After reading your post, I am thinking maybe introducing my friends (the people I mainly play with) to D&D 3.5e. My cousin wants to play, I am interested and hell, my friend has a parent who is one of my favorite people to have as a dm. I will see with my friends if they are interested.
you think the journey from the shire to the mordor took more then a year ? calculate it the way you want man, but the story of frodo baggins took about a month at best. so you are telling me that the whole trilogy was them going from level 1 to 3 ?
*** a bunch of blah blah drivel ***
as for your CR argument about a year going by... they didn't even level up during that year. not a single level. so that argument falls short !
What was the differences in Frodo's abilities from the time he was in the Shire to the time he left Mordor? He learned to use a sword, kinda. He could get about, fairly stealthily, but really needed the ring or the cloak to avoid detection. So from Sep 22 (When Frodo left the Shire) to Mar 25 (Ring was destroyed) Frodo gained a level in Rogue, at best 1/1 Fighter/Rogue. That's it, though if one wanted to argue another level of either, it would be fine. During the same time, none of the other heroes, save Aragon, show any significant increase in their competency, proficiency, or skills.
Years or weeks for leveling up, doesn't really matter, one can argue that the amount of experience one gains in their first battle in the military is more than what one learns from the rest of their battles. Both The Big Red One and Band of Brothers illustrate this quite nicely.
One could say frodo learned a lot from about everybody. But in my view... Frodo was really just an npc.
In real life experience is what we learn and basically everything that happens to us. So the same applies to d&d meaning that, like you said... Anything can be calculated as experience !
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DM of two gaming groups. Likes to create stuff. Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games --> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
The existence of magical healing can certainly play havoc with the idea of downtime. Probably the least fiddly way for the DM to insert more downtime is through the use of the exhaustion mechanic.
Magical healing does not cure exhaustion, and it takes as long to recover from exhaustion as the DM says it does. The handbook indicates that one long rest would cure one level of exhaustion, but it would not be a huge stretch for the DM to simply change that to one week per level or, even one week for the first level of exhaustion, and a month for the next level, or whatever makes sense to you.
Another option is to give players the ability to use downtime to increase their skills. They may spend time learning new languages, or gaming proficiencies. That would take as long as the DM determines.
Homebrew monsters that cause exhaustion when they do a thematic attack helped at my table.
As mentioned earlier. looking into ways to convert Call of Cthulhu's Insanity system. Meaning adventurers experience harrowing things on their journey's. They need some occasional down time to get some form of R&R/Therapy
Back to the original comment, yes it did take awhile in 1E, but people would commit entire weekends to playing. The primary customer base won't do that as they want the game to move much faster. I had a group of characters I played all at the same time, most of the time. A fighter, magic user, illusionist, 2 clerics, thief, monk and bard. We played nearly every module TSR published, along with those from Judge's Guild and Avalon Hill. We also played a few home made campaigns and weekend drop in games at the local hobby store. Many times, we would get through one module a day (depending on the number of wandering monsters. (Our regular DM put in a LOT, almost always a higher level than we were, but we were in combat 10 times a day). Levels 1-10 weren't quite that bad, the upper levels take awhile. (This also depended upon the DM and if they wanted to take the time to calculate the x.p. according to the DM Guide. i.e. most dragons should have given you between 6 and 8000 exp after a battle. Additionally, if the D.M. allowed it and you had the gold pieces to pay for it, you could study under a higher level NPC for a DM determined amount of time, then gain a level of experience. Something I did after defeating the Giants modules). It took 6 years of nealry non stop playing mostly for entire weekends, but I maxed out all the characters, according to the exp chart, but not necessarily the spell chart. All but the Bard and Thief had enough exp points to make 20th level, the Magic User made 24th level. Converting them to 5e they gained a lot of hit points, but lost spells. Gained feats and abilities, but lost, without doing a lot of work, dozens upon dozens of scrolls, followers, possessions, etc. (The monk had a castle, monastery, an army, a few thousand acres, other employees who made weapons, a few mines; the magic users and clerics had high level followers who created magic items, etc.) I have begun converting it in to Wildemount, but it is taking quite awhile.
