The long-term campaign and the myth of d20

[ethan_greer]

Raven, I understand your interpretation, but it's not as bad as you think.  Herb got irritated, not immediately upon his system choice being challenged, but during a conversation that spanned several hours about what system we were going to use.  The reason he got irritated was a perception on his part that we didn't trust him and his judgement to run a good game.  He is fully cognizant of our misgivings, and feels that he can make D&D work despite those misgivings.  The players, myself included, have some concern, but we're all very much on board with playing a long-term campaign under Herb.  We're all friends, and I'm doing my best to make damn sure that any and all concerns are aired and addressed in an effort to make the game go as smoothly as possible.

Yes, harsh enough.  :) Thanks.  I want you to know I'm not dismissing what you say out of hand, because obviously elements are in place to make your conclusion somewhat valid. But there's definitely more trust involved in the situation than I may have implied in my first post. My situation is more akin to what Calvin is talking about. To sum up and extend your own metaphor: Yes, there's a warning sign in the room, but no one is currently looking down the barrel of it.

[greyorm]

Ethan,

Got it. That's a little different than the situation as I read it initially. So good luck with the game! Let us know how things are running after a couple of sessions.

[ethan_greer]

Raven, I definitely will.  There will be at least one more meeting prior to play with the whole group, and I also intend to draw the group's attention to this discussion.  If all of that goes well, and I'm assuming/hoping it will, I'm thinking we'll probably give D&D a go and see where it takes us.  If we tank, I'm optimistic that we'll be able to try something else without too much damage to the group.

Thanks to all for your insights and advice; all of it has been extremely helpful!

Hey Jack - what's a TPW?

[Mark Johnson]

Before Ethan closes this thread, I just wanted to throw out a few ideas for replacing the experience system with a reward system.

The first thing is that if you limit leveling up to once every six months, you are going to have major boundry changes everytime a level occurs since D&D3 characters tend to increase in power on an exponential curve.  

One way to do this is to fix the amount of time that passes in the game world in advance.  Whenever you level up, it is assumed that the characters have spent several months studying their craft and that is why they are suddenly better ("after the long cold winter where you each pursued your training with your masters, you return to Starngard, stronger and wiser.")  Perhaps your quest as first level players could simply be to find a master (which you would all do by the time it is to level up).  Every six month period of real time could represent a year in the game world.  After ten years of playing, your characters would have aged from their late teens to later thirties and you could explore all the personal changes that has happened in their lives (wives, children, etc.)

Another way to do this is to plan what class your next level will be in advance, and over the six month period of leveling up, your GM can assign you a hit point here or there, a new added skill rank, a new spell slot opening, etc.  At the end of the six month period, you have slowly accrued all the benefits of the next level and you are ready to start again.  Of course, this does not preclude using the previous suggestion as well, you just don't need the built in "training break," plus it keeps you wondering what your next benefit might be.  However, it requires quite a bit of bookkeeping to keep straight.

A third way is simply not to worry about it.  And that may work fine depending on your play style.

Something that you have to keep in mind about slowing down advancement is the effect that it will have on the game world.  D&D is fairly magic and monetarily rich world, especially in terms of magic items.  If you reward items and treasure based on DMG, but slow advancement down to a snails pace, your characters will end up with a lot more treasure and magic than they would normally have at that level, which may make it harder for the DM to assign proper CRs for when you do have challenges.  This can be affected in several ways.  One is to not do anything at first, and see how it plays out.  Another is to reward fewer treasure and magical items which somewhat changes the default style of play (magic and treasure have suddenly become much rarer in your world which is a massive change in the default notion of D&D, but one that I prefer personally).  Yet another way is to simply avoid the combat encounters which tend to yield these massive hordes, which might be the way to go since your groups style of game play tends to reflect this anyway.

I wouldn't take your groups past endeavors with AD&D 2 as a reflection of play styles in D&D 3.  I ran a campaign from 1998-2002 that converted from AD&D 2 to D&D 3.  Even though the players were the same and the characters were converted fairly well, the style of play changed massively from a character interaction involved campaign to a gamist romp, even though we did not intend for that to happen.  It was not a disatisfying change, but just be aware that D&D 3 will do that to you.  I ended up slowing down the leveling up in this particular campaign becuase it took three years to get these guys to fifth level in AD&D then another year to reach fifteenth once we converted.

