[D&D] Why I'm Getting Tired of D&D

[The Hive Custodian]

Why I'm Getting Tired of D&D
Now don't get me wrong. I still enjoy RPGing in general, and I'm not going to stop playing D&D, even after seven years of playing it. There is no perfect RPG system, or we would all be playing it, and certainly D&D has a lot going for it. Anywhere people are playing RPGs, you can be pretty sure that at least some of them are playing D&D. There's a lot of D&D material out there, and the SRD is available for free in an easily accessible format.

However, I am getting tired of D&D. D&D has many flaws, some more forgivable than others. Some are due to the way that the rules are written; others are due to the D&D culture that emphasizes certain aspects of the game over others. (Of course, not everyone who plays D&D follows this "D&D culture", but enough do that it is a constant, sometimes unconscious influence.) It is these flaws which I will discuss here.

Flavor
There are three main things that I dislike about the flavor of the D&D setting, all of them connected in some form:

The first is alignment, combined with the D&D culture's love of combat. D&D's alignment system is very black and white, going as far as to include spells capable of detecting whether a person is good or evil. As a sentient creature, I find this rather offensive. To reduce the moral conumdrums of this world--in my opinion, one of the best parts of roleplaying--to something that can be determined by the stilted fiat of a spell--this is something I cannot stand for. Furthermore, D&D fails to give evil proper respect. While I am in no way endorsing evil, D&D overwhelmingly portrays evil as insane, monstrous, and/or mindless, keeping it a comfortable distance from our own "human" experiences. This, I believe, is a mistake; the horrors of inhuman evil are nothing compared to the human, understandable evil. Unfortunately, it is the former that is more consistent with D&D's culture of combat; combat is easier, after all, when there are no moral quandraries to get in the way.

My second objection is to the massive dependence of D&D characters on their magical items, especially at high levels. Again, this fits in with D&D's fight-and-loot culture. Unfortunately, D&D has been designed in such a way that characters are essentially useless without their items past low level. Take away a 20th-level fighter's magical gear, and you're looking at around -10 to most rolls. A far lower-level character with magical gear could best them; hardly fitting of what is probably the "greatest warrior in the land".

Finally, there is D&D's magic, again a problem that becomes worse at high levels. Spells seem to make many tasks too easy; clever plans involving mundane means are too often supplanted by finding the right spell out of perhaps two thousand. Walking is rendered largely outmoded when teleportation spells come into play. Even death becomes obsolete when characters gain access to resurrection spells. Mundane characters can only do so much against wielders of magic who can breach natural laws and change the rules of the world at a whim, no matter how high they increase their numbers. D&D magic has long stopped being, well, magical. There is no longer any wonder left in witnessing the arcane works of a wizard or the rituals of a druid. Furthermore, little thought is given to the effects of such reality-bending magic on the game world. How do magical item shops defend themselves from attack? Why are commoners so poorly-off; surely there are some good-aligned spellcasters willing to contribute some daily spells to their community? Why do castles look the same as they do in our non-magical world? Then again, a world with D&D magic's effects taken to their logical conclusion would probably be incomprehensible to all of us.

Simplicity
D&D is a rather complex system. In many ways, D&D tries to have rules to cover everything; there are rules for everything from recognizing a spell, shooting an arrow, baking bread, sizing up an opponent dropping a rock on someone, and so on. Along with this, there is the D&D culture that is always asking, "How should I represent this inside the rules?" Consistency is favored above flexibility, and as more rules are added to make adjudication more consistent, the system becomes more complex.

However, gameplay rules are only part of the contribution to D&D complexity. The bulk of the complexity of D&D lies in character creation. Even in core-only, there are a plethora of tiny bonuses to add up for each statistic. You have your base bonus from your levels, plus the bonus from your ability scores (which themselves have bonuses), plus bonuses from feats, plus several different kinds of bonuses from items. However, we no longer live in a core-only world; the proliferation of splatbooks has increased the number of options and types of options to incomprehensible levels. It is now impossible to be familar with, or perhaps even aware of, all the rules that are out there without an unreasonable investment of time and money.

Unfortunately, all this complexity has bought us little beyond consistency (which is itself suspect; it is difficult to be consistent when one does not know all the rules, after all). In addition to being one of the sources of many of D&D's other flaws, the complexity of D&D does little to feed our imaginations. D&D statistics are extremely abstract, offering little insight into the game world. How much is a hit point? How many ranks would someone have to have in Heal for you to trust them with an organ transplant? How good a shot is that archer with a +12 attack bonus? Too often, D&D's numbers are numbers solely for their own sake.

Balance
Wizards has some strange mentalities when it comes to balance. For example, they routinely give nonstandard races level adjustments that are far too high, in the name of balance--yet they have no qualms about releasing hundreds of prestige classes and feats, and thousands of spells. (Not to mention hundreds of creatures to shapechange into... so much for level adjustment. To be fair, though, Wizards has taken steps to correct this.) The sheer volume of material makes it impossible to maintain balance between it all. I could also go into Wizards's lack of understanding of logarithmic scales, some of the more blatantly overpowered or poorly-designed prestige classes, the spellcaster-nonspellcaster inbalance, and so forth, but these are not important when looking at D&D in general.

As broken as some rules may be, the biggest unbalancing factor in D&D is not the rules, but the dependence on them. In the end, the entity most capable of enforcing balance is the DM, not the rules. The DM can see the game as it unfolds; the rules cannot. However, D&D is extremely rules-dependent; when a DM wants to balance something, the DM must do it through the rules, a complicated and time-consuming process.

Flexibility
This brings us to my final point: flexibility. D&D is not a very flexible system, in part due to its focus on consistency and its complexity. Furthermore, Wizards has in large part failed to give us guides to creating balanced, workable homebrew material. (I'm sorry, Savage Species does not count.)

"But what about all the new options that Wizards has introduced for D&D characters?" some of you may ask. I would argue that these options have done little, or even nothing at all, to increase D&D's flexibility. First of all, Wizards insists on creating a new prestige class for every possible character concept. This is a grossly inefficient way to increase the variety of character concepts that can be represented. It would be far more efficient to create fewer classes but with greater customizability; I believe a handful of well-designed, heavily customizable classes could replace hundreds of the prestige classes currently in existence, while taking up much less print space and being at least as well-balanced. It would also make it easier to introduce homebrewed material, since people would feel less compelled to try to create a entire new prestige class to represent a character concept.

Indeed, these options may have decreased D&D's flexibility rather than increased it. In today's world of prestige classes, it is becoming more difficult to stay competitive stat-wise. Even if you're not a powergamer, you have to put a good deal of thought into making sure that your character doesn't suck. Too often, this comes into conflict with getting the character concept you want. The best example is multiclassing. At first glance, multiclassing is an excellent way to make your character just the way you want it. Unfortunately, unless you're very careful, multiclassing is also the quickest way to cripple your character for life, short of amputation. Actually, I take that back--a spell can solve amputation, but a spell can't solve bad multiclassing. Until recently, once you made a choice about your character's feats, skills, classes, and so forth, you couldn't go back. Apparently the PHB II addresses this problem somewhat, but it is sure to be a cumbersome process, again due to D&D's complexity. Of course, this still leaves the problem that some character concepts work better rules-wise in D&D than others. Furthermore, even if two people have the same character concept, one can have a more powerful character simply by knowing the rules. Hardly fair in an RPG, in my book.

In my eyes, this is the greatest weakness of D&D. Too often, character creation in D&D is a case of "legal, competitive, and true to concept--pick two".

[Doomsmile]

I can agree with a few of your points:

D20 has a lot of rules and these can add up to be rather complex- this is coming from the author of a new D20 modern "mod." It takes a good deal of work and planning, even before you start going over stuff to make sure it's well-ballanced.
I am also strong beliver that mages are more powerful than fighter-types at high-levels, though prestiege classes can make fighter-types more specialized of characterful (which is why I hate each and every mage prestige class that gives full spell progression). This makes me a little irritated, but I don't like high-level games anyway because of the epic stature of the characters at that point in the game (the characters don't act at this point like I like my characters- I need someone vincible and with more flaws than simply "hubris.")
There are also a few other points which I see similarly, but disagree about whether or not it's bad:

This pretty much is the alignment thing. While a more detailed alignment system wouldn't be a bad thing, the vague way that I see the alignment system as being leads to (what's this?) flexibility in the way the character acts. Lawful Good doesn't automatically make you a paladin- you could simply be a generally good person who follows the rules. Being chaotic evil doesn't mean you eat babies and kick puppies- you may just be a loner who is out only for yourself- you don't even have to be unpleasant!
Then there's flavor. I find this to be rather mutable in several respects if you build your own world. For instance, the fantasy setting I keep saying I'll run something in eventually would probably have a very diferant flavor from standard D&D: diferant races, magic-users are a rarity (making magic items incredibly rare and valuable), the dieties can't directly effect the world, there aren't resurrection spells, and many other twists to the setting. The magic item reliance is an issue, but the rest is all subject to the world the DM sets his game in.

[The Hive Custodian]

Regarding the alignment thing: My main beef with the alignment system (besides the whole poison = evil, undead = evil, paladin code headaches, etc., etc.) is its involvement in game mechanics. Were it not for detect spells and such, I probably wouldn't have a problem with the standard nine alignments, as long as not too much weight is put on it. (After all, alignment is a rather simplistic model of behavior. Imagine what would happen if people thought the alignment system existed in real life. Or at least more people did.) There is, after all, only so much you can describe with only nine categories. I now believe my Models of Alignment are best used to introduce vagaries in game mechanics; otherwise, it's better to describe your character in regular words rather than an alignment system.

Unfortunately, detect spells do exist, and all the moral nuances you talked about go out the window. I mean, doesn't anybody else find the following (taken from the Wizards boards) a bit ridiculous:
I think virtually everyone would accept that someone could refuse to be friends with someone who is evil. On the other hand, most would also say that a paladin shouldn't go around smiting every evil creature he comes across without provocation.

What about the intermediate cases, though? For instance, is it okay for public accommodation private facilities, such as inns, stores, and the like, to refuse to serve people if they detect as evil?

Granted, most people who are running hotels and such are not going to be able to detect evil, but what about a general store manager who happens to be a retired-but-not-fallen paladin?

My take:

It's okay to refuse evil people on the basis of alignment for:
-Subletting your apartment or renting rooms in your home.
-Employment
-Sale of potentially dangerous items (Don't stop evil people from buying a Wand of Remove Disease, but stop them from buying a Hat of Disguise).
-Lifeboat/Triage situations (i.e., you wouldn't normally deny an evil person food, but if you have only enough for three people, and you have four, and one's evil, you can starve the evil one, if someone has to starve anyway)

Not okay:
-Mundane service, such as selling food, clothing, drink, and other items without much evil usage.
-Basic medical care. If an evil fellow comes into a hospital bleeding, you should attend to that (for exceptions, see Lifeboat/Triage situations).
-Civil protection: if you're a town guard (with the detect evil ability, for some reason), and see an evil person getting robbed, you don't look the other way.

Gray areas:
-"Good and neutral only" neighborhoods. Districts where anyone who wants to live there cannot be evil (or possibly even "good only" neighborhoods, or even "lawful good only" neighborhoods. I can't imagine chaotic good types would set up their own exclusive neighborhoods. Just seems too lawful to me.). I suppose it should be allowed, but would this lead to "no evil" neighborhoods becoming the default, with evil people forced into ghettos by default?

Your thoughts?

As for the flavor thing, it is the least of my objections, since it is the most easily changed. However, that doesn't mean that the default rules and the D&D culture doesn't promote a certain kind of flavor.

[Doomsmile]

I would like to point out that, under the quote you have, many people who are normally accepted by most would be unable to do a lot of things. Merchants (who need to be selfish to stay in business) would have problems, as would other things. In short, yes, detect alignment spells can be a bit of a hastle. Good thing paladins are the only ones who ever spam it, clerics prety much never prepare it, etc.

[The Hive Custodian]

I would like to point out that, under the quote you have, many people who are normally accepted by most would be unable to do a lot of things. Merchants (who need to be selfish to stay in business) would have problems, as would other things. In short, yes, detect alignment spells can be a bit of a hastle.
That was my point.