Back to the original comment, yes it did take awhile in 1E, but people would commit entire weekends to playing. The primary customer base won't do that as they want the game to move much faster. I had a group of characters I played all at the same time, most of the time. A fighter, magic user, illusionist, 2 clerics, thief, monk and bard. We played nearly every module TSR published, along with those from Judge's Guild and Avalon Hill. We also played a few home made campaigns and weekend drop in games at the local hobby store. Many times, we would get through one module a day (depending on the number of wandering monsters. (Our regular DM put in a LOT, almost always a higher level than we were, but we were in combat 10 times a day). Levels 1-10 weren't quite that bad, the upper levels take awhile. (This also depended upon the DM and if they wanted to take the time to calculate the x.p. according to the DM Guide. i.e. most dragons should have given you between 6 and 8000 exp after a battle. Additionally, if the D.M. allowed it and you had the gold pieces to pay for it, you could study under a higher level NPC for a DM determined amount of time, then gain a level of experience. Something I did after defeating the Giants modules). It took 6 years of nealry non stop playing mostly for entire weekends, but I maxed out all the characters, according to the exp chart, but not necessarily the spell chart. All but the Bard and Thief had enough exp points to make 20th level, the Magic User made 24th level. Converting them to 5e they gained a lot of hit points, but lost spells. Gained feats and abilities, but lost, without doing a lot of work, dozens upon dozens of scrolls, followers, possessions, etc. (The monk had a castle, monastery, an army, a few thousand acres, other employees who made weapons, a few mines; the magic users and clerics had high level followers who created magic items, etc.) I have begun converting it in to Wildemount, but it is taking quite awhile.
I remember those days very fondly. With the advent of PC gaming and the "I want it NOW!" attitudes, trying to run old school games can be really, really hard. Especially finding people who understand and appreciate all those extra things they could be doing to develop their characters story. It takes thoughtful players with a long term view vs. murder hobos with no patience.
Take for instance a recent game I was DM'ing for. I dropped hints several times that the players could invest their loot into merchant enterprises and make more gold. More gold means more things they can buy/build/influence, etc. Those activities ALSO grant XP. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have the slightest interest in doing any of that. No development, no back story expansion, notta. They just seemed to be satisfied doing RP stuff now and then and the occasional adventure. How utterly boring...
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Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com "The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
Back to the original comment, yes it did take awhile in 1E, but people would commit entire weekends to playing. The primary customer base won't do that as they want the game to move much faster. I had a group of characters I played all at the same time, most of the time. A fighter, magic user, illusionist, 2 clerics, thief, monk and bard. We played nearly every module TSR published, along with those from Judge's Guild and Avalon Hill. We also played a few home made campaigns and weekend drop in games at the local hobby store. Many times, we would get through one module a day (depending on the number of wandering monsters. (Our regular DM put in a LOT, almost always a higher level than we were, but we were in combat 10 times a day). Levels 1-10 weren't quite that bad, the upper levels take awhile. (This also depended upon the DM and if they wanted to take the time to calculate the x.p. according to the DM Guide. i.e. most dragons should have given you between 6 and 8000 exp after a battle. Additionally, if the D.M. allowed it and you had the gold pieces to pay for it, you could study under a higher level NPC for a DM determined amount of time, then gain a level of experience. Something I did after defeating the Giants modules). It took 6 years of nealry non stop playing mostly for entire weekends, but I maxed out all the characters, according to the exp chart, but not necessarily the spell chart. All but the Bard and Thief had enough exp points to make 20th level, the Magic User made 24th level. Converting them to 5e they gained a lot of hit points, but lost spells. Gained feats and abilities, but lost, without doing a lot of work, dozens upon dozens of scrolls, followers, possessions, etc. (The monk had a castle, monastery, an army, a few thousand acres, other employees who made weapons, a few mines; the magic users and clerics had high level followers who created magic items, etc.) I have begun converting it in to Wildemount, but it is taking quite awhile.
