The long-term campaign and the myth of d20

[ethan_greer]

Hey Christopher, I missed your post; I think we cross-posted.

Regarding your first thought: I don't think any of us wants to ever play AD&D2 again. But you do have a point.

Regarding your second thought: In all fairness, our play hasn't always been perfect. But we did have two campaigns that rocked on toast.  I have a feeling those two games are going to serve as a model or yardstick for the sort of play experience we're going to be shooting for.

[Jason Lee]

Whoo Hoo, Herb! (Welcome Jai, BTW)

*****

If you just want everybody to try D20, and are open to switching later, I've got a couple warnings.

If the players are open to altering/losing abilities/effectiveness a few months into the game, then no big whoop - you've got little to lose.  If they aren't, your transition period is going to be a cranky one.

Also, whatever system you start with is going to forever impact the feel of the game.  If you start off building D&D3E characters, the game will be about rangers, thieves, fireball slingers, and so forth.  You'll end up with characters that are very me-against-an-army.  Contrast with if you start with something like Ars Magica, you'll get a completely different feel from the outset.  Very me-and-the-world-around-me characters.  I'm not just talking about color/setting, but about the resources and attitudes of the characters, which by extension will effect how the group approaches situations (because of the characters the system has allowed them to build, and the tools it has put in their hands).

About six years ago I want to run a Cyberpunk game, everybody else wanted to play White Wolf: Something or Another.  I ended up porting Cyberpunk to the Storyteller system, and even though we are no longer using a system that resembles either, that original setup is still very much affecting the campaign to this day.

*****

The basic reasoning behind Mark's recommendation to use a different experience point system is as follows.  Or rather, why I agree with Mark, I don't know what Mark is thinking ;).

In D&D you gain experience points by killing things and taking their stuff.  Experience points are used to improve your ability to kill things and take their stuff.  Very consistent rewards circle.

If you change experience such that you gain them for other reasons, from good roleplaying to the passage of time, then your are rewarding good roleplaying (or whatever) with the ability to kill things and take their stuff.  See the breakdown?

On this topic, I believe there is an incarnation of the D20 rules that doesn't use levels and focuses on skills more.  Might be worth a look.  Anyone know which one it is?  I can't recall.

*****

Also, you mention a bad memory for rules and a lack of time to learn them.  Maybe something simpler or easier to learn might be a better choice for you as GM.

One of D&D3E's design goals was to be somewhat difficult to learn.  It's their concept of "Mastery" (I looked on the Wizards site for the article that talks about this, but I couldn't find it).  "Mastery" is the idea that the more you learn of the rules and how they interact with each other the better able to play the game you become.  The complexity of figuring out which order to buy feats in, what to take at each level, remembering what all the spells do, and so on, is all intentional complexity.  It's supposed to be somewhat hard to learn so that players can feel like "mastering" the system is an accomplishment.

For a long-term game you'll probably end up wanting a game system with lots of options, but you sound like you want something without too much complexity in how the mechanics function.  In my opinion, GURPS, HERO and D20 all fit the bill for lots of options, but they are not simple in implementation.

However, GURPS does have GURPS Lite (GURPS condensed into 32 pages), which is available for free from here.

*****

Just some random thoughts for you.

[Andrew Cooper]

In D&D you gain experience points by killing things and taking their stuff.

Just a nitpick.  This a popular misconception.  In D&D 3e you gain experience for "overcoming obstacles" not "killing things".  Traps and puzzles have an EL and as such an XP value for overcoming them.  Also, the DMG states specifically that you don't have to kill the Ogre that's guarding the door to get the XP for it.  You simply have to overcome it as an obstacle.  This means you can sneak past it, negotiate with it, kill it or anything else you can think of and still gain XP for doing so.  

However, I do agree with your basic premise. In D&D you gain XP by overcoming obstacles and your reward is a greater ability to overcome obstacles.

[Jason Lee]

Just a nitpick.  This a popular misconception.  In D&D 3e you gain experience for "overcoming obstacles" not "killing things".  Traps and puzzles have an EL and as such an XP value for overcoming them.  Also, the DMG states specifically that you don't have to kill the Ogre that's guarding the door to get the XP for it.  You simply have to overcome it as an obstacle.  This means you can sneak past it, negotiate with it, kill it or anything else you can think of and still gain XP for doing so.  

