One D&D

[VisionStorm]

Min/maxers don't know the rule system 'inside out' because they obsess over the supposedly 'broken' maces over quarterstaffs and approach all rule design and play forgetting one of the fundamental reasons most people play ttrpgs. They consistently miss the forest for the trees. To approach a ttrpg and act like only the 'game' part is what matters misses a huge element in actual game design. That kind of thinking led to the overcomplicated rulesets of the 80s and today.

I think a lot of this stems from prejudice against min/maxers rather than the reality of them. I tend to min/max and when I design stuff I use that understanding to weed out, tone down or rethink stuff that could be abused. I've also run into plenty of min/maxers who also RP and tend to make hybrid min/max RP-focused characters in actual play. That tends to be closer to the reality of most min/maxers than some "always looking for the highest DPS weapon/skill combo" stereotype (which still relies on indepth understanding of the rules regardless).

The fundamentals of why people play also tend to be of little consequence, cuz they tend to have little impact on the rules, and tends to be more ephemeral stuff like "for the stories" or "get together with friends", which is besides the rules. As long as you include enough "cool" stuff and keep things approachable enough mechanically they won't even think about the rules.

But, in the real world, those cities formed quite recently, and the ones in which you can point to someone as mixed tend to have histories of racial prejudice and segragation. Did elves and humans only come in to regular contact in the last couple of centuries? Were orcs a slave race that it was shameful to marry until a few decades ago? If so, then fine, but this kind of structure is necessary for such a clear distinction to make sense.

Which, again, depends on the setting. But most D&D cities aren't just cosmopolitan cities alone, though, even if settings have an unrealistic number of them. There's still elven or dwarven cities, halfling villages, etc in most D&D worlds, and most cosmopolitan cities are still primarily populated by humans. There also used to be instances of racial animosity in D&D worlds until they were whitewashed recently for reasons unmentionable in this forum.

To me another issue is that if there can be half-Elves and half-Orcs why not half-Hobbits and half-Dwarves and half-Gnomes and half-Ogres and half-whatever. It just dilutes the archetypes or more accurately the tropes that these character types are supposed to serve.

Most of those technically exist. Tallfellow Halflings are supposed to be halfling-elves, Stout Halflings are halfling-dwarves (maybe gnomes), Orcs have mixed with everyone since old D&D, they just focused on Orc-Human hybrids as the explicit playable race, Half-Ogres have a Monster Manual entry and have been featured as PC races in some supplements, etc.

 

[Chris Brady]

I have no idea why'd you say that as his videos before the OGL controversy are all based on obessively min/maxing builds in 5e, which barely makes any sense and seems to be an attitude to design carried over from 3e and 4e that I don't care for and is largely unsuited to 5e unless you allow the blight that is multi-classing into the ruleset.

And some of those interpretations are very iffy/ Like he doesn't know that attacking stops movement in 5e. He had an idea of juggling mobs by being a halfling and sliding into someone's space, attacking and then continuing to finish the movement. As stated, that's not how it works.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Of course, that takes us back to 5E's presumed setting where everyone is inter-mixed. If elves and humans all live among each other, that archetype doesn't work anymore,.

The way I tended to handle this in D&D is you would have broad areas that were mostly human, mostly dwarf, etc but you could also always have more cosmopolitan places. Still I think one of the things that works well in D&D is the simplicity these groupings bring to the game. One trend I am noticing in the conversation around how to implement half races, and granted this is stuff that has emerged over the course of 5E itself anyways, is that simplicity is being replaced with more complex ways of making characters. This allows for more options, and would be right at home in virtually any other fantasy RPG, but with D&D I really think going either just picking a class (and having races be classes) or picking race and class, is one of the fundamental things that makes the game work for me.

 

[BedrockBrendan]

I think part of my frustration about it all is that after the OGL mishap, so many creators said they’d create their own games. So many gamers said they’d look for games other than D&D.

I think there are still folks intent on this. But I also think right now everything is so tethered to D&D (for a host of reasons). I would love to see things more like the 90s again, where D&D was there, had a robust amount of supplementary material but all kinds of other rules systems were available (and some were giving TSR a good run for their money).