I remember those days very fondly. With the advent of PC gaming and the "I want it NOW!" attitudes, trying to run old school games can be really, really hard. Especially finding people who understand and appreciate all those extra things they could be doing to develop their characters story. It takes thoughtful players with a long term view vs. murder hobos with no patience.
Take for instance a recent game I was DM'ing for. I dropped hints several times that the players could invest their loot into merchant enterprises and make more gold. More gold means more things they can buy/build/influence, etc. Those activities ALSO grant XP. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have the slightest interest in doing any of that. No development, no back story expansion, notta. They just seemed to be satisfied doing RP stuff now and then and the occasional adventure. How utterly boring...
I will have to disagree with you here.
You offered something that is vastly different from a typical D&D experience - no wonder they didn't bite. They were not interested in playing a trading-sim.
This is precisely what turned me away from recent Assassins Creed games. It stopped being about you being an assassin and started being some kind of mansion/ship builder sim.
If you send my paladin on a quest to recover a holy artifact from the lair of a dragon, I will join immediately. If you create a villain whom I will need to chase through the realms in order to bring him to justice, I will do so as well. If you force me to sit through diplomatic meetings between my order and a foreign country leadership in order to establish an outpost and then have me recruit new cadets, find funding for horses, food ect. - sorry, I'm out.
It may be boring for you but just because someone is not interested in turning their characters into EVE Online spreadsheet lovers, doesn't mean there is no "development". It's textbook session 0 material.
Again - I'm not saying that this isn't or couldn't be fun. I just think it's unfair to hold it against your players in this instance.
You offered something that is vastly different from a typical D&D experience - no wonder they didn't bite. They were not interested in playing a trading-sim.
This is precisely what turned me away from recent Assassins Creed games. It stopped being about you being an assassin and started being some kind of mansion/ship builder sim.
If you send my paladin on a quest to recover a holy artifact from the lair of a dragon, I will join immediately. If you create a villain whom I will need to chase through the realms in order to bring him to justice, I will do so as well. If you force me to sit through diplomatic meetings between my order and a foreign country leadership in order to establish an outpost and then have me recruit new cadets, find funding for horses, food ect. - sorry, I'm out.
It may be boring for you but just because someone is not interested in turning their characters into EVE Online spreadsheet lovers, doesn't mean there is no "development". It's textbook session 0 material.
Again - I'm not saying that this isn't or couldn't be fun. I just think it's unfair to hold it against your players in this instance.
You seem to have quite the opinion on what is fun in DnD. Interesting...
All I said was that I was encouraging them to grow their characters. The merchant thing was just one little possibility. They were not forced to do anything, nor was their disinterest impactfull to anything in the game. Just a missed opportunity. Not sure where you got that I was somehow holding it against the players. Assume much?
I am old school, meaning I love to run very long campaigns. Campaigns where the characters get to grow in depth (oh my gosh, what does that mean???), gain wealth, power, and influence, but also become targets in political games (oh that's not in the rules, so we can't be having any of that now!). And YES, all the while running adventures!
Agree to disagree and be done with it.
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Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com "The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
You offered something that is vastly different from a typical D&D experience - no wonder they didn't bite. They were not interested in playing a trading-sim.
This is precisely what turned me away from recent Assassins Creed games. It stopped being about you being an assassin and started being some kind of mansion/ship builder sim.
If you send my paladin on a quest to recover a holy artifact from the lair of a dragon, I will join immediately. If you create a villain whom I will need to chase through the realms in order to bring him to justice, I will do so as well. If you force me to sit through diplomatic meetings between my order and a foreign country leadership in order to establish an outpost and then have me recruit new cadets, find funding for horses, food ect. - sorry, I'm out.
