Me and the DMG

[Beoric]

I don't really care about most other oozes, you could flip over an ochre jelly or a gray ooze and I would see it being out of sorts of a few seconds. But a gelatinous cube is a cube. If you flip it over or knock i ton its side it is still cube shaped.

And you are right, it wouldn't mess with the monster math. In fact, 4e encourages you to alter monsters freely, and granting immunity to a condition is not uncommon. That is what is so infuriating about the manner in which this rule gets applied. It is likely that the guy who wrote the 4e version of the gelatinous cube just didn't consider the impact of the prone condition, or he might have made it immune to proning. So working hard to justify an oversight on the fly, instead of correcting the oversight, just doesn't make sense to me.

Consider this:

* WotC encourages customizing monsters and would have found it acceptable to rewrite the cube to make it immune to proning.
* WotC encouraged altering encounters on the fly to meet the DM's expectations respecting encounter difficulty. (FYI I'm not endorsing this, its just what they did.)
* WotC promoted the idea that the rules should be applied as written, and discouraged making rulings that overruled a written rule; and I believe they made an official ruling that a gelatinous cube could be proned.

Those statements don't add up; this is one of the reasons I say that WotC didn't understand its own rule system. If you have a system that allows you to make monsters immune to certain things, and encourages you to customize monsters, and encourages you to alter encounters on the fly, it is illogical to take the position that you can't make rulings on the fly. There are more than 5300 4e monsters, not all of which were completely thought out; tweaking things on the fly to fix obvious oversights ought to be acceptable.

Also, I'm not sure if I find the irony of receiving pushback, when I'm criticising my own preferred system, is amusing or bemusing. Maybe a bit of both.

It is up to 1 XP for a gold piece of treasure won through risk perilous to the character’s level, but not certainly 1 XP for every gold piece that is written on your character sheet.

I juice up my campaigns with treasure. Random encounter tables include the possibility of “found loot”. No XP for it but it spends the same.

And as squeen mentioned, very common to trade services for training, or magic items not critical to rounding out the party.

Treasure maps are another pillar of old school play often dropped by the wayside. If there’s no guardian/little risk, they can inject a lot of liquidity that isn’t 1GP=1XP.

A good rule of thumb in a campaign is that it has sufficient cash flow/services trade to allow training reasonably close to eligibility, good equipment purchases and replacement, retaining common mercs and hirelings as needed + occasional expensive specialists or needed spells, and lastly, the acquisition of game-centric “property” : a wizards lab and library, a consecrated shrine where the cleric can make holy water, a thief’s network of informants, etc.

Far too many DMs choke the life out of their campaigns keeping them poor. The advice against Monty haul giveaways was in the context of people claiming millions of gp and 300th level characters.

It wasn’t to make 75% of the game outside the dungeon into something characters were too poor to participate in.

A lot of DMs just don’t want to deal with anything beyond running modules, and poverty is convenient to that end

Both of these are good examples of the folly of trying to create complete rulesets. Gygax billed AD&D as being complete, and 4e tries to force aspects of it to be treated as complete even when they are not, but both editions have elements that require adjustment in order to work.

 

[squeen]

I don't think Gygax billed any version of D&D as complete (i.e. covering ever eventuality of a whole-world simulation). That's impossible.
See Trent's post again. Even if he did, that was a salesman's hyperbole.

Also, I don't think EOTB's post in any way speaks to that point. He is not talking (above) about any outside-the-rules kludges.

What's more, an "incomplete" system with a stipulation for a human referee to cover non-routine situations is total different than "broken" --- which is the point I feel you are reaching for: i.e. "all the rule sets are broken, so you have to make up your own mechanics to fix them which makes all of them equally good."

The point I was originally trying to make with this thread was that 1e---despite the claims of it's detractors---holds together surprising well given the massive impossibility of what it is trying to cover. There is a system and internal logic that covers many situations in a holistic, balanced way. It was in many ways a "fix" for the pitfalls of OD&D based on massive play testing (and most importantly to me, without an eye for dumb-ing it down for mass curb appeal).

Again, with respect to Trent's "rulings in spirit of the game" vs. "encyclopedic knowledge of the rules":

First, an honest attempt to understand what's already there, the "why" as well as the "how" must be undertaken---after you get the groove, then you will be more comfortable "winging it" during actual play while keeping inside the spiritual framework.

Even without it being 100% perfect, you can still marvel at the craftsmanship. No painting is perfect...but some are still great. 1e is great and totally usable. It adds/improves on OD&D in a nice way---if you have the stomach for more complexity. IMO its the ultimate edition, but also probably the most difficult to learn---ergo not suitable for mass con$umption. Math is difficult too---and yet some people learn put in the effort to learn it because of what it allows them to do. I believe Second Edition (and especially B/X) was largely an attempt to make it "better = easier = more marketable", not "better = more awesome fun when used by an adept". Elitist as all get-out by design: 1e's a nerd-game for creative, obsessive, brainy nerds.

