Our group is in the process of finishing its first D&D 3e campaign. The game is/was combat-heavy, centred on dungeon crawls, and has seen the PCs rise from 1st to 18th level (and will no doubt see them attain 20th level before the end).

The level of satisfaction is high and everybody agrees there should be a follow-up campaign. Nonetheless, I think that some things could be improved, so I'll try to analyse our preferences and ask for advice on the Forge.

However, I'd like to point out that it is a given that we'll be playing D&D again (3e or 3.5e). I think that if you look over my analysis below, you'll agree that it is a pretty good fit for us. But even if there were games better suited to our preferences, switching systems is simply not an option for reasons I won't go into here. House rules, however, are not a problem as long as they don't become very numerous or complicated.
Let me kick off my analysis with a list of the things we seem to enjoy the most.

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1. Power
The players like their characters to have a lot of power and to see it increase.

Specifically, we are fond of the following:
• character advancement (the quicker, the better)
• character equality (neither death nor permanent level-loss)
• shiny new toys (magic items, new spells, special abilities etc.)
• buckets of dice (there's nothing like rolling a 10d6 fireball)

I'd like to point out that, in my opinion, our infatuation with power is not the result of deprotagonization. We're playing in an openly acknowledged trailblazing style, i.e. the players happily follow the DM's clues to a pre-determined conclusion and get no kick out of derailing the adventure.

2. Tactical Play

The players like moving miniatures across the grid, stacking spells for synergy effects, maximising skills and so forth.

I'd like to point out that we also happen to be board game aficionados, but not hardcore wargamers.

3. Heroic Fantasy

The players want to create fantasy stories with the following elements:
• combat (lots and lots)
• epic scope (world-shaking conflicts, the eternal struggle of Good vs. Evil etc.)
• 'cool' characters (larger-than-life, famous)
• 'cool' actions (one-liners, critical hits etc.)

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Next, let me relate which problem areas (or perhaps instances of incoherence?) I have identified.

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1. Color vs. Power

This issue has caused frustration and even some bad blood in the past.

Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Secondly, one player has been much criticised for what the others feel is 'inappropriate roleplay', i.e. violating his character concept, invariably in order to protect or increase his character's power. Interestingly, this player excels at providing color to the game, but only when it comes at no cost to his character's power.

2. Color Drain

We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

As has been pointed out about FENG SHUI, nobody can come up with cool descriptions all evening. Consequently, we have recently made an attempt to channel creativity by tying a bonus and mandatory 'colorful' description to certain rare die rolls. However, several players feel that one cannot force inspired descriptions and the mechanic's effect has been rather lackluster so far.

*-*-*

I have several ideas to address these issues, but this mail is already pretty long, so I'd rather hear your observations and suggestions.

Regards & Thanks in Advance,

Hal

Hi Hal,

What an excellent snapshot - an amazing amount of information in so few words.

My suggestion is to acquire and read Tunnels & Trolls, not necessarily as a recommendation for a replacement system, but merely for enjoying the head-space shift in how its play is conducted. It seems to me to hit nearly all of your group's hot-buttons with a somewhat better way to manage them than D&D of any variety. However, it emphasizes flexibility of interpretation and a certain willingness to agree about things like facing or who's-first in some situations, which might not fit as well.

The Color vs. Power issue interests me greatly. Technically, Color could be increased or decreased with no particular impact on in-game effects, so in some ways, I'm wondering whether you're seeing a more profound [Character+System] disconnect with Power, rather than a Color-based one.

In other words, if I wed Character to System ("play the game"), I risk losing my character (or being disempowered in some tactical or emotional way). So I'll divorce them briefly and ramp up System ... which of course diminishes the innermost box [Color [System [Character + Setting = Situation]]] relationship among the components ... which in turn is the precise thing which keeps others' attention and commitment to the game going in the first place.

No wonder the other players consider this a breach of Social Contract.

Best,
Ron

First, Id like to say that from the sounds of things it seems your group is in pretty good shape. You don't seem to have nearly as many problems as most D&D groups that get posted about on the Forge.

