Do you like the older RPG systems better than the newer ones?

[Telok]

The biggest difference between D&D and Exalted or other high-powered systems is that you can't go from "mostly normal" to "superhero demigod" just by beating up progressively stronger enemies in the latter. In D&D, you can theoretically go from level 1 to level 20 in the space of a single campaign, if you actually play that long. That is a feature one might feel is missing from other games... but also a source of major problems.

The last three editions of D&D have had a paradigm of taking about 13 "appropriate" fights to level up. Where "appropriate" serms to mean 'the party will rofl-stomp them without real danger unless the dice totally hate them all'. Of course harder fights lead to faster leveling.

AD&D, if I recall correctly, was aimed at getting to 10th level in about a year of play and then slowing down after that. I think that matches pretty well with my memories. 3e I recall a number of campaigns where we leveled evert 3rd session, which would work out to about 13 to 15 levels a year given a bit of time off from weekly games. Our 4e game gave a level about every 2.25 sessions, we hit 10th level before the 6 month mark. The 5e games seem to level every session up to 4th level, then a level every other session. Since our 5e games all seem to get dropped at about 7th level... yeah, about 3 months per game.

So I think the D&D leveling rate has more than doubled from AD&D to 5e, plus the game now stays in the dungeon crawling kill-loot-repeat mode for the whole campaign. It's a bit jarring to me to have character abilities that only see use once every couple of levels, not because the abilities aren't useful but because you level faster than they recharge sometimes. A once a week ability sounds fine, until you realize that modern D&D characters can level up twice in that time.

I wonder what it would do to world building if you stopped ignoring the fact that every so often a random group of people go on a hardcore killing spree and become nation/world changing demigods within 6 months.

[MeeposFire]

AD&D leveling really depends on how much treasure you get and what rules for XP you are using. In 2e if you use the treasure gives xp rules and the other optional XP rules you level up a lot faster. If you play 2e and only use defeated enemy xp the game levels up very slowly.

[HouseRules]

The last three editions of D&D have had a paradigm of taking about 13 "appropriate" fights to level up. Where "appropriate" serms to mean 'the party will rofl-stomp them without real danger unless the dice totally hate them all'. Of course harder fights lead to faster leveling.

3E: 40 battles per 3 levels -> 14 battles per level most of the time, because 1/3 battle worth of xp at a lower level is not 1/3 battle worth of xp at higher level.
4E: 10 battles per level.

pre-3E: double power every level.
3E: double power every 2 levels.
4E: double power every 4 levels (if we compare the xp gain)
5E: unknown since power is not geometric growth like earlier editions.


As for AD&D, not only treasure, monster HP matters.
There's two parts to XP for combat encounters.
1) the XP a monsters has if you defeat it.
2) the XP per HP damage you deal, so that monsters with more HP give more XP.
2b) instant kill spells does not give XP per HP damage.

[Anonymouswizard]

The biggest difference between D&D and Exalted or other high-powered systems is that you can't go from "mostly normal" to "superhero demigod" just by beating up progressively stronger enemies in the latter. In D&D, you can theoretically go from level 1 to level 20 in the space of a single campaign, if you actually play that long. That is a feature one might feel is missing from other games... but also a source of major problems.

I've honestly started to consider D&D's rapid growth a bug. Well, to be more specific, I'm starting to consider the versatility growth a bug, while the power growth is a feature.

We ask know what I'm referring to. The fact that Magic User and Cleric options increase rapidly as they gain levels, to the point that it becomes a very different game. Compare this to early editions, where once you got ninth level (and the world altering spells are coming online) the game was explicitly supposed to alter and focus more on the large scale, with Fighters and Rogues being assumed to gain political power. And it kind of worked before the assumptions are changed.

