very limited "background/setup," it was fairly similar to some of the old-school tournament modules with pregenerated characters, IMO.
The RP in RPGs started off rather shallow compared to what we're used to today (unless you happened to have a DM that ran the game in "immersion-style"). OD&D was pretty much table-top wargaming with a RP element. Later updates and iterations expanded on the RP elements somewhat, but early D&D/AD&D products were still primarily focused around a single set of associated encounters/scenarios ("modules"), with just enough connection to a location to provide basic context. Within this basic context, "Gygaxian Naturalism" provided a grounding element to help maintain "the suspension of disbelief." Even if a given encounter or scenario was completely off the wall, the creatures involved in the encounter or scenario would act from fairly believable motives and with fairly believable supporting details.
Many of TSR's competitors were initially successful because they emphasized the RP more than the G (White Wolf is a good example of the continued demand for heavy RP-style gaming). This started to change, IMO, about the time that TSR published the Forgotten Realms setting and started to incorporate "campaign/story" elements that placed the adventures into the broader cultural/historical context of a setting. The execution was rather hit-or-miss, however.
Paizo, IMO, has done a tremendous job in balancing elements of all three GSN styles. They use Narrative background to motivate the Simulation of the NPCs in the setting to provide the PCs with interesting Game encounters. It is the method I have striven to employ in approximately 25 years of playing RPGs.
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Paizo, IMO, has done a tremendous job in balancing elements of all three GSN styles. They use Narrative background to motivate the Simulation of the NPCs in the setting to provide the PCs with interesting Game encounters. It is the method I have striven to employ in approximately 25 years of playing RPGs.
Hey Dragonchess! Well said about PAIZO's high quality in providing excellent games/simulations/narrations.
I just finished Hollow's Last Hope and it included a lot of plot weaving and additional encounters & settings of my own. This is one of the simplest modules from PAIZO compared to the great line of Pathfinder Chronicles and more complex modules. But Jason Bulmahn nailed the classic d&d feel of story by providing enough elements in the foreground (Laurel's accent i.e. hoojoo, the ingredients such as rat's tail, the witch's hut, the smell of sawdust near the lumber consortium, the environ of Darkmoon Vale, etc.) to give the Gygaxian Naturalism I needed to color that story area of my homebrew.
Everything made sense: The Tatzelworm living in the Eldertree, the Rat's Tail found in the Grand-daughter-of-Baba-Yaga's hut, etc. Yet I was playing Pathfinder RPG rules, and STILL maintained the authentic feel of d&d.
However, I am finding that as I personally get older, somewhere amidst the adherence to ALL of the rules, I get tied up (distracted) as a DM in the "business" of running the game.
I recently relaxed this a little bit. For example, the pure "Gamist" at my table is playing a fighter in my PRPG playtest homebrew. I had envisioned that the skeletons in the street had less than 1 hit dice because they had just been animated by the evil guy (I'll spare the details.) And, spontaneously recalled from 1e that sometimes Fighters could get extra attacts when confronted with a less-than-one-hd creature. So I granted a minor version of cleave for a few of his attacks (whenever he did more than 5 hp damage, I allowed him to get an extra attack on the nearest skeleton). No big deal, right?
Well, honestly, this was a gut-wrenching feeling, because I also have 1 munchkin at my table, and one pure simulationist/gamist, 1 newbie, and one old-school guy (yeah, I know - how do I do it?) In any case, I knew this could cause a violation of their expectations since I am known for adherence to rule sets (3.5 or PRPG). And you know what - - - the player was thrilled! The group smiled in approval, and everyone had fun as I described him blasting through two of them!
So, I've made two points here. 1) First, I agree that PAIZO materials are well balanced and have something for everyone 2) I digressed into talking about breaking the rules as a DM and how liberating that felt.
Gary Gygax knew this line. Gary knew when to follow the rules and when to blatently break the rules. Only now, after learning how to use ALL the rules of 3.5, and PRPG am I finding my comfort zone, and breaking rules well like a good jazz musician.
That's all for now. Thanks for enduring my ramblings....
