(1) I did not say the absence of rules means a game supports all genres and playstyles.
(2) I asked you quite specifically what rules are missing from ShadowDark that mean it is just a game for dungeon crawling:
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling?
Can you not answer this question?
Or for that matter why are the rules that are present only for dungeon crawling? You say its rules support this and only this. How so? What is missing? The theme of the game implies that this is its author's intention. But as far as rules go they are as conducive as those in just about any early edition of D&D to different genres or playstyles. How is ShadowDark any more of a dungeon crawler than Basic D&D? Can you answer this question?
Fair enough, I was trying to answer it in an abstract way but I think I can answer this with specifics.
You mentioned B/X and I think that is a great basis for example and to answer the specific question.
Basic 1st edition rules included rules sufficient enough to run very basic adventures. Beyond the rules for character creation which included Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User and Thief, each with mechanics geared towards "dungeon crawling" It included rules for encounters and combat and show play example focused on a dungeon crawl. It it also included rules for retainers and had complete list of equipment.
Arguably the same rules coverage that Shadowdark had. So ask yourself this. Why Expert rules? What was the point of adding more rules? Can you not have a wilderness adventure using the Basic rules? Why do you need an Expert ruleset that covers rules for horses, Titles, Obstacles to Movement, Special Wilderness Travel, Food, Rest, and mercenaries? Why did they include rules for designing a wilderness and create specific rules for wilderness adventures?
Basic didn't have any of these rules from the Expert set, is that mean Wilderness Adventures were assumed and supported with Basic and if so, why the need for Expert set rules for wilderness adventures?
The game continued to be expanded to include the companion and master sets which add rules for Dominion control, mass combat, hex crawl rules... Was Dominion, Mass combat or hex crawl not supported in the Basic set by the absence of rules?
Shadowdark doesn't have an expert, companion or master set that describes how to execute these other elements of the game. How does hex crawling work in Shadowdark, how do you build a keep, how do you raise an army etc etc.. These mechanics that appear in other games are the designer's way of saying "hey you can do this in our game" and by that design they are saying "this is what our game is about".
Everything in Shadowdark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon, there are no other rules to suggest that anything else happens in the game, that the game is about anything else. So yeah, by the reading of that book, what you can derive from it is that the game is about Dungeon Crawling and by the absence of any other rules, its not about anything else.
5e for example is not about raising armies and having mass combat, it does not support that style of play. BUT... You can get the Strongholds and Followers 3rd party supplement and with that supplement, now you can... now you have support for that style of play.
Does that answer the question?
I have shelves' worth of game products dating back to '79 and shelves of RPG supplements and RPG zines with which to expand things as I wish. If I felt I needed rules "necessary" for hex-crawling—NOTE:ShadowDark has rules for generating overland hex maps. Which is to say your assertion that "Everything in ShadowDark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon" is false.—or for anything else I think I would be more than covered.
The games I run tend to be long-form city-based sandbox campaigns. ShadowDark and a solid city kit and nothing more handle this just fine. (Although I do always have the DMG and FF within reach for the former's random tables and the latter's less predictable monsters.)
ShadowDark is assuredly themed towards dungeon crawling. As was the Mentzer red box. A red box I used for years in conjunction with books intended for AD&D—like many of us did back then—to run whatever I wanted. Before I moved on to playing 2nd. Edition. Someone as enthusiastic as you are about the OSR cannot be unfamiliar with OLD-SCHOOL ESSENTIALS and how it aims to capture a similar amalgam of the basic rules of the game—Moldvay/Cook to be more specific—and AD&D (with the addition of the ADVANCED expansion). There are fewer pages in OSE Classic Fantasy that is essentially Basic and Expert dedicated to non-dungeon content than there are in ShadowDark. For what it's worth.
On that note: Why do you reckon the author has included more random tables for wilderness and city encounters and for generating locations in cities than she has included for dungeons if she intended ShadowDark to be strictly about dungeons?
Something else that shows your assertion that "Everything in ShadowDark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon" is false. Have you even looked inside the thing or have you just paid too much attention to critics who haven't bothered to either?
ShadowDark may be themed towards dungeon crawling. But as I said:
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
Since everyone is discussing Shadowdark in the post, I went and looked it up for myself because I've never heard of it before reading this thread. It looks like the creators are basically just making Basic D&D within the framework of heavily stripped-down 5e. Looking at the books, I can see why people are saying that the RPG looks like it is catering to just being a dungeon crawl game. Even the website refers to the players as crawlers and this is the first paragraph mentioned on the website "In Shadowdark RPG, you and your group of crawlers use magic, steel, and wits to delve into mysterious ruins, lost cities, and monster-infested depths. Wondrous treasures and long-forgotten secrets await you! But don't let your last torch burn out, or you could be swallowed by the Shadowdark..."
Not saying you can't use the rules to have a strictly roleplay, non-combat game with this system. But how they are advertising on their kickstarter website is that they are billing this as a Basic D&D, old school dungeon crawl game that is intentionally meant to be hard due to taking away the safety nets, such as eliminating darkvision and rolling 3d6 only straight down for abilities.
There is no doubt that the game is themed towards dungeon crawling.
But as I have just said: The book has more pages dedicated to wilderness and city encounter tables and tables for generating locations in cities than it does those dedicated to mere dungeon crawling.
Odd curatorial decision for a game strictly about dungeon crawling don't you think?
And as I have said:
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
A copy of the book and a setting supplement is all anyone needs to run said setting.
But we are supposed to believe because the rules for running a game are so focused on combat that combat is "the most significant part of the game"? They have tirelessly disregarded the very definition of a roleplaying game and how Gygax and Arneson themselves approached the game of D&D to assert D&D is really a combat-oriented game. It's worth noting that many of the even simplest of earlier modules would have more things to do in them than they would mere encounters. Rooms with puzzles and traps say. And this isn't to go into the interactions between fully fledged NPCs who were not just bags of HP in those that were more vast in scale and range.
The rulebooks gave more space to combat because players were required to roleplay just about everything else.
Amazing that this should be the case in what is known as a roleplaying game.
If the rules focus on those used to resolve combat it is because none are required for most everything else.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
There are quite a lot of games with social mechanics. This is for two reasons:
- The rules presented declare the focus of the game. You can, of course, color outside the lines, but you're largely out on your own.
Imagine, for a moment, a game focussed entirely on social interaction. No combat rules at all, but lots about how to adjudicate the rise and fall of characters' social standing. For its players, the "cut direct" is as common as "attack of opportunity" is to D&D players.
So, how often do you think combat of any sort will be in the game? There will be entire campaigns where nothing more than a slap across the face occurs.
Now imagine that a PC in this game feels so insulted that they challenge another to a duel. How well is roleplaying that out going to go? Which leads into:
- Without mechanics for adjudication, you fall back on the players' skills.