Now I other the campaign to be entirely 'wandering band of heroes', which is why I rarely run any edition of D&D anymore (the only ones I am are BD&D and 5e for Middle Earth games). Instead I run everything people will let me from Burning Wheel to Traveller to Unknown Armies to Alternity to Cyberpunk, which explains why I'm generally not the one running the games (you guys do know I own the books right? You don't have to pick the person who offers more D&D). But when you are willing to have that growth and shift early D&D is one of the best places to her it because, compared to WotC D&F, it understood that the power and versatility growth favoured magical characters and used the idea of 'name level' to give mundanes a leg up.

[D+1]

I see people still get 3E/3.5E xp awards wrong and I thought I'd put this out here to correct the misperceptions. It's only 13.5 encounters per level IF all those encounters are EL=party level. But they're not supposed to be. 3.5 DMG (p.49) says not all encounters on an adventure should be EL=party level because a well-constructed adventure (indeed a well-constructed campaign overall, obviously) is not one where every encounter consistently matches the PC's abilities and ends with PC clear victory, but that has some variety.

Only 50% of combats should be EL equal to the party and are considered "challenging", and after only 4 such encounters PC's would run low on "resources" including spells and hit points, as well as having at least one PC "threatened" but without particular threat of death. And if it's not costing the party a significant portion of resources then it's NOT "challenging." 20% should be "easy" assuming only that the PC's handle it correctly with tactics (and thus adjusted after the fact to be worth fewer xp because of the reduced challenge regardless of EL), and 10% are "easy" because they're definitely at least an EL below party level and the party would be able to handle a "near limitless" number of encounters of that strength. And the greater the reduction of threat to the party, the greater the reduction of xp to be awarded. Of the remaining 20% that would be greater EL than party level, 15% would be "very difficult" at 1-4 EL above and a serious threat that ONE PC might die (so if you're hesitant about that and actively avoid that possibility you're running fewer such EL>party level combats, or otherwise somehow reducing their threat level - and thus should be reducing xp to be rewarded), and finally just 5% "overpowering" with EL 5 or more higher and it being expected the party would LOSE and which the PC's SHOULD then run away from anyway gaining no xp.

What all that means is that the 3E intent is actually reliably MORE than 13.5 encounters per level, because you'll have only half which give baseline xp for 13.5 encounters/level, 30% giving LESS than baseline, and only 15% that would give more than baseline xp - and that's IF as DM you're actually up to running the real risk of death to one of the PC's, even if they aren't. And then on top of all that, there are rules variants telling the DM to effectively set the amount of xp (and thus the pace of leveling) where they want it. Of course, if you use a lot of published modules the combats are likely to more often be far closer to the baseline and thus closer to 13.5 encounters per level if not actually fewer encounters and a faster pace.

But there's also the fact that the numbers aren't a super-reliable predictor of how any given party is going to do in any given encounter. CR and EL are TOOLS for creating encounters and figuring out how much xp to give out, not an ironclad mathematical formula. Anyone thinking they are or trying to use them that way is getting it wrong. Although AD&D (1E AND 2E) doesn't have the same kind of calculated design where Gary/et.al. actually ran the math and said, "This is precisely how fast you should level and why," the numbers CAN work out to be not far off the same pace as 3E. My own experience with 3E is that with consistent weekly games and a fair variety of encounter strengths (including a few sessions actually without any combat at all), the PC's were still 10th within about 6 months and in a little over a year were just below 20th.

[Morty]

I wonder what it would do to world building if you stopped ignoring the fact that every so often a random group of people go on a hardcore killing spree and become nation/world changing demigods within 6 months.

That's the great unasked question of D&D settings, yes.

I've honestly started to consider D&D's rapid growth a bug. Well, to be more specific, I'm starting to consider the versatility growth a bug, while the power growth is a feature.

I think it could become a genuine feature if it was more self-aware, so to speak. If the effects of gaining levels and the genre change that comes with them were clearer. And of course if there were options to slow down progression for players who want to stay low-powered but don't want to halt their characters' growth.

I don't think slower level gain is the answer, because if players don't gain levels, they don't progress mechanically. And players want their characters to get new stuff. With levels, it's kind of all or nothing - either you gain a level and take a step closer to playing in a completely different genre or you don't get better at anything.