[Xaden]

I think one of the biggest problems with the D&D systems is the books insistence on following the rules set forth by the various game design companies. When I DM I just don't include alignment for PC's and most NPC's. Paladins and clerics still have rules to follow, but basically, unless you're a specifically "evil" or "good" thing (i.e. demon, angel, or something else specifically "good", "evil", "lawful", "chaotic"), you never register for detect alignment spells, protection from (alignment) spells pretty much don't work (except against the exceptions listed above). Even paladins, who must be good and think about others and what-have-you, do not register as "good" or "lawful" in my campaigns. Why? My argument is free will, in this case, a paladin chooses to be lawful good, but there's no reason he can't do something evil (there will be consequences, such as his god turning his back on him and he loses his "paladiny"-powers), but because he has free will he can be "good", "evil", etc. as he sees fit.

I think though, that I just got side-tracked by the alignment thing, but the main point I was trying to make was, D&D is a good system, but with some problems, but what I like to do is change them. I know, this is going to rub some people the wrong way, but it's all in just the way the rules in the books are presented, they're almost written down as if they were some sort of holy scripture and if by changing them the Gods of D&D will come down and smite you! But the truth is, no one will.

I would also like to state at this point, before the flames within you start to rise too much that I do love D&D, I've been playing since I was 11 (that was 14 years ago), and will probably continue to play D&D for many more years to come (as long as I'm still alive), and I'm not trying to show off either (I know someone else who's been playing since she was 5! That blew me out of the water when I heard it!).

I've also played other RPGs and I'm glad I did, for they taught me much. Most specifically I've been playing a lot of the White Wolf games (Vampire, Werewolf, Exalted and many others from their company) and one of the greatest things I got out of those books was their golden rule, which was (approximately): If you don't like a rule, change it, if it doesn't fit with your style of play, ignore it. They should really put that rule into all RPGs. Now don't get me wrong, the designers of D&D are very intelligent, they've come up with some amazing rules, world (with the help of some literature, Tolkien the foremost among them), but they are just human, and the rules they present are just the ones that they found work for them. Many of their rules do not fit with me, and so I change them, and just as I am human and may be wrong to change some of the rules that I do, they are human as well and therefore prone to error. Or just the fact that the designers of the game are not me, they may have different opinions of what rules might be fun and which might not. Since I find my rules to be more enjoyable I will continue to use them when I DM.

Multiclassing, in my opinion, is too restrictive, so I allow multiclassing without restriction, I've changed the skills a little, and give more skill points, and I give more feats. When using these modified rules my friends and me have found the game to be much more enjoyable. I know it's blasphemous to change the rules as vastly as I have, but that's how I truly enjoy the game. Though maybe another reason I have yet to find troubles with the changes I have made is because I play with responsible players. Now I'm not saying anyone else is irresponsible, but I've definitely seen some of the rules set up in the game so that certain aspects of the game cannot be abused, the game tries to set up barriers for balance to be maintained, but if you have a group of responsible gamers, some (if not many) of those rules can be ignored and thrown out completely with greater flexibility being gained and therefore greater enjoyment of the game (in my own opinion).

Though there's still the craziness of "What do the numbers mean?" Like what does a 13 in jump mean? Is that good? How about a BAB of +7? What does it mean to have 115 HP? And so far I've only heard one good argument for these crazy ever-increasing numbers as you go up in level, and it was a great argument, and probably one of the greatest reasons why I love D&D (and I do love it!) and that's the heroism factor.

Yeah, it stretches the bounds of believability to have one man (say a 20th level fighter) hold back an army of 100 orcs (maybe 100 would be too many, but you know what I'm talking about), but it's exciting! The idea that one person can be so astronomically skilled, much like the heroes of the Lord of the Rings books (Gimly and Legolas killing literally 50 or 60 orcs in one battle just between the two of them, and that's to say nothing of however many Aragorn killed alone). So yes, the numbers really do start to mean nothing, and fairly quickly, except for just meaning that your character can truly do something heroic (and I think that's worth a lot)!

The Hive Custodian: Fixed color.

[Doomsmile]

Okay, first of all, I've never gotten the "holy scripture" impression from D20, as is evident from the tinkerings and changes I've made in my own time (which pales in comparison to THC's, yes, but I do it with some frequency).

Secondly, I've only seen the multi-class penalty threaten to hit somone once in all of the time I've played D&D. And that was with a character who already had two classes and was thinking of tacking on a level of scout for trapfinding.

Thirdly, any game has "What do the numbers mean?" syndrome. And I don't just mean RPGs. Whitewolf has the dice and DC system (which I find hard to get my head around- is five dice a lot?), almost any RTS has this kind of thing when you look at a combat unit (Well, my Terran Marine has 40 hit points... that sounds like a lot, I guess...), as well as trading card games and table-top war games. Level-based RPGs have it pretty bad, though, but non-level based ones have it worse, I think.

Fourthly, I really don't like the epic mentality of high-level games because of the rediculousness of a fighter get crushed under a glacier, then laugh it off and thump things.

Oh, and, lastly, I don't want to have to scroll through all fifteen or so drafts of your post, so I'm going to delete all but the last one, which seems to be the furthest along, okay?

[Xaden]

First off, I'm very sorry about the millions of posts thing, I don't know what happened there and I'm very sorry about that :dead: (I quickly started deleting all the supurfluous ones myself, again very sorry :S ).

Though, back to the main thread, I guess you and I just may always disagree about the White Wolf system, because one of the things I always liked about it is the fact that I felt each dot did mean something (1=below average, 2=average, 3=well off, 4=truly exceptional, 5=extent of human limits) and even meant something system-wise (that extra die from having one more dot really did count), but I guess everyone isn't going to be as hard-up on White Wolf as I am (I fully understand that).

Though, I think the main point I was trying to make (in that whole big speal) is that if you like the D&D system, for the most part, well you should like it almost completely and if you don't, then change it. If a rule doesn't sit well with you, make it work, and if you can't make it work, ignore it, don't use it. Now if you truly dislike D&Ds system (which I don't think anyone here is saying... yet...) then you probably shouldn't play it. But if you don't like high-level campaigns, don't play them, if you don't like lots of HPs, don't have them, if these are the things that make the game enjoyable for you.

If you still want character advancement but without becomming "high-level", then figure out a system where you can only raise up to a certain level, then you can only spend your experience points to buy alternate class skills or more feats, this way your character can still advance and become more impressive (which I think most people find enjoyable, seeing their character improve that is) without truly becomming absurdly powerful, or maybe you can think of something else.

The point of the matter is, if you find some rule that makes the game less than great for you, then find some way to make it great, feel free to change it.

And while I'm sure not everyone finds the D&D books to be "holy scripture", I know in my life I've run into MANY people who would sooner chop off one of their own legs than change a D&D rule (and I'm sure there's many others out there who's run into someone that they could at least call a "rules lawer").

And I am truly glad to hear that you're willing to change things yourself if you run into something you just don't like, it is, I've found, a trait rarely found in most D&D gamers so I'm giving you a thumbs up Doomsmile :nod: .

And again I'm really sorry about the million post thing :depry: .

[Takkaryx]

S'all right, don't worry about it. Next time, use the Edit button.:cool:

I like DnD. However, I only will ever expect it to be rules heavy. If I am going to play it, I can know what to expect. If you want to change it, fine. I have no qualms about it (Just print me out a sheet of the changes so I can continue to make the numbers dance to my will). If I want to play something with more open-endedness, I'll play a WoD or BESM game. Wanna go epic? Play Exalted. But, in my veiw, DnD will always be rules heavy. And in a sense, it's kinda what makes DnD, well, DnD. To be honest, it wouldn't be the same otherwise.

[The Hive Custodian]

The boards done screwed up that post...

M-M-M-MONSTER POST!!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist. Anyhow, back to RPGs:

Yes, I do like to tinker a lot with the D&D rules (witness the Meeting Hall (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=822) in Fated Meetings). But it has struck me how difficult it can be to introduce things to the rules; often I've had to reverse-construct parts of the D&D system to be able to create something that's balanced. It's simply become a bit too much of a hassle to try to wrangle a character concept into something that fits in the D&D system. It certainly doesn't help that I'm a bit of a perfectionist...

About multiclassing: The multiclassing XP penalty isn't the main part of the problem. The main part of the problem is that many classes, especially base classes, are backloaded and stack poorly. In the most extreme cases (such as primary spellcasters), the last couple of levels are worth as much as the rest of the levels combined. If you multiclass, you can easily lose three-quarters of each class's power due to missing the last levels, leaving your character crippled stat-wise. Now, there are some safe choices for multiclassing (such as fighter), but there are many combinations that will leave you powerless. I mean, try playing Wizard/Cleric without Mystic Theruge.

I've not had a chance to play Storyteller as much as I'd like (I have none of the books, for one thing), but the dots having meaning is something I greatly admire about the system. If someone has five dots in something, that's worthy of respect. It's much harder to get that kind of respect in D&D.

As for power levels... unfortunately, high-powered characters necessarily result from character advancement. Allow me to explain:

Our feeling that a character is advancing comes not from how much power we gain at any point, but from how much power we gain compared to how much we already have. If you have ten hit points, you might get excited about getting ten more. Not so much if you have 2,000 hit points. To preserve the sensation of advancement, the rewards have to increase along with how much you already have. One adventure you might have 10 hit points. A few more, you might have 20. A few more you'll have 40, then 80, then 160, then 320, then 640... see how the numbers balloon upward? Exponential growth--that's the price of keeping our sensation of advancement. They go hand-in-hand. And before long, our characters are beyond the ken of mere mortals.

Anyhow, I'm considering branching out to different systems; I've even started developing my own, although I'm not sure anything will come of it.

And thanks for dropping by to give your opinion! I've noticed this board has gotten more traffic ever since nightinverse opened the new game next door.

[Doomsmile]

Go piggy-backing! Woo!

Backtracking to what I said about White Wolf, I was simply making an example. They are fairly good at saying up front what an atribute means in relative terms, I was speaking in objective terms. You have to play a while to realize that even though your character is exceptionally dexterous, four dice isn't going to cut it as a dodge pool, just like you have to play D&D a while to realize that your impressive-looking AC of 20 isn't so hot for a 6th level fighter-type.

[The Hive Custodian]

But that's exactly the problem. In D&D, the numbers exist only as grist for the d20. I'm not saying that what the Storyteller says X dots represents meshes well with its effect inside the game rules; I've not played Storyteller enough to know if it does or not. However, Storyteller gives us something we can visualize, as opposed to D&D's much more abstract stats.

[nightinverse]

Is it just a day of general discontent here?

As I did discontinue roleplaying in the main for several years, I find myself in a unique position here.

1. Alignment

Is it simple? Yes. Is it an effective psychological barrier that keeps a line between fantasy and reality? Yes. Does it, in part, shield this roleplaying system from the critique and assault directed at prior, less strict, systems? Yes.

Is it perfect? Right? Acceptable to an advanced roleplayer? No.

You've probably read my wrestling works on the subject of good, as presented in another thread by THC. I'm a big fan of good, I've tried to quantify it for the purpose of study, but of course, there are no true absolutes. I even have some points listed as variable in that aforementioned thread. A strict Alignment system is not logical.

The Book of Vile Darkness seems, despite the title of the supplement, the only WoTC release that breaks the barrier of monstrous and human evil, though you have to dig deep to see it. This is... well, another point against... holding evil separate from the origins of evil; man and the society of man.

The portrayal of subjectives as absolutes is the chief flaw of the Alignment system. I too am tired of it, and I am planning to phase it out over time, with experienced players. This is part of why I started Greyscale World, rather than a D&D game, after my long absence.

2. Magical Dependency

It's a spiral reward system, pure and simple. Actually, it reminds me of our dependency upon technology.

I haven't tried to work this out of the system, simply because I've grown apathetic on the point in real life, and I know I can't work the parallel out of our system. Why bother making something I want so dearly closer to realism less realistic by pulling a painful core economic and numeric element?

That said, Lempfhyr Isles contains a few attempts at that. Greyscale World sidesteps the issue to a degree, through my Andrine Agency controls.

3. Magic

I love magic because it allows reality to bend without breaking - and there my like of any magic system comes apart. I used to play no casters, and now I am attempting to bring myself closer to that form of play so I can better DM it.

Magic is a spice, but not the full of the broth. I use it carefully, but I must agree with THC about the shortcomings of D&D magic in general.

4. Simplicity/Balance/Flexibility

Big issues all, though I try to maintain the first and second through being a hard DM, and the latter through promoting roleplaying.

[Uranium - 235]

Personally, a lot of these things are the reason I moved to the more refined (in my opinion) system of Shadowrun (2.0). Another thing that pissed me off was that D&D 3.0 has almost nothing in common with any previous version of D&D. Having to buy a whole new pile of hardcover books isn't fun to me, and having to do it so I can play with a bunch of annoying new rules is even less so.