It may be boring for you but just because someone is not interested in turning their characters into EVE Online spreadsheet lovers, doesn't mean there is no "development". It's textbook session 0 material.
Again - I'm not saying that this isn't or couldn't be fun. I just think it's unfair to hold it against your players in this instance.
You seem to have quite the opinion on what is fun in DnD. Interesting...
All I said was that I was encouraging them to grow their characters. The merchant thing was just one little possibility. They were not forced to do anything, nor was their disinterest impactfull to anything in the game. Just a missed opportunity. Not sure where you got that I was somehow holding it against the players. Assume much?
I am old school, meaning I love to run very long campaigns. Campaigns where the characters get to grow in depth (oh my gosh, what does that mean???), gain wealth, power, and influence, but also become targets in political games (oh that's not in the rules, so we can't be having any of that now!). And YES, all the while running adventures!
Agree to disagree and be done with it.
I have an opinion on what is fun in DnD for me - and I was presenting it as an example. I'm sure you can discern that from my post. Especially when I said that "I'm not saying that this couldn't be fun".
You were the one who said, and I quote, "no development, no backstory expansion, notta. (...) How utterly boring"
When I said "holding it against your players" I meant that clearly your language suggested that you were unhappy with their decision.
You offered something that is vastly different from a typical D&D experience - no wonder they didn't bite. They were not interested in playing a trading-sim.
This is precisely what turned me away from recent Assassins Creed games. It stopped being about you being an assassin and started being some kind of mansion/ship builder sim.
If you send my paladin on a quest to recover a holy artifact from the lair of a dragon, I will join immediately. If you create a villain whom I will need to chase through the realms in order to bring him to justice, I will do so as well. If you force me to sit through diplomatic meetings between my order and a foreign country leadership in order to establish an outpost and then have me recruit new cadets, find funding for horses, food ect. - sorry, I'm out.
It may be boring for you but just because someone is not interested in turning their characters into EVE Online spreadsheet lovers, doesn't mean there is no "development". It's textbook session 0 material.
Again - I'm not saying that this isn't or couldn't be fun. I just think it's unfair to hold it against your players in this instance.
You seem to have quite the opinion on what is fun in DnD. Interesting...
All I said was that I was encouraging them to grow their characters. The merchant thing was just one little possibility. They were not forced to do anything, nor was their disinterest impactfull to anything in the game. Just a missed opportunity. Not sure where you got that I was somehow holding it against the players. Assume much?
I am old school, meaning I love to run very long campaigns. Campaigns where the characters get to grow in depth (oh my gosh, what does that mean???), gain wealth, power, and influence, but also become targets in political games (oh that's not in the rules, so we can't be having any of that now!). And YES, all the while running adventures!
Agree to disagree and be done with it.
I have an opinion on what is fun in DnD for me - and I was presenting it as an example. I'm sure you can discern that from my post. Especially when I said that "I'm not saying that this couldn't be fun".
You were the one who said, and I quote, "no development, no backstory expansion, notta. (...) How utterly boring"
When I said "holding it against your players" I meant that clearly your language suggested that you were unhappy with their decision.
The game is SOOOO much more then just simple hack and slash or pre-generated content by WotC. The potential richness of ideas and possibilities the players have available to them far exceeds how most seem to be playing the game today. So yes, how utterly boring games become when players let all that go to waste. End...
Let's leave it at that, shall we?
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Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com "The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
I think I would enjoy a game with more RP and less combat as Shadeflayer describes. But I know different tables enjoy different things and there's plenty of room in the hobby for all of us. I would like to use RP to cut down of the difficulty of specific combat encounters and thereby reduce the possibility of my character being killed.