[HouseRules]

I see people still get 3E/3.5E xp awards wrong and I thought I'd put this out here to correct the misperceptions. It's only 13.5 encounters per level IF all those encounters are EL=party level. But they're not supposed to be. 3.5 DMG (p.49) says not all encounters on an adventure should be EL=party level because a well-constructed adventure (indeed a well-constructed campaign overall, obviously) is not one where every encounter consistently matches the PC's abilities and ends with PC clear victory, but that has some variety.

Only 50% of combats should be EL equal to the party and are considered "challenging", and after only 4 such encounters PC's would run low on "resources" including spells and hit points, as well as having at least one PC "threatened" but without particular threat of death. And if it's not costing the party a significant portion of resources then it's NOT "challenging." 20% should be "easy" assuming only that the PC's handle it correctly with tactics (and thus adjusted after the fact to be worth fewer xp because of the reduced challenge regardless of EL), and 10% are "easy" because they're definitely at least an EL below party level and the party would be able to handle a "near limitless" number of encounters of that strength. And the greater the reduction of threat to the party, the greater the reduction of xp to be awarded. Of the remaining 20% that would be greater EL than party level, 15% would be "very difficult" at 1-4 EL above and a serious threat that ONE PC might die (so if you're hesitant about that and actively avoid that possibility you're running fewer such EL>party level combats, or otherwise somehow reducing their threat level - and thus should be reducing xp to be rewarded), and finally just 5% "overpowering" with EL 5 or more higher and it being expected the party would LOSE and which the PC's SHOULD then run away from anyway gaining no xp.

What all that means is that the 3E intent is actually reliably MORE than 13.5 encounters per level, because you'll have only half which give baseline xp for 13.5 encounters/level, 30% giving LESS than baseline, and only 15% that would give more than baseline xp - and that's IF as DM you're actually up to running the real risk of death to one of the PC's, even if they aren't. And then on top of all that, there are rules variants telling the DM to effectively set the amount of xp (and thus the pace of leveling) where they want it. Of course, if you use a lot of published modules the combats are likely to more often be far closer to the baseline and thus closer to 13.5 encounters per level if not actually fewer encounters and a faster pace.

But there's also the fact that the numbers aren't a super-reliable predictor of how any given party is going to do in any given encounter. CR and EL are TOOLS for creating encounters and figuring out how much xp to give out, not an ironclad mathematical formula. Anyone thinking they are or trying to use them that way is getting it wrong. Although AD&D (1E AND 2E) doesn't have the same kind of calculated design where Gary/et.al. actually ran the math and said, "This is precisely how fast you should level and why," the numbers CAN work out to be not far off the same pace as 3E. My own experience with 3E is that with consistent weekly games and a fair variety of encounter strengths (including a few sessions actually without any combat at all), the PC's were still 10th within about 6 months and in a little over a year were just below 20th.

How about AD&D where it is about 125 encounters for a Thief, 150 encounters for a Cleric to level up, 200 encounters for a Fighter to level up, and 250 encounters for a Wizard? That's before counting treasure experience and hit point damage experience. With the other experience gains, leveling up should be faster.

Remember that 1 HD (Level 1 Regular in 4E or CR 1 in 3E) Monster = 10 XP is the base line here.
The Game is always consistent that 1 lb. of gold = 10 XP; even in 3E indirectly, so the conversion rule nerf the characters.
Players should convert XP for XP from pre-3E to 3E because the exchange rate is there, and GP for 5 GP because 1 lb of gold for 1 lb of gold and proportionately for the smaller pieces.

[thorr-kan]

I do like the older RPGs better than the newer ones. But for me, that means I like 2E more than 3E or 5E.

Basic is where I started; 2E is where I played most in college. It's got Al-Qadim, my favorite setting and what I run today. I've played 3E, and while it was a lot of fun, I don't know it as well as 2E. 2E I can make do what I want. 3E is interesting and fun, but now home. I have not played 5E, though I have a lot of supplements for reading. It looks interesting, and if a game opens up, I'll give it a shot. But at this point (50 approaching fast, and I'm the youngest ni my group), I'm unlikely to get much of a chance.