Personally I prefer Shadowrun to D&D because it has more options besides combat. Hell, 80% of a Shadowrun game and you'll not even kill anyone. Outside of combat, in D&D, you have... Charisma rolls and 'Diplomacy'? Lame. The rules themselves have really no room for flexibility - there's a rule for everything, and most of them just suck.

Call me elitist, but I'm tired of D&D. D&D I consider an 'immature' system. The game's focus is primarially on loot-whoring, twinking, and abusing the rules. Let's just look at Time Stop for example...

[nightinverse]

Another thing that pissed me off was that D&D 3.0 has almost nothing in common with any previous version of D&D.

I personally found that the feeling was preserved without the illogical bull. Sure, I had to learn essentially a new ruleset, but then I could apply that ruleset to about forty other games... and finally, combat could be removed as a focus.

[AbusePuppy]

I must admit, I really don't like the d20 system at all, for a number of reasons, not the least of which being many of the points made above. I'll try and break this up into readable chunks rather than huge masses of frightening texts which prey upon all who view them.

The dice system
http://www.criticalmiss.com/issue8/bitaboutd201.html
I use this as my standard reference when arguing why I don't like D&D. Any roleplaying system (okay, almost any) is going to need some kind of dice system to generate random results. The problem with the d20 system is that it doesn't do what the system wants it to- Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy world of high adventure, right? The system should reflect that by allowing characters to perform extrodinary feats in their areas of specialty. Fantasy games don't need to strive for realism because that's not the point, in most cases; the point is to have Heroes, people who are larger than life in both their strengths and weaknesses. Conan the Barbarian was a hero. Heracles was a hero. Cuchalain was a hero. D&D characters are not heros because they can't do heroic things, at least not without the aid of magic items. (We'll get back to that part.)

If you want an example of a heroic system, take a gander at Exalted. Sure, it's got its own issues but no one can deny that Exalts are heroes in every sense of the word. BESM characters are also heroic- you CAN'T make a BESM character and not be bigger than life because the system MAKES you that way. d20 lacks that, and in a fantasy RPG I think that's a gaping weakness.

Rules
Rules, rules, rules, rules. Boy, does d20 love rules. Alright, so perhaps not so much as, say, Rolemaster or MERPS, but it still has modifiers, classes, items, doodads whistles and bells coming out the wazoo. In fact, supplements can be easily classified into the categories of either A: adventure book or B: a pile of new rules to abuse. A certain amount of this is nice to have (otherwise you're making your own game from scratch, which is a real hassle) but D&D has always taken it to the extreme, moreso than any other game. There are literally thousands of supplements out there and there's no way a DM can even come close to reading them all. He wouldn't even WANT to, because there's no way you could possibly cram all that into one campaign without overloading things; you're lucky if you can take advantage of one or two sourcebooks at a time, for the most part.

Above and beyond that is the problem in the basic mentality: "make a rule for every situation." I don't like this because I think it boils down to trying to make the DM useless. If you have rules for every single possible contingency and random monster/loot/plot tables, what does the GM do? He becomes a fifth wheel in the game, secondary to the players and the rules- and that, in my opinion, is the worst thing a game can do. Roleplaying, for most people, is about playing the game and enjoying the story. Sure, some of them may prefer combat to talking or tactics to puzzles, but in the end it's the story, the plot, the unfolding of events that draws their interest, not a +3 modifier or Level Two in a Whatsit. Even the combat monkies know that it's the thing that the rules represent- tearing the orc in half with your double-axe, incinerating a castle with your fireball- that's exciting, not the simple act of tossing a die and hoping for high numbers. We can do that all night long without having any fun.

The proliferation of rules doesn't even help the DM much; in fact, in most cases it hurts him. Most people can make up some half-assed rules on the fly for whatever situation comes about- "Swimming? Sure, you'll take a penalty to that 'cause of your armor."- but when the rules grow to the bloated size they are in d20 now you get problems with rules lawyering. It's hard to just throw out a rule that's printed in a book- the players assume that things will be consistant, that the rules will not suddenly shift on them, and when existing rules change it can really bother some people. This dependence is only furthered by the smothering mountains of numerical busywork that d20 fosters on the GM; creating a workable CR10 or CR15 monster can take upwards of an hour if you want to balance it well. To contrast, I can scratch together a BESM villian in less than five minutes, or a Shadowrun opponent in well below ten- and that's taking time to flesh them out a bit and give them personality. GMs can always create more rules to suit their group's needs, but I have to emphasize that subtracting rules is a very different matter.

Items
This is already well-covered by all of you but I'd like to bring up another point: dependance on items is not balanced between classes. A fighter or rogue needs magical items to be effective in the later game; a caster does not. Lacking any way to gain many supernormal abilities on their own (feats do not count; in most cases they are only minor enhancements to existing capacities), they have to rely on supplamental magic in the form of items to stay competitive. (This also falls back to the earlier point made about percentage improvements, as +1 BAB is not very impressive when you already have a +15. Excaberating this problem is the linear nature of the dice, as mentioned in my first post.) Those with innate magic, on the other hand, gain new capacities as they advance no matter what- a caster with level six spells can do something that a caster with only level five spells literally cannot even attempt. Barring a few rare feats and the abilities of prestige classes, non-casters generally have no such abilities. A ranger is a ranger is a ranger; he gets more pluses to his skills and attacks but never really changes what it is he can do ("hit things with a bow/sword") over the course of his career, whereas a wizard drastically changes in ability at each new level of spells.

Levels
This is less of a major point and more of a pet peeve: level-based systems tend to be inherently restricting. They make things marginally simpler (until the number of classes proliferates towards infinity, of course...) in exchange for shearing away most character concepts. D&D does not allow a highly-skilled character who can't fight well. It is impossible to play someone with exceptional stats and few skills. Aspects of your character cannot be balanced or traded; they are fixed, static, and generally identical to those of anyone else of your level and general role. This discourages customization and individualization of characters and promotes the "what's the best modifier" outlook, which I loathe. It is one thing to enjoy a good fight and another entirely to turn everything into a numbers crunch.

Combat
Another pet peeve: D&D is almost entirely combat-focused. No matter how you dress it up, the system is really about hack and slash- which may be fine for some people and I can stand in limited doses, but it eventually can get tiring. Now, I know many GMs run social games or campaigns with extensive roleplaying and witty banter but the heart of the matter is that d20 isn't designed to support that. It awards exp based primarily on fights and makes only casual mention of other methods. The bulk of the rules are dedicated to combat and loot, with a tiny fraction of the remainder of the book being used for "everything else." Most class abilities are focused on what they do in combat, with other capacities acting mainly as side benefits. And above and beyond all that combat in D&D is dull, deadly dull, boring and uninteresting. Your options in most combat rounds are either to cast a spell/ability, move or make an attack in some combination. Special maneuvers, tactical tricks and cinematic swordplay are all but disallowed by the system's rules- and these are the lifeblood of an interesting fight.


...Oooookay, so that was sort of a long post. d20 is not the worst system in the world, certainly, but given the chance I'll play almost anything else before it. I really wish there were a better, widespread system for fantasy gaming but this appears to be what we're stuck with for the immediate future. All we can do for now is to pray to the gods of roleplaying that someone will come up with something else and that it will catch on enough to overwhelm D&D. Until that day, save your last point of essence for a defense charm, don't tempt the forces of Paradox, take a couple levels of Appearance just for style and never, ever deal with a dragon.
__________________
"Okay, I'm raising everyone two bucks, tapping out to summon a Serra Angel and my cleric/mage casts Bane, reducing your morale by one."
"Using my thief's pickpocket skills I'm stealing two cards from the deck, five bucks from the pot and tapping to Lightning Bolt everyone for three damage."
"Time for some half-orc berserker rage! I'm Great Cleaving everyone while taking two cards and raising a buck."
"I'll see your dollar and cast a fifth-level Fireball and tap all my mountains to follow it up with another Fireball. And I call."
"Level nine, three of a kind."
"Level six, full house, aces and Plague Rats."
"Level ten, four of a kind- all goblins. Man, I love D20-Magic-Texas Hold 'Em!"

[Uranium - 235]

I personally found that the feeling was preserved without the illogical bull. Sure, I had to learn essentially a new ruleset, but then I could apply that ruleset to about forty other games... and finally, combat could be removed as a focus.
Unless you pretty much rewrite the majority of the rules, combat isn't going to be removed as a focus. As AbusePuppy said, a huge portion of the books say that combat is the only way to go about doing things.

What do you do in the game? Get XP. How do you get XP? Fight. Why do you get XP? To get levels. What do higher levels get you? You get better at fighting.

I wrote it before but removed it, but I'll put it here again because it makes more sense to say now - D&D's emphasis on combat, yet simplification of everything else really makes it, and other D20 systems, feel like the 'Counter-Strike' of RPG systems to me. CS doesn't focus on using your brain, it appeals to the 12 year old kiddie on his computer at home who just wants to shoot things.


TOTALLY OFF TOPIC:


"Why did nobody bid a dollar!?"
-Bob Barker, The Price is Right, after the second consecutive overbid
Reply With Quote

God, I've seen the Price is Right maybe twice, but I saw that one and almost lost it. Good stuff :D

[nightinverse]

Skill points, skill points!

How do you get XP? Story based rewards! Why do you get XP? To get levels. What do higher levels get you? Skill points!

The point is, I could run a game with nearly no combat, given enough effort. Is it the best system for this? No - no it isn't. Can it be done? Yes. Does it accomodate this better than AD&D? Definitely.

Cinematic combat is left up to the roleplaying, which is little different in D&D than in other systems. It's almost independent of the actual combat system. I could say I stab some bloke... or I could say I jump to the side a whip my Spiked Chain around his thigh, feeling the flesh give as I attempt to pull him to the ground. I'll freely admit that combat is most cinematic in freeform, however.

Levels, Items and Rules are the most serious shortcomings of the system - which I have to say, I like Levels in fantasy. I just like Levels with more interchangable components. Items fall into place once you can change Levels enough.

Rules are rules, and thus are made to be ignored. The only rules I follow are my own, so I don't let them get in the way. That said, there is a massive compulsion to use them inherent in the Level system... which demands reform!

Now on to the miserable dice system, and a lack of heroism inherent in the probability curve. What can I say? It is the single greatest flaw in the d20 system, even more so because it just requires extensive number retooling to correct... once you change one roll, you need to change all the rolls with that die. I've been considering making skills more heroic though swapping out for dual d10 and taking a result of 2 on the dual d10 as a critical failure... but keeping combat heroism roleplay dependent.

[The Hive Custodian]

Excellent post, AbusePuppy. I'd rate this thread a 5 for that post alone if I didn't believe in rating my own threads.

You know, after playing D&D and almost purely D&D for seven years, I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the Matrix...

[Uranium - 235]

Excellent post, AbusePuppy. I'd rate this thread a 5 for that post alone if I didn't believe in rating my own threads.

You know, after playing D&D and almost purely D&D for seven years, I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the Matrix...

I'd tell you to take the red pill, but I'm not sure there's a rule for that. Besides, you need to argue with the elf rogue and the dwarven barbarian about who deserves the red pill more, because they both can use it.

[nightinverse]

You know, after playing D&D and almost purely D&D for seven years, I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the Matrix...

Maybe a little differentiation is precisely what we all need...

Toon One Shot! Or... something like that!

[Linklegacy77]

Here's what I did for my Mieller game, and what I plan on doing in most of my games: I did away with the detect spells. If a paladin wants to use detect evil, to damn bad. Smite evil is still there, but it is vastly different. Instead of smiting a target that is evil for bonus damage, the paladin may smite anybody, anybody at all, as long as he honestly believes the target to be evil. If he keeps doing that to good or neutral people, he's on his way to blackguard pretty damn quickly. I find that this method greatly increases roleplaying, as the paladin has to find out for himself if the target is evil, not just go: "DETECT EVIL". It also shows how the paladin would become evil and join the blackguards.

Now, I will address some points at random.

D&D concentrates on rule sets for combat because that's where most of the rules are needed. It is impossible to make rules for most social situations, (see what a lousy job they did with diplomacy,) but combat is far easier to make rules for. Thus, D&D hands everything for social situations over to the DM. It's basically: "We do the combat, you make up the rest" kind of thing.

Unfortunately, most people are interested in hack n' slash games like D&D is, and are interested in the "Kill and loot" attitude. Thus, wizards works in that direction because it is a business, and needs to make money.

[BigRedRod]

My thoughts,

Alignment*
Alignment is an old legacy mechanic left over from the old days of "Look another dungeon filled with utterly random monsters" D&D. It is best to casually not use it and see if anybody notices. Here's a tip: Nobody will.