As someone who puts out a very non-D&D game, I can say it is an uphill challenge to sell people on it. Not impossible. But it takes more time and effort than selling someone on a d20 variant that their whole group can play out of the box without learning a new system. I have found plenty of players though, and a lot of them are regular D&D players too. So I think there is more room for crossover than people realize.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This is a very good point. I think most of the problems from 3E came from WotC doing it's survey, creating a checklist of things people wanted, then creating a game with all those things even when they didn't gel together properly. To give an obvious example, people voted to have more detailed character sheets. They also voted to have monsters work exactly like PCs. Individually, both of those requests are fine, but if you carry them both out, you end up with enormous monster stat blocks that are impossible for the GM to digest at the table.

Working as an editor on games, I've often noticed that designers often find rules they were excited about can fall flat at the table. You need to kill your darlings, as the expression goes. Game design involved hard decisions, and you can't just put those to a popular vote.

Yeah, 5e is kind of a double edged sword. It includes so many different elements that are essentially pieces of different editions, all of which were designed to work differently, sometimes seemingly without even considering if they make sense at this stage. Going with this design by committee approach will only worsen that. Especially when we factor in all the other considerations they have at this point… translation to their VTT, compatibility with what’s already published, and so on.

I have no idea why'd you say that as his videos before the OGL controversy are all based on obessively min/maxing builds in 5e, which barely makes any sense and seems to be an attitude to design carried over from 3e and 4e that I don't care for and is largely unsuited to 5e unless you allow the blight that is multi-classing into the ruleset.

I’m not crazy about 5e. My enthusiasm for it when it first arrived was due to a combo of a few things… increasing frustration with Pathfinder (which my group turned to in lieu of 4e) was the primary one. 5e was like a breath of fresh air for me at that point.

But having spent some time with it now, I’m far from crazy about it. There are plenty of games I’d choose to play before it. However, I think its design is impressive. To say the designers didn’t know what they were doing is misguided. I get why people say it, but I think they achieved massive success by incorporating elements from nearly every edition. They managed to appeal to large sections of a fractured fanbase and made the most successful edition of the game yet.

It’s not tightly designed. It’s a bit incoherent in places and overwrought in others. But I don’t think they could have achieved the success they did if they went almost any other way.

I think there are still folks intent on this. But I also think right now everything is so tethered to D&D (for a host of reasons). I would love to see things more like the 90s again, where D&D was there, had a robust amount of supplementary material but all kinds of other rules systems were available (and some were giving TSR a good run for their money).

As someone who puts out a very non-D&D game, I can say it is an uphill challenge to sell people on it. Not impossible. But it takes more time and effort than selling someone on a d20 variant that their whole group can play out of the box without learning a new system. I have found plenty of players though, and a lot of them are regular D&D players too. So I think there is more room for crossover than people realize.

Oh I know some folks still plan on following through. And plenty of others who’ve always been putting out games unrelated to D&D and who will continue to do so. The tether to D&D is what I mean… I wish that was less strong, less pervasive. I don’t even wish WotC anything but success. They can remain the market leader, for all I care… I just want to see the hobby continue to grow and for new and different games to come out.

Seeing a lot of people go back to the OGL… or bypassing it with like a mild reskinning of the d20 rules… I can’t find any excitement for that stuff.

 

[TJS]

One thing to consider is that the designs that are going to start coming out now were always going to be the ones that were closest to 5e, because bigger departures are going to need more time.

 

[opaopajr]

And some of those interpretations are very iffy/ Like he doesn't know that attacking stops movement in 5e. He had an idea of juggling mobs by being a halfling and sliding into someone's space, attacking and then continuing to finish the movement. As stated, that's not how it works.

I did not see the specific example you may be refering to, but attacking does not stop movement in 5e, in case you did not know. It is stated so explicitly and has been since 2014 until now:

Breaking Up Your Move

You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action. For example, if you have a speed of 30 feet, you can move 10 feet, take your action, and then move 20 feet.