As for an alternate reward mechanism, you need to decide how often you want rerolls going on in the game.  If it is once per hour per character, then the GM should at the end of the session award one per every hour played and maybe add one or two to those players who he wishes to reward.  You can also take this authority away from the GM and have the player's vote for who did the best at the end of the session and give that player some extra rerolls (you might even make the GM eligible for that award, ouch!)  Consider other use for these points other than rerolls (such as brief narrative control by the players, etc.)  

For something a little more narrativist in flavor, take a look at adapting The Riddle Of Steel's spiritual attributes.  Each character could have 4-6 destinies, themes and relationships that they can explore, each time that they explore these attributes they gain a free reward point to be used for rerolls.  If you do something like this, I would definitely encourage group character creation with the GM and all the players together so that the characters can exploit the "synergies" between each other and the setting.

Just a few ideas to think about,
Mark

[Andrew Norris]

TPW is a "Total Party Wipeout" (all characters die).

The issue here seems to be that Herb in insistent on running D&D while wanting to Drift it so much that it's not really D&D anymore. My experience with this is that it's much like freeform with some really annoying limitations added. Like a poster on the last page, I've seen situations where the players want their characters to focus on non-combat activities, the GM does as well, and when the dice meet the table it turns out the character's aren't as competent as they want to be, because skill checks are so tightly bound to level.

In my D20 campaign, which is a modern-day conspiracy setting with some magic, I've come to realize that I'm really not using the system much at all. The single out-of-combat use of the mechanics that comes up is skill checks, and if you think about it, any skill that matches the character's area of competence is probably going to be at the same level. It's almost like we're playing a weird variant of HeroQuest with the D&D combat rules bolted on the side.

I want combat to be dramatic, and move quickly, so I leave out most of the optional rules. And outside of combat, I adjudicate based on how well the character concept matches the action being taken, how dramatically the player describes the scene, and the audience (other player's) response.

So I'm not really playing D20. But if I'd pitched this game to my players by saying I was using Fudge or Over the Edge, maybe half of them would have agreed to it. It strikes me as a situation similar (although reversed) from your own, and how I dealt with the situation was just to jump into actual play and hash it out as I went along. Of course, the problem is that it's a lot easier to swallow that when you're the GM, and the one doing the Drifting. The situation you're in is that you're basically going to be playing a rules-light variant of D20 that exists only in your GM's head. I can't blame you for being nervous about that.

I think when the group gets together and discusses this, you should focus on the fact that both the GM and players are interested in aspects of the game other than combat, and so a solid understanding of how those mechanics will be handled by your GM will go a long way towards increasing people's comfort level.

[Mark Johnson]

Andrew,

Great post and great points.  

If Herb really simply wants to do D20-Lite, maybe he should make his D20 homebrew and write down what the rules in his version actually are.  If anything, with the playtesting that he is getting with this group, he might have something publishable that might be commercially viable.  There certainly seems to be a lot of interest in wanting to drift D&D3/D20 into alternate play styles.

Later,
Mark

[ethan_greer]

Yeah, Andrew, I get the feeling that that's likely how things are going to play out. But I definitely agree with you and Mark that getting some guidelines down on paper (business types might call it "management of expectations") is a good idea.

I think now's a good time going to point "Herb" and the rest of the group to this discussion. Dunno if any of them will participate, but there's a lot of great stuff here that I think will be helpful to our group.

At the risk of gushing, thanks again to all who've provided suggestions.

[JDJarvis]

(long time lurker first time poster)

I've been DMing a 3e D&D campaign almost weekly since 3e PHB and DMG were available, that is technically a long running campaign.  

I noted the experience point issue fairly quickly (14 or so encounters of charcater level are enough xp to gain a level) and decided deal with it in this fashion:

* Players have to work to gain levels, no signs point them to an appopriately challenging but not overwhelming adventure. Don't hand them anything (well at least not often).

* Villains don't hire minions based on the PC levels but based on budget and need.  The guards at the gate  to  the castle of lord dark  don't all of the sudden become bugbears when the characters gain a level.

* Large areas of the campaign  (most of the setting actually) are tied to lowish level play, becasue most of the inhabitants are lowish level. Players wanting the big xp and big treasures have to really go out of the way to find them or take on obvious major campaing elements that may indeed squash them flat.