In the duel above, between two outwardly similar characters, one of the players has been doing historical fencing for a hobby for years. The other works on the Linux kernel for fun.
Who's gonna win the duel, when the only extant mechanic is "convince the DM"?
To return to the first point, imagine the game has dueling mechanics. All of a sudden, it'll be a rare campaign that doesn't have somebody demanding satisfaction on the field of honor.
Mechanical support matters for roleplaying. If you collapse all the spellcasters down into, say, wizard and cleric, the druid, as a "priest of nature" will be inherently less satisfying, because it'll have less mechanical support. It'll play like a cleric, with mostly the same spell list and abilities. If it gets shapeshifting, it'll be a much less defining power.
But we are supposed to believe because the rules for running a game are so focused on combat that combat is "the most significant part of the game"? They have tirelessly disregarded the very definition of a roleplaying game and how Gygax and Arneson themselves approached the game of D&D to assert D&D is really a combat-oriented game. It's worth noting that many of the even simplest of earlier modules would have more things to do in them than they would mere encounters. Rooms with puzzles and traps say. And this isn't to go into the interactions between fully fledged NPCs who were not just bags of HP in those that were more vast in scale and range.
The rulebooks gave more space to combat because players were required to roleplay just about everything else.
Amazing that this should be the case in what is known as a roleplaying game.
If the rules focus on those used to resolve combat it is because none are required for most everything else.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
There are quite a lot of games with social mechanics. This is for two reasons:
- The rules presented declare the focus of the game. You can, of course, color outside the lines, but you're largely out on your own.
Imagine, for a moment, a game focussed entirely on social interaction. No combat rules at all, but lots about how to adjudicate the rise and fall of characters' social standing. For its players, the "cut direct" is as common as "attack of opportunity" is to D&D players.
So, how often do you think combat of any sort will be in the game? There will be entire campaigns where nothing more than a slap across the face occurs.
Now imagine that a PC in this game feels so insulted that they challenge another to a duel. How well is roleplaying that out going to go? Which leads into:
- Without mechanics for adjudication, you fall back on the players' skills.
In the duel above, between two outwardly similar characters, one of the players has been doing historical fencing for a hobby for years. The other works on the Linux kernel for fun.
Who's gonna win the duel, when the only extant mechanic is "convince the DM"?
To return to the first point, imagine the game has dueling mechanics. All of a sudden, it'll be a rare campaign that doesn't have somebody demanding satisfaction on the field of honor.
Mechanical support matters for roleplaying. If you collapse all the spellcasters down into, say, wizard and cleric, the druid, as a "priest of nature" will be inherently less satisfying, because it'll have less mechanical support. It'll play like a cleric, with mostly the same spell list and abilities. If it gets shapeshifting, it'll be a much less defining power.
There are indeed games with social mechanics. I have played some of them.
But we are talking about D&D.
As I said: you among others could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons.
Instead of just making up your own history of the game and pretending your preferred playstyle is what the game is really about. As if that isn't gatekeeper-y.
As I said: Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
The very birth of the roleplaying game as we know it wasn't about ensuring there were comprehensive rules for everything the game was supposed to accommodate. That fact is undeniable. Gygax might have sought to change that by adding more and more to the rules throughout its early development. As did others at TSR over the course of its lifetime. But so many of these were unnecessary or unnecessarily complicated. When a simple rulings over rules approach could more than suffice. Even 5E has that philosophy baked into it. So why is it your game of choice?
If mechanical support for roleplaying is as you say so important then D&D does fail miserably in that regard. And yet it's most people's preferred system. Much of this may be brand loyalty. Or sunk cost fallacy. Or simply familiarity.
Why not open that question up to others? Why do people even bother to play D&D if they enjoy social interaction or the other stuff enough that it would make more sense for them to play a game that "better" supports that? If D&D is basically just a hack 'em up why aren't they playing other games? If they do just want a hack 'em up there are games that do that better! So what exactly is the purpose of D&D? To succeed due to nothing more than its name?
Talk of whether or not other games have rules for social interactions is missing the point. Many are the games that include rules for things D&D just handwaves. Funnily enough many are the games with more comprehensive rules for combat instead of their just handwaving so much in that regard by making things so abstract like D&D does. Does this mean you are playing the wrong game? Without Arneson and Gygax there would be no D&D. But you are expecting others to believe how they thought about D&D and how they even ran the game themselves and not only them but others in the early days of the hobby was "wrong" and they should have been playing something else? Give it a rest.
EDIT: Your own theory as well as your little analogy about dueling goes against what you have been arguing. D&D lacks rules comprehensive enough to account for many things I have had players of mine or characters of my own when playing attempt during combat. Many are the moments a DM must adjudicate how something is going to work in combat. All it takes is for a player to think off the page. Could the character not use this or that as a weapon? Not do this? Not do that? The PHB dedicates fewer than ten pages to combat rules and fewer than ten to what players might even do. For a game that is supposed to be all about the fightin' this seems awfully inadequate.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
There are quite a lot of games with social mechanics. This is for two reasons:
- The rules presented declare the focus of the game. You can, of course, color outside the lines, but you're largely out on your own.
[...]
- Without mechanics for adjudication, you fall back on the players' skills.
[...]
Mechanical support matters for roleplaying.
There are indeed games with social mechanics. I have played some of them.
But we are talking about D&D.
Yes. D&D has social and other skill mechanics now, and it's much better off for it. Players no longer need to play "fast talk the GM". People who are not suave con-men can play suave con-men without being penalized for it.
As I said: Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Here's the thing. That's not good enough. I give Arneson and Gygax full credit: they had no idea what they were doing. They were inventing a new type of game, but they didn't get it right on the first try. We've learned a lot more about how RPGs work in the past fifty years.
When a simple rulings over rules approach could more than suffice. Even 5E has that philosophy baked into it.
You can't have rulings without rules. 5e provides enough of a framework that one can make rulings on how arbitrary situations play out based on game mechanics and character abilities. Old D&D didn't. And yes, sometimes in 5e it still comes down to pure GM fiat. That is inevitable with as broad a scope of action as RPGs allow for. But it happens a hell of a lot less than you seem to favor.
(And yes, character abilities are the relevant thing, not player. This is a roleplaying game. One where we take on the role of a character who is not us.)
So why is it your game of choice?
It's not?
It's not even really my D&D of choice. It's where the players are, though, and it's fine as a system, and it has sorta-acceptable online tooling, which is nice. (I'd probably be playing some 4e as well if the tooling existed at a level where I wouldn't have to futz with it much.)