Moving between Attacks

If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. For example, a fighter who can make two attacks with the Extra Attack feature and who has a speed of 25 feet could move 10 feet, make an attack, move 15 feet, and then attack again.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf. 2014. p. 70. D&D 5e SRD .pdf. 2018. p.73.)

You need exception-based design to stop another from breaking up their movement, such as Feats like Sentinel, where a successful Opportunity Attack *can* stop movement, or the special attack Grapple leading to the condition Grappled.

And now you know! But if I got the example wrong, like this is about a 5e player trying out 3e and not knowing it tightly, I am sorry.

 

[VisionStorm]

I did not see the specific example you may be refering to, but attacking does not stop movement in 5e, in case you did not know. It is stated so explicitly and has been since 2014 until now:

Breaking Up Your Move

You can break up your movement on your turn, using some of your speed before and after your action. For example, if you have a speed of 30 feet, you can move 10 feet, take your action, and then move 20 feet.

Moving between Attacks

If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. For example, a fighter who can make two attacks with the Extra Attack feature and who has a speed of 25 feet could move 10 feet, make an attack, move 15 feet, and then attack again.
(D&D 5e Basic .pdf. 2014. p. 70. D&D 5e SRD .pdf. 2018. p.73.)

You need exception-based design to stop another from breaking up their movement, such as Feats like Sentinel, where a successful Opportunity Attack *can* stop movement, or the special attack Grapple leading to the condition Grappled.

And now you know! But if I got the example wrong, like this is about a 5e player trying out 3e and not knowing it tightly, I am sorry.

Yeah, I once got into an argument with someone about 5e, cuz I thought that attacking broke off movement (don't recall the details of the argument right now), and it turned out I was wrong and was just coming at it from my perspective of playing prior editions and not checking the 5e rules for what they specifically said. But it turned out you could attack, move, then attack again in 5e, as long as you didn't exceed your Speed that round.

 

[TJS]

Bah. When I was a whippersnapper we had to work out our way through 6 or 7 levels of Fighter including the dreaded dead levels, as well as paying our feat tax dues in order to get our Spring Attacks.

Kids these days - got it too easy.

 

[VisionStorm]

Bah. When I was a whippersnapper we had to work out our way through 6 or 7 levels of Fighter including the dreaded dead levels, and well as paying our feat tax dues in order to get our Spring Attacks.

Kids these days - got it too easy.

Ah, good ol' Spring Attack. One of the dozen or so iffy feats along the chain leading up to the flashy, but not that useful by the the time you actually got it, "Whirlwind Attack".

 

[BedrockBrendan]

Oh I know some folks still plan on following through. And plenty of others who’ve always been putting out games unrelated to D&D and who will continue to do so. The tether to D&D is what I mean… I wish that was less strong, less pervasive. I don’t even wish WotC anything but success. They can remain the market leader, for all I care… I just want to see the hobby continue to grow and for new and different games to come out.

Seeing a lot of people go back to the OGL… or bypassing it with like a mild reskinning of the d20 rules… I can’t find any excitement for that stuff.

I totally get where you are coming from. There is still that tether to D&D. I don't think that is a bad thing necessarily, I there is something to be said for that core D&D/D&D-like experience bringing people in (and I enjoy it myself) but it can be frustrating if you want to see more viable alternatives that do different things emerge. Personally my take on the OGL fiasco was bad enough that I plan on only doing my old 2E stuff when I want D&D or switching up to something like Dungeon Crawl Classics. But mostly I don't play D&D or D&D-like so that is more for my in between gaming.

Couple of things I will say that will hopefully put an optimistic spin on this. One while things are pretty tethered to D&D right now, they are not nearly as bad as they were in the 2000s when everything was d20. There is at least language about 'engines' and 'powered by' that really opens that door back up to where we were before with a bunch of alternative systems. There are also a handful of systems out there with strong fanbases that aren't D&D like Savage Worlds, FATE, Apocalypse World, Gumshoe, etc. And there are unique systems like Numenera (not sure if they have opened this one up to licensing or not). And there is a portion of the hobby dedicated to more niche material. So the seeds are there, and the communities are there. It just sometimes gets drowned out by D&D (especially on forums that are more dedicated to D&D than this one).