For the old corps folks like myself, D&D was extremely lethal back in the late 1970s. DMs were often under 18 years old and didn't know how to make a story that would permit you to "weave your way" through the enemies cutting them up piecemeal. In fact, they didn't want to consider letting you do that because they wanted to put you right up to the edge of death's door almost every time. There were many DMs that played it as you against them. I had to explain to my brother that as DM if he wanted to kill me, just throw in two more trolls. But I asked him why he thought I would think that was fun.
I think my belief that D&D would be more fun with more RP and less combat comes from those days when there was no disengage action and my level 1 fighter trying to withdraw because he was down to 2 HP allowed one free attack on my fighter.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I think I would enjoy a game with more RP and less combat as Shadeflayer describes. But I know different tables enjoy different things and there's plenty of room in the hobby for all of us. I would like to use RP to cut down of the difficulty of specific combat encounters and thereby reduce the possibility of my character being killed.
I have no problem with a heavy RP game either. It's fun. It's why I like writing long backstories. I like my characters alive in the world.
That doesn't mean that I like playing a merchant simulator. Also, incidentally - not liking merchant simulator doesn't mean I only like H&S despite the efforts to portray my stance as such.
I like my characters alive and living in the world but having merchant subsidiaries and investments is not the only way to do that - in fact, for me it's the boring way to do that. Incidentally, it seemed to be boring for Shadeflayer's players as well since they opted not to do that. I'd prefer my character making meaningful connections with NPC's, finding new friends and allies any day of the week instead of calculating how much I invested in this or that enterprise and how much return it's gonna get me.
My stance, put as well as I am able to is this: D&D offers a vast number of activities to do but not all of them are going to be interesting to the players. A player can be a bard and spend vast majority of his time trying to compose a ballad for an NPC he met who initially rejected his advances. Or he can fund and run a Bard's College and try to keep it afloat. Both of those ways are meaningful ways to flesh out a character and give him more depth but not everyone will find them equally interesting.
I am also interested in making contacts in whatever manner seems appropriate at the moment. Right now, I am pursuing three different approaches all in the same campaign.
First, I am seeking an audience with the settlement's officials when we arrive because almost every time we have just killed a bandit threat of some manner of monstrous beasts on the "highway" to this place. I wish to, in the best possible way, inform the leaders that my party has eliminated a threat to their settlement and are returning whatever remains and possessions there are to the families.
Second, I am making business contacts with my small caravan business, which I hope to grow into an Import-Export company. In addition to making the contacts, which I hope to develop regular correspondence with as the story develops, I get to hear rumors of what is going on in these other settlements. I spend most of the profits obtaining spices which I share liberally with the commoners to expand my influence and number of contacts as well as the number of friends I might call upon sometime later.
Third, I am making contacts of the tavern owners as a Bard and playing frequently in settlements wherever I travel. On the surface it looks like I'm playing for the coin, or a free room too, but it is also for the opportunity to meet people, and particularly other bards or adventurers who might be induced to share more information with me.
Any of these is only as profitable as the DM will facilitate. But if my information network allows me to learn that we better be prepared for _______ if we travel over there, then I will consider it worthwhile.
I recognize that other players and character types might wish to make contacts or not. Those who wish to make contacts might attempt to do so another way. Our smithing dwarf paladin made six fine weapons, two of them enchanted, and gave them away to six first level NPC paladins at a temple in a neighboring city. I'd say he just obtained six-plus contacts in that city. If that had been me, I would have sold them to the paladins. I would have found higher level paladins to sell them to. And to secure their favor, I may have sold them at a discounted price. But he chose to give them away, and to first level paladins (we are now 4th level adventurers). It's his deal so he can run it whatever way he wishes. Heck, he fashioned in forge a +1 Rapier and gave that to me. Cool!
I did not wish to cast a shadow over anyone posting in this thread. There is certainly nothing to be gained from that. But on the whole I do get a sense that many players are depriving themselves of a better RPG experience by not RP-ing more which will also develop their characters. My only aim is to encourage folks that haven't tried it, and the DMs that must facilitate it, to give it a try. Enjoy - Good luck - and stay healthy.