Talk of whether or not other games have rules for social interactions is missing the point. Many are the games that include rules for things D&D just handwaves. Funnily enough many are the games with more comprehensive rules for combat instead of their just handwaving so much in that regard by making things so abstract like D&D does. Does this mean you are playing the wrong game? Without Arneson and Gygax there would be no D&D. But you are expecting others to believe how they thought about D&D and how they even ran the game themselves and not only them but others in the early days of the hobby was "wrong"
I can't comment on the way they ran their games.
It didn't come in the box.
There's a reason that D&D's been adding skill mechanics since late 1e. "Roleplay it out" doesn't work reliably. Your emergent properties don't emerge. 4e, as combat-focussed a D&D as we're ever going to see in the modern era, also had the most ambitious attempt at non-combat resolution mechanics of any D&D.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
There are quite a lot of games with social mechanics. This is for two reasons:
- The rules presented declare the focus of the game. You can, of course, color outside the lines, but you're largely out on your own.
[...]
- Without mechanics for adjudication, you fall back on the players' skills.
[...]
Mechanical support matters for roleplaying.
There are indeed games with social mechanics. I have played some of them.
But we are talking about D&D.
Yes. D&D has social and other skill mechanics now, and it's much better off for it. Players no longer need to play "fast talk the GM". People who are not suave con-men can play suave con-men without being penalized for it.
As I said: Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Here's the thing. That's not good enough. I give Arneson and Gygax full credit: they had no idea what they were doing. They were inventing a new type of game, but they didn't get it right on the first try. We've learned a lot more about how RPGs work in the past fifty years.
When a simple rulings over rules approach could more than suffice. Even 5E has that philosophy baked into it.
You can't have rulings without rules. 5e provides enough of a framework that one can make rulings on how arbitrary situations play out based on game mechanics and character abilities. Old D&D didn't. And yes, sometimes in 5e it still comes down to pure GM fiat. That is inevitable with as broad a scope of action as RPGs allow for. But it happens a hell of a lot less than you seem to favor.
(And yes, character abilities are the relevant thing, not player. This is a roleplaying game. One where we take on the role of a character who is not us.)
So why is it your game of choice?
It's not?
It's not even really my D&D of choice. It's where the players are, though, and it's fine as a system, and it has sorta-acceptable online tooling, which is nice. (I'd probably be playing some 4e as well if the tooling existed at a level where I wouldn't have to futz with it much.)
Talk of whether or not other games have rules for social interactions is missing the point. Many are the games that include rules for things D&D just handwaves. Funnily enough many are the games with more comprehensive rules for combat instead of their just handwaving so much in that regard by making things so abstract like D&D does. Does this mean you are playing the wrong game? Without Arneson and Gygax there would be no D&D. But you are expecting others to believe how they thought about D&D and how they even ran the game themselves and not only them but others in the early days of the hobby was "wrong"
I can't comment on the way they ran their games.
It didn't come in the box.
There's a reason that D&D's been adding skill mechanics since late 1e. "Roleplay it out" doesn't work reliably. Your emergent properties don't emerge. 4e, as combat-focussed a D&D as we're ever going to see in the modern era, also had the most ambitious attempt at non-combat resolution mechanics of any D&D.
Just two things:
(1) The addition of skills has seen the game become less and less about player skill and more and more about character abilities. You yourself said D&D is a game. If you need to be reminded. It is. And now it is one in which far too many players of that game stare at their character sheets for aeons looking at what their characters can do instead of using what pulses between their ears to come up with something their characters might attempt.
What you say "doesn't work reliably" is a core feature not only of old games but also of new games that simulate them. Perhaps it doesn't work for you. But perhaps that is you and not the feature.
You know what doesn't work reliably? A model that sees many players not even bothering to describe what their characters are going to do or not even bothering to say what their characters are going to say or actually roleplaying some scenario because they can now just say Can I roll [ ]? And far too often DMs let them just make a roll and where it lands determines success or failure.
Many players will only describe what they do or say if they think it will grant them Advantage.
That model doesn't work reliably. Not if the game is supposed to be roleplaying game with actual roleplaying.
Previously one would have to use description and observation and then and only then would one be told what to roll if anything.
(2) Let me make for you a point I made for someone else.
Imagine someone who has experienced considerable trauma and who does not handle violence too well. Now it might be argued that there are better table-top role-playing games out there for such an individual. But if they wanted to try D&D telling them to maybe go away and play something else because violence is "just so integral" to the game is gatekeeping and is so at its most unconscionable.
What would you call it when your need for D&D to be little more than a facilitator of your own in-combat power fantasies supersedes the very real needs of potential players?
It is gatekeeping. And it is gatekeeping no less severe than that old grognards get accused of when it comes to whether or not D&D is for girls. You are turning into those old grognards and slamming your fist on the table and insisting D&D is about this and that and not other things and therefore not for others.
There's a reason that D&D's been adding skill mechanics since late 1e. "Roleplay it out" doesn't work reliably. Your emergent properties don't emerge. 4e, as combat-focussed a D&D as we're ever going to see in the modern era, also had the most ambitious attempt at non-combat resolution mechanics of any D&D.
Also I couldn't help but notice in your thorough response to my earlier post you oddly forgot to respond to this:
Your own theory as well as your little analogy about dueling goes against what you have been arguing. D&D lacks rules comprehensive enough to account for many things I have had players of mine or characters of my own when playing attempt during combat. Many are the moments a DM must adjudicate how something is going to work in combat. All it takes is for a player to think off the page. Could the character not use this or that as a weapon? Not do this? Not do that?
The PHB dedicates fewer than ten pages to combat rules and fewer than ten to what players might even do.
For a game that is supposed to be all about the fightin' this seems awfully inadequate.
The very birth of the roleplaying game as we know it wasn't about ensuring there were comprehensive rules for everything the game was supposed to accommodate. That fact is undeniable. Gygax might have sought to change that by adding more and more to the rules throughout its early development. As did others at TSR over the course of its lifetime. But so many of these were unnecessary or unnecessarily complicated. When a simple rulings over rules approach could more than suffice. Even 5E has that philosophy baked into it. So why is it your game of choice?
I don't think anyone is really disagreeing with your directly, but I think you are also not listening to the high level chorus behind the popularity of 5e.
Modern gamers don't want simplicity, they don't want rulings over rules, they want the exact opposite. They want complex architecture so that they can fiddle with mechanical character "builds", that is a big part of why games like 5e and PF2e are popular and they want to use those build to play a game on the table top. They don't want GM's to make "rulings", they want a reliable system that can be run RAW with clear and explicit rules so that everyone knows what the rules are and how they are executed with no surprises alterations.
I personally look at posts like those going about how Backgrounds are not flexible and how this is a major problem in the game. Now you and I, old school gamers look at that and shrug and just say... don't like it, change it.. whats the big deal.. but the point of that post is that the game should be crystal clear with the rules, it should have maximum optimization possible and it should be fully customizable from the get go... aka, the complaint is that its not complex enough to satisfy the desires of this community.