In regards to the color vs. power issue, you could try running an evil campaign. In most cases an evil character is interested in power over anything else. Such a campaign could erase any feelings of "not playing in character" for your group. I recommend picking up "The Book of Vile Darkness" which is a fine supplement for running evil campaigns.

I'm currently running an evil Drow campaign that seems to be working rather well in that regard, though my group does a lot more roleplaying than fighting.

A suggestion for the color drain issue might be to create your own critical hit charts or a random 'color' chart. Even a hit location chart might be enough to inspire some creative description.

Another possibility is to simply shorten the combats. I find that D&D combat can get to a point where the players are simply going through the motions; it's obvious that the PCs can't lose. In such situations its simply a matter of how many rounds it'll take to finish the job. Unless the scene is particularly important, I cut the combat short, and have the players describe how they finished off their opponents. It saves time and pulls the game away from becoming a series of die rolls.

Good luck.

,Matt Gwinn

Excellent advice Matt; as an addendum to cutting combats short--hand waving the end of the combat might not go down easily, particularly if some players enjoy the mastery of the tactical situation that results in total destruction.

I don't know if this applies to you, but in a *lot* of dnd games, bad guys fight to the death. Instead, have them break and run when they realize (or even fear) that they can't win. They'll be cut down like dogs in about 1/2 the time (there's a reason why generals want their troops to make a tactical withdraal instead of fleeing). Or they'll escape, which creates room for recurring bad guys, their enemies gathering intelligence about their tactics, etc. The latter can come in handy when you want to pit their ultra-powered characters against enemies who *somehow* seem to have counters for all their powers...

Halzebier wrote: Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Secondly, one player has been much criticised for what the others feel is 'inappropriate roleplay', i.e. violating his character concept, invariably in order to protect or increase his character's power. Interestingly, this player excels at providing color to the game, but only when it comes at no cost to his character's power.

Halzebier wrote: We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

As has been pointed out about FENG SHUI, nobody can come up with cool descriptions all evening. Consequently, we have recently made an attempt to channel creativity by tying a bonus and mandatory 'colorful' description to certain rare die rolls. However, several players feel that one cannot force inspired descriptions and the mechanic's effect has been rather lackluster so far.

Halzebier wrote: We feel that D&D combat is quite complicated and time-consuming, especially at high levels. Most of the time, we experience a gradual loss of color as battles progress.

Firstly, players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Check if HackMaster has anything you want to steal. The honor system in particular is intended to improve play much like yours. Gaming the honor system is supposed to exhibit classic HackMaster behaviour.

John

Hi again!

Ron Edwards wrote: The Color vs. Power issue interests me greatly. Technically, Color could be increased or decreased with no particular impact on in-game effects, so in some ways, I'm wondering whether you're seeing a more profound [Character+System] disconnect with Power, rather than a Color-based one.

In other words, if I wed Character to System ("play the game"), I risk losing my character (or being disempowered in some tactical or emotional way). So I'll divorce them briefly and ramp up System ... which of course diminishes the innermost box [Color [System [Character + Setting = Situation]]] relationship among the components ... which in turn is the precise thing which keeps others' attention and commitment to the game going in the first place.

However, having enemies surrender or flee more often seems like a good idea. I'll bring it up with the others (we have rotating DMs).

I recall AD&D having morale rules that determined when a group of opponents would break and run. Does 3.0/3.5 not have morale rules?

Paul

Paul Czege wrote: I recall AD&D having morale rules that determined when a group of opponents would break and run. Does 3.0/3.5 not have morale rules?

Hey Jack,

3E does have morale, but IIRC AD&D didn't but Basic did.

Page 67 of the AD&D DMG. Of course, we always ignored these rules when we played. I think it was too much dice churning for an occasional, and relatively insignificant attack from the rear bonus. But with Attacks of Opportunity in 3e I'd think well executed morale rules would really come into their own...