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
All I said was that I was encouraging them to grow their characters. The merchant thing was just one little possibility. They were not forced to do anything, nor was their disinterest impactfull to anything in the game. Just a missed opportunity. Not sure where you got that I was somehow holding it against the players. Assume much?
Calling your players boring is most certainly a criticism. Yes, they were disinterested in one type of activity you offered them. The lesson to take from that is "okay, this sort of activity doesn't interest my players so I probably shouldn't spend a lot of effort developing it". If nothing you find interesting grabs the interest of the players, that might indicate irreconcilable differences and time to find new players or for them to find a new DM.
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My current Dungeon of the Mad Mage has had about 1.5 years pass by in the game, and they're about level 16.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
After reading your post, I am thinking maybe introducing my friends (the people I mainly play with) to D&D 3.5e. My cousin wants to play, I am interested and hell, my friend has a parent who is one of my favorite people to have as a dm. I will see with my friends if they are interested.
Thanks for getting my mind to think about it.
One could say frodo learned a lot from about everybody. But in my view... Frodo was really just an npc.
In real life experience is what we learn and basically everything that happens to us. So the same applies to d&d meaning that, like you said... Anything can be calculated as experience !
DM of two gaming groups.
Likes to create stuff.
Check out my homebrew --> Monsters --> Magical Items --> Races --> Subclasses
If you like --> Upvote, If you wanna comment --> Comment
Play by Post Games
--> One Shot Adventure - House of Artwood (DM) (Completed)
The existence of magical healing can certainly play havoc with the idea of downtime. Probably the least fiddly way for the DM to insert more downtime is through the use of the exhaustion mechanic.
Magical healing does not cure exhaustion, and it takes as long to recover from exhaustion as the DM says it does. The handbook indicates that one long rest would cure one level of exhaustion, but it would not be a huge stretch for the DM to simply change that to one week per level or, even one week for the first level of exhaustion, and a month for the next level, or whatever makes sense to you.
Another option is to give players the ability to use downtime to increase their skills. They may spend time learning new languages, or gaming proficiencies. That would take as long as the DM determines.
Homebrew monsters that cause exhaustion when they do a thematic attack helped at my table.
As mentioned earlier. looking into ways to convert Call of Cthulhu's Insanity system. Meaning adventurers experience harrowing things on their journey's. They need some occasional down time to get some form of R&R/Therapy
Back to the original comment, yes it did take awhile in 1E, but people would commit entire weekends to playing. The primary customer base won't do that as they want the game to move much faster. I had a group of characters I played all at the same time, most of the time. A fighter, magic user, illusionist, 2 clerics, thief, monk and bard. We played nearly every module TSR published, along with those from Judge's Guild and Avalon Hill. We also played a few home made campaigns and weekend drop in games at the local hobby store. Many times, we would get through one module a day (depending on the number of wandering monsters. (Our regular DM put in a LOT, almost always a higher level than we were, but we were in combat 10 times a day). Levels 1-10 weren't quite that bad, the upper levels take awhile. (This also depended upon the DM and if they wanted to take the time to calculate the x.p. according to the DM Guide. i.e. most dragons should have given you between 6 and 8000 exp after a battle. Additionally, if the D.M. allowed it and you had the gold pieces to pay for it, you could study under a higher level NPC for a DM determined amount of time, then gain a level of experience. Something I did after defeating the Giants modules). It took 6 years of nealry non stop playing mostly for entire weekends, but I maxed out all the characters, according to the exp chart, but not necessarily the spell chart. All but the Bard and Thief had enough exp points to make 20th level, the Magic User made 24th level. Converting them to 5e they gained a lot of hit points, but lost spells. Gained feats and abilities, but lost, without doing a lot of work, dozens upon dozens of scrolls, followers, possessions, etc. (The monk had a castle, monastery, an army, a few thousand acres, other employees who made weapons, a few mines; the magic users and clerics had high level followers who created magic items, etc.) I have begun converting it in to Wildemount, but it is taking quite awhile.