The OSR preaches simplicity, rulings over rules, game challenge... modern gamers don't want those things and modern D&D will never be those things because the modern D&D community outnumbers the OSR community literarly considerably more than 100,000 to 1.
I'm not trying to gate keep you but your message is about the equivalent to walking into a Vegan BBQ and complaining that there isn't any meat. No one is saying you can't join the BBQ, no one is saying you can't have your own meat BBQ, what they are saying is, don't come to a Vegan BBQ and then complain about it being a Vegan BBQ.
I don't think anyone is really disagreeing with your directly, but I think you are also not listening to the high level chorus behind the popularity of 5e.
Modern gamers don't want simplicity, they don't want rulings over rules, they want the exact opposite. They want complex architecture so that they can fiddle with mechanical character "builds", that is a big part of why games like 5e and PF2e are popular and they want to use those build to play a game on the table top. They don't want GM's to make "rulings", they want a reliable system that can be run RAW with clear and explicit rules so that everyone knows what the rules are and how they are executed with no surprises alterations.
I personally look at posts like those going about how Backgrounds are not flexible and how this is a major problem in the game. Now you and I, old school gamers look at that and shrug and just say... don't like it, change it.. whats the big deal.. but the point of that post is that the game should be crystal clear with the rules, it should have maximum optimization possible and it should be fully customizable from the get go... aka, the complaint is that its not complex enough to satisfy the desires of this community.
The OSR preaches simplicity, rulings over rules, game challenge... modern gamers don't want those things and modern D&D will never be those things because the modern D&D community outnumbers the OSR community literarly considerably more than 100,000 to 1.
I'm not trying to gate keep you but your message is about the equivalent to walking into a Vegan BBQ and complaining that there isn't any meat. No one is saying you can't join the BBQ, no one is saying you can't have your own meat BBQ, what they are saying is, don't come to a Vegan BBQ and then complain about it being a Vegan BBQ.
Are you forgetting how you asserted that "everything" in ShadowDark is strictly about how to "execute an adventure" in a dungeon? Only to be informed that it has rules for generating overland hex maps and more tables dedicated to wilderness and city adventuring than it does for dungeoneering? No admitting to your having been wrong in that regard? Because I don't play that game many like to play online where we see them going from one thing to the next because the one thing before the next "didn't work" and their rinsing and repeating this process without ever admitting to being wrong at any point. You're welcome to play that game. But if you lack even the modicum of humility it should take you to admit you overstated ShadowDark's emphasis on dungeoneering because you have't even read it don't expect me to play along.
What "modern gamers" want is not at all to my point. My point is a game needn't spell out things in the rules in order for its rules to be capable of accommodating those things. And that the actual historical development of the game and what people were able to do with even OD&D is evidence enough for this. Only not good enough evidence for some apparently.
You say The OSR preaches simplicity, rulings over rules, game challenge ... and it does. You call yourself an OSR enthusiast ... but then insist that a game not dedicating pages of rules to this and that is then not at all conducive a set of rules for doing anything but what is made explicit.
The attitude you have expressed in that regard is the antithesis of OSR philosophy. It goes against the very idea that a player might attempt something and the DM might arbitrate. Because if it's not at all in the rules what is that player doing?!??!
What OSR game(s) do you play out of curiosity?
EDIT: One of the main points made by Matt Finch in the primer that for many has become the bible as far as the OSR is concerned is about how it is better not to have explicit rules for things to foster at tables an approach where player skill is prioritized over character abilities. How instead of having a skill system that encourages players to look at their character sheets and then say Can I roll [ ]? the absence of one encourages players to get creative and think of what their characters might attempt and describe it and then have the DM arbitrate. The DM might even say Okay roll this or that. But the absence of rules specific to what players wish to do does not mean and has never meant their characters can't do such things. It does mean and has never meant the game isn't "made" for that.
I am not so sure you even grasp what it is the OSR is all about. You are one minute saying short of having specific rules dedicated to this or that a game is just not really for this or that and the next minute saying you are in favor of the OSR approach when this is about fewer rules and really any rules being for the DM and serving really no purpose but to perhaps inform a DM's decisions. You are contradicting yourself.
The variety of spell lists (Vs a common one) makes it easier for beginner players to have a variety of options. It makes a more meaningful choice for class choice - because choosing a Wizard gives you one list, while choosing a Cleric nets you a different one. However, once you're more experienced, it very much constrains you. You can't build a Wizard that heals (other than using a subclass that gets it for you and that specific set of spells at that), or a Cleric that Fireballs. A common spell list would provide much more variety.
The decision to differentiate Classes by their spell list furthers one of the main issues I have with 5e - the majority of your agency that you get to express is not "in-game" or even at one of your twenty potential level-ups, but in the first three levels, or in the first 15% of your game experience with that character. Compare that to STA or TOR where you're actively making decisions about your character's build at the end of each adventure (around three sessions). Spellcasters ameliorate this to an extent, allowing you to make small and temporary changes quite frequently via spell selection, but the spell lists dampen this.
I like the idea of spell lists because because it allows control of flavour - Wizards cast wizardy spells and Bards cast bardy spells - but it does constrain variety. I prefer how they differentiate Warlocks (I was glad to read that they'd ditched their reformation of their spellcasting) because it genuinely makes the class different to the others. I feel like an even better thing to do would be to create a more unique spellcasting system for each class - rather than how their focus is flavoured or the spell list.
I think the game is headed more towards pushing short rests (Wizards now work on short rests, for example). Hopefully that will make Warlocks more viable.
It's good to be back, Link! I missed the forums and ya'll in general. :)
I'm responding rather late but I do agree that D&D frontloads most of the complexity by overwhelming new players with a gimongous amount choices come at level 1. Outside of that, you also get your subclass very early game and some classes like the 5e Sorcerer and the 5e Warlock even pick that at level 1 as well. It's hard not to frontload complexity in D&D because players have to pick defining characteristics like their class, species and backstory before they can begin to play. However, at the same time, a better system would absolutely have less choices at the lower levels and more at the later ones. Finally, I really hope there aren't any classes in 1D&D that make players pick subclasses at level 1.
You bring up a lot of interesting points on spell lists and I've never even thought of the idea of reimagining the game so there aren't any. It seems interesting but I think we both agree that spell lists do a good job of preserving the flavor of classes and stopping Wizards from having boatloads of healing spells and fire spells. That would not only be overpowered, but also ruin the viability and uniqueness of the Cleric.
I dunno about "creating a unique spellcasting system for each class", but I do like the idea of more spellcasting systems. However, so many PHB classes have some access to magic and creating and a understanding new system for each one would be a confusing nuisance for the devs and the players.
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It used to be that if you wanted to play an arcane caster able to cast fireball (let's say), you needed to play a wizard. Now there are actually very few 'wizard only' spells, and you can still get access to them without having to play a Wizard.