And "yes" it requires a lot of the DM (and players). But to learn it---really play the hell out of it---is a challege with a huge pay off, because it's intended to be deep and long-term. Not for the casual-player or faint-hearted.

Everything since, including pre-fab story games (Ravenloft and beyond), have also looked to remove the need for a skilled DM (and players, too) to make D&D shine. Not my cup of tea.

(admittedly, I think 4e was designed to be quite different and attract the video-game crowd with crunchy fights---but that's a whole other thing of which I am largely ignorant and not really searching for)

 

[EOTB]

Both of these are good examples of the folly of trying to create complete rulesets. Gygax billed AD&D as being complete, and 4e tries to force aspects of it to be treated as complete even when they are not, but both editions have elements that require adjustment in order to work.

"Complete" means "all that I think you need to play like I do is inside this book". Not "Everything anyone anywhere thinks should be explicitly laid out in the rules is included".

In a pre-PDF world, simple economics and printing requirements put the context to the use of "complete".

 

[squeen]

Also, with regard to the training costs thingy---I used it as a hook: a retired high-level thief was willing to train on the cheap if the party went into the Earth Temple and answers a nagging question of his (surround his wife's death the previous spring). He was the only avenue for training in those parts, and that was sufficient motivation to get the party to detour into a dungeon.

I could have hand-waived training (like we used to in OD&D), but I brought a little bit of "1e goodness" into my game and it payed dividends. The party returned to the Earth Temple multiple times for other self-appointed quests (over several real-time years).

A real-world example of an aspect of 1e that appears "broken" or bothersome at first glance...until you grok its context. 1e is going for the Greater D&D here...it's a system designed for the extended campaign. Patience required. (Thanks for the tip Gary. It worked!)

 

[Beoric]

Uh-huh. I could characterize my fix of the 4e proning rules as applied to gelatinous cubes as "using it as intended" as well. I could even accurately portray it as consistent with other rules. That wouldn't make the characterization accurate, because it requires my intervention to make the existing rule work. And it seems self evidence that rule is not working as intended if it requires intervention to work properly.

I mean, you can call the rules that work perfect because they work, and you can call the rules that don't work so well perfect because you found a workaround you have deemed to be the original intention, and you can omit elements you don't like and still call them perfect because "personal preference", but at some point it begins to look like your judgement on this topic isn't entirely objective.

 

[EOTB]

I mean, you can call the rules that work perfect because they work, and you can call the rules that don't work so well perfect because you found a workaround you have deemed to be the original intention, and you can omit elements you don't like and still call them perfect because "personal preference", but at some point it begins to look like your judgement on this topic isn't entirely objective.

Which of the posts below caused you to believe me, squeen, or any other 1E fan called 1E perfect?



Perfect rules are...not my quest. They might be yours, I'm not sure. But I don't nitpick rules. I find ones that do the job I want done and get playing.

 

[Beoric]

Did you read the last entry, by @The Heretic? Or look at the post he was responding to? Or @squeen's post, included in your list, which says:

To my eyes, its a Masterpiece of game design. Unequaled since. And just like there is no perfect painting or sculpture, it has flaws....but I find I can happily live with them.

So not perfect, but an unequalled masterpiece, like a Da Vinci or a Rembrandt. Yeah, you proved your point.

 

[squeen]

To my eyes it is a masterpiece. No joke. It's how I feel about 1e. I think it's amazing. As I discover more of the little fiddle-bits and how they were/can be used to practical effect, I am even more impressed. I love seeing how some of the parts I nevered used dovetail with my campaign...I'm like, "WOW! So this is AD&D!" It think it's got layers---all great works do. Why does that offend? I don't think any later edition has equaled it---but I'm no expert on them. You know that.

I'm not demanding you or anyone else share my enthusiasm---I just like talking about things as I discover them. That's why I started this thread (and others). It should be not more contentious than saying I like a particular rock band and think they are the best. Something I go a bit further and constrast it with things I don't like (e.g. late 80's Hair Metal or whatever the heck it is that Byrce keeps posting video links to...)---but I'm just voicing an opinion about what I think is great (or not so great). Why be bothered?

Something is rotten in the State of Denmark. Beoric, what's really eating you?

 

[EOTB]

Did you read the last entry, by @The Heretic? Or look at the post he was responding to? Or @squeen's post, included in your list, which says:



So not perfect, but an unequalled masterpiece, like a Da Vinci or a Rembrandt. Yeah, you proved your point.

Heretic was echoing you, and saying others viewed AD&D as perfect, when nobody said that. He wasn't saying it was perfect.