I'm open to trying other systems. Our group has done FASERIP, CoC for various things, a bunch of indie RPGs. But for me, I'll run 2E DnD, because that's what I like to run and what my players like me to run.

[antiochcow]

Do you like the older RPG systems better than the newer ones?

For the most part, yes, though there are still aspects of older systems I dislike and have been developing my own games to alleviate those issues.

[KineticDiplomat]

I think there is a large difference between identifying the Systems versus the Style of older games versus new ones.


In terms of Systems, most games have made vast leaps forward. This can be small evolutionary things like tightening up the mechanics of a dice roll, making play less clunky, or closing loopholes. It can also be entirely novel concepts like different forms of Chargen, the recent trend to create narrative based systems, or what have you. Generally speaking, the overall quality and effectiveness of game mechanics has been steadily improving through iteration. There are, of course, times when it doesn't, whne new ideas fall flat, or a beloved system really was better than the cool-new-way-of-doing it. And there are times when simply piling content on top of content makes a system a morass of indecipherable Byazantine lore until it can only be maintained by the most dedicated. None the less, I think most people prefer the mechanical tightening and innovative new systems.


Style is an entirely different manner. Many older systems had a take-no-prisoners approach that can be very enticing, more akin to a video game "Ironman" or "Roguelike" experience. They did not hold the player's hand thematically, and in some cases were outright blatantly trying to slaughter the player. And while a "killer DM" wasn't a good thing, there was a certain sense that a wrong move or a failure in cleverness on the player's part could very well be the end. You dealt with the consequences as they fell, and that was that. Besides there being pride in overcoming a hard thing, it created stories in the conflict itself, and it told stories that you took a very real risk in - you didn't have to "I broke my GM by being wacky-go-nutz" to have a moment of epic triumph over what you could achieve and storming the castle did not feel like a foregone conclusion except for an upcoming boss fight.

Now, a vast number of very good modern systems manage to retain these best features.

The ones you know best, the D&D and offshoot variety, have not. They have trended towards becoming analog copies of MMOs played without the benefits of a computer. 13 ROFLSTOMP fights and you level is the WoW model, and frankly, computers do it better. The joy, drama, tension and creativity of the genre is much lost when the assumption is you will walk forward through the story smashing down level appropriate enemies. And if you do just want to smash through a story with a scripted encounter set, lets be honest - the professionally written one of a CRPG is going to be better than what most GMs will make. So stylistically, the modern D&D offshoots took most of what made RPGs great and fed it into the meatgrinder.

[2D8HP]

That's an interesting approach. Maybe what would be interesting is a mixture of 'class' and 'kit/path', while as I type this I realise I just renamed the 'race/class' system.

Eh, I'm a fan of lifepath character generation anyway. Let me pick abilities based on Sir Tim's experience, instead of just giving me certain abilities because he's a knight, and ideally have a structure where I work out what happened to him over the years instead of just giving me a bunch of points and telling me to go.

(Sir Tim is one of my 'characters that I would like to play, but have never had the chance', on there because he really doesn't fit into D&D conventions. He's a courtly knight, with his skills primarily in speaking to people, and combat skills focused more on jousting and dueling rather than melee combat.)

As an aside: "Sir Tim" seems to me to be perfect for King Arthur Pendragon, whether the 1985, current edition, or any in-between (I know, as always the difficulty is in finding a table, not a system).

[kyoryu]

Many older systems had a take-no-prisoners approach that can be very enticing, more akin to a video game "Ironman" or "Roguelike" experience. They did not hold the player's hand thematically, and in some cases were outright blatantly trying to slaughter the player. And while a "killer DM" wasn't a good thing, there was a certain sense that a wrong move or a failure in cleverness on the player's part could very well be the end. You dealt with the consequences as they fell, and that was that.