Or Eric the evil wizard had already used a Tome of Clear Though +2, so would get no benefit from reading a second one he'd looted. Thus, he's keeping it stashed as a potential reward to inspire his apprentices to greater effort, a gift or bribe or just to sell it for cold, hard cash once he finds someone rich and willing enough.Possible loot items that total jump the rails for "realism" or "naturalism" or whatever? Tomes and Manuals of ability adjustment.The bad guy really was going to get around to reading that book someday. He just kept procrastinating, thinking he had time to wait for the movie.
That never really made sense to me.
Cost of a +4 book = 110,000 gp
Cost of 2 +2 books = 110,000 gp (55,000 gp each)
Unlike other types of bonuses these do not increase exponentially but linearly. In this case, I think it makes more sense to treat it the same as if you got the +4 all at once or in two steps. Why should you get different results if you are putting in the same money.
It was derro with me, I just forgot to allow for the "two dozen archers can make 48 attacks per round against your three PCs, two dozen melee-fighters can seldom make more than 6" effect. They managed to escape, extremely pincushioned. I didn't do any call-backs on that, since I considered they shared much of the blame for making a frontal assault on 20+ foes behind a stone wall...
I'd have not called this one back either because the PCs survived. One of the things that saves the DM - and I have found this to be more true in older editions then in newer ones, is that the players are much more resourceful then one can really account for - especially in old editions where they could not easily sell magic - so they hoarded it.
In a modern game they'll sell the magic in order to get the money to buy a better sword but in those old games you did not sell scrolls or potions usually so when the kimeshee really started flying the DM was often surprised to the players suddenly all pulled out potions of super heroism and stared casting some high level mojo from their stash of magic. They'd be using stuff he gave them but had forgotten about months ago - the players of course don't forget about this stuff.
In my case what happend is I had a noise come from the cieling, asked if they were looking up, when they said, yes! whats going on I opened a trap door and dropped 5 cockatrices into the room. Thats save or spontaneously combust (and of course instantly die) 5 times. Even though they were 10th level they needed to rol something around 10+ on a d20 5 times in a row to live. One player actually managed to get so fluky that he made all 5 saves while the other six players all became instant piles of ash. Even then I played with a 'no resurrection' rule so those deaths were permanent, but I was willing to be convinced to roll back the encounter as being blatantly unfair.
Spontaneously combustion rather than petrification? So they were Pyrolisks rather than regular cockatrices. I'd say you were being unfair there to, how could five cockatrices each manage to touch all six PCs in the same round? I'd have just given the 'trices five surprise peck-attacks and maybe asked for some Reflex saves by the PCs to avoid having a cockatrice landing on them. That's ~10 potential stonings, not thirty, or around two petrification saves per PC.
I might have been using some variant from Monster Manual Two or something like a Pyrolisk but its spontaneous combust ability was some kind of a gaze attack - anyone looking at it had to save. I'm basically sure of this as my players at the time were a bunch of munchkins and if I miscalled a rule or monster they'd riot - especially if I just killed their character.
Certainly I have a lot of nostalgia for those days of gaming but when I really think about it I have to say that being older has some real perks. In those days we used to argue about the rules etc. for hours - it was maddening. These days if a player disputes my call I lean back and think about their argument for a minute or two and then make my call and if the players don't like it well thats just to bad they have to suck it up because I'm the DM (of course I have to suck it up when some one else is DM). I just did not have this kind of authority when I was 15 or 17 years old. I only had as much authority as my players would give me and they did not give me much.
With a more veteran group of players everyone gives the DM lots of authority in part because they realize that the alternative is actually worse for the game - it just means arguing instead of playing.
What are the chances of stirring the grognards from their deep slumbers?
I read this article, and immediately one line jumped out at me as being on one of my absolute refusals. It reminded me of this thread:
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Hey M - thanks for ressurrecting this thread... When I read the article you linked to, though, I had to check my gag reflex... that is, it was very difficult to actually stomache the article... I guess I couldn't make it past the inset quote, "D&D Bling - Druids. Playing a druid lets you kick ass and look good doing it. In fact druids are known for their stylish accessorizing."
