Chiming in to agree with the Crusty Contingent but also to say I think this whole (and age-old at this point) debate grows out of the idea that every *character* needs to do something every round. My feelings on this are that every *player* can do something every round, even if that thing is strategerizing with the other players. There's no need to roll the proverbial d20 every round -- or if that's what gets you off as a player, play a fighter.

But more broadly, it comes, I feel out of the terrible notion that the whole game is based on combat. Whereas combat is one of the many tests of player skill in the game. And even in combat, if your MU has cast the only spell for the day, that shouldn't mean the *player* has used up his daily allotment of ideas.

Friction is good. Resistance leads to innovation.

Though resistance is also futile, of course!

Slightly off topic, but this is one of the things that annoys the crap out of me when new fangled games say they "fixed" spell casting to be more "Sword and Sorcery". You can't get much more Sword and Sorcery than this old system. Sorcerers in those stories often rely on bodyguards, monsters, tricks, traps, alchemy, and trained "pets" to build their reputation and survive while they cast a couple actual spells.

Last edited by Grimmshade (2/20/2018 12:08 pm)

Sorcerers in Sword and Sorcery don't die because of spell failure or corruption, they die because Conan.

Handy Haversack wrote:

Chiming in to agree with the Crusty Contingent but also to say I think this whole (and age-old at this point) debate grows out of the idea that every *character* needs to do something every round. My feelings on this are that every *player* can do something every round, even if that thing is strategerizing with the other players.

I don't know why it's so hard to convince some players to get some hirelings.  If you've got a few men-at-arms and archers at your disposal, you'll be plenty busy each round commanding those.

I think that mystery, and the entire conversation we're having, can be boiled down to a vast difference in play style over the past 20 years, and the trends in fandom from the past few decades.
From mid-late 2e on, when the wargaming elements were being phased out of D&D, players got spoiled by the idea that their characters, and their characters alone, were world-saving movers-and-shakers. In home campaigns, and the published adventures that informed them, PCs were set up to emerge from some jerkwater to be the chosen ones that could accomplish what Elminster, Drizzt, Tanis Halfelven and his merry men... could not.
That notion is as different and removed from old school ideology and adventure design as can be. It is as dissimilar as (bear with the clumsy analogy here) American action movies--from John Wayne to John McClane--with their focus on an individual loose-cannon badass saving the day, are from Japanese action movies; where teams, squads, and individuals make sacrifices for the victory of one's team or nation.

Old school gaming, if I'm reading some of these correctly, and remembering my own play experience, emphasizes teamwork, submitting to the idea that you need an entourage, not having the plot revolve around your special snowflake, careful resource management, etc. Growing up with that, I have a lot of affection for that style of gaming. I'm playing in under_scores' game a hunchbacked arctic witch-man with one measly spell a day who has to offer to wash dishes in order to pay for his lodgings. I'm loving it!
[rant]
But I also know that isn't most players' cup of tea, they having grown up with late 2e to Pathfinder. To them, all that you guys are talking about being good old school ways are what they remember sucking and stymieing them when they tried to play with their dads and older brothers.

As a DM, it isn't really my job to teach players how to be what I consider better. It isn't my job to inform them that resource management or hexcrawling is actually fun, or to tell them to feel satisfied with an experience that has them, at 3rd level, almost being TPKed by dire shrews--when their 3rd level Pathfinder characters were trouncing an entire camp of cannibal bandits. Head f'ng on.

I have one job as DM. That is to keep my players playing. Like the old-timey wrestling promoters would say, "butts in seats. All that matters."

Here is the beauty of that: through that one job, which very few of us have the time, patience, or whatever to do well, I can ease them, bit by bit, back to the foundations of the D&D experience that we love enough to take [looks at clock] well, a great deal of time deconstructing, analyzing, advising on, publishing. And I think for all the old school wisdom and hard rules and humbler play experience that I'm seeing extolled here--which again, I personally appreciate--it is vitally important to understand what kind of roleplaying game experience the slightly younger to very much younger enthusiasts of our hobby expect. You can't blame them, because they've been inundated by sarcastic, individualistic, superheroes in every niche of the fantasy, sci-fi, and horror fandom that informs our roleplaying games.