It's worth noting that, at least in AD&D, Gygax's intended playstyle (and what he did at his table) was that a given player might have multiple characters that they played at various times - while lethality was a thing, it was also more like losing a prized soldier in XCom than it was having your 100 hour Skyrim save deleted.

[KineticDiplomat]

There is truth to this. While I can't say I know what Gygax did at his table, D&D was not envisioned as a game where you lovingly tuned the backstory of your character for six hours before playing. The playing was their story, their history was what you did with them. Karl Orc-hewer was that guy because you had probably successfully, and at no small risk to yourself, hewed you some orcs. It was not programmed to let everyone play an eternally victorious hero who's interesting parts were their character, or more often, their Keanu Reeves Cool Kill Style since the character themselves is basically a race/class/stat-block.

Now, there's nothing wrong with a narrative or character centric game - a great many newer systems handle it very well. Leaps and bounds better than D&D to be honest. D&D does not. It is still, at its very mechanical core, the expanded personal fantasy wargame it started as. And this creates a problem; a wargame you can't lose is not particularly interesting, so that is lost. Arguably, what it was best at is lost. However, it is also far from good at being a story and character generator. It is, in fact, rather sub par. Oh, don't get me wrong - a skilled author, GM, or player can make any system a story system, but D&D is particularly weak at any story other than Zero to Hero. So here we are, with D&D and its many clones and offshoots, fundamentally bad at what made it exciting as an adventure game, and fundamentally outclassed by other systems as a story game.

[kyoryu]

What Gygax did is fairly well documented, and his kids and people that played with him are still online. I've also been able to play in games that ran similarly.

Basically, whoever showed up, showed up. Each session, the people that showed up would pick a character of theirs to run, or make a new one if necessary. A single session was a run into the dungeon (to loot treasure) and back to town.

So death was a thing, for sure. But it was kind of like losing a soldier in XCom.

[Endless Rain]

What about roleplay-driven games like Apocalypse World, Cortex, and (to a lesser extent) Fate-- what's the first system to focus itself around "we do this because it mimics narrative tropes" rather than "we do this because it mimics reality?" (Amber Diceless, maybe?)

I might also list the development of deliberately rules-light games as an important milestone. Not the primordial sparseness of oD&D, but the conscious pushback against the bloated mass things like D&D and Rifts had evolved into. (Fudge?)

I really don't like either of these. I suppose that, in general, that means I like older games better than newer ones, since they were less likely to be Narrativist or rules-light. I still like newer complex games like D&D 3e and 4e more than older narrative or rules-light games though. It's not the age of the games that matters, it's the type of games they are.

My objection is complicated and unrelated to the thread topic, so I refrained.

On topic. My problems with a lot of newer systems.

The elevation of simplicity to an overriding goal for its own sake rather than a matter of efficiency.

Concern with novelty of design, new mechanics for the sake of being different rather than solving a design challenge.

The various "story level" mechanics tied to characters. Egregious example would be the FFG Star Wars system with such gems as the power that lets the player decide that some device or system fails -- not because the character did anything, but just because the player wants it. And the player gets to retcon a cause into past events and impose say a failure of maintenance on some NPC.

You explained my dislike of narrative mechanics much better than I could. The proliferation of these mechanics in newer games does makes this topic relevant to the thread.

[Silva]

What about roleplay-driven games like Apocalypse World, Cortex, and (to a lesser extent) Fate-- what's the first system to focus itself around "we do this because it mimics narrative tropes" rather than "we do this because it mimics reality?" (Amber Diceless, maybe?)

As others have said, there were a bunch of games in the 80s that tried that: James Bond, Ghostbusters, Prince Valiant, Pendragon, Amber, etc. But I agree Apocalypse World and it's hacks may be the apex of this trend.

[Anonymouswizard]

As others have said, there were a bunch of games in the 80s that tried that: James Bond, Ghostbusters, Prince Valiant, Pendragon, Amber, etc. But I agree Apocalypse World and it's hacks may be the apex of this trend.