Another thing I will say, and this is an observation from trying to promote my own stuff: this hobby is small enough that one person literally does make a difference. If you have just one or two people who post about a game, that impacts sales, it impacts whether it gains any traction on other social media platforms and can even lead to reviews. Obviously it doesn't have the same potency as a WOTC advertising blitz. But if you really love a system and you want more people to play and be aware of it, posting about it in a positive way can make a much bigger difference than a lot of people realize.

I would just add one thing I've noticed is it is much easier now for me to get a group together to try different systems because of things like discord and Skype. But also the games I mentioned above have more traction than they did ten years ago. When I first discovered Savage Worlds, I couldn't find anyone willing to play and eventually stumbled on a local group who I actually became good friends with. Now it would be a lot easier to start a savage worlds game

 

[Akrasia]

To me another issue is that if there can be half-Elves and half-Orcs why not half-Hobbits and half-Dwarves and half-Gnomes and half-Ogres and half-whatever. It just dilutes the archetypes or more accurately the tropes that these character types are supposed to serve.

I had always assumed that half-elves and half-orcs were in D&D because they were in Tolkien's Middle-earth.

(Of course, Tolkien's versions of both half-races are quite different than those of D&D -- half-elves must choose at a certain point whether to be mortal and "of men" [like Elros] or ageless and "of elves" [like Elrond] -- but the inspiration is clear.)

In Tolkien, elves and humans are both the "Children" of Eru Ilúvatar, and so presumably could interbreed for that reason. Orcs (at least according to the Silmarillion) are corrupted, twisted versions of elves, and hence could breed with men (producing half-orcs) for that reason. Dwarves were created entirely separately, in secret by Aulë, and hence cannot breed with either humans or elves. Hobbits are distantly related to humans, but Tolkien never mentions whether they could interbreed.

Anyhow, like a lot of other things from Tolkien, I don't think Gygax really thought through how half-elves and half-orcs fit in, why there weren't other half-races (half-gnomes, half-bugbears, etc.), and the rest. I think he just thought people like the Tolkien stuff (even if he didn't much), there are half-elves and half-orcs in Tolkien's writings, so let's just port a version of them over to A/D&D.

 

[Necrozius]

They should just have the main races / species / ancestries and a starting level Feat that reveals your heritage. Elf, Human, Dwarf etc...

That way you can be anything mixed with a bit of anything.

This would better reflect the crazy melting pot of mainstream D&D fantasy worlds where 2 dozen races peacefully coexist somehow and all apparently evolved on the same planet in a near utopia.

 

[Andrew J. Luther]

I had always assumed that half-elves and half-orcs were in D&D because they were in Tolkien's Middle-earth.

(Of course, Tolkien's versions of both half-races are quite different than those of D&D -- half-elves must choose at a certain point whether to be mortal and "of men" [like Elros] or ageless and "of elves" [like Elrond] -- but the inspiration is clear.)

In Tolkien, elves and humans are both the "Children" of Eru Ilúvatar, and so presumably could interbreed for that reason. Orcs (at least according to the Silmarillion) are corrupted, twisted versions of elves, and hence could breed with men (producing half-orcs) for that reason. Dwarves were created entirely separately, in secret by Aulë, and hence cannot breed with either humans or elves. Hobbits are distantly related to humans, but Tolkien never mentions whether they could interbreed.

Anyhow, like a lot of other things from Tolkien, I don't think Gygax really thought through how half-elves and half-orcs fit in, why there weren't other half-races (half-gnomes, half-bugbears, etc.), and the rest. I think he just thought people like the Tolkien stuff (even if he didn't much), there are half-elves and half-orcs in Tolkien's writings, so let's just port a version of them over to A/D&D.

Whether from Tolkien or not, I never had a problem with there being only half-elves and half-orcs.

In FR, for example, dwarves were created by Moradin. There’s no reason that the god would necessarily have given them the ability to cross-breed with other races/species.