However, I do agree with your basic premise. In D&D you gain XP by overcoming obstacles and your reward is a greater ability to overcome obstacles.

Ah, cool. My bad.  Combat values do increase with level though, so you still get better at killing things.

[Andrew Cooper]

You do indeed get better at killing things.  Mostly because that is one way of overcoming obstacles (or at least the one most employed by PCs).  However, you also get better with skills such as Diplomacy, Open Locks, Find Traps, Bluff and others that can be used to overcome obstacles too.  You also get better at spells (if you are a spelluser) and many of those can overcome obstacles without killing anything.

D&D 3e is a Gamist oriented system and a pretty coherent one at that.  The misconception is that Gamist play is about "killing the bad guy".  I'm a Gamist play.  I admit it freely.  D&D is my game of choice.  I like it.  As a player though, I don't immediately respond to every challenge thrown my way with a sword or fireball.  Gamism is about stepping up and overcoming challenges and D&D is good at that, whether it's combat or picking locks or sneaking or magical spells.

I don't mean to rant and perhaps a new thread needs to be started if we are to continue this discussion.  I've just noticed that the Forge seems to have a Narrativist bent to it.  That's fine.  I've just noticed since being here that "killing things" is connected a little too tightly sometimes to Gamism as its goal and I just had to step in an say something.  Anywho...  I've wandered far afield now and will rein things back in.

[talysman]

I get the feeling this thread has somewhat fragmented into several subtopics that do not address the original question. there's been a lot of "here's how I'd modify d20 to support longterm campaigns" and discussions about whether GURPS is really a bad system, but are these things really relevant?

Ethan's problem/question seems to boil down to: he doesn't really want to play d20, but that's what "herb" (Jaide) wants to play. he's mainly asking for (1) better arguments why d20 won't work for a longterm campaign (including examples of failed longterm play,) and (2) possible suggestions for non-GURPS/Hero-style game systems to use as a replacement.

Jaide, on the other hand, wants to only learn one system, because he's having troubles keeping complex rules straight. he recognizes d20 is complex, but he has to learn *one* system, and even though the game will be in a single genre, he might want to play in another genre or with another group at some point -- and d20 seems like a good option for a widespread, multigenre system for him.

now, I understand Jaide's concern; I'm having problems remembering or enjoying extremely detailed rules systems myself (maybe due to age in my case...) this is the main reason why I've been looking at simple elegant systems and trying to design the same; I don't want to mess with GURPS anymore (although I may buy 4th edition, for curiosity and old time's sake) and gave myself a headache studying 3e and its endless lists of exceptions and special cases. but then, this last point also makes me sympathetic to Ethan; I'd hate to force anyone else to learn 3e, because of my own distaste.

still, Ethan's point rests on the theory that d20 is not well-suited for longterm play, and I'm not sure where he gets this idea from. some passing mention has been made that d20 is designed for people who want to discover subtle synergies between feat, skill, and tactics selections, which I suppose would be a distraction from longterm play focusd on mystery or intrigue; but I'm not sure this would really prevent good longterm play.

another thought: from the various descriptions of actual longterm play, it seems to me that D&D or d20 turns into longterm campaigns whenever the GM interprets the experience rules simplisticly (most experience points for killing monsters and taking treasure, less for other things) while simultaneously shifting to a less combat-heavy game. in a sense, then, all forms of D&D are easily driftable from Gamist dungeon-crawl to Sim-or-Nar social/intrigue, with a natural tendency towards longterm play for the latter.

given that, I think a modified d20 is actually quite good for what Jaide is planning. the main thing to keep in mind is to drop the emphasis on combat, eliminate feats and skills with narrow uses, and dissociate character effectiveness/advancement from the experience/rewards system. mainly, don't use miniatures or grids at all, drop combat and metamagic feats, reduce combat to a few abstract level checks. for experience, give half experience for killing someone who shouldn't be killed, double for doing whatever you're supposed to do to that person -- if you are supposed to befriend the sultan, you get double experience, for example. and if hit points are considered an issue as well, just use wound levels (use the names from the official spells as a guide) and roll Con checks when hit. there's no need to be terribly elaborate about it.