Magic Items*
It's an odd one and I think 3e has made it worse by formalising how much magical equipment each character should have at each level. My games tend to play at well below this level, although the magic stuff they find tends to be more interesting. Sadly, this kind of screws up CRs.

Magic*
Only the other day, myself, Black Plauge, treehouse and akiko (at least I think it was them) were having a big debate about fixing D&D so that Mages aren't more powerful at high levels. It is a most tricky problem. Largely as a mage can do anything and a fighter can hit things with his sword.

The difference is that a fighter can hit things with his sowrd every single round that day (ignoring the question of how many rounds before he gets tired as it is very rarely, if ever, relevant). While his counterpart the mage gets a limited number of spells. Sadly, using these spells a wizard of decent level could end the world twice before breakfast.

So they need a restriction, something that makes a wizard think twice about using high magic when they could always try things the old fashioned way. Things like increased casting times (it turns the game into "everybody protect Glardorf the wizard" though, which may upset people), expensive components for all spells and my personal favourite having to sacrifice things in order to gain the ability to use the higher level magics.

This would take the form of a sort of negative class (With eight levels, one for each spell level). The downside is thinking of things which have a big enough impact. Looking to the other forms of fantasy we see powerful wizards going insane with power or becoming corrupted.

Ideally, it'd be nice for the magic system to get a full rework at some point as I don't think many are happy with what it is now.

Simplicity
I'm not sure what game the OP is playing but it doesn't sound like D&D if he thinks it's complicated. A brief look round at other RPGs should go to show just how streamlined it is.

Balance
As somebody who has knocked together a few resources in his time I can safely say that one of the biggest headaches is balance. Trying to work out at which level something can happen and how much power it represents is a nightmare.

As D&D gets more and more bloated with supplaments you can just kiss good bye to any balance. Much like genes, it's the interactions that matter and revewing every single source before making anything new is unrealistic.

Sadly, there are balance issues in just the core set, this is less forgiveable. Especially given how the change from 3 to 3.5 didn't fix it all.

At the end of the day though, so long as I'm not playing with Munchkins, I'm fine to deal with slightly wonky balance.

Flexibility
The multiclassing in 3e was a massive step towards flexibility. Then WotC took that back by releasing swarms of uselsss core classes. Lots of concepts are now possible, but it is often a case of compromise. I don't think a class based system can ever hope to be as flexible as an advanatge based one but feats, skills and multiclassing give you a damn good try.

*These are problems "solved" by Iron Heroes, which is pretty much D&D 3.6 should you wish to play in a low-magic setting

[itches]

Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy world of high adventure, right?

Actually no. DnD can be a fantasy world of high adventure. It often is and infact that is by far the most common thing, but doesn't have to be.

the point is to have Heroes, people who are larger than life in both their strengths and weaknesses. Conan the Barbarian was a hero. Heracles was a hero. Cuchalain was a hero.

Wouldn't heroes who perform superhuman feats be considering more of a superhero?

Okay I admit that I'm nitpicking details, and apart from the nitpicked details everything made sense. In order to get DnD do what I wanted it to I've had to bastardise the system until it barely resembles what's in the rule books.

[The Hive Custodian]

Simplicity
I'm not sure what game the OP is playing but it doesn't sound like D&D if he thinks it's complicated. A brief look round at other RPGs should go to show just how streamlined it is.
Admittedly I haven't played many other RPGs; I suppose you're right. Perhaps it's not so much that the rules are complex as that there are a lot of them.

[BigRedRod]

Admittedly I haven't played many other RPGs; I suppose you're right. Perhaps it's not so much that the rules are complex as that there are a lot of them.
The point is that there aren't lots of them. Everything works off a single mechanic and the bonuses are pretty much always the same making them easy to calculate. Unless you mean rules supplements in which case you aren't as wrong, although none of them actually change any of the underlying mechanics, it retains the simple elegant formula of d20 roll + bonuses against a target number. More to the point D&D doesn't actually have a rule for every situation, it has a general rule that when used with DM judgement gives you a solution in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases.

GURPS is the embodiment of a rule for every situation and the od thing is that the rule is always just that little bit different meaning you need an amazing memory or the books with you at all times.

BESM was a series of special rules strung together with no real underlying mechanic.

The ST system, which I'm not very familiar with, has a general roll X dice and aim at a target number, you need Y successes to actually succeed. Which is a pretty solid base mechanic.

From what I hear of shadowrun it is little more than a bag of rules strung together with a cyberpunk theme, although I don't actually have any first hand knowledge.

Earthdawn is a system with a base mechanic that is quite interesting but is also quite complicated, with ever changing numbers of types of dice. It is very similar to AD&D in that respect, largely as it is from the same era.

What do you do in the game? Get XP. How do you get XP? Fight. Why do you get XP? To get levels. What do higher levels get you? You get better at fighting.
You can't complain that D&D is a system only suited for Hack & Slash if you only have tried playing Hack & Slash with it.

What do you you in the game? You play a character and that character goes on adventures.

How do you get XP? Overcoming challenges

Why do you get XP? To advance (i.e. gain levels), so that your character isn't stagnant. D&D is a very advancement orientated system.

What do higher levels get you? More options for going on those adventures

[nightinverse]

Shadowrun is a slicker system along similar yet divergent lines as Cyberpunk 2020 - both of which have more complex rules systems than D&D. I am essentially unfamiliar with GURPS and Earthdawn, while not a fan of ST or BESM. Prince Valiant has no rules and no mechanics that make sense, yet many that obfuscate. Toon has more mechanics than rules, but may be the only system simpler than d20.

I have to agree with BRR on both points here.

[Mercutio]

Having played in numerous different games over the years in D&D, Shadowrun, and GURPS, I have to agree that the d20 gaming system is the easiest to start with and the simplest in concept. People used to tell me that the ST system was easiest, but after a few games of V:tM, I just stopped playing. It took me a good solid three or four sessions until I understood Shadowrun's 2nd edition, and another 3 when we started a 3rd edition game a few years ago.

d20 is a simple mechanic. Roll a d20 for everything (except damage), then add your modifiers.

[The Hive Custodian]

Erm. Well. I guess you can consider this my unconditional surrender on the complexity issue.

[hedgeknight]

My only comment (for now) is something I've said in other threads: If the "rules" don't work for you, change 'em, break 'em, disregard them. After all, YOU are the DM.
The game is what you make it.
-g-

[The Hive Custodian]

It's not always that simple, though. Many of my other threads that I've moved to this board are my attempts to mold D&D into what I want it to be. These things took a lot of time to develop and bring into some semblance of balance. Yet I'm not satisified with them. It took a lot of effort to make them be able to interface with the rest of the D&D class and level system, and they do provide much more freedom than the standard material, but they're still incapable of capturing the nuances of character that I want. There are some things that you just can't get to work within the D&D framework without throwing something else off.

[LeadPal]

What are the nuances of the character that you want? Frankly, as a DM, I've never had any difficulty whatsoever creating exactly the NPC I wanted, and as a player, only small challenges. This is because, as coffeesucker says, the rules can be changed at a whim (though they usually shouldn't be--but you get my point), and so it's merely a case of changing rules until they seem both balanced and match your idea. I find this an easy task, though too often I've met with unreasonable DMs who disallow new material without real consideration.

Maybe I just have an inherent sense for game balance, but I find this extremely easy, and I have never had any balance issue whatsoever from my own material. Most balance issues from other material are easily resolved, as well, by simply talking to the player and asking him to stop abusing the game. Obviously some people can't be reasoned with, but these are hardly the types of people I'd want to game with in the first place.


I've never had a problem with the magic item issue in D&D, simply glossing over it in most of my games and never giving it a second thought. And, why not--just write down that the fighter is carrying a belt of giant strength +4, +5 full plate, and an amulet of natural armour +4, and never think of it again; it's not the most important part of the game. In one other, though, I solved it by giving out a singular level-scaling artifact to each character, which jived quite well with the flavour of the game and solved most issues of treasure immediately.


On magic... yeah, this is a huge problem. Casters are just far too powerful compared to noncasters. I don't have so much of an issue with this, admittedly, because I never cared to play noncasters in the first place (the fun is in the spellslinging!), but I can see how it would be a big deal for others that their fighter can't keep up with the cleric at anything. But, again, I've felt that the best way to fix this is to just ask the players of spellcasters to hold their build back slightly from full-out ultimate power to give the guys playing noncasters a chance. This actually works most of the time, because everyone's in it for fun, not for gloating about how bad they can whomp someone else's character.

Really, you don't have to fix every single balance issue in the game, or even very many of them. Just don't use what's not balanced, in combination or individually. It'll save you many headaches.


As for alignment... this is a heated enough issue that it deserves its own thread. But, frankly, anyone who argues that alignment is absolute and inflexible needs to read the PH a little more carefully. It takes care of all its own vagaries within itself.

I'll admit that I'm not thrilled by the detect alignment spells, myself, but the alignment system itself is fine. Most of the time a change of perspective is all you need. Besides, it's a petty point of contention in the face of a much larger game.

[Uranium - 235]

What do you you in the game? You play a character and that character goes on adventures.

How do you get XP? Overcoming challenges

Why do you get XP? To advance (i.e. gain levels), so that your character isn't stagnant. D&D is a very advancement orientated system.

What do higher levels get you? More options for going on those adventures

Within the limits of what? What does my character know? Where does metagaming end? D&D had pretty much absolutely no system of 'smarts' outside of throwing an Intelligence roll. To give you an example of what I'm talking about, Shadowrun had a skillset of 'Knowledge skills', where you express your character's knowledge of the world. Unless your idea of playing D&D without hack and slash is basically just talking without die rolls, in which case you don't even need a system to begin with, it's pretty foolish to say it's not a hack and slash game when there's very little substance to the game that doesn't involve hack and slashing...

[Mercutio]

Not sure what D&D you're talking about, but mine has several different knowledge skills, bluff, sense motive, diplomacy, Profession, and several other social skills, all of which have detailed rules regarding their uses.

Ask my players in my Face to Face game how much hack and slash there is. Ask the DM of the game I play in - a city campaign in Waterdeep - how much hack and slash there is. Sure, there's combat, but it's evenly balanced with non-combat encounters, or maybe even slightly heavier on the non-combat in the game I DM. Just the way things work.

Read up on the 3.5 skill system and play a module or two that isn't a dungeon crawl. Shadowrun's knowledge skills are no different really. Beat a target score and your character knows something. Same goes with D&D.

[AbusePuppy]

Wouldn't heroes who perform superhuman feats be considering more of a superhero?
Isn't killing sixty guys at once using just a sword pretty superhuman? D&D allows characters to do superhuman things and your characters are (in the most general of terms) heroes, but that doesn't make them superheros.

D&D is a world of high fantasy, right?Actually no. DnD can be a fantasy world of high adventure. It often is and infact that is by far the most common thing, but doesn't have to be.


It doesn't have to be, but that's what the generic setting is. Obviously there are many different game styles and DM types but the generic D&D world, along with most of the published settings, are worlds of high fantasy strongly based off J.R.R. Tolkien's works. You can turn the system into other things just like you can any other but basic D&D I would have to call an adventure-fantasy game.

The point is that there aren't lots of them. Everything works off a single mechanic and the bonuses are pretty much always the same making them easy to calculate. Unless you mean rules supplements in which case you aren't as wrong, although none of them actually change any of the underlying mechanics, it retains the simple elegant formula of d20 roll + bonuses against a target number. More to the point D&D doesn't actually have a rule for every situation, it has a general rule that when used with DM judgement gives you a solution in ninety-nine out of a hundred cases.

Except damage rolls. And hit points. And random charts and tables. And about three million other things that escape my mind at this point.

I'll admit that d20's basic mechanic- 1d20 +/- modifiers- is pretty simple, but it's the add-ons that make that mechanic function that are complex. D&D has reams and reams of charts, tables, lists, cross-references and formulas that are a literal nightmare to try and pin down.

The advantage to it is that all that work lies on the DM's shoulders- the player just tosses a die and looks quizzically at the guy behind the screen who's desperately trying to find Table 13-7: Modifiers to Diplomacy Checks Against Relatives, By Creature Type. The disadvantage is... well, it's all on the DM's shoulders.

GURPS is the embodiment of a rule for every situation and the od thing is that the rule is always just that little bit different meaning you need an amazing memory or the books with you at all times.