I get what someone said above about the different halflings being crosses with dwarves or gnomes, but I also think it works just as well as having different types based on where they mostly lived, halfling bloodlines and so forth.

And I’ve always treated half-ogres as half ogre and half orc, not human.

Just because certain species can cross-breed doesn’t mean to me that they all should necessarily be able do so. We’re talking about fantasy races, some of which were literally created by gods. Real life evolution doesn’t automatically have to play a part.

 

[Gringnr]

Me, watching the very gamers who fought tooth and nail to keep WotC in de facto control of the hobby complain about WotC:

 

[Baulderstone]

If I recall, WotC introduced problems with Half-Elves back in 3E by making them the Charisma class. I think the flavor text was still about them being people who didn't fit fully in either world, but mechanically, everybody liked them. It was a confusing design.

 

[VisionStorm]

Me, watching the very gamers who fought tooth and nail to keep WotC in de facto control of the hobby complain about WotC:

View attachment 58853

Wait... people fought to keep WotC IN control of the hobby? When did this happen? I thought everyone always hated WotC for years now.

If I recall, WotC introduced problems with Half-Elves back in 3E by making them the Charisma class. I think the flavor text was still about them being people who didn't fit fully in either world, but mechanically, everybody liked them. It was a confusing design.

No, this started with 5e (don't recall 4e). 3e half-elves had no ability modifiers, only stuff like Low-Light Vision and being considered "elves" for purposes of using magic items that had "elf" as a requirement.

 

[TJS]

The idea that Half-elfves are Charisma based comes from the fact that in 2e with it's level limits they had no level limits as bards.

(And 4e gave them that bonus, because it was all about making the different races good at the the thing they were supposedly stereotypically good at - as a reaction to 3e where your Dwarf Fighter could be overshadowed in melee by some weird accumulation of race and class).

 

[TristramEvans]

Me, watching the very gamers who fought tooth and nail to keep WotC in de facto control of the hobby complain about WotC

I don't remember anyone doing that.

 

[Chris Brady]

Me, watching the very gamers who fought tooth and nail to keep WotC in de facto control of the hobby complain about WotC:

View attachment 58853

Who were those people? No one has EVER liked WoTC. Most people still think that TSR was the greatest company EVAR! EVAR!

EVAR!

And no one can convince them others. Like facts, that Lorraine Williams was using it as a vehicle to get her family legacy of Buck Rogers to be worth something, anything again.

 

[Akrasia]

Most people still think that TSR was the greatest company EVAR! EVAR!

EVAR!

Um ... what?

No, no ... nobody thinks this.

 

[Chris Brady]

Um ... what?

No, no ... nobody thinks this.

Really? The whole OSR was not a reaction to WoTC 'corrupting' TSR's 'vision' of D&D??

 

[Silverlion]

Um ... what?

No, no ... nobody thinks this.

I don't think it, so I agree Akrasia

 

[Akrasia]

Really? The whole OSR was not a reaction to WoTC 'corrupting' TSR's 'vision' of D&D??

The OSR guys love a lot of TSR-era A/D&D rules (and modules, settings, etc.) -- but you'll never find anyone in that movement willing to defend Lorraine Williams (quite the opposite).
Even Gygax is criticized for the way he ran TSR (before being banished by Williams) -- as opposed to his creative work.

Some of the harshest critics of TSR as a company are among the OSR.

TSR era rules ≠ TSR the company!

 

[Acmegamer]

I don't think Gygax really thought through how

Honestly and in my blunt opinion. That sums up the issues. I've never held Gary as some sacred cow, whether it was back in 1978 when I started or today. Many hold up Gary up on an unrealistic pedestal that annoys me to this day. He was egotistical, short sighted and basically human. I'm more fond of him today than I ever was in the late 70s and 1980s.

In the end, he wanted to have fun and he, Dave and others wanted something more from war gaming, something that filled in the gaps that war gaming wasn't doing. He wasn't rpg or war gaming genius by any means but I do in the end think is heart was in the right place.