Paul

{oops -- Xposted with Paul}

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: 3E does have morale, but IIRC AD&D didn't but Basic did. I remember noticing that once, but I may be wrong. ... However, I didn't like these checks for the PCs because a failure meant not being able to act. The GM also required continued check, so you could not act for several turns in a combat situation. Bottom line, it makes sense but is frustrating.

I knew noting that little bit was going to derail things a bit. I forget where I got the idea, but apparently it's not from looking at p 67 of the DMG.

Chris, note that I was talking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, not D&D in my post. I don't know if this was the as-written application of the rules or just my GM's house rules which he tended to do with every game.

Hi, Jack,

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Chris, note that I was talking about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, not D&D in my post. I don't know if this was the as-written application of the rules or just my GM's house rules which he tended to do with every game.

Well, one guideline we followed back in AD&D days (when 9th level was considered pretty powerful.."named level" and 12th down right amazing) was to note that when WE were low level, we took great pains to avoid threats that were too powerful for us to handle.

Now that WE were the "too powerful" threat, the expectation was that most opponents would take great pains to avoid US.

Bandits, roving bands of orcs, the opportunistic hunting Griffon or Wyverns, would just give us great berth and avoid conflict with us.

That meant the only real opponents we'd ever actually fight were those who figured they had a shot at surviving us. That generally means the Big Bads.

At this point us "named level" PCs were busy setting up strong holds and castles and attracting followers and henchmen and calculating exactly how much gold 200' of curtain walls with batters, embrasures and hordings, and a 20x20 tower every 50' would cost including labor.

Threats to us became neighbors with armies, ravaging ork hordes, hit and run viking attacks, and the like.

Eventually the GM formed a coalition of all of the high powered Big Bads in the area (sort of like a Murder, Inc of evil) of all of the foes who individually couldn't oppose us but who were pissed at us carving out a little piece of home in the midst of their territory.

Its amazing what a good GM can come up with with a 12th level Lawful Evil Magic User, a Huge Ancient Red Dragon, a powerful Assassins Guild, the local corrupt Theocracy, and a coven of demon summoning witches working together to kill us.

The sessions became much more intrigue and machination oriented than combat sequence of the night oriented at that point.

When we wanted to get more dungeon delving we each took characters from the named henchmen of our main PCs, turned them into secondary PCs, and sent them off to do battle with our main PCs lesser enemies.

I think the last battle we ever fought with our high level party involved both Asmodeus AND the Dispater with their contingent gated in fiends, a half dozen chromatic dragons led by the H-A Red, an entire order of evil clerics and anti paladins, and an army of mundane forces from local barons who hated us.

We played that out over the course of a 3 day marathon weekend using the Battle System rules as well as individual combats with our PCs.

We won. And swore, we'd never do that again...;-)

Hi Hal,

I wrote,

In other words, if I wed Character to System ("play the game"), I risk losing my character (or being disempowered in some tactical or emotional way). So I'll divorce them briefly and ramp up System ... which of course diminishes the innermost box [Color [System [Character + Setting = Situation]]] relationship among the components ... which in turn is the precise thing which keeps others' attention and commitment to the game going in the first place.

Unfortunately, you've lost me here. I think I can follow the first sentence, but what do you mean by 'ramp up the system'?

players have repeatedly expressed regret at playing their characters less heroically than they would have liked to, at least in retrospect. Time and again, characters act much more carefully in practice than the heroes they are supposed to be in theory.

Secondly, one player has been much criticised for what the others feel is 'inappropriate roleplay', i.e. violating his character concept, invariably in order to protect or increase his character's power.

Hi Hal,

I know you participated in this thread and probably remember it well, but for anyone who doesn't, this thread provides an important context for the present one: [D&D] Preventing Gamism from being "solved"?

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: In that paragraph, I'm translating what you describe [...] into "big-model" talk. What you're really seeing is a glimmering of Hard Core play, not much I'm sure, but enough to make the other players nervous - they know damn well that if this guy goes all the way in this direction, they'll be forced to do the same.