My personal experience is positive so far. My twenty-something players (ages, not group size) are enjoying and appreciating some of the old school principles in play, like describing searches and how they are dealing with traps, and they are even beginning to appreciate that they don't have plot armor, that there isn't, in fact, a plot at all. They can die, fail miserably, and the Mortician God can rise--and the world just carries on with everyone going to work on Monday for their new Ghoul-Lord masters. My players are all still talking, somewhat fondly, about how it was prehistoric shrews that foiled their efforts! I think that's a nifty trade-off, for now, for allowing a few more spells per day. I'll be easing them toward the notion of considering hirelings in the next few games, based on the suggestions here. We'll see.
[/rant]

 

My experience as "back in the day" was over the top Monty Haul play. We were kids, we had everything more gold than we should ever had, and we had a blast. This thread turned into something far cooler then the rules clarification I was after. Which btw the only reason I ask is when I start a new system, I try to play as the game is intended. Rather than assuming I know better how the rules should be. Also, I would like to run a game of it at a Con coming up and would like to do the game justice rather than saying I play ASSH and really playing Billy Bobs fantasy game.

mabon5127 wrote:

Thrasaric wrote:

My experience as "back in the day" was over the top Monty Haul play. We were kids, we had everything more gold than we should ever had, and we had a blast. This thread turned into something far cooler then the rules clarification I was after. Which btw the only reason I ask is when I start a new system, I try to play as the game is intended. Rather than assuming I know better how the rules should be. Also, I would like to run a game of it at a Con coming up and would like to do the game justice rather than saying I play ASSH and really playing Billy Bobs fantasy game.

There are a couple threads on what makes a campaign / game "Hyperborean".   

We had notebooks full of the coins, gems, jewelry, and magic items galore.  Then we built the castles and hired armies....
 

I will take a look around for those.

gizmomathboy wrote:

Players can become movers and shakers, just not at levels 1-5. Starting at level 5 they really get some juice and influence. They aren't beating up beetles and orcs anymore.

I have a player in my game that has played 3.5 and such and really would like spellcasters to be more like that. Ain't gonna happen in my game. A lot of the tweaks I used in my 1e campaign are already rolled into AS&SH (notably bonus spells for high INT).

I didn't change spell recovery at all. It's part of the fabric of the game. It would also f*** up the balance. Spell casters aren't gonna dominate early in their career. That's for levels 5 and above. That's when they get the real firepower. . . .

Of course, the fifth-level magician has to be one of the most common casualties of all! It turns out there are some things out there that can take a 5HD fireball and just keep coming, no matter how cool it was to finally cast it!

My players usually eschew hirelings. I'm never quite sure why. They don't like the guilt, I think. Or paying out all the grieving families.
 

@Jimm.Iblis - Ha! Great breakdown of Thugra Khotan's fate.

Jimm.Iblis wrote:

Here is the beauty of that: through that one job, which very few of us have the time, patience, or whatever to do well, I can ease them, bit by bit, back to the foundations of the D&D experience that we love enough to take [looks at clock] well, a great deal of time deconstructing, analyzing, advising on, publishing.
 

This is very true.  In our game, the rest of the group all started with 3x, and when we first started playing together, it was kind of rough.  TPKs were frequent, they complained about having nothing to do but swing a sword each round, they didn't want to track resources, and so on.  But over the past couple years, they've evolved into a pretty efficient party.  We're a dozen sessions in with no deaths.  They spike doors, throw down incendiary fire, collect every available resource to keep themselves alive and kill enemies without risk, focus on getting the treasure over killing monsters, and generally play the kind of game that I love running.