I tallied up all the PHB (2014) + SCAG + Elemental Evil spells a couple of years back and these were the totals for each class's spell lists:
Wizard: 256
Sorcerer: 164
Druid: 143
Bard: 125
Cleric: 106
Warlock: 88
Ranger: 50
Paladin: 45
Not only are the 4 arcane casters not interchangeable (warlock and bard spell lists are very distinct), you can fit the warlock's entire spell list in the gap between wizard and everyone else.
If anything, it's the sorcerer that has very few signature spells; they mostly work with a pared down version of the wizard spell list plus a handful of extras like Chaos Bolt and the new Sorcerous Burst.
It used to be that if you wanted to play an arcane caster able to cast fireball (let's say), you needed to play a wizard. Now there are actually very few 'wizard only' spells, and you can still get access to them without having to play a Wizard.
I tallied up all the PHB (2014) + SCAG + Elemental Evil spells a couple of years back and these were the totals for each class's spell lists:
Wizard: 256
Sorcerer: 164
Druid: 143
Bard: 125
Cleric: 106
Warlock: 88
Ranger: 50
Paladin: 45
Not only are the 4 arcane casters not interchangeable (warlock and bard spell lists are very distinct), you can fit the warlock's entire spell list in the gap between wizard and everyone else.
I'm surprised clerics are so far behind druids. I would've guessed the other way around. I suppose they've got heavy cleric overlap, plus all the naturey spells.
If anything, it's the sorcerer that has very few signature spells; they mostly work with a pared down version of the wizard spell list plus a handful of extras like Chaos Bolt and the new Sorcerous Burst.
Sorcerer is the one place the initial complaint really has legs, but that's more an argument for rebuilding sorcerers than eliminating them.
Edit: I went and did a quick look-over at the 2024 spell lists, and it's not great for the sorcerers. I think their list is entirely subsumed by the wizard list after level 3, and they have all of ~4 spells wizards don't.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
(1) The addition of skills has seen the game become less and less about player skill and more and more about character abilities. You yourself said D&D is a game. If you need to be reminded. It is. And now it is one in which far too many players of that game stare at their character sheets for aeons looking at what their characters can do instead of using what pulses between their ears to come up with something their characters might attempt.
What you say "doesn't work reliably" is a core feature not only of old games but also of new games that simulate them. Perhaps it doesn't work for you. But perhaps that is you and not the feature.
D&D is a game where the players take on the role of a character that is not them. This cannot be done if success and failure on many activities hinge upon the player's skills. Social skills are the archetypal illustration of why this doesn't work. If the GM determines the result on how persuasive the player is, then players who aren't good at being persuasive cannot play a character who is. The player who is not clever cannot play a character who is.
You seem to think that's just fine, or even to be encouraged.
It's not. It's objectively a failure of the design.
Now, you can have a perfectly enjoyable experience playing a game with these flaws, because it's possible for the GM to fix it on the fly. But the system is offloading its flaws onto the GM, and not every GM is going to handle it well.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
Yeah, it's a bit better, it's still a poor design, but at least they have something more than metamagic.
In the rebuild of all the classes that I'm never going to do, the Sorcerer has the most flexibility, able to pull the right spell for the job out on the fly, but the least raw power. (Warlock has most power, least flexibility, with wizard living in between, while bard leans harder into the dilettante thing.)
I didn't forget, I just don't see how it's salient. Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters don't have dedicated spell lists, and the Four Elements Monk (which was widely considered bad) not only had an incredibly tiny "spell list", it missed out on a ton of spells that came out in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion that would've been perfectly thematic for it.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Except for the people that weren't able to fulfill the idea they had for their character.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane. You bring up analysis paralysis as if the multiclassing rules don't do just that by forcing you to consider all the permutations of level ups for your fighter/wizard.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane.
They should've just played Elf, like we did back in the Good Old Days.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Let's be very, very clear. What this user means to say is "would actually improve the enjoyment for me." As should not be surprising from five decades of people getting excited about new character options, people tend to like having more options so they can create a character that fits the vibe they are going for.
What actually improves enjoyment for all involved? Wizards providing options and players doing what they have been for the past fifty years--choosing which options to use. If you are an experienced DM and play in a group of experienced players who enjoy options and can move fast on their turn? Perhaps you allow a great number of options. If you are an inexperienced DM or a DM that gets overwhelmed easily (as this user has regularly said they are on other threads) and/or if you have players who are slow? Perhaps you limit the options.
Wizards providing lots of options helps both groups as the group can decide what option to use. Wizards providing few options, on the other hand, helps the second group but leaves the first group dangling in the wind. This is particularly true as saying "no" (the option for the group who wants fewer options) is a heck of a lot easier than forcing the group who wants more options to homebrew and deal with the hassle of balancing self-created content.
As should be obvious, the right choice for Wizards to provide the solution that can work for both groups. Does it make it slightly more difficult for one of those options than being spoon-fed a simplistic game? Sure - but they are the least cost avoider and thus are the ones who should bear the burden of utilizing a monosyllabic word. Frankly, saying "I don't want options, therefore, rather than use the word 'no' I want Wizards to deny everyone options" is a fairly selfish and silly position to take.
Agreed! Having just skimmed this thread I’ll add a few comments from the peanut gallery. The OP clearly wants a simpler game more focused on melee than on magic. Such a game actually exists - original basic and danced pamphlets and/or 1e/AD&D. Very limited classes, (ranger and Paladin were subclasses of fighter, Druid was a cleric subclass, etc) many fewer spells, many more discrete weapons and armors, adjustments to weapon hits/damage based on foes armor etc. of course a lot of that was to be expected given what I understand was the origin of the game - historical war gamers trying to add magic to their war gaming. Why do we have such a different game today? Because those of us that played back then wanted more classes, more magic, less complex combat rules etc. the game has evolved to meet the needs and desires of the majority of its players. I fully expect it to continue to evolve in the next 50 years just as it has in the last 50. Those portions of the game that most folks don’t use will fade away (whether I like it or not) and new features ( classes, subclasses, features, species etc) will appear. There are now 5+ versions of official “D&D” and some number of unofficial variants (pathfinder etc) to choose from to play. After playing and DMing for 40+ years I run an a very open ended campaign with pretty much everything “official” allowed but I’m not “fully satisfied” but then I don’t expect to be - I can accept and have fun with “good enough” and then homebrew anything I either can’t stand or have to have in or out of it.
A smaller group of caster classes and subclasses, a smaller list of spells available to choose from, and a smaller quantity that can be used each day, would simplify the game, make it move way way faster during game play, which would actually improve the enjoyment for all involved.