Agreed. Then again, I never liked GURPS- the idea of being able to make your mechanics meld into any possible genre of game seemed like an impossible dream to me. The mechanics of a system affects its flavor and how it functions too much to make a truly "universal" roleplaying system. (This is also part of my complaint with the d20 system, as opposed to D&D.)

BESM was a series of special rules strung together with no real underlying mechanic.

Er... are you thinking first edition? Because first editions are always terrible, you know that, right? 2nd improved vastly on the system and simplified it a lot. BESM is at MUCH simpler than D&D for rolling (2d6 +/- modifiers) and character creation is... well, BESM characters I can snap together in about a minute each. It's a very simplistic, style-oriented game that pretty much outright says "We know there are balance issues and we don't give a d*** because it's cooler this way. GMs: beware the munchkin."

The ST system, which I'm not very familiar with, has a general roll X dice and aim at a target number, you need Y successes to actually succeed. Which is a pretty solid base mechanic.

With the release of the new WoD system, it's even easier. Attribute + Skill and you're always looking for 7+ on a d10. If you have pre-generated characters, I would say WoD is perhaps the most newbie-friendly game on the market. (I've taught people to play in as little as ten minutes, starting with no experience at all.)

From what I hear of shadowrun it is little more than a bag of rules strung together with a cyberpunk theme, although I don't actually have any first hand knowledge.

It's far from simple, I'll say that much. Like D&D it suffers from rules and expansion bloat, although to a lesser degree. And yes, there are some colossally retarded things still hanging around in the rules. The basic system, however, is fairly simple. (Roll either a skill or an attribute, looking for a particular number; if you roll a 6 on any die re-roll and add it to the original.)

Fourth Edition went a long ways towards correcting many of the problems with earlier ones, especially balance and realism. (Shadowrun is supposed to be a gritty future world with "realistic" magic, i.e. following rules that make sense.) It might be worth giving it a try if you were put off by the rules, as opposed to the genre, before.

Earthdawn is a system with a base mechanic that is quite interesting but is also quite complicated, with ever changing numbers of types of dice. It is very similar to AD&D in that respect, largely as it is from the same era.

*BARF*

Earthdawn had perhaps the worst dice mechanic I've ever seen. It's interesting, sure, but it's ridiculously complicated. As in "as a gamer with a decade of experience GMing and half-again that playing I would fear for my life if I had to play it" complex. I can't imagine ever getting anywhere because you'd constantly be looking up what the f*** dice you have to roll for any given situation because it always changes. Not like D&D's "I wanna hit him so I use a d20 and then a d8 and then a d20 and a d6 for my little sword." I'm talking "I attack, I roll a d20 and now I attack again and I use 2d8 and now I attack again and I use 3d6." WTF?

Still, the world was cool and many of the mechanics used were interesting, if massive failures. I have adopted some of the general concepts as house rules in other games of high fantasy. (Trivia note: Earthdawn is set in the world of Shadowrun thousands and thousands of years ago, before the magic temporarily faded away. Many of the NPCs of Shadowrun are in it, or at least the immortal dragons and elves are.)

On the topic of "D&D can only be Hack 'n Slash":
It isn't that that's all you can do; obviously, you can always have roleplaying. I've even been in one or two half-decent social D&D games and, from the sound of it, so have a lot of you. That doesn't mean that the D&D rules are well-suited for it, though; a good GM can compensate for a bad system. Hell, a good GM can compensate for no system (i.e. freeform); I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that freeform games have good rules for social interaction. (Wait... no rules is good for that sort of thing, in a way...)

If you compare D&D to other games where social attributes are more emphasized (such as White Wolf, where characters have three seperate social attributes) I think you'll find that d20's rules for social interaction are very limited. Shadowrun has nearly a dozen major social skills plus contacts, which are literally the lifeblood of the player character's and their work. Even the lowly BESM provides a smattering of attributes to cover social prowess. In comparision, D&D's "Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive and the Leadership feat"

Not sure what D&D you're talking about, but mine has several different knowledge skills, bluff, sense motive, diplomacy, Profession, and several other social skills, all of which have detailed rules regarding their uses.

I see three social skills there (Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy). Knowledge skills and Profession (along with Craft) are D&D's catch-all for everything that isn't one of their arbitrarily-designated set of strictly-seperate skills. (Remember, the guy with +15 swim who can blaze through the water like a fish is appearantly not allowed to use all that upper- and lower-body strength for anything else, like jumping or climbing.) Catch-alls like the above do not count for what a system's rules include because such all-inclusive categories exist specifically to cover situations that are otherwise outside the rules. The fact that D&D has so many and for skills that are so basic to many facets of everyday life is a powerful strike against it.

Remember, also, the dice mechanic; the commoner with +5 in Profession: Merchant is only marginally better than the guy who's never seen a ledger in his life, according to the dice.

Read up on the 3.5 skill system and play a module or two that isn't a dungeon crawl. Shadowrun's knowledge skills are no different really. Beat a target score and your character knows something. Same goes with D&D.

HUGE difference. Knowledge skills in Shadowrun are something every character gets for free (in varying amounts based on your intelligence score). They're the little things that everyone has picked up through the course of your life that don't directly affect most of the game, stuff like hobbies, most college majors, favorite sports teams, that sort of thing. Shadowrun also has another "real" skill system for more relevant things, like shooting a gun or piloting an airplane.

D&D has no equivilant to this system of "minor quirks" other than roleplaying and arbitrary bonuses by the GM on something your character "would have known." Now, this is not strictly a bad thing (writing lists of knowledge skills can be time-consuming or boring to some people) but I happen to like it, myself.

[treehouse]

The fact that D&D has so many and for skills that are so basic to many facets of everyday life is a powerful strike against it.

Hardly. The Knowledge skill system is a powerful way to understand the properties of monsters that you face, local customs, how to address a king, what mushrooms are poisonous and...basically everything else. While I think the categories could use some polishing to make each one useful (Knowledge [architecture and engineering]? honestly), the skill-set certainly is powerful.

And Craft/Profession are catch-alls for a good reason - no one gives a crap about them. I don't stare at my PHB and sigh because there isn't an in-depth set of rules for fishing or stamp collecting. That's not the point of the system.

[Mercutio]

It doesn't have to be, but that's what the generic setting is. Obviously there are many different game styles and DM types but the generic D&D world, along with most of the published settings, are worlds of high fantasy strongly based off J.R.R. Tolkien's works. You can turn the system into other things just like you can any other but basic D&D I would have to call an adventure-fantasy game. No disagreement there, but let it be known that the "default" setting is not the most widely played setting put out by Wizards of the Coast. That falls to Forgotten Realms, which is all kinds of silliness more high fantasy than any other setting put out by the D&D folks.

Except damage rolls. And hit points. Neither of which are hard to understand. You roll the die indicated, and add the modifiers. The mechanic is identical.

And random charts and tables. And about three million other things that escape my mind at this point.Sounds more like RoleMaster or HackMaster than d20. I don't use the randomized charts and tables, and I don't know of any DM's personally that do. Even in the DMG, it lists those as options, not requirements. In fact, I can't tell you the last time I looked at any chart or table even as a DM. I use my screen to keep my notes and die rolls behind. I don't look at the things listed on the back, and I'd be hardpressed to find anyone that did. Quite frankly, any DM that needs to stall a game to look up an answer in a table or chart isn't playing D&D, and probably shouldn't be behind the DM screen anyway.

I'll admit that d20's basic mechanic- 1d20 +/- modifiers- is pretty simple, but it's the add-ons that make that mechanic function that are complex. D&D has reams and reams of charts, tables, lists, cross-references and formulas that are a literal nightmare to try and pin down. And none of the add-ons are required material to play the game.

The advantage to it is that all that work lies on the DM's shoulders- the player just tosses a die and looks quizzically at the guy behind the screen who's desperately trying to find Table 13-7: Modifiers to Diplomacy Checks Against Relatives, By Creature Type. The disadvantage is... well, it's all on the DM's shoulders.The situation you put out is obviously hyperbole. There exists one chart for diplomacy, and only one, and that's not even necessary. A diplomacy check that wins moves the other character one step closer to friendly. That's all you need to know.


With the release of the new WoD system, it's even easier. Attribute + Skill and you're always looking for 7+ on a d10. If you have pre-generated characters, I would say WoD is perhaps the most newbie-friendly game on the market. (I've taught people to play in as little as ten minutes, starting with no experience at all.) Because a static unchanging number realistically reflects outside modifiers of a situation... Please. Same for Shadowrun.

Fourth Edition went a long ways towards correcting many of the problems with earlier ones, especially balance and realism. (Shadowrun is supposed to be a gritty future world with "realistic" magic, i.e. following rules that make sense.) It might be worth giving it a try if you were put off by the rules, as opposed to the genre, before. Why should magic follow the laws of physics? In effect, magic totally breaks the laws of physics just by existing. The magic rules in 3rd edition (haven't tried fourth) were perhaps the most complex magic rules in any RPG that I've played. There were literally four rolls per spell cast.

On the topic of "D&D can only be Hack 'n Slash":
It isn't that that's all you can do; obviously, you can always have roleplaying. I've even been in one or two half-decent social D&D games and, from the sound of it, so have a lot of you. That doesn't mean that the D&D rules are well-suited for it, though; a good GM can compensate for a bad system. Hell, a good GM can compensate for no system (i.e. freeform); I think you'd be hard-pressed to argue that freeform games have good rules for social interaction. (Wait... no rules is good for that sort of thing, in a way...) And then freeform takes all power away from the player, and is specifically set up to give the GM total control of a story. Not sure how you like to play, but I hate the ring through the nose. The mechanics in D&D for social interaction work perfectly well for a high intrigue game. Do they work if all you want to do is be a farmer? No, but who wants that kind of game? Do they work if all you want to do is be an information gatherer? Absolutely.

If you compare D&D to other games where social attributes are more emphasized (such as White Wolf, where characters have three seperate social attributes) I'd like to point out here that D&D had five social attributes in 2nd edition, and has three currently. Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Perception, and Comeliness. Perception was rolled into Wisdom, and Comeliness rolled into Charisma.

I think you'll find that d20's rules for social interaction are very limited. Shadowrun has nearly a dozen major social skills plus contacts, which are literally the lifeblood of the player character's and their work. Even the lowly BESM provides a smattering of attributes to cover social prowess. In comparision, D&D's "Bluff, Diplomacy, Sense Motive and the Leadership feat" What are Shadowrun's social skills? I guarantee I can find a way they are incorporated into the D&D skill mechanic. Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Perform, Sense Motive all have direct affects in social situations.

I see three social skills there (Bluff, Sense Motive, Diplomacy). Knowledge skills and Profession (along with Craft) are D&D's catch-all for everything that isn't one of their arbitrarily-designated set of strictly-seperate skills. And shadowrun's skill sets aren't totally separate? I can shoot a pistol and a rifle, and there are definite similarities that should bleed over, but they don't and they require separate skill point investments.

(Remember, the guy with +15 swim who can blaze through the water like a fish is appearantly not allowed to use all that upper- and lower-body strength for anything else, like jumping or climbing.) I'm a strong swimmer and can do well in the open ocean, but I can't benchpress twice my body weight, nor do I have the vertical jumping capability to touch the rim of a basketball hoop. I just blew that theory out, huh?

Catch-alls like the above do not count for what a system's rules include because such all-inclusive categories exist specifically to cover situations that are otherwise outside the rules. The fact that D&D has so many and for skills that are so basic to many facets of everyday life is a powerful strike against it.Knowledge skills are not catchalls. There are ten different knowledge skills.

Remember, also, the dice mechanic; the commoner with +5 in Profession: Merchant is only marginally better than the guy who's never seen a ledger in his life, according to the dice. And do you think that's any different in real life? A guy with +5 profession: Merchant is level 2. A level two "clerk" would probably be working at Wendy's. Do I think the Wendy's manager is only marginally better at his profession than I would be? Damn straight.


HUGE difference. Knowledge skills in Shadowrun are something every character gets for free (in varying amounts based on your intelligence score). They're the little things that everyone has picked up through the course of your life that don't directly affect most of the game, stuff like hobbies, most college majors, favorite sports teams, that sort of thing. Shadowrun also has another "real" skill system for more relevant things, like shooting a gun or piloting an airplane.Considering no skills are unavailable to a character, I think you've got the wrong idea here. Sure, you can have a General or Admiral who has studied religion and invests his whole hobby in learning about the far-flung oddities of world religion, but is he really going to be as knowledgeable in world religions as a Vatican sanctioned cardinal?