Games seem to have converged a tad. My narrativist games from a hile back are slightly more gamist, while my simulationist games are a tad more narrativist.

Okay, GNS is a bad theory, because every game simulates something. So Instead I rpopose two different terms that make a sliding scale, with 'world-simulation' at one end and 'story simulation' at the other. 'Gamist' mechanics designed for ease of play generallt move towards the center of the scale.

So yeah, Powered by the Apocalypse and it's descendant Forged in the Dark are the apex of the trend. But that's like saying GURPS is the trend of the world-simulation trend, what's more important is not that it was the first but that currently it's the most prominent. As well as how it's changed, I enjoy old games for the history as much as the mechanics. Looking forward to my copy of In Nomine arriving on Saturday.

[Max_Killjoy]

Games seem to have converged a tad. My narrativist games from a hile back are slightly more gamist, while my simulationist games are a tad more narrativist.

Okay, GNS is a bad theory, because every game simulates something. So Instead I rpopose two different terms that make a sliding scale, with 'world-simulation' at one end and 'story simulation' at the other. 'Gamist' mechanics designed for ease of play generally move towards the center of the scale.

So yeah, Powered by the Apocalypse and it's descendant Forged in the Dark are the apex of the trend. But that's like saying GURPS is the trend of the world-simulation trend, what's more important is not that it was the first but that currently it's the most prominent. As well as how it's changed, I enjoy old games for the history as much as the mechanics. Looking forward to my copy of In Nomine arriving on Saturday.

GNS is a bad theory because every game "simulates" something, every game has "rules", and every game has "fiction" elements like characters and setting and a coherent sequence of events of some sort.

GNS is a bad theory because it hijacked the very idea of "RPG theory" and tried to use it to push a very narrow agenda based on the personal "traumas" and bugbears of a single individual.

If I'm using something that looks like GNS, it flips GNS's core assumptions about trying to be exclusively one thing and about one "agenda" or "style", and says instead that an actual RPG exists in the space on the Venn diagram where "simulation", "rules", and "fiction" overlap. It has the dual benefits of being a big tent that doesn't try to make "what is an RPG?" exclusive and only denies the label to the things truly lacking one of the elements... and kinda flipping the bird to The Forge.

[Silva]

I agree that GNS was a confusing mess that's better relegated to oblivion.

That said, the Forge crowd spawned a lot of cool games and inspired lots more. As an example, the whole Powered by the Apocalypse sthick is a culmination of their ideas and practices. Take a look at their Story Now!/Narrativism playstyle and tell me it's not the foundation of the Apocalypse engine.

[Anonymouswizard]

GNS is a bad theory because every game "simulates" something, every game has "rules", and every game has "fiction" elements like characters and setting and a coherent sequence of events of some sort.

GNS is a bad theory because it hijacked the very idea of "RPG theory" and tried to use it to push a very narrow agenda based on the personal "traumas" and bugbears of a single individual.

If I'm using something that looks like GNS, it flips GNS's core assumptions about trying to be exclusively one thing and about one "agenda" or "style", and says instead that an actual RPG exists in the space on the Venn diagram where "simulation", "rules", and "fiction" overlap. It has the dual benefits of being a big tent that doesn't try to make "what is an RPG?" exclusive and only denies the label to the things truly lacking one of the elements... and kinda flipping the bird to The Forge.

GNS is a theory which disappoints me, because there's a core of a good idea there but it's buried under predjudices. Like it could be a good theory if itjust focused on the idea of mixing the elements, but instead it's distorted to focus on one. I personally focus on world/story simulation because it's the element of games that interests me.

[Max_Killjoy]

I agree that GNS was a confusing mess that's better relegated to oblivion.

That said, the Forge crowd spawned a lot of cool games and inspired lots more. As an example, the whole Powered by the Apocalypse sthick is a culmination of their ideas and practices. Take a look at their Story Now!/Narrativism playstyle and tell me it's not the foundation of the Apocalypse engine.

It is, and very deliberately so... and that's why it's utterly predictable that personally I don't care for it.