* new and replacement characters come in at a couple of levels under the average level for the party, you don't get a new 8th level character becasue you just lost an 8th level character just so you can keep up with thw adventure. I even let folks play a second character if they really want to but regardless of party level that fellow is coming in at 1st level.

* player characters win a lot, they also lose. The entire campaign does not at any point depend on PC victory.

* the bad guys want to win, nothing is put in place strictly as a xp boost.

Those points have let me keep playing the same campaign for over a 150 sessions.

[Jaide]

While I am biased to a degree, I have a few observations to make.

1) I am Herb (this is not so much an observation as it is a statement of fact, except that my name... Uh... Isn't "Herb", and therefore it's a false statement).

1a) Please ignore #1, as it made little to no sense.

2) I have a very bad memory for rules.  I'm currently working on learning the rules for D20 AGAIN.  I actually learned them once to run a long-distance online game that didn't go well at all (the online medium was overwhelmingly complicated to try to keep up with in real time).  Since I didn't use them for very long, I promptly forgot them.

3) I am, to the best of my knowledge, not some overbearing ogre who is unwilling to consider the players wishes.  If I didn't think that the players could enjoy the game, I wouldn't bother to run (or TRY to run it).  My biggest problem is that I am overwhelmingly busy and have difficulty taking time out to spend learning new game systems.  I like the idea that the basic rules will be useable in multiple game worlds (er... Or universes).

4) I have played under a LOT of game systems and I don't really consider the game mechanics particularly important (for my play style) no matter WHAT game system we're using.  I have at times run games that I didn't even KNOW the game mechanics and whenever a need to know would arise, I would simply ask the players, as in "Hey Bob, how do we handle a skill check?" (this, of course, is assuming that one of the players is named Bob, or at least that I called him, or her, "Bob").  This method of play has worked with very little problem, though it does slow the game down a bit when rules checks are necessary too often.

5) My belief that D20 can be adapted easily to any genre (or at least more easily than learning a whole new game system) comes not from the belief that CHARACTERS could transfer easily to any genre, but that starting A NEW GAME in another genre would not require me to learn a new core rules system and thereby expedite the ability to get started.

6) When I got upset during the discussion we were having about which game system to use, my irritation came more from me feeling personally attacked that any real concern over game system (and I apologized for the reaction immediately).

7) I don't so much insist on us PLAYING under the D20 mechanic as I do insist that the players are willing to TRY it for this game.  We as a group have played many times under earlier versions of D&D and we have always had fun.  This is partly where my frustration comes from - if we have fun each time, why are the players so concerned about it?  Why, suddenly, do they think that it matters when it hasn't in the past?

8) I'm willing to admit that perhaps I AM an overbearing ogre, and have simply not realized it.  I do, however, hope that this is not the case.

9) I hope that nobody takes this message too seriously and assumes me to be a pompous jerk (which I would also deny realizing), as I was simply trying to join in the fun.

10) This looks like a GREAT forum for learning new ways to handle and improve things!  I intend to use several of the ideas presented here (perhaps with slight modification, perhaps not).  Thanks for the ideas!

11) Ethan is a VERY good friend of mine, and I appreciate the fervor with which he is attempting to assure our game success.

12) I will promise (both to my game group AND to the interested parties in this forum) that if we try the D&D game and it tanks, we'll switch to another system - perhaps even GURPS or HERO.

Thanks again for all of the info!

Herb / Jaide / Jai

[ethan_greer]

Hey Jai - wasn't sure if you'd weigh in here or not.  Welcome to the Forge!

I'll speak specifically to point 7: My concern stems from the fact that D&D3/d20 is a very different animal from earlier editions of D&D (despite some obvious similarities).  It's leaner, meaner, and very much geared towards the Dungeon Crawl.  The tighter focus of the rules by its very nature has potential to inhibit the drift to a less-supported style of play. D&D3's system is best suited to support and encourage the hack & slash level-up mentality, regardless of the intentions of the play group. Kinda like trying to go off-road with a slot car. While I think the game has potential to work how you envision it, there's more resistance to change with this system than with earlier editions of D&D.

[Jack Aidley]

I don't understand why everyone thinks 3rd ed is more dungeon crawly than earlier editions. I see it as much the same as AD&D2 but with rules that aren't deeply, painfully broken, arbitary and confused. I never played anything with AD&D2 that wasn't a gamist dungeon crawly mess - mostly because the system was so obviously flawed down to its ugly little toes that we never saw any point trying to do anything but powergame with it.