I'm amused how in the weeds we all can get when thinking about DnD and other rpgs. Look at this thread and others about DnD can go on and on and on. I guess in the end we're all passionate about rpgs, including the rather faulty DnD. Either that or the bottle of Pino is going to my brain... in that case ignore me. My sleep for the past three months has been utter shit and I'm old and cranky.

 

[Telok]

I'm amused how in the weeds we all can get when thinking about DnD and other rpgs. Look at this thread and others about DnD can go on and on and on. I guess in the end we're all passionate about rpgs, including the rather faulty DnD. Either that or the bottle of Pino is going to my brain... in that case ignore me. My sleep for the past three months has been utter shit and I'm old and cranky.

Drink more Pino, it will help.

 

[Fritz]

Drink more Pino, it will help.

I recommend Laphroaig over wine. Trust me, I'm a doctor.

 

[TristramEvans]

Really? The whole OSR was not a reaction to WoTC 'corrupting' TSR's 'vision' of D&D??

I don't think it was motivated specifically on company lines at all, or most were even aware of that - it was simply a desire to recapture the fun of earlier editions.

 

[Ladybird]

Honestly and in my blunt opinion. That sums up the issues. I've never held Gary as some sacred cow, whether it was back in 1978 when I started or today. Many hold up Gary up on an unrealistic pedestal that annoys me to this day. He was egotistical, short sighted and basically human. I'm more fond of him today than I ever was in the late 70s and 1980s.

In the end, he wanted to have fun and he, Dave and others wanted something more from war gaming, something that filled in the gaps that war gaming wasn't doing. He wasn't rpg or war gaming genius by any means but I do in the end think is heart was in the right place.

I'm amused how in the weeds we all can get when thinking about DnD and other rpgs. Look at this thread and others about DnD can go on and on and on. I guess in the end we're all passionate about rpgs, including the rather faulty DnD. Either that or the bottle of Pino is going to my brain... in that case ignore me. My sleep for the past three months has been utter shit and I'm old and cranky.

Gygax was an asshole, but he helped create something great. You can respect that without respecting the man himself...

...however, as with any "art from artist" discussion, you don't have to. Some people won't forgive Gygax for the bad things he did, and that's fine too; that's their decisions to make.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

I don't think it was motivated specifically on company lines at all, or most were even aware of that - it was simply a desire to recapture the fun of earlier editions.

I think there was an element of hero worship of Gygax in some of the early stuff (Appendix N archeology people especially) but that was always a minority.

Also, as a general rule, the people who went on about really hating the newer edition didn't make games as good as people like Dan Proctor who just wanted to make gamest he liked.

 

[Vile Traveller]

Yeah, Gygax turned me off D&D for 30 years... and then I discovered Holmes! Now there was a hero worth worshipping.

 

[TristramEvans]

D&D turned me off D&D. The only thing about Gygax that annoyed me was that for the first 15 years I was in the hobby, no one I gamed with nor myself ever heard the name David Arneson, which led to me viewing Gygax as a bit of a charlatan/gloryhound.

 

[Ladybird]

Yeah, Gygax turned me off D&D for 30 years... and then I discovered Holmes! Now there was a hero worth worshipping.

I'd go for Sir Ian Livingstone CBE myself, but fair choice!

 

[Akrasia]

Gygax was an asshole, but he helped create something great. You can respect that without respecting the man himself...

...however, as with any "art from artist" discussion, you don't have to. Some people won't forgive Gygax for the bad things he did, and that's fine too; that's their decisions to make.

I think it's a bit harsh to dismiss Gygax as an asshole without qualification. He definitely had "asshole-ish" qualities, but these diminished over time, I think (see his Q&A threads at Dragonsfoot and Enworld from 15-22 years ago). He could be quite generous with fans, and was clearly enthusiastic about the hobby. Like many people, he had positive and negative qualities.

But yeah, while I like a lot of his creative work (e.g., Greyhawk, the AD&D modules), I doubt that I would've gotten along with him in person (especially during the late 1970s and early 1980s).