D&D has no equivilant to this system of "minor quirks" other than roleplaying and arbitrary bonuses by the GM on something your character "would have known." Now, this is not strictly a bad thing (writing lists of knowledge skills can be time-consuming or boring to some people) but I happen to like it, myself.Sure it does. You invest in skills cross-class. Nothing prevents any character from investing his skill points in any skill. He just doesn't get the full benefit, which makes sense in the real world. A thief who spends his life talking to people to gain information so that he can rob them later is going to be better at social interaction than a fighter, even if that fighter is the public spokesman of his unit.

[Gralhruk]

You invest in skills cross-class. Nothing prevents any character from investing his skill points in any skill.
No matter how much I want to round out my character I can never, ever justify taking cross class skills. It's a good idea in theory, but in practicality it makes far more sense to multi-class into something that has the skills you want. IMO skill points are set at a high premium - which is fine because it sort of forces you to make tough choices about what you want to be good at, but it does mean that spending double the skill points for (what amounts to) flavor purposes is brutally painful.

[treehouse]

I agree about cross-class skills. Not to keep harping on about Iron Heroes, but that system solves the problem nicely. There are no 'class skills'. Every skill costs 1 point per rank, and your max rank is your level +3. However, every class gets access to certain skill groups; if you put a point into a skill group, you get a rank in each skill associated with that group. For example, the skill group Athletics includes Climb, Jump and Swim. If you purchase one rank in Athletics, you are getting a three for one deal.

Much more elegant than any other system I've seen, even Spycraft 2.0 which is admittedly better than D&D.

[Mercutio]

My point was not that I do take cross class skills, but that the mechanic exists to do so.

Were I to change the skill system, I would make all skills available to everyone. The limiting of the number of skill points by class would already reflect the difference in skill abilities of the different archetypes.

[Gralhruk]

Not to keep harping on about Iron Heroes, but that system solves the problem nicely. There are no 'class skills'.
If I ever ran a D&D game I'd let you pick your class skill list.

But honestly, Iron Heroes sounds like something I'd really like.

[Gralhruk]

My point was not that I do take cross class skills, but that the mechanic exists to do so.
Oh, I know. I just didn't feel like jumping into the larger D&D is good/D&D sucks discussion.

[itches]

Do they work if all you want to do is be a farmer? No, but who wants that kind of game?
There is out there, somewhere in the world, a guy - who's favourite character is a farmer - that just became very offended. ;)

[LeadPal]

You know, if you like, I designed a simple Life Skills System (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6456) about a year back to take care of all those minor character quirks (as well as literacy, which I feel is undervalued in the current game). It's not official, but it helps flesh characters out quite a bit.

EDIT: Added linky!

[AbusePuppy]

And none of the add-ons are required material to play the game.

Read that quote of mine again. "Add-onsthat are required for the rules to function." When I say add-ons there I do not mean additional books but things other than a d20 because with just a d20 you're not getting anywhere. You need a difficulty class (referenced from a table) and modifiers (likewise), both of which the DM needs to dig up from his DMG/PHB. Remember, new players/DMs do not have these books memorized and finding something spur-of-the-moment can actually be quite difficult.

The situation you put out is obviously hyperbole. There exists one chart for diplomacy, and only one, and that's not even necessary. A diplomacy check that wins moves the other character one step closer to friendly. That's all you need to know.

That's all the player needs to know, which is my original point. The DM has to remember that the player has synergy bonuses and competence bonuses and divine bonuses and racial bonuses and bonuses from a fancy hat and penalties for every 5 lbs of armor and all the other modifiers which make that die roll actually mean something rather than just being an "i dunno, roll a d20".


Because a static unchanging number realistically reflects outside modifiers of a situation... Please. Same for Shadowrun.

...You clearly have NO idea what you're talking about here because neither of the systems use "a static unchanging number." Both have bonuses and penalties modify your die pool (and, in 3Ed Shadorun, and WoD, the target number you're looking for) as well as needing varying degrees of success based on your performance- something that a linear roll system like d20 has trouble representing.

Why should magic follow the laws of physics? In effect, magic totally breaks the laws of physics just by existing. The magic rules in 3rd edition (haven't tried fourth) were perhaps the most complex magic rules in any RPG that I've played. There were literally four rolls per spell cast.

Again, please re-read that quote. I didn't say magic followed (or should follow) the laws of physics, just that in Shadowrun it much more closely followed consistant rules, ones that actually made some sense. Whatever else you may say about it, D&D's magic system has NOTHING consistant about it or how it works. Which is fine, because it doesn't need to- D&D is a fantasy game. Shadowrun, which is a modern-day realistic game, requires a more realistic magic system.

(For reference, a spell cast in Shadowrun 3Ed had three rolls- spellcasting and drain resistence for the magician and resistance for the target, if appropriate. In some cases, i.e. active interference by another magician, you could get one more. d20 always has one (saving throw), usually has another (damage inflicted) and sometimes has one more (caster level check). Now, Shadowrun's rigging and decking rules... those are nightmares.)

And then freeform takes all power away from the player, and is specifically set up to give the GM total control of a story.

I'm curious about this- how, exactly, does a player in a D&D game have any more power than one in a freeform game? If the GM is dictating everything that happens to you, why does it MATTER how much power you have if the GM has infinite power in either case? I can't name any systems offhand where the players could force the GM do bend to their wishes thanks to the rules but I can only imagine that such a system would be a disaster in the making.

A good game is a cooperative event between the players and the GM; the GM makes and interesting story and gives the players a role in it but it is still his story in the end, even if he writes it based on what the characters do. The players, on the other hand, are both the audience and main characters- they determine what they will do and what they are interested in seeing happen. Unless both parties are willing to give and take in the matter no amount of rules will allow the game to function smoothly.

I'd like to point out here that D&D had five social attributes in 2nd edition, and has three currently. Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma, Perception, and Comeliness. Perception was rolled into Wisdom, and Comeliness rolled into Charisma.

Perception and comeliness were both optional add-ons in 2Ed. (Comeliness was from 1st Edition originally, if I recall correctly). Intelligence and Wisdom are not really social attributes because they are both entirely functional when no one else is around, whereas charisma is not. (Barring a sorcerer, of course.)

And shadowrun's skill sets aren't totally separate? I can shoot a pistol and a rifle, and there are definite similarities that should bleed over, but they don't and they require separate skill point investments.

As a matter of fact, in Shadowrun you can bleed over your expertise. It's called "defaulting" and it allows you to use a skill you have in place of a related skill, albeit at a penalty. It means the crack sharpshooter with a rifle has does have some understanding of pistols.

I'm a strong swimmer and can do well in the open ocean, but I can't benchpress twice my body weight, nor do I have the vertical jumping capability to touch the rim of a basketball hoop. I just blew that theory out, huh?

Really? Because all the guys I knew on the Swim Team were pretty damn physically capable in virtually all respects.

Knowledge skills are not catchalls. There are ten different knowledge skills.

OK, now you're just making stuff up. Aside from just the ones listed in the base PHB there are at least a dozen or so more floating around that are referenced by WotC source materials.

And do you think that's any different in real life? A guy with +5 profession: Merchant is level 2. A level two "clerk" would probably be working at Wendy's. Do I think the Wendy's manager is only marginally better at his profession than I would be? Damn straight.

I bet if you walked into a Wendy's blind (i.e. had never worked in fast food before) and tried to run the store you would f***ing fail harder than a fourth Jurassic Park movie.

The example is consistant across higher levels as well; remember, the guy with +10 skill (which you must admit is pretty far advanced no matter how you measure it) is still kind of pathetic- he fails a simple DC 15 check one quarter of the time while the untrained guy, the man who has never seen this thing before in his life, can succeed one-fourth of the time despite everything.


Considering no skills are unavailable to a character, I think you've got the wrong idea here. Sure, you can have a General or Admiral who has studied religion and invests his whole hobby in learning about the far-flung oddities of world religion, but is he really going to be as knowledgeable in world religions as a Vatican sanctioned cardinal?

Right, but Mr. General has to invest his hard-earned skill points (which he gets, what, four per level if he's lucky?) in Knowledge: Religion instead of things he actually needs to be a general, like Profession: Soldier or Knowledge: Tactics or whatever other wonky stuff the prestige class says it requires.

Sure it does. You invest in skills cross-class. Nothing prevents any character from investing his skill points in any skill. He just doesn't get the full benefit, which makes sense in the real world. A thief who spends his life talking to people to gain information so that he can rob them later is going to be better at social interaction than a fighter, even if that fighter is the public spokesman of his unit.

Why? Why can't the fighter also spend an equal part of his life talking to people and gatherng information? Perhaps he won't have the same natural charisma as the rogue (i.e. lower stat) but with the same amount of training why is he inherently worse? Does every fighter have to be a graceless clout who couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag?

[BrianL03]

Really? Because all the guys I knew on the Swim Team were pretty damn physically capable in virtually all respects.

Former member of the HS Swim Team, and can tell you that most of us weren't that buff. Swimming enhanced leg muscles and your cardiovascular system (unless you were a butterfly swimmer, in which case you would have a bit more upper body muscle). We had a lot of bleedover into running because of that, but not much else. I think one guy was on baseball, and one or two on volleyball.

[LynMars]

...Iron Heroes...There are no 'class skills'. Every skill costs 1 point per rank, and your max rank is your level +3. However, every class gets access to certain skill groups; if you put a point into a skill group, you get a rank in each skill associated with that group. For example, the skill group Athletics includes Climb, Jump and Swim. If you purchase one rank in Athletics, you are getting a three for one deal.

AEG's 7th Sea system does that, actually, in the original edition. Skills are broken into sets; Athletics gets you things like footwork, throwing, sprinting, etc. You get 1 free dot in each Basic Knack of a skill (can buy them up), and can also purchase Advanced Knacks--things like Side-Step and Break Fall in the case of Athletics. Then they progress on a 1-5 scale. Rather handy; if I want to make a street urchin, I pick up the Streetwise and Socialize and maybe Guide Skill sets, and get all the skills I need under those categories. Also, if Knacks overlap (Footwork is also found in some martial skill sets like Acrobatics), then you get to have 2 free dots in that Knack for free instead of 1.

Example:
Athlete: Footwork 2, Sprinting 1, Throwing 1
Courtier: Dancing 2, Etiquette 2, Fashion 2, Oratory 2
Sailor: Balance 2, Climbing 2, Knotwork 1, Rigging 1
Knife: Attack 2, Parry 2
Performer: Acting 1, Singing 1
This is actually from one of my character sheets. In cases where they overlapped, I didn't bother to write the overlapping Knack down. Also, Skill Sets like Performer, Merchant, Artist, etc, which can theoretically cover many disciplines, you get to choose only one or two to focus on, and Advanced Knacks are more general again. As for languages and reading/writing, that's not handled by skills like in D&D, but rather are under Advantages.

[Zeff]

*BARF*

Earthdawn had perhaps the worst dice mechanic I've ever seen. It's interesting, sure, but it's ridiculously complicated. As in "as a gamer with a decade of experience GMing and half-again that playing I would fear for my life if I had to play it" complex. I can't imagine ever getting anywhere because you'd constantly be looking up what the f*** dice you have to roll for any given situation because it always changes. Not like D&D's "I wanna hit him so I use a d20 and then a d8 and then a d20 and a d6 for my little sword." I'm talking "I attack, I roll a d20 and now I attack again and I use 2d8 and now I attack again and I use 3d6." WTF?

Still, the world was cool and many of the mechanics used were interesting, if massive failures. I have adopted some of the general concepts as house rules in other games of high fantasy. (Trivia note: Earthdawn is set in the world of Shadowrun thousands and thousands of years ago, before the magic temporarily faded away. Many of the NPCs of Shadowrun are in it, or at least the immortal dragons and elves are.)

Though ED's mechanic seems complicated at first, with just a little practice, it's not all that clumsy. It's concept is elegant in that the step represents any target number as an average of the dice rolled. The following example won't help my case, but when I for a short time GMed ED, I got one of those clear plastic craft boxes with multiple compartments, and each one got the dice required for a step. I just shook the box and looked at the pertinent step number. It was pretty slick actually. It's interesting though, that although all the Disciplines are magically based, the spellcasters are still more powerful in the end, like D&D.

[Mercutio]

When I say add-ons there I do not mean additional books but things other than a d20 because with just a d20 you're not getting anywhere.My mistake. Using a word like "add-on" or "supplement" both go to the common reference of non-core material.