Simpler isn't always better (this version of simplicity would sacrifice a ton of depth), debatable at best (fewer options at chargen speeding up moment-to-moment gameplay, is a considerable leap), and hard no, removing these options from the game would negatively impact lots of people's enjoyment, myself included. If you think there are too many classes in the game, ban some at your table, that's what houserules are for.
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I have shelves' worth of game products dating back to '79 and shelves of RPG supplements and RPG zines with which to expand things as I wish. If I felt I needed rules "necessary" for hex-crawling—NOTE: ShadowDark has rules for generating overland hex maps. Which is to say your assertion that "Everything in ShadowDark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon" is false.—or for anything else I think I would be more than covered.
The games I run tend to be long-form city-based sandbox campaigns. ShadowDark and a solid city kit and nothing more handle this just fine. (Although I do always have the DMG and FF within reach for the former's random tables and the latter's less predictable monsters.)
ShadowDark is assuredly themed towards dungeon crawling. As was the Mentzer red box. A red box I used for years in conjunction with books intended for AD&D—like many of us did back then—to run whatever I wanted. Before I moved on to playing 2nd. Edition. Someone as enthusiastic as you are about the OSR cannot be unfamiliar with OLD-SCHOOL ESSENTIALS and how it aims to capture a similar amalgam of the basic rules of the game—Moldvay/Cook to be more specific—and AD&D (with the addition of the ADVANCED expansion). There are fewer pages in OSE Classic Fantasy that is essentially Basic and Expert dedicated to non-dungeon content than there are in ShadowDark. For what it's worth.
On that note: Why do you reckon the author has included more random tables for wilderness and city encounters and for generating locations in cities than she has included for dungeons if she intended ShadowDark to be strictly about dungeons?
Something else that shows your assertion that "Everything in ShadowDark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon" is false. Have you even looked inside the thing or have you just paid too much attention to critics who haven't bothered to either?
ShadowDark may be themed towards dungeon crawling. But as I said:
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
There is no doubt that the game is themed towards dungeon crawling.
But as I have just said: The book has more pages dedicated to wilderness and city encounter tables and tables for generating locations in cities than it does those dedicated to mere dungeon crawling.
Odd curatorial decision for a game strictly about dungeon crawling don't you think?
And as I have said:
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
A copy of the book and a setting supplement is all anyone needs to run said setting.
There are quite a lot of games with social mechanics. This is for two reasons:
- The rules presented declare the focus of the game. You can, of course, color outside the lines, but you're largely out on your own.
Imagine, for a moment, a game focussed entirely on social interaction. No combat rules at all, but lots about how to adjudicate the rise and fall of characters' social standing. For its players, the "cut direct" is as common as "attack of opportunity" is to D&D players.
So, how often do you think combat of any sort will be in the game? There will be entire campaigns where nothing more than a slap across the face occurs.
Now imagine that a PC in this game feels so insulted that they challenge another to a duel. How well is roleplaying that out going to go? Which leads into:
- Without mechanics for adjudication, you fall back on the players' skills.
In the duel above, between two outwardly similar characters, one of the players has been doing historical fencing for a hobby for years. The other works on the Linux kernel for fun.
Who's gonna win the duel, when the only extant mechanic is "convince the DM"?
To return to the first point, imagine the game has dueling mechanics. All of a sudden, it'll be a rare campaign that doesn't have somebody demanding satisfaction on the field of honor.
Mechanical support matters for roleplaying. If you collapse all the spellcasters down into, say, wizard and cleric, the druid, as a "priest of nature" will be inherently less satisfying, because it'll have less mechanical support. It'll play like a cleric, with mostly the same spell list and abilities. If it gets shapeshifting, it'll be a much less defining power.
There are indeed games with social mechanics. I have played some of them.
But we are talking about D&D.
As I said: you among others could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons.
Instead of just making up your own history of the game and pretending your preferred playstyle is what the game is really about. As if that isn't gatekeeper-y.
As I said: Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
The very birth of the roleplaying game as we know it wasn't about ensuring there were comprehensive rules for everything the game was supposed to accommodate. That fact is undeniable. Gygax might have sought to change that by adding more and more to the rules throughout its early development. As did others at TSR over the course of its lifetime. But so many of these were unnecessary or unnecessarily complicated. When a simple rulings over rules approach could more than suffice. Even 5E has that philosophy baked into it. So why is it your game of choice?
If mechanical support for roleplaying is as you say so important then D&D does fail miserably in that regard. And yet it's most people's preferred system. Much of this may be brand loyalty. Or sunk cost fallacy. Or simply familiarity.
Why not open that question up to others? Why do people even bother to play D&D if they enjoy social interaction or the other stuff enough that it would make more sense for them to play a game that "better" supports that? If D&D is basically just a hack 'em up why aren't they playing other games? If they do just want a hack 'em up there are games that do that better! So what exactly is the purpose of D&D? To succeed due to nothing more than its name?
Talk of whether or not other games have rules for social interactions is missing the point. Many are the games that include rules for things D&D just handwaves. Funnily enough many are the games with more comprehensive rules for combat instead of their just handwaving so much in that regard by making things so abstract like D&D does. Does this mean you are playing the wrong game? Without Arneson and Gygax there would be no D&D. But you are expecting others to believe how they thought about D&D and how they even ran the game themselves and not only them but others in the early days of the hobby was "wrong" and they should have been playing something else? Give it a rest.
EDIT: Your own theory as well as your little analogy about dueling goes against what you have been arguing. D&D lacks rules comprehensive enough to account for many things I have had players of mine or characters of my own when playing attempt during combat. Many are the moments a DM must adjudicate how something is going to work in combat. All it takes is for a player to think off the page. Could the character not use this or that as a weapon? Not do this? Not do that? The PHB dedicates fewer than ten pages to combat rules and fewer than ten to what players might even do. For a game that is supposed to be all about the fightin' this seems awfully inadequate.
Yes. D&D has social and other skill mechanics now, and it's much better off for it. Players no longer need to play "fast talk the GM". People who are not suave con-men can play suave con-men without being penalized for it.
Here's the thing. That's not good enough. I give Arneson and Gygax full credit: they had no idea what they were doing. They were inventing a new type of game, but they didn't get it right on the first try. We've learned a lot more about how RPGs work in the past fifty years.
You can't have rulings without rules. 5e provides enough of a framework that one can make rulings on how arbitrary situations play out based on game mechanics and character abilities. Old D&D didn't. And yes, sometimes in 5e it still comes down to pure GM fiat. That is inevitable with as broad a scope of action as RPGs allow for. But it happens a hell of a lot less than you seem to favor.
(And yes, character abilities are the relevant thing, not player. This is a roleplaying game. One where we take on the role of a character who is not us.)
It's not?
It's not even really my D&D of choice. It's where the players are, though, and it's fine as a system, and it has sorta-acceptable online tooling, which is nice. (I'd probably be playing some 4e as well if the tooling existed at a level where I wouldn't have to futz with it much.)