I remember those days very fondly. With the advent of PC gaming and the "I want it NOW!" attitudes, trying to run old school games can be really, really hard. Especially finding people who understand and appreciate all those extra things they could be doing to develop their characters story. It takes thoughtful players with a long term view vs. murder hobos with no patience.
Take for instance a recent game I was DM'ing for. I dropped hints several times that the players could invest their loot into merchant enterprises and make more gold. More gold means more things they can buy/build/influence, etc. Those activities ALSO grant XP. Unfortunately, no one seemed to have the slightest interest in doing any of that. No development, no back story expansion, notta. They just seemed to be satisfied doing RP stuff now and then and the occasional adventure. How utterly boring...
Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
I will have to disagree with you here.
You offered something that is vastly different from a typical D&D experience - no wonder they didn't bite. They were not interested in playing a trading-sim.
This is precisely what turned me away from recent Assassins Creed games. It stopped being about you being an assassin and started being some kind of mansion/ship builder sim.
If you send my paladin on a quest to recover a holy artifact from the lair of a dragon, I will join immediately. If you create a villain whom I will need to chase through the realms in order to bring him to justice, I will do so as well. If you force me to sit through diplomatic meetings between my order and a foreign country leadership in order to establish an outpost and then have me recruit new cadets, find funding for horses, food ect. - sorry, I'm out.
It may be boring for you but just because someone is not interested in turning their characters into EVE Online spreadsheet lovers, doesn't mean there is no "development". It's textbook session 0 material.
Again - I'm not saying that this isn't or couldn't be fun. I just think it's unfair to hold it against your players in this instance.
You seem to have quite the opinion on what is fun in DnD. Interesting...
All I said was that I was encouraging them to grow their characters. The merchant thing was just one little possibility. They were not forced to do anything, nor was their disinterest impactfull to anything in the game. Just a missed opportunity. Not sure where you got that I was somehow holding it against the players. Assume much?
I am old school, meaning I love to run very long campaigns. Campaigns where the characters get to grow in depth (oh my gosh, what does that mean???), gain wealth, power, and influence, but also become targets in political games (oh that's not in the rules, so we can't be having any of that now!). And YES, all the while running adventures!
Agree to disagree and be done with it.
Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
I have an opinion on what is fun in DnD for me - and I was presenting it as an example. I'm sure you can discern that from my post. Especially when I said that "I'm not saying that this couldn't be fun".
You were the one who said, and I quote, "no development, no backstory expansion, notta. (...) How utterly boring"
When I said "holding it against your players" I meant that clearly your language suggested that you were unhappy with their decision.
The game is SOOOO much more then just simple hack and slash or pre-generated content by WotC. The potential richness of ideas and possibilities the players have available to them far exceeds how most seem to be playing the game today. So yes, how utterly boring games become when players let all that go to waste. End...
Let's leave it at that, shall we?
Husband, Father, Veteran, Gamer, DM, Player, and Friend | Author of the "World of Eirador" | http://world-guild.com
"The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules." ~Gary Gygax
I think I would enjoy a game with more RP and less combat as Shadeflayer describes. But I know different tables enjoy different things and there's plenty of room in the hobby for all of us. I would like to use RP to cut down of the difficulty of specific combat encounters and thereby reduce the possibility of my character being killed.
For the old corps folks like myself, D&D was extremely lethal back in the late 1970s. DMs were often under 18 years old and didn't know how to make a story that would permit you to "weave your way" through the enemies cutting them up piecemeal. In fact, they didn't want to consider letting you do that because they wanted to put you right up to the edge of death's door almost every time. There were many DMs that played it as you against them. I had to explain to my brother that as DM if he wanted to kill me, just throw in two more trolls. But I asked him why he thought I would think that was fun.