You need a difficulty class (referenced from a table)What table for DCs? Spellcraft checks are based on spell level. Caster Level checks are based on Caster Level. Open Locks and Disable Device are based on static items and written into the descriptions of the locks and traps. DCs for crafting are listed in tables, but they come up very infrequently in game. Hide and Move Silently don't have DCs - they're based on counter rolls of Spot and Listen. Diplomacy is a broken skill and everyone recognizes that - most use houserules vice the standard.
and modifiers (likewise), both of which the DM needs to dig up from his DMG/PHB.Modifiers are based on attributes, magic, and standard bonuses, all of which have a place to be recorded on character sheets and all of which add up to the "modifier" that is added to the d20.

Remember, new players/DMs do not have these books memorized and finding something spur-of-the-moment can actually be quite difficult.Oh, so now the thread is about new DMs and new Players and why d20 is too hard to teach them? I thought it was about disillusioned current players who already know the rules. Having sat down and taught people to play d20, I can assure you that if you take it in steps, by the third or fourth session, you won't have to do much of anything to help new players figure out what to do.


That's all the player needs to know, which is my original point. The DM has to remember that the player has synergy bonuses and competence bonuses and divine bonuses and racial bonuses and bonuses from a fancy hat and penalties for every 5 lbs of armor and all the other modifiers which make that die roll actually mean something rather than just being an "i dunno, roll a d20". Never claimed it was just a d20. It's a d20 plus modifier. All of those things you mentioned add up to be the modifier. All of them have places to be recorded on character sheets. All of them are fully explained in the core rule books. The only modifiers a DM needs to know are +2 and -2, which he can add or subtract depending on whether the situation is favorable or unfavorable. Maybe you just a) don't trust your players or b) don't read through the character sheets to determine accuracy. Secondly - keep in mind that it IS the DM's job to know the rules.


...You clearly have NO idea what you're talking about here because neither of the systems use "a static unchanging number."Sure they do. The target number you have to beat in ST is a 7 when you roll. IN shadowrun 3rd, the target number could be a 3 or a 4 (or god forbid in really tough situations) a 5. Then you roll a pool of dice based on your skill number, necessitating anywhere from 5 to 10 or more dice, and hope you beat the target of gaining X number of successes. If you instead gain Y successes, you can fail or super succeed, all depending on strange modifiers that only the GM knows.

needing varying degrees of success based on your performance- something that a linear roll system like d20 has trouble representing.I think the varying degrees of success are aptly listed. If you fail certain rolls by 10 or more, bad things happen. If you exceed certain rolls by 10 or more, extra good things happen.


Shadowrun, which is a modern-day realistic game, I object to this one just on principle. Realism is about as far from Shadowrun as it is from D&D.

(For reference, a spell cast in Shadowrun 3Ed had three rolls- spellcasting and drain resistence for the magician and resistance for the target, if appropriate. In some cases, i.e. active interference by another magician, you could get one more. d20 always has one (saving throw), usually has another (damage inflicted) and sometimes has one more (caster level check).Sorry, three rolls, not four, but if you aren't going against another caster, mages are pretty much worthless, considering their initiatives suck, and their body is abysmal.

Now, Shadowrun's rigging and decking rules... those are nightmares.)At least we agree on something.

I'm curious about this- how, exactly, does a player in a D&D game have any more power than one in a freeform game?The player has direct control of his actions through the dice. In a freeform game, the GM has fiat and only fiat to determine what happens. In D&D at least, the players have a chance of doing things against the GM's wishes, and succeeding if they roll it that way - conversely, they can fail miserably worse than the GM would do if all he really did is rely on his story.

If the GM is dictating everything that happens to you, why does it MATTER how much power you have if the GM has infinite power in either case? I can't name any systems offhand where the players could force the GM do bend to their wishes thanks to the rules but I can only imagine that such a system would be a disaster in the making.You obviously don't play with powergamers whose every move is precalculated.

A good game is a cooperative event between the players and the GM; Agreed.

the GM makes and interesting story and gives the players a role in it but it is still his story in the end, even if he writes it based on what the characters do.This is where I disagree. I have a world in mind and a story I'd like to tell through the players, but unless I put a ring through their noses, that isn't what happens, and shouldn't be what happens. The GM provides the framework and the challenges. The players provide the actions of the heroes and ultimately drive the story. At least, that's how it should be.

Perception and comeliness were both optional add-ons in 2Ed. (Comeliness was from 1st Edition originally, if I recall correctly). Intelligence and Wisdom are not really social attributes because they are both entirely functional when no one else is around, whereas charisma is not. (Barring a sorcerer, of course.) So the standard of being a social attribute, your definition, is an attribute that is totally unusable when no one else is around? I don't know. As a writer, I think my perception and charisma are still necessary components when I'm writing.

As a matter of fact, in Shadowrun you can bleed over your expertise. It's called "defaulting" and it allows you to use a skill you have in place of a related skill, albeit at a penalty. It means the crack sharpshooter with a rifle has does have some understanding of pistols.And in D&D you can use most skills untrained. If you're a good swimmer, you most likely have a decent strength. So climbing then is done with your strength modifier, meaning you aren't totally worthless at it and your physical ability does have some bleedover.

Really? Because all the guys I knew on the Swim Team were pretty damn physically capable in virtually all respects.I'd like to point out here that I'm a Navy Officer. I know SEALs personally, and I know people who have tried out for the SEALs and failed miserably. I'm talking guys that can benchpress hundreds of pounds, but can't swim for their asses. I've also seen the reverse - one of the fattest girls I've ever met in my life, but she was quick as lightning through the water. Couldn't do a pullup to save her life, but she had some ultrapowerful legs. Strength is not universal.

OK, now you're just making stuff up. Aside from just the ones listed in the base PHB there are at least a dozen or so more floating around that are referenced by WotC source materials.I thought we were talking core only, and not the add-ons, which, you know, you don't need to play the game.

I bet if you walked into a Wendy's blind (i.e. had never worked in fast food before) and tried to run the store you would f***ing fail harder than a fourth Jurassic Park movie.Really? I bet you I wouldn't. Leadership and managerial experience bleed over. I've never managed a fast food joint - but I have proudly led and managed 30 to 40 sailors in complex strategic and tactical maneuvers. My experience in Profession:Fast Food manager is 0, but I'll bet I could go in there and manage it almost as well (if not better) than the day manager.

The example is consistant across higher levels as well; remember, the guy with +10 skill (which you must admit is pretty far advanced no matter how you measure it) is still kind of pathetic- he fails a simple DC 15 check one quarter of the time while the untrained guy, the man who has never seen this thing before in his life, can succeed one-fourth of the time despite everything.I think you'd be hardpressed to actually spell that out in practice. For instance - craft skills can't be tried untrained. A blacksmith with +10 is 7th level. He'd probably either own his own small forge that does simple things with a DC no higher than 11 or 12, or be an apprentice to a blacksmith with +15, or a 12th level smith who works on items with a DC no higher than 16 or 17, and maybe does a few things here and there with a DC of 20. Then keep in mind that a Craft check failure doesn't mean a total failure. It means he makes no progress on the item he's crafting, unless he fails the check by a lot. It's not nearly as catastrophic as you are trying to make it.

Right, but Mr. General has to invest his hard-earned skill points (which he gets, what, four per level if he's lucky?) in Knowledge: Religion instead of things he actually needs to be a general, like Profession: Soldier or Knowledge: Tactics or whatever other wonky stuff the prestige class says it requires.Exactly. That's exactly my point. He's not going to be a world-reknowned expert on Sumerian tribal culture while he's the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. At best, he might be equivalent to an undergraduate student of Sumerian culture.

Why? Why can't the fighter also spend an equal part of his life talking to people and gatherng information? Perhaps he won't have the same natural charisma as the rogue (i.e. lower stat) but with the same amount of training why is he inherently worse? Does every fighter have to be a graceless clout who couldn't talk his way out of a paper bag?He can, but he wouldn't be a straight fighter as far as classes go. Now you fall into the trap of assuming a D&D class is how people define themselves. I guarantee you could ask the wizard who's spent 10 years in His Majesty's army what he was, and he'd answer a "soldier for the king." A fighter who spends an equal amount of time talking to people and gathering info is most likely a multiclass character with either bard or rogue.

[LynMars]

The target number you have to beat in ST is a 7 when you roll.

This actually depends on which ST style game you're talking about (if you're talking of any of White Wolf's games, which all fall under variations of that system).

Old WoD: No set difficulty/target number; base is 6, but can go up or down as needed.

Trinity Universe/Exalted: Base of 7, but can again be adjusted, or, in Exalted, dice get added or taken away.

New WoD: Target number is actually 8 now, not 7. Again, one adds or subtracts dice as necessary to reflect situational changes, and in 90% of all cases, you only need 1 success to make the roll. STs may award a willpower for 5 or more successes (an exceptional success) on rolls that don't really matter overall. The only times you really need more successes are, I think, extended rolls and maybe contested (not as sure on the latter).

[Mercutio]

I played old WoD, but don't own the books anymore. I always thought it was 7. Regardless - I find that system no more or less complex than the d20 system with Difficulty Class.

[treehouse]

The example is consistant across higher levels as well; remember, the guy with +10 skill (which you must admit is pretty far advanced no matter how you measure it) is still kind of pathetic- he fails a simple DC 15 check one quarter of the time while the untrained guy, the man who has never seen this thing before in his life, can succeed one-fourth of the time despite everything.

I think you'd be hardpressed to actually spell that out in practice. For instance - craft skills can't be tried untrained. A blacksmith with +10 is 7th level. He'd probably either own his own small forge that does simple things with a DC no higher than 11 or 12, or be an apprentice to a blacksmith with +15, or a 12th level smith who works on items with a DC no higher than 16 or 17, and maybe does a few things here and there with a DC of 20. Then keep in mind that a Craft check failure doesn't mean a total failure. It means he makes no progress on the item he's crafting, unless he fails the check by a lot. It's not nearly as catastrophic as you are trying to make it.


The thing you both are forgetting is that you can take 10 on Craft checks, and most crafters probably would unless they were working on a special project that demanded more of them. A freaking first level commoner with Skill Focus (Craft [whatever]) can succeed on a DC 17 check without even trying.

[AbusePuppy]

My mistake. Using a word like "add-on" or "supplement" both go to the common reference of non-core material.

Apologies, D&D uses a lot of terms, so not stepping on any of them is kind of hard.

What table for DCs? Spellcraft checks are based on spell level. Caster Level checks are based on Caster Level. Open Locks and Disable Device are based on static items and written into the descriptions of the locks and traps. DCs for crafting are listed in tables, but they come up very infrequently in game. Hide and Move Silently don't have DCs - they're based on counter rolls of Spot and Listen. Diplomacy is a broken skill and everyone recognizes that - most use houserules vice the standard.
Modifiers are based on attributes, magic, and standard bonuses, all of which have a place to be recorded on character sheets and all of which add up to the "modifier" that is added to the d20.

Right, but look back up at that: each of those things is different from the other. How do you know whether a Hide check is a static DC or an opposed check? If a rogue decides to break into someone's house, how do you know the DC of the locks on his doors? How do you know whether a Spellcraft check includes the caster's attribute (10+Level+Cha) or not? All of these things are easy for you to remember but much harder to learn from scratch.

Oh, so now the thread is about new DMs and new Players and why d20 is too hard to teach them? I thought it was about disillusioned current players who already know the rules.

I think it was a thread about problems with d20 in general and this particular part is about the complexity of the game. If we're measuring complexity, a good way to determine that is by seeing how easily new players can grasp the concepts- measuring it by how experienced players deal with them is a much less accurate representation because those players can ingrain the information into their memory. After all, I can spew out first-order differentiations like nobody's business now, but I wouldn't call learning them easy by any standards.


Never claimed it was just a d20. It's a d20 plus modifier. All of those things you mentioned add up to be the modifier. All of them have places to be recorded on character sheets. All of them are fully explained in the core rule books. The only modifiers a DM needs to know are +2 and -2, which he can add or subtract depending on whether the situation is favorable or unfavorable. Maybe you just a) don't trust your players or b) don't read through the character sheets to determine accuracy. Secondly - keep in mind that it IS the DM's job to know the rules.

Some of them have places on the character sheet. And that's good- because it's really nescessary. However, many of the variables that influence a roll aren't based on the character (at least not directly) and thus can't be included, like penalities to track when it's raining or other situational modifiers. Certainly, a DM can just make these up but that's a case of bypassing the rules for convenience's sake- hardly a good measure of the rules.

Never said it wasn't the GM's job to know the rules- I'm just pointing out that there's a lot of work involved in doing so and D&D doesn't make it any easier.