Yeah, I do think its a masterpiece. Every beautiful girl has some "flaw". You can focus on the flaw(s) - but why on earth would you want to? At some point you accept nothing's flawless or you focus on flaws your entire life.

Are the flaws material? Does not giving every way to handle a level-up transaction in the text prevent me from getting what I want out of the game? Does someone deciding jelly cubes can be knocked prone prevent you from getting what you want out of your game? Maybe that's enough to color your overall experience - not for me, not in the least.

I don't consider failure to tell me how to handle some scenario to be a flaw if I can easily handle the scenario without being told.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

The jellycube prone thing was probably an oversight. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a fix for it out there issued under a pile of errata.

Regardless, the option to change things is always on the table. Why not just go ahead and declare that the cube can't be made prone and leave it at that?

"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important" - Gygax, DMG p230

 

[Johann]

There's a difference between an entire core book, and a single table - this is an absurd comparison.

I think it's merely a matter of degree. All sorts of things influence our expectations - a game's cover, the equipment list, heck, even the order of the chapters. The presence of a table with expected wealth by level changes the game, perhaps subtly (though Pseudoephedrine's and my experience suggest otherwise).

And sorry about the "unimpressed" comment -- I must have been daydreaming that you'd go all "Whoa, Johann, you're damn right! I've never looked at it that way" before. I shouldn't have engaged with a line of argument I'm tired of...

 

[Beoric]

"It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules which is important" - Gygax, DMG p230

He should have remembered this when he was berating his customers in Dragon magazine editorials.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Yeah, people are hypocrites. What can ya do?

 

[squeen]

Another fella grappling with similar issues on his blog, but coming to a different (common) conclusion --- i.e. I'll just stick with OD&D.

 

[The1True]

Another fella grappling with similar issues on his blog, but coming to a different (common) conclusion --- i.e. I'll just stick with OD&D.

That was an interesting read. I think it really comes down to your players: If they're willing to bend with the loose rules you lay out, then everything's fine. But, the second you get a rules lawyer you're in trouble. And I know that comes out as a curse word for some people but most rules lawyers are just maintaining the verisimilitude of the game and respect the final word of the referee. I agree that in more crunchy versions of the game, a lawyer can turn into a real prick; wielding the book against the GM. But in looser versions, the referee has to keep careful track of their own rulings or else find themselves contradicting themselves and locked in disputes with confused/betrayed players. I personally prefer to just have the rules clearly laid out, but it's definitely fun to play with few or no books at all with a couple of players happy to work with what they get from you. I just think that breaks down as the players and their characters advance beyond basic play.

 

[squeen]

You are right. In a long running campaign, there is less threat from a rules-lawyer---however, my son for one, is always looking for advantage. He "remembers" the rules that help him and lets slide those that do not. I'm used to it, and it's fine. Keeps me on my toes.

It sounds like the author didn't have the time/patience or support network (e.g. K&KA) to work his way into being profficient with the AD&D differences from OD&D---and then his players bailed and went to 3e!

 

[The1True]

He "remembers" the rules that help him and lets slide those that do not. I'm used to it, and it's fine. Keeps me on my toes.

Ha! My brother does that. He loves my 'yes and' style at lower levels but then he thumps me with my own rulings later. His characters become an amalgamation of baked-in bullshit by name level. Our rules disputes are bloody. He HATES 3e with a passion.

 

[Beoric]

It sounds like the author didn't have the time/patience or support network (e.g. K&KA) to work his way into being profficient with the AD&D differences from OD&D---and then his players bailed and went to 3e!

His experience was like mine, and pretty much everyone I ever played with. We always saw 1e as being a game that required houserules, and required certain other rules to be ignored, if it was going to be worth running. My willingness to ignore crappy and inconsistent rule elements came from my experience with 1e, and it is why I was able to take the good from 4e and run the kind of games I run with it.

After reading that article, and others on his blog, even though we never ran 0e and rarely ran any of the Basic variants, I think we were always really running a game with an 0e or Basic aesthetic using a subset of the 1e rules. And now I run something closer to a 0e/Basic game using 4e rules. Use the rules when they work, don't use them when they don't. The DM should use whatever works for him, and the players should be free to try whatever they want. Freedom and creativity are what the game is all about.

That may seem inconsistent with my frequent attempts to figure out how particular rules work, but it isn't. Lots of experience with houserules has taught me how important it is to understand what a rule does before you tinker with it, or get rid of it, or replace it.

 

[squeen]

I don't know if this goes here, but I liked this post from The Tao of D&D.

Game Designers. Heh.

 

[squeen]

Today's Grognardia touch on some similar themes.

Random Roll: DMG, p. 112

Page 112 of the Dungeon Masters Guide contains a number of interesting sections, each of which is worthy of highlighting and discussions. Fo...

grognardia.blogspot.com