I think my belief that D&D would be more fun with more RP and less combat comes from those days when there was no disengage action and my level 1 fighter trying to withdraw because he was down to 2 HP allowed one free attack on my fighter.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
I have no problem with a heavy RP game either. It's fun. It's why I like writing long backstories. I like my characters alive in the world.
That doesn't mean that I like playing a merchant simulator. Also, incidentally - not liking merchant simulator doesn't mean I only like H&S despite the efforts to portray my stance as such.
I like my characters alive and living in the world but having merchant subsidiaries and investments is not the only way to do that - in fact, for me it's the boring way to do that. Incidentally, it seemed to be boring for Shadeflayer's players as well since they opted not to do that. I'd prefer my character making meaningful connections with NPC's, finding new friends and allies any day of the week instead of calculating how much I invested in this or that enterprise and how much return it's gonna get me.
My stance, put as well as I am able to is this: D&D offers a vast number of activities to do but not all of them are going to be interesting to the players. A player can be a bard and spend vast majority of his time trying to compose a ballad for an NPC he met who initially rejected his advances. Or he can fund and run a Bard's College and try to keep it afloat. Both of those ways are meaningful ways to flesh out a character and give him more depth but not everyone will find them equally interesting.
I am also interested in making contacts in whatever manner seems appropriate at the moment. Right now, I am pursuing three different approaches all in the same campaign.
First, I am seeking an audience with the settlement's officials when we arrive because almost every time we have just killed a bandit threat of some manner of monstrous beasts on the "highway" to this place. I wish to, in the best possible way, inform the leaders that my party has eliminated a threat to their settlement and are returning whatever remains and possessions there are to the families.
Second, I am making business contacts with my small caravan business, which I hope to grow into an Import-Export company. In addition to making the contacts, which I hope to develop regular correspondence with as the story develops, I get to hear rumors of what is going on in these other settlements. I spend most of the profits obtaining spices which I share liberally with the commoners to expand my influence and number of contacts as well as the number of friends I might call upon sometime later.
Third, I am making contacts of the tavern owners as a Bard and playing frequently in settlements wherever I travel. On the surface it looks like I'm playing for the coin, or a free room too, but it is also for the opportunity to meet people, and particularly other bards or adventurers who might be induced to share more information with me.
Any of these is only as profitable as the DM will facilitate. But if my information network allows me to learn that we better be prepared for _______ if we travel over there, then I will consider it worthwhile.
I recognize that other players and character types might wish to make contacts or not. Those who wish to make contacts might attempt to do so another way. Our smithing dwarf paladin made six fine weapons, two of them enchanted, and gave them away to six first level NPC paladins at a temple in a neighboring city. I'd say he just obtained six-plus contacts in that city. If that had been me, I would have sold them to the paladins. I would have found higher level paladins to sell them to. And to secure their favor, I may have sold them at a discounted price. But he chose to give them away, and to first level paladins (we are now 4th level adventurers). It's his deal so he can run it whatever way he wishes. Heck, he fashioned in forge a +1 Rapier and gave that to me. Cool!
I did not wish to cast a shadow over anyone posting in this thread. There is certainly nothing to be gained from that. But on the whole I do get a sense that many players are depriving themselves of a better RPG experience by not RP-ing more which will also develop their characters. My only aim is to encourage folks that haven't tried it, and the DMs that must facilitate it, to give it a try. Enjoy - Good luck - and stay healthy.
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
Calling your players boring is most certainly a criticism. Yes, they were disinterested in one type of activity you offered them. The lesson to take from that is "okay, this sort of activity doesn't interest my players so I probably shouldn't spend a lot of effort developing it". If nothing you find interesting grabs the interest of the players, that might indicate irreconcilable differences and time to find new players or for them to find a new DM.