So as far as 'abosolutely rejecting' something... I looked at the line you quoted...
And it sounds like the author, Nicholas, is complaining that the mechanics aren't adding flavor - ? Is that about the sum of it in the vernacular?
And it sounds like the author, Nicholas, is complaining that the mechanics aren't adding flavor - ? Is that about the sum of it in the vernacular?
Heh, heh, sorry about that. That's an ad for another article, as far as I know, by another author.
But the quote is what I understood to be his main complaint. I just found it to be very interesting that a fan of 4e, who had played through the editions, still clearly recognized this disappearance in 4e. And it resonated with my own insistence that mechanics should carry out flavor, and that in this lies some of the achievements of G.N. That would make the article's criticism a recognition of the title of the thread, coming from the lips of a 4e partisan.
Hooray Gygax!
Bow down, lesser beings!
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Let me get this right... in 4e, the player pretending to be a Druid can pretend to be an animal but is disallowed from actually feeling/experiencing that transformation?
From a naturalist perspective, its not the power that matters, its the incredible experience of total animal empathy - becoming the creature that I thought was the interesting part...
Thanks for the article. Interesting.
Yeah, rereading makes me think what an even bigger mess they made of the druid than I realized before. Thankfully, something I don't need to worry about, but as always, I am open to learning from it. And what I learn here is the same old lesson: mechanics and flavor (better than "fluff" but I still want better words for it) should go hand-in-hand to give a player unique choices that make her feel like she is playing a real role in a real world.
@ JRM - Simply, yes.
Hey M - thanks for ressurrecting this thread... When I read the article you linked to, though, I had to check my gag reflex... that is, it was very difficult to actually stomache the article... I guess I couldn't make it past the inset quote, "D&D Bling - Druids. Playing a druid lets you kick ass and look good doing it. In fact druids are known for their stylish accessorizing."
That D&D Bling thing is a link to some other article on that website. Sort of like if I put up on my Web Site a link to an Article Titled "The fighter is all about sex appeal", You might agree with me or not but in the end I don't actually get to decide for the game as a whole whether or not its really true that Fighters are all about sex appeal.
Well if I'm understanding the complaint correctly, with the preview of the 4E druid it makes no difference what form they shapechange into, they have identical stats whether they're shifted into a ravenous razor-bear or a spurless platypus, and both form can use the same attack powers.That does seem contrary to a Gygaxian approach, were presumably different assumed forms could offer different abilities - say, lots of natural weaponry as a ravenous razor-bear and, erm, a swim speed and an electrosensitive bill as a platypus? Both have their uses, but in very different circumstances.
Certainly seems that this is the complaint. We'll have to wait and see if this is true of the actual druid in the PHB II or just a fob for the playtest.
I suspect they are tripping over mechanics, specifically play balance and ease of use. The two main difficulties with transforming into creature X is that at some point creature X is too powerful for characters of this level while at a later point creature X is simply too weak. In 3.5 this is addressed by making the Druid capable of transforming into ever more powerful creatures but that means that they don't represent any kind of iconic creature instead they are, mechanically speaking, not so much a nature orientated class as a shape changing class.
This also leads to an ease of use problem - if you can transform into many things then you need to keep track of all the things you can transform yourself into and you need to make adjustments to your character every time you choose to transform yourself into something else. I can't see that flying due to the philosophical underpinnings of 4E. There just is not likely to be any provision for rules that say that one needs to either keep a different character sheet on hand for each form or adjust ones character sheet every time a transformation takes place. Thats complex and time consuming and such things are verbotten in 4E.
I'd think the best option would be to go with something thats more basic and say 'if your a wolf then you can run fast and have a keen snout - bonus to speed and perception checks. If your a bear then your strong - bonus to damage, if your a bird you can fly etc. but otherwise keep the mechanics somewhat uniform.
That said my opinion on what should be done in 4E (a base mechanic from which different animal forms only diverge slightly) is pure gamism - its done purely to enhance the event at the game table - in this case by reducing complexity and increasing ease of use.