D&D turned me off D&D. The only thing about Gygax that annoyed me was that for the first 15 years I was in the hobby, no one I gamed with nor myself ever heard the name David Arneson, which led to me viewing Gygax as a bit of a charlatan/gloryhound.

Gygax was definitely a glory hound, but I don't think he was in any way a charlatan. He actually did the work (writing, promotion, etc.) necessary to make D&D and AD&D accessible, playable games, and worked hard on a lot of the early creative material (the classic modules, the World of Greyhawk, etc.).

Arneson, despite providing the initial spark for the hobby, seems to have been unwilling or unable to produce publishable work.

 

[TristramEvans]

Gygax was definitely a glory hound, but I don't think he was in any way a charlatan.

I'm using the two as synonymous. When one refers to themselves as the "creator of D&D" (singular) or other people refer to him as such and he deliberately doesn't correct them, I see that as dishonesty. And when I did find out about Arneson and the origins of the hobby, it seemed to me at the time that Gygax had been deliberately perpetuating a scam.

Now, my opinion has altered since then, and I think it's more nuanced. But I also never held Gygax on a pedestal, because I don't hold D&D on a pedestal.

Gygax isn't Stan Lee....he's Zuckerberg.

 

[A Fiery Flying Roll]

It's interesting looking back at early White Dwarfs and seeing slightly oblique references to Areneson, especially in their industry gossip column.

Back then they flew over my head, but they're very interesting with the knowledge I have now.

 

[opaopajr]

Yeah, I once got into an argument with someone about 5e, cuz I thought that attacking broke off movement (don't recall the details of the argument right now), and it turned out I was wrong and was just coming at it from my perspective of playing prior editions and not checking the 5e rules for what they specifically said. But it turned out you could attack, move, then attack again in 5e, as long as you didn't exceed your Speed that round.

Indeed. It is one of the reasons I try to use the editions name for things as best I can, like 5e Opportunity Attack vs 3e Attack of Opportunity vs 1e & 2e Free Attack upon Fleeing. Each edition is different (except maybe CoC 1e -- 6e) enough as to eventually be confused at points.

You, Chris, and I (and most old timer RPG fora goers) probably forgot more RPG rules than new generations have ever been exposed to. Perfectly natural for them to blend in memory over time. That's why explicit sourcing and citation help us with historical records.

Which does tangentially relate to the latest OneDnD & "No Halfsies!" edict from WotC. I worry with so much digital emphasis and accomodation of the latest thing. I know dystopian novels were warnings, not instruction manuals, but I do hope WotC does not go back and edit the archived past. Let the old pdfs remain not "updated" just preserved; that road leads to piracy being the legitimate archivers of history.

 

[Fenris-77]

Indeed. It is one of the reasons I try to use the editions name for things as best I can, like 5e Opportunity Attack vs 3e Attack of Opportunity vs 1e & 2e Free Attack upon Fleeing. Each edition is different (except maybe CoC 1e -- 6e) enough as to eventually be confused at points.

You, Chris, and I (and most old timer RPG fora goers) probably forgot more RPG rules than new generations have ever been exposed to. Perfectly natural for them to blend in memory over time. That's why explicit sourcing and citation help us with historical records.

Which does tangentially relate to the latest OneDnD & "No Halfsies!" edict from WotC. I worry with so much digital emphasis and accomodation of the latest thing. I know dystopian novels were warnings, not instruction manuals, but I do hope WotC does not go back and edit the archived past. Let the old pdfs remain not "updated" just preserved; that road leads to piracy being the legitimate archivers of history.

The tattered cheesecloth that serves as my memory pretty much ensures that no matter which edition of D&D I'm playing it will end up being a mishmash of some kind.

 

[TristramEvans]

The tattered cheesecloth that serves as my memory pretty much ensures that no matter which edition of D&D I'm playing it will end up being a mishmash of some kind.

Just so long as it has THAC0

 

[Fenris-77]

Just so long as it has THAC0

Sometimes I just randomly shout THAC0 during sessions regardless of edition. It gives me a warm fuzzy.