I can't comment on the way they ran their games.
It didn't come in the box.
There's a reason that D&D's been adding skill mechanics since late 1e. "Roleplay it out" doesn't work reliably. Your emergent properties don't emerge. 4e, as combat-focussed a D&D as we're ever going to see in the modern era, also had the most ambitious attempt at non-combat resolution mechanics of any D&D.
Just two things:
(1) The addition of skills has seen the game become less and less about player skill and more and more about character abilities. You yourself said D&D is a game. If you need to be reminded. It is. And now it is one in which far too many players of that game stare at their character sheets for aeons looking at what their characters can do instead of using what pulses between their ears to come up with something their characters might attempt.
What you say "doesn't work reliably" is a core feature not only of old games but also of new games that simulate them. Perhaps it doesn't work for you. But perhaps that is you and not the feature.
You know what doesn't work reliably? A model that sees many players not even bothering to describe what their characters are going to do or not even bothering to say what their characters are going to say or actually roleplaying some scenario because they can now just say Can I roll [ ]? And far too often DMs let them just make a roll and where it lands determines success or failure.
Many players will only describe what they do or say if they think it will grant them Advantage.
That model doesn't work reliably. Not if the game is supposed to be roleplaying game with actual roleplaying.
Previously one would have to use description and observation and then and only then would one be told what to roll if anything.
(2) Let me make for you a point I made for someone else.
Imagine someone who has experienced considerable trauma and who does not handle violence too well. Now it might be argued that there are better table-top role-playing games out there for such an individual. But if they wanted to try D&D telling them to maybe go away and play something else because violence is "just so integral" to the game is gatekeeping and is so at its most unconscionable.
What would you call it when your need for D&D to be little more than a facilitator of your own in-combat power fantasies supersedes the very real needs of potential players?
It is gatekeeping. And it is gatekeeping no less severe than that old grognards get accused of when it comes to whether or not D&D is for girls. You are turning into those old grognards and slamming your fist on the table and insisting D&D is about this and that and not other things and therefore not for others.
Also I couldn't help but notice in your thorough response to my earlier post you oddly forgot to respond to this:
Your own theory as well as your little analogy about dueling goes against what you have been arguing. D&D lacks rules comprehensive enough to account for many things I have had players of mine or characters of my own when playing attempt during combat. Many are the moments a DM must adjudicate how something is going to work in combat. All it takes is for a player to think off the page. Could the character not use this or that as a weapon? Not do this? Not do that?
The PHB dedicates fewer than ten pages to combat rules and fewer than ten to what players might even do.
For a game that is supposed to be all about the fightin' this seems awfully inadequate.
I don't think anyone is really disagreeing with your directly, but I think you are also not listening to the high level chorus behind the popularity of 5e.
Modern gamers don't want simplicity, they don't want rulings over rules, they want the exact opposite. They want complex architecture so that they can fiddle with mechanical character "builds", that is a big part of why games like 5e and PF2e are popular and they want to use those build to play a game on the table top. They don't want GM's to make "rulings", they want a reliable system that can be run RAW with clear and explicit rules so that everyone knows what the rules are and how they are executed with no surprises alterations.
I personally look at posts like those going about how Backgrounds are not flexible and how this is a major problem in the game. Now you and I, old school gamers look at that and shrug and just say... don't like it, change it.. whats the big deal.. but the point of that post is that the game should be crystal clear with the rules, it should have maximum optimization possible and it should be fully customizable from the get go... aka, the complaint is that its not complex enough to satisfy the desires of this community.
The OSR preaches simplicity, rulings over rules, game challenge... modern gamers don't want those things and modern D&D will never be those things because the modern D&D community outnumbers the OSR community literarly considerably more than 100,000 to 1.
I'm not trying to gate keep you but your message is about the equivalent to walking into a Vegan BBQ and complaining that there isn't any meat. No one is saying you can't join the BBQ, no one is saying you can't have your own meat BBQ, what they are saying is, don't come to a Vegan BBQ and then complain about it being a Vegan BBQ.
Are you forgetting how you asserted that "everything" in ShadowDark is strictly about how to "execute an adventure" in a dungeon? Only to be informed that it has rules for generating overland hex maps and more tables dedicated to wilderness and city adventuring than it does for dungeoneering? No admitting to your having been wrong in that regard? Because I don't play that game many like to play online where we see them going from one thing to the next because the one thing before the next "didn't work" and their rinsing and repeating this process without ever admitting to being wrong at any point. You're welcome to play that game. But if you lack even the modicum of humility it should take you to admit you overstated ShadowDark's emphasis on dungeoneering because you have't even read it don't expect me to play along.
What "modern gamers" want is not at all to my point. My point is a game needn't spell out things in the rules in order for its rules to be capable of accommodating those things. And that the actual historical development of the game and what people were able to do with even OD&D is evidence enough for this. Only not good enough evidence for some apparently.
You say The OSR preaches simplicity, rulings over rules, game challenge ... and it does. You call yourself an OSR enthusiast ... but then insist that a game not dedicating pages of rules to this and that is then not at all conducive a set of rules for doing anything but what is made explicit.
The attitude you have expressed in that regard is the antithesis of OSR philosophy. It goes against the very idea that a player might attempt something and the DM might arbitrate. Because if it's not at all in the rules what is that player doing?!??!
What OSR game(s) do you play out of curiosity?
EDIT: One of the main points made by Matt Finch in the primer that for many has become the bible as far as the OSR is concerned is about how it is better not to have explicit rules for things to foster at tables an approach where player skill is prioritized over character abilities. How instead of having a skill system that encourages players to look at their character sheets and then say Can I roll [ ]? the absence of one encourages players to get creative and think of what their characters might attempt and describe it and then have the DM arbitrate. The DM might even say Okay roll this or that. But the absence of rules specific to what players wish to do does not mean and has never meant their characters can't do such things. It does mean and has never meant the game isn't "made" for that.
I am not so sure you even grasp what it is the OSR is all about. You are one minute saying short of having specific rules dedicated to this or that a game is just not really for this or that and the next minute saying you are in favor of the OSR approach when this is about fewer rules and really any rules being for the DM and serving really no purpose but to perhaps inform a DM's decisions. You are contradicting yourself.
It's good to be back, Link! I missed the forums and ya'll in general. :)
I'm responding rather late but I do agree that D&D frontloads most of the complexity by overwhelming new players with a gimongous amount choices come at level 1. Outside of that, you also get your subclass very early game and some classes like the 5e Sorcerer and the 5e Warlock even pick that at level 1 as well. It's hard not to frontload complexity in D&D because players have to pick defining characteristics like their class, species and backstory before they can begin to play. However, at the same time, a better system would absolutely have less choices at the lower levels and more at the later ones. Finally, I really hope there aren't any classes in 1D&D that make players pick subclasses at level 1.