In actual Gygaxian Naturalism ease of use is a secondary consideration to simulation/'realism' so either the druid transforms into an iconic woodland creature and we don't worry too much about play balance (in this case a bear is a great choice at low levels and not an ability thats used all that much at 15th and beyond) or the druid transforms into many things and its the players job to create and keep at hand a separate statblock for all the different things he can transform himself into.
Now I have succeeded.
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For those who have fallen in love with Gygaxian Naturalism - now there's a tee shirt for you (you know who you are). Just check out Martin M's Grognardia blog today - he's pimping someone's cafee press tees. They're plain white with letters and a heart as in "I [heart] Gygaxian Naturalism." It doesn't get geekier than that!
Quick, someone get me an Xmas gift!
Notice that the inspiration behind the shirt was a nomination. I think the person(s) who made said nomination should get a free t-shirt.
Notice that the inspiration behind the shirt was a nomination. I think the person(s) who made said nomination should get a free t-shirt.
James M's blog post about Gygaxian Naturalism was actually nominated to be part of the Anthology of Roleplaying Game Blogs by me - and since I'm the one who made the T-shirt; suffice to say that I already have one. =D
The T-shirt is part of a fund raising effort we are having to help support the costs of producing the Anthology. I'm not a publisher and since this book is being developed as part of a RPG community effort that I'm leading - lets just say our operating budget is on the red side of zero. So, the first "big ticket" item is to produce enough copies of the book so that all the contributing authors, volunteers, and artists (about 70 people) can receive free copies of the Anthology once it is published.
Anyway, James' post brought some attention to the project, which I'm grateful for. If you are interested in finding out more - then please head over to my blog at the URL below.
http://thecoremechanic.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-heart-gygaxian-naturalism-rpg .html
Best regards, Jonathan
The shirt was a great idea, Jonathan, and looks good. Well done!
Hiya.
IMHO, a rules system that isn't supposed to be 'generic' (ie, 4e) shouldn't try to be in the "all things equal" camp. If they were going for this, they should have just named the classes "Class A, Class B, Class C and Class D". Then they could have described Class A as "Front Line Melee", Class B as "Back-line Missile", Class C as "Magical Caster" and Class D as "Stealthy Support". Then they could have just slapped in basic 'powers' (ie, "Class A; Power 1; Damage Strike I (At Will, Melee, 2[w] + Str"). This would allow the player to "flufficize" his characters power...for his Class A, Power 1, Damage Strike I attack he could say its his "Upward Slash" attack where he winds up like a golf swing, attempting to eviscerate his opponent.
5th edition, anyone?
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I remembered Gary yesterday (1 year after his departure) by reviewing OSRIC 2.0. I have no way to know for sure, but based on my past 25+ years of play, I believe he would be proud of the work that Stuart Marshall and Matthew Finch have done there. First edition is alive in that convenient old school reference and index compilation.
Additionally, I am getting back to roots this year. My Pathfinder RPG/v.3.5 game will be even more true to the game than ever, and I intend to also run an OSRIC/1e game for a new group of beginners to teach them about role-playing and introduce them to Gary's mileau.
Rest in peace, Gary.
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As the OP, I wish to return with follow-up news of James Maliszewski's outstanding article from Grognardia, this time the topic is Gygaxian Unnaturalism!!! And it is spot on. I share this with with the 3.5/d20/OGL/PRPG community because he, one again, eloquently defines the Gygaxian Naturalism (this time by its dual component, Gygaxian Unnaturalism) that has been present during much of the history and tradition of D&D. The 4E forum has recently made me feel very unwelcome, and this article belongs to the forum most concerned about preserving the history and traditions of the hobby of role-playing. James honors our Paizonian leader, Erik Mona, by quoting him on the front page of his blog.
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This feeling of lack of "Gygaxian Naturalism" in 4e is in part due to its dissociated game mechanics. I don't agree with everything in this piece, but it's well worth a read.
It really seems like little more than a pseudo-scientific sounding name for nostalgia in an attempt to give it more weight. D&D has always been a mish-mash of mythology and whimsy with an arbitrary application of realism. 4e is no different except that it has mish-mashed its predecessor.