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  1. - Top - End - #61
    Ogre in the Playground
     
    Flumph

    Join Date
    Sep 2013

    Default Re: Old School D&D Dungeons make no sense

    Quote Originally Posted by KorvinStarmast View Post
    Didn't BECMI adhere to the 11th level being name level for Wizards, or did they level the field and make name at 9 for Magic USers? (Don't have books handy ...)
    I was introduced to D&D with BECMI and I believe name level was the same across the board. The different level tracks were the balance for when characters reached name level.

  2. - Top - End - #62
    Ettin in the Playground
     
    Chimera

    Join Date
    Dec 2015

    Default Re: Old School D&D Dungeons make no sense

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Oftentimes there is an explanation in the form of a builder who is simultaneously 1.) a very powerful supernatural being and 2.) literally insane
    (Castle Greyhawk, Tomb of Lyzandred the Mad, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, etc
    ...
    D&D's economy and pseudo-medieval setting has the makings of a great conspiracy campaign. Like somebody needs to write an epic adventure wherein the enemy is some interplanar group conspiring to keep the world messed up like this (and who are also an in-universe cause of most of the more incongrous balance restrictions)
    I am all for coming up with explanations, or for the explanation of 'a mad wizard/lich/whatsit did it' when it is there. My predominant point is that often time it was left blank strictly because no one said it was supposed to have one.

    Quote Originally Posted by MadBear View Post
    The reason I thought it was true, was really simple. When looking at most dungeons, you have different groups of enemies in different rooms, and after the first battle, it seems that you'd think that the rest would often rush to their allies defense. And in that case, a DM could often and easily overwhelm the PC's causing a party wipe with little to no effort.

    Since I'm assuming that murdering the PC's after room 1 wasn't the design goal, I'm not sure how to justify the more static response that most seem to have. With that said, some have made some interesting arguments for why the creatures wouldn't necessarily hear the skirmishes, so that helps a bit.
    Yeah, sorry if I seemed a little judgy, that wasn't my intent.

    The goal was not to cause a party wipe, but at the same time the goal (at least very early in the games' run) was "this is going to be really amazingly hard if you just go in guns a-blazin'" So, sometimes yes, the opponents in room #2 wouldn't hear you wiping out those in room #1. Other times they would, so maybe you'd best sneak past room #1, or negotiate with room #1 (perhaps to together gang up on room #2), or use that precious sleep spell to take out room #1 quietly. And sometimes, frankly, the designer thought that people would catch that the smart way to finish the module is XYZ, but that is only intuitive if you are ___ (some trait that much of the audience wasn't) and instead most people ran it like UVW (but most of those are now considered bad modules that no one bothers remaking/reprinting/discussing). There's certainly plenty of design failures in the TSR-D&D era. So much so in fact that I feel confident in saying that there's no one "right"... be it in regards to how to play or just in interpreting how good/bad the game was back in that era, etc. D&D is a series of "but..." statements, such as "my favorite era was '76-'83 basic, but..."
    Last edited by Willie the Duck; 2017-12-06 at 02:36 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #63
    Titan in the Playground
     
    KorvinStarmast's Avatar

    Join Date
    May 2015
    Location
    Texas
    Gender
    Male

    Default Re: Old School D&D Dungeons make no sense

    Quote Originally Posted by Mith View Post
    I was introduced to D&D with BECMI and I believe name level was the same across the board. The different level tracks were the balance for when characters reached name level.
    Yeah, I have so many versions in memory I was maybe confusing a couple of them.
    Avatar by linklele. How Teleport Works
    a. Malifice (paraphrased):
    Rulings are not 'House Rules.' Rulings are a DM doing what DMs are supposed to do.
    b. greenstone (paraphrased):
    Agency means that they {players} control their character's actions; you control the world's reactions to the character's actions.
    Gosh, 2D8HP, you are so very correct!
    Second known member of the Greyview Appreciation Society

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