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

And I am now stepping in as moderator. The topic's split a lot, as John has accurately pointed out, and it's time to take sub-topics to threads of their own.

Furthermore, bluntly, I am tired of seeing (over and over) two things:

1. Discussions of D&D getting out of hand, emotionally, far out of proportion to its game design features. Let go, people. It's not about your experience of D&D. If you're busy defending your own experiences and viewpoints about the game, then by definition, you have gone off-topic.

2. Conflating D&D and Gamism per se. There is too much painful history, and too much of that history has entered the "teaching steps" of gamer culture, for people to enter into that topic and emerge safely.

So, let's close this thread, identify fruitful and specific topics for new ones, and take ourselves nicely there.

Best,
Ron

[ethan_greer]

Thanks, Ron. I hope you don't mind my adding one last post as sort of a punctuation to the thread (I started this post before your closing showed up and saw it in the preview). I agree now's a good time to close this one down. My first post was probably too broad and I had a number of questions.  To summarize:

Does d20 work for long-term games? How?
Does d20 not work for long-term games? Why not?
What other systems are well-suited to long-term games?
Am I getting into something I shouldn't, or should I just chill?

All of those points have been covered by various people, and I am much pleased with the results of this conversation.

So, anyway, thread's closed. We now return you to your regularly scheduled moderation. (For Jai's and other first-time posters' benefit, "closed" on the Forge means that although the thread doesn't get locked, it's against the rules to post to it.)

[Storn]

Furthermore, bluntly, I am tired of seeing (over and over) two things:

1. Discussions of D&D getting out of hand, emotionally, far out of proportion to its game design features. Let go, people. It's not about your experience of D&D. If you're busy defending your own experiences and viewpoints about the game, then by definition, you have gone off-topic.

Best,
Ron

I ask honestly and w/o rancor;  How can you expect everyone to have seen the same amount of discussion on d20 that you have?  And if we cannot use our experience with d20 to give an opinion to help BOTH Jai and Ethan...  what should we use?

I really haven't seen high emotions about this issue, Ron, in this thread.  I have seen such issues on other forums... but this seems to be worthwhile thread to me.

I, for one, want to hear more from Jai... and see if this is making him feel defensive... or hopeful and excited about tackling his campaign.  I hope fo the later.  I think the more communication that Jai and Ethan and the group can have, and the more that they can glean from other's experience with d20 (or how game systems affect role playing)... the better.

[Jaide]

First off, I want to apologize up front for entering another post, I've been informed that you aren't supposed to do that after a thread has been closed, but I have no other means to address this particular group.

I have a LOT of details I want to discuss about this thread, I'm finding it IMMENSELY helpful, and useful.  I don't understand why the thread was closed, to the best of my understanding, everyone was being helpful, friendly, polite, and providing very good (!!!) information!  There weren't any flames going on, and everyone was participating positively (again, as far as I can tell).

This thread is my first experience POSTING on TheForge, and based on ONLY this experience, I was thinking it was a GREAT FORUM!  I've READ posts here before (based on Ethan's recommendation about specific things), but I've never felt terribly compelled to be a regular member (I've never even bothered to register before!).

So now, I find a very useful and desirable reason to be a regular member of this forum, and it gets shut down with, as far as I can tell, no reason!  What gives?  

Anyway, this will be my last post here (on this thread) as per the rules, and I apologize for violating them as is.

Thank you VERY, VERY, VERY much everybody for your participation - I can't tell you how much it has meant to me!  I was afraid that I would be harrassed as a new member based on the things that had been said about "Herb" before I signed on, but you all made me feel very welcome, and I really appreciate that.

Take care, good luck, and happy gaming!

Herb / Jaide / Jai

[Ron Edwards]

Sigh ...

Everyone, please feel free to continue the discussion (or more accurately, bits and pieces of it, on new threads.

Closing a thread means people stop posting to that particular thread, not that people have to shut up about stuff they want to discuss. It means, "Focus on specific targets in separate places."

No more posting to this one, please.

Best,
Ron