You bring up a lot of interesting points on spell lists and I've never even thought of the idea of reimagining the game so there aren't any. It seems interesting but I think we both agree that spell lists do a good job of preserving the flavor of classes and stopping Wizards from having boatloads of healing spells and fire spells. That would not only be overpowered, but also ruin the viability and uniqueness of the Cleric.
I dunno about "creating a unique spellcasting system for each class", but I do like the idea of more spellcasting systems. However, so many PHB classes have some access to magic and creating and a understanding new system for each one would be a confusing nuisance for the devs and the players.
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HERE.I know this comment has been buried by multiple pages of discussion by now but I can't let go how inaccurate it is.
I tallied up all the PHB (2014) + SCAG + Elemental Evil spells a couple of years back and these were the totals for each class's spell lists:
Not only are the 4 arcane casters not interchangeable (warlock and bard spell lists are very distinct), you can fit the warlock's entire spell list in the gap between wizard and everyone else.
If anything, it's the sorcerer that has very few signature spells; they mostly work with a pared down version of the wizard spell list plus a handful of extras like Chaos Bolt and the new Sorcerous Burst.
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I'm surprised clerics are so far behind druids. I would've guessed the other way around. I suppose they've got heavy cleric overlap, plus all the naturey spells.
Sorcerer is the one place the initial complaint really has legs, but that's more an argument for rebuilding sorcerers than eliminating them.
Edit: I went and did a quick look-over at the 2024 spell lists, and it's not great for the sorcerers. I think their list is entirely subsumed by the wizard list after level 3, and they have all of ~4 spells wizards don't.
I guess whether it's an issue or not is subjective, but I think the sorcerer at least lives up to the "wizard on steroids" design goal better in 2024 with Innate Sorcery, and having a signature cantrip is a pretty good distinguishing factor flavor-wise. After all, Eldritch Blast is the first thing a lot of people think of when you say Warlock. I'm a fan of the improved Draconic and Wild Magic subclasses too.
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D&D is a game where the players take on the role of a character that is not them. This cannot be done if success and failure on many activities hinge upon the player's skills. Social skills are the archetypal illustration of why this doesn't work. If the GM determines the result on how persuasive the player is, then players who aren't good at being persuasive cannot play a character who is. The player who is not clever cannot play a character who is.
You seem to think that's just fine, or even to be encouraged.
It's not. It's objectively a failure of the design.
Now, you can have a perfectly enjoyable experience playing a game with these flaws, because it's possible for the GM to fix it on the fly. But the system is offloading its flaws onto the GM, and not every GM is going to handle it well.
Yeah. I don't consider myself obligated to answer every single point you try to make. I don't expect it of you, either.
That one wasn't worth my time.
Yeah, it's a bit better, it's still a poor design, but at least they have something more than metamagic.
In the rebuild of all the classes that I'm never going to do, the Sorcerer has the most flexibility, able to pull the right spell for the job out on the fly, but the least raw power. (Warlock has most power, least flexibility, with wizard living in between, while bard leans harder into the dilettante thing.)
I didn't forget, I just don't see how it's salient. Eldritch Knights and Arcane Tricksters don't have dedicated spell lists, and the Four Elements Monk (which was widely considered bad) not only had an incredibly tiny "spell list", it missed out on a ton of spells that came out in the Elemental Evil Player's Companion that would've been perfectly thematic for it.
Except for the people that weren't able to fulfill the idea they had for their character.
Also, making newbies go through convoluted multiclassing rules to do something as basic as making a magic swordsman, something you can do in just about any video game RPG from the past 50 years is insane. You bring up analysis paralysis as if the multiclassing rules don't do just that by forcing you to consider all the permutations of level ups for your fighter/wizard.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
They should've just played Elf, like we did back in the Good Old Days.
Let's be very, very clear. What this user means to say is "would actually improve the enjoyment for me." As should not be surprising from five decades of people getting excited about new character options, people tend to like having more options so they can create a character that fits the vibe they are going for.
What actually improves enjoyment for all involved? Wizards providing options and players doing what they have been for the past fifty years--choosing which options to use. If you are an experienced DM and play in a group of experienced players who enjoy options and can move fast on their turn? Perhaps you allow a great number of options. If you are an inexperienced DM or a DM that gets overwhelmed easily (as this user has regularly said they are on other threads) and/or if you have players who are slow? Perhaps you limit the options.
Wizards providing lots of options helps both groups as the group can decide what option to use. Wizards providing few options, on the other hand, helps the second group but leaves the first group dangling in the wind. This is particularly true as saying "no" (the option for the group who wants fewer options) is a heck of a lot easier than forcing the group who wants more options to homebrew and deal with the hassle of balancing self-created content.
As should be obvious, the right choice for Wizards to provide the solution that can work for both groups. Does it make it slightly more difficult for one of those options than being spoon-fed a simplistic game? Sure - but they are the least cost avoider and thus are the ones who should bear the burden of utilizing a monosyllabic word. Frankly, saying "I don't want options, therefore, rather than use the word 'no' I want Wizards to deny everyone options" is a fairly selfish and silly position to take.
Agreed! Having just skimmed this thread I’ll add a few comments from the peanut gallery. The OP clearly wants a simpler game more focused on melee than on magic. Such a game actually exists - original basic and danced pamphlets and/or 1e/AD&D. Very limited classes, (ranger and Paladin were subclasses of fighter, Druid was a cleric subclass, etc) many fewer spells, many more discrete weapons and armors, adjustments to weapon hits/damage based on foes armor etc. of course a lot of that was to be expected given what I understand was the origin of the game - historical war gamers trying to add magic to their war gaming. Why do we have such a different game today? Because those of us that played back then wanted more classes, more magic, less complex combat rules etc. the game has evolved to meet the needs and desires of the majority of its players. I fully expect it to continue to evolve in the next 50 years just as it has in the last 50. Those portions of the game that most folks don’t use will fade away (whether I like it or not) and new features ( classes, subclasses, features, species etc) will appear. There are now 5+ versions of official “D&D” and some number of unofficial variants (pathfinder etc) to choose from to play. After playing and DMing for 40+ years I run an a very open ended campaign with pretty much everything “official” allowed but I’m not “fully satisfied” but then I don’t expect to be - I can accept and have fun with “good enough” and then homebrew anything I either can’t stand or have to have in or out of it.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
Simpler isn't always better (this version of simplicity would sacrifice a ton of depth), debatable at best (fewer options at chargen speeding up moment-to-moment gameplay, is a considerable leap), and hard no, removing these options from the game would negatively impact lots of people's enjoyment, myself included. If you think there are too many classes in the game, ban some at your table, that's what houserules are for.