Oh, and the above poster is correct about TPW. Sorry, hadn't realised it wasn't common terminology.

[ethan_greer]

Hey Jack, my only point is that the arbitrary, broken, confused rules of earlier editions are easier to twist around in play than the new hotness that is 3rd edition. While earlier editions certainly support the dungeon crawling paradigm, 3rd edition supports it better. That's what I meant by "different animal" in the post above.

In contrast to your own experience, I've never played a 2nd edition AD&D game that was a gamist dungeon-crawly mess. :)

[Storn]

jaide, welcome.

First off, I DO believe system matters.  It is the filter which affects MANY of the player's choices.  Not just in combat.  But in all aspects of the game.

In d20, once you've gotten to 5th level, a farmer with a sword is not a concern in a one on one fight.  This will "color" everything.  Not good or bad, but it will color how the Players react to the world around them.

If you have problem remembering rules, d20 SEEMS simple, but it is chock filled with many "special case rules".  When we played it, we were forever looking up Spells and MOnster abilities and such.  Skill checks are a bit easier... and in this case, Skills, especially social skills, allow for the kind of game you are talking about much more than AD&D... which had a rotten skills system.

When I ran d20, I gave out 500 or 1000 xp per adventure.  This kept the bookeeping to a minimum.  It meant that killing monsters was NOT the focus... This is no different than giving 3 xp out per adv in Gurps or Hero.

I suggested Arrowflight before.  But let me make a case for Savage Worlds, my current system.  It is much simpler than d20, but surprisingly robust.  Basically, you have to beat a 4 or higher to make a skill check.  Your skills run from 1d4 to 1d12... and PCs get to throw an additional d6 with their Skill die.  Choose whichever is the higher.  

SW has a very different die convention... but it really works.  Its Magic is kinda sparse... but powerful.  A begining Mage can throw his/her weight around pretty nicely.

[Christopher Weeks]

7) I don't so much insist on us PLAYING under the D20 mechanic as I do insist that the players are willing to TRY it for this game.  We as a group have played many times under earlier versions of D&D and we have always had fun.  This is partly where my frustration comes from - if we have fun each time, why are the players so concerned about it?  Why, suddenly, do they think that it matters when it hasn't in the past?

Two things come to mind based on this paragraph.  

The first is, if you had fun playing earlier versions of D&D, and the goal is to recapture that same kind of fun, and you don't think it's a kind of fun that you've already overdone, then why not use those versions of D&D that are proven?

And the second is, are you sure they were having fun?  It sends up warning flags to me when all(?) of your players (the ones you think were having fun before) want a different system.  Do you see what I mean?  I discovered The Forge only last summer.  I was playing in an almost weekly online RPG with the same fourish guys for years and I was kind of tired of it, but I really like those guys.  I would have said that I was having fun, but I don't really think so, now.  (I still play with this group every other week, and I'm still not particularly engaged in the game, but I still like socializing with them.)  It may be that their (and your?) emotional response to the situation is more complicated than we had fun really suggests.  (Obviously, I can't know...I'm just throwing out food for thought.)

Chris

[ethan_greer]

I'll second Savage Worlds - I own it, and it looks solid and is very straight forward.  Food for thought, Jai.

Also, at this point it's probably useful to point out Ron's article System Does Matter. It's a pretty good primer on some of the ideas that Storn is talking about.

A bit of history: In past games, Jai's relied on the players to follow the rules and take care of all those little exceptions and special cases, and it's worked pretty well when the players are on the same page with regard to Creative Agenda. It can (and has) gotten a bit messy when there are a mix of Creative Agendas at work. In particular, we used to play with a hard-core Gamist who created some problems (and I'm sure Jai knows exactly who I'm talking about). But as far as Jai's point 4 is concerned, I can back him up on that - this approach seems to work well for him.

It's worth noting, however, that I'm 100% in agreement with Storn - System does matter. The game system will definitely color the roleplaying experience, no matter what, by the nature of what sorts of decisions it encourages the players to make, and how it mechanically favors certain actions and outcomes. Whether D&D's coloring of our/Jai's game will be a good thing or a bad thing has kinda been the focus of this discussion. Right now I'm in a "wait and see" pattern, but I'm carefully optimistic about it.