Sure they do. The target number you have to beat in ST is a 7 when you roll. IN shadowrun 3rd, the target number could be a 3 or a 4 (or god forbid in really tough situations) a 5. Then you roll a pool of dice based on your skill number, necessitating anywhere from 5 to 10 or more dice, and hope you beat the target of gaining X number of successes. If you instead gain Y successes, you can fail or super succeed, all depending on strange modifiers that only the GM knows.

Er... the TN can go as low as two or as high as you want it in Shadowrun. No offense, but I don't think you have very much experience with the system. It isn't perfect by any means but Shadowrun is a lot more flexible than you make it out to be.

I think the varying degrees of success are aptly listed. If you fail certain rolls by 10 or more, bad things happen. If you exceed certain rolls by 10 or more, extra good things happen.

This is true, but in SR/WoD you have a number of degrees of success equal to the dice you roll (plus one more for critical failure). This gives a much wider degree of outcomes, which I think is more generally useful.

I object to this one just on principle. Realism is about as far from Shadowrun as it is from D&D.

We may have to just disagree on this one. In Shadowrun, getting hit with bullets or weapons kills you. Falling off buildings breaks your bones. Getting your face mashed in can take months to heal without the aid of magic. In D&D you can take a dagger in the gut, hop off a ten story building and take a good dozen rounds of blows to the face and still be home in time for soda.

Sorry, three rolls, not four, but if you aren't going against another caster, mages are pretty much worthless, considering their initiatives suck, and their body is abysmal.

...

I definately think you don't have much experience with Shadowrun. "Kill the mage first," isn't a saying because he's the guy with only three body, it's because he's the guy who can wipe out your entire team with a single spell.

The player has direct control of his actions through the dice. In a freeform game, the GM has fiat and only fiat to determine what happens.

But the GM determines what happens as a result of those dice- if he says the monster has an armor class of one billion and Improved Evasion than all the dice in the world still won't change what happens.

You obviously don't play with powergamers whose every move is precalculated.

Thankfully not, and perhaps that is where out difference in styles comes from.

This is where I disagree. I have a world in mind and a story I'd like to tell through the players, but unless I put a ring through their noses, that isn't what happens, and shouldn't be what happens. The GM provides the framework and the challenges. The players provide the actions of the heroes and ultimately drive the story. At least, that's how it should be.

Maybe we're just using different words for the same thing here; you don't have to drag players around by their ears to make the story you want- that's what a plot hook is for. In fact, a good plot hook will make the players want to follow your plot; that's the point. Obviously, unless you're railroading them pretty hard you can't control every decision they make, nor how they react to what happens but if I write a two-month campaign about Vael-Astri-Garaaz the red dragon lord there's a good chance that, somewhere along the line, the players are gonna see a big fly-y burny thing and possibly fight it.

So the standard of being a social attribute, your definition, is an attribute that is totally unusable when no one else is around? I don't know. As a writer, I think my perception and charisma are still necessary components when I'm writing.

But that writing only has meaning when you show it to someone else, i.e. interact with them (albeit in a delayed manner). You can use non-social attributes to influence a social roll; If I have Strength 23, I can flex for the lady-types to try and attract a wench for the night, but I don't think that makes Strength a social attribute- I'm just usuing it to social ends.

And in D&D you can use most skills untrained. If you're a good swimmer, you most likely have a decent strength. So climbing then is done with your strength modifier, meaning you aren't totally worthless at it and your physical ability does have some bleedover.

Very little bleedover, though; remember, "decent strength" is probably only a +2 or +3 modifier at best, which translates into virtually nothing in terms of roll percentages.

I'd like to point out here that I'm a Navy Officer. I know SEALs personally, and I know people who have tried out for the SEALs and failed miserably. I'm talking guys that can benchpress hundreds of pounds, but can't swim for their asses. I've also seen the reverse - one of the fattest girls I've ever met in my life, but she was quick as lightning through the water. Couldn't do a pullup to save her life, but she had some ultrapowerful legs. Strength is not universal.

shrug I'll take the defeat on this one. I suppose I've had fairly biased experiences in the matter and I don't think I can claim to have more expertise than you here without sounding like an idiot.

I thought we were talking core only, and not the add-ons, which, you know, you don't need to play the game.

Don't need, but they cover material of varying degrees of importance, which was the point- the initial ten Knowledges have some noticable gaps that you need to throw other things in to compensate.

Really? I bet you I wouldn't. Leadership and managerial experience bleed over. I've never managed a fast food joint - but I have proudly led and managed 30 to 40 sailors in complex strategic and tactical maneuvers. My experience in Profession:Fast Food manager is 0, but I'll bet I could go in there and manage it almost as well (if not better) than the day manager.

I think you're being pretty optimistic. Leading is one thing but giving people instructions about something you yourself don't understand is another entirely.

Now, obviously this could be another case of you knowing more than I do, being that you're an officer and all and I'm an antisocial geek and all but having worked under a number of people who tried to "lead" without having a clue what they're doing I'm going to have to say it wasn't particularly effective.



Perhaps I just have a skewed view of what a level seven blacksmith really is; seems that someone who's a third of the way through getting to the level of "best blacksmith in the entirety of the world" (i.e. +23 skill at level 20) should be doing a lot more than DC 11 horseshoes and pig iron.

[quote]Exactly. That's exactly my point. He's not going to be a world-reknowned expert on Sumerian tribal culture while he's the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. At best, he might be equivalent to an undergraduate student of Sumerian culture.

I think you're missing my point; he CAN'T have any significant number of other interests because he doesn't get enough skill points to do so; if he wants to have ranks in Profession (Soldier) and Knowledge (Tactics) and some riding and all that other stuff a soldier can probably do then he doesn't have any points left to do anything and is probably short in a couple areas to boot. Giving your character "secondary interests" in terms of skills is very difficult in D&D and requires significant sacrifice.

He can, but he wouldn't be a straight fighter as far as classes go. Now you fall into the trap of assuming a D&D class is how people define themselves. I guarantee you could ask the wizard who's spent 10 years in His Majesty's army what he was, and he'd answer a "soldier for the king." A fighter who spends an equal amount of time talking to people and gathering info is most likely a multiclass character with either bard or rogue.

shrug I just don't see that. Just because he decided to talk to some people during he career he suddenly knows how to Sneak Attack or sing songs? Because he has to learn those things if he classes over like you say; this is another of my objections to the class system: you can't learn one thing without automatically learning another, unrelated thing.

The thing you both are forgetting is that you can take 10 on Craft checks, and most crafters probably would unless they were working on a special project that demanded more of them. A freaking first level commoner with Skill Focus (Craft [whatever]) can succeed on a DC 17 check without even trying.

True, I do often forget about taking 10. My GM virtually always denied my taking 10 on my crafting characters, so I'm not particularly used to it. -_-

Don't misunderstand- I'm not saying D&D is a bad and terrible system, I'm just saying it has flaws and (for me) those flaws clash with how I like to run my games. Many other people seem to agree with me on this, but to judge by the number of d20 games being run here clearly a lot of people do not. I'm perfectly willing to play the game if that's what is available but if there are other things I will generally gravitate to those first.

Gogo thread! Reach for ten pages! We need to beat all the OOC threads for total length!
__________________
"If you were a real villain you'd tell me your master plan before killing me."
"Hmmm..."
"And after you tell me your plan you can strap me to a table and cut me in half with a laser!"
"How about I tie you to a chair and blind you with a pen light?"
"Deal!"

[Mercutio]

Obviously AbusePuppy and I are going to have to chalk this one up to different play-styles and experiences. My experience with Shadowrun was the character who always had to bite the bullet and play the mage - kind of like how Clerics in 2nd Edition were treated. I have extensive involvement in 3rd edition Shadowrun, but haven't played in 2 years since I moved away from my group. I wasn't impressed with the d6 system, and I've been gaming for almost almost 20 years. Were I given only the options of d10 or d6, I'd take d10 because of how much I disliked the d6 system. The mages I played in SR were extraordinarily powerful, for about one round, after which case I was pretty much out of the fight. Which is about right for wizards in D&D too. More effective against a wide range of just slightly lesser foes or one equal foe, but not able to handle many equal foes at the same time.

Instead of going line by line in another answer, I'll just chalk this one up, like I said, to different experiences, playstyles and desires. After all, there are myriad different game systems for the myriad different gamers. I just don't see the issues with d20 that some people have, and I'm sure others feel the same way with the way I feel about d6 or d10 systems.

Treehouse - I always forget that you can take 10 on craft checks. That's just one of those skills that I don't think you should be able to take 10 on, since a crafter is always assumed to be careful.

[treehouse]

Treehouse - I always forget that you can take 10 on craft checks. That's just one of those skills that I don't think you should be able to take 10 on, since a crafter is always assumed to be careful.

That's just like, your opinion, man. :fun:

To me, taking ten is the ultimate example of the boring, non-heroic thing to do, so it makes sense in that context that a commoner smith would do so every day. He's not even important enough to get his own dice roll.

[Mercutio]

In that case, increase the DC. A commoner with no blacksmith training shouldn't be able to make a hammer, much less a horseshoe or a nail. Crafting seems to be too easy, but then no one would ever use them if it was harder. Ever tried to work in a smithy? I got the chance to try one day at a reenactment. There's no way I could shape a lump of steel even into another lump of steel.

[treehouse]

Who are you responding to? I don't understand the context of your response at all. My example was of a 1st level commoner with full ranks in Craft and Skill Focus. Hardly someone who isn't familiar with a smithy.

[Linklegacy77]

I agree. Since D&D portrays your average person in town, (which should all have professions to survive) as 1st level commoners, than the blacksmith should be a level 1, 2, or 3 commoner or expert. I spent one day in a blacksmith, and I left with a slightly lopsided horseshoe that I made. (I think Merc and I may have had very different experience with this.) I'm fairly certain that somebody who has apprenticed in a blacksmith for years under a master should be able to pull it off fairly well.

[zachol]

Hmm... it's not that hard to do.

However, I do agree that craft should not be something you can do untrained.

[nightinverse]

Hmm... it's not that hard to do.

However, I do agree that craft should not be something you can do untrained.

Or at least not without penalties.

[zachol]

Maybe there should be a 'remember, DMs, always think what you're allowing' rule that would take care of this, along with such things as elephants getting a +7 (whatever) to jump checks.

Crafting a wooden spoon untrained is fine, so it's not like it can't be used untrained, but...


Ah! Idea!
How about craft checks are limited to DC 10 when done untrained, like knowledge checks?

[Black Plauge]

My take on how to remake the craft skill to make it more reasonable. (http://online-roleplaying.com/forums/showthread.php?p=132921#post132921) It also incorporates a remake on the masterwork system, but it gives you an idea on how I "fixed" the various issues the craft skill has.

[ShadowDawn]

So I have... perhaps a moral quandrum, perhaps simply something to talk about. Even though this thread is about dead. I recently got a job for the rest of the summer as a DM for my local gaming store to help new gamers get a feel for the system. Problem: the minimum age is 8, median age'll be around 10. My job is to introduce them to DnD as they'll probably know it, mainly to get them used to the rules. This means that I'll be expected to go by the rules pretty explicitly--I can get away with coming up with random DC's, but the big issue is probably balance and (more key) alignment. They're going to come in and probably want a stereotypical fantasy campaign, Tolkien- and base rulebook-style. Now that I've already accepted it, it occurs to me that this is kind of indoctrination of youth--I'm going to be contributing to black-and-white ideals that DnD pushes. What I'll probably do is slip in little things to get them to think about what their characters are doing, what alignment means, etc. but still keep it fairly clear--someone summoning the hordes of hell is evil. Still, it's just now hitting me what DnD can be, and I just felt the need to share it. For no particularly good reason.

[Doomsmile]

If you want to break up the black-and-white morals of D&D, why not have their enemy be a good-aligned character?
There are any number of reasons that good characters would come into conflict, and which should cause any number of moral quandries if the party has a paladin or cleric of a good god. Even better- what if the "baddie" is a paladin? A paladin of Hironeous, at that! Think of the quandries, man! The quandries!

... okay, I'm done.

[ShadowDawn]

Hmm... a good ally for the main villain... it has possibilities, even if I could get in serious s*** with store managers if I get too close to political commentary or scar any of 'em for life...

[nightinverse]

Well, I'll try to make some time to advise or, in other words, spy on your work with them. I can give you some feedback on that along with the actual running if you wish.

I have a few suggestions. Don't drop alignment, as it's really hard for new players to work without the restriction. However, don't stress it. I suggest making appearance and description much more important than alignment in terms of gameplay. On that note, try to keep everything detailed, but don't overload them.

The good ally concept is a clean idea as well.