(...snip)
I see you (deliberately?) missed the rest of the discussion. This is ALL stuff that deeper, tactical classes could do as well. Most of what you describe is PRECISELY what I took into account by writing this:
You will almost never have tactical depth, unless you don't play by the rules of course and makes shit up as you go (which many P&P tables do, which is cool)
For example, throwing a bomb into the dragon's gullet. You could have been playing any class ever - it says nothing about the design of the class. I realize you like AD&D Alex, and you're welcome to it, but that list is pretty much walking dead into my argument.
Well, but like I said later, these maneuvers were kind of the fighter's thing. I will agree with you that the rules text lacked support for this tpe of play. there were tons of things that it could have done, like examples, dissertations on different fighting styles, etc. But my comment was made in view of Sawyer's. That is, while I think the text in BECMI or AD&D could have used a lot of work, at least those games commonly were played this way. Meanwhile, I see this kind of play as somewhat inimical to games where combat is a closed and balanced mathematical system.
Bullshit, Alex. You are the one who for some reason made up a world where the absence of rules (or indeed, the absence of rules other than AD and fucking D) is needed for this kind of stuff. I have told you many times before how many campaigns I play in and DM that utilize these exact mechanics. That does not excuse the fighter in AD&D.
The problem is not the absence of rules. I feel this kind of play could easily be ported to GURPS or Runequest, for example. The rules in GURPS help me because they aren't about character balance. they are about representing concepts. This means that I can know how and where to change to represent new concepts I or my players bring to the table.
Have you ever seen Burning Wheel, Grunker? It is a strange case, but I think it shows what kind of quality I am talking about quite well. Burning Wheel is divided in 3 layers, the hub, the spokes and the rim of the wheel. The hub of the wheel is basically the very core rules of the game, how dice are rolled and read in normal tests. The spokes add in various types of different modifiers. Stuff like people helping each other, contested tests and a few other points.While the system is abstract, and maybe a little resistant to new elements being added, I would say it would play quite well with the style of gaming I am talking about. Although it defines tests, with stakes, results and what not, it always eaves those open to the players to modify or change. Failure in a test could do a whole lot of things. It could cause you damage, it could affect your circles, it could give your character a new trait, it could change your attributes (although the game isn't too keen on those, at least without an explaining trait being added). Anything is still possible, and thus, the system can be adapted to any kind of situation.
But the rules in the rim of the wheel are very different. There, several subsystems, like rules for combat, ranged fights, duels of wits, armor, damage, resources and what not are described. And these are much more static in their scope. The game isn't nearly as strict and minimal as D&D 4e. Whereas 4e tries to put all abilities in the same (limited) framework, Burning Wheel has all kinds of provisions for you to add in anything you can think off. In fact, I loved that horse supplement that came with it, that allowed you to create your horse as a character. But anything that is added, changed or removed must first consider the game's math. There is a very strict math dealing with character advancement, how using skills make them go higher, how you get Artha (think of fate points) and how using them allow you to become more than human in a certain ability. All this is carefully balance by the author, and adding stuff that breaks it is a big nono in that game.
Another thing that is not good is if there are ways around the subsystems. The circles (for meeting npcs) and resources (for buying things) subsystems are full of considerations for complications that could happen in these endeavors. You can't use your resources if your resources consist of several ships full of clothes back in the old world when exploring the new one. Unless you can convince the natives to take credit. But it is bad form to circumvent the system, even when this would make sense. For example, a very rich character should exhaust his resources if he fails the test, even if h is trying to buy something very cheap. This can be explained away as having it be the straw that broke the camel's back, or simpy not rolling for it, if it makes sense in the situation. But it would be bad form to add some other kind of consequences to the roll, lik, for example, having the player make a faux pass with the shop keeper.
So, the point isn't if the game is minimalist or not, abstract or not. PDQ is bout as abstract or minimalist as D&D, whereas GURPS is the complete opposite, yet both D&D and GURPS are appropriate for this kind of game, whereas PDQ isn't.
"Oh, but Grunker" you argue, "I like minimal rules when making shit up on the fly!" Oh shit... wait... you actually have a point... but... Then why the FUCK are you playing AD&D? One of the absolute best examples of how shitty that system is the level of complexity you need to understand and the number of completely different and arbitrary table-based systems you need to know at least superficially to play a guy who, by RAW, is not allowed to do much more than swing sharp objects at things. That, is hilarious. AD&D is not a simple system, yet it has classes that are shallow. There are much better simplistic systems out there.
Personally, I like AD&D as an example of how you could (hough not necessarily would) evolve D&D through play. Evolving the game through play is very important here. The idea in these old school games is that, no matter how simple or complex it starts, there are lots of stuff that aren't well covered in the rules. So you go ahead and make rulings, differentiations and house rules, growing the game organically. Of course, the end result can be disjoint, and AD&D is certainly more disjoint than it needs to be, but even if that wasn't the case, the game would still not be uniform and self similar.
"Oh, but Grunker" you contrinue, "maybe some players like complexity and some like simplicity!" OK. Fair enough. How lucky that Pathfinder's fighter can be played fucking blind-folded too, huh? There's also many other fantasy systems that provide this much, much better than AD&D which require the poor simplicity-liking player to understand the arbitrary piece of fuck that is AD&D. You're not saying "to make shit up, we need minimal mechanics," you're literally saying "too make shit up I need this set of bad mechanics!"
I still don't see AD&D mechanics as bad. Just lacking explanations in some areas. But most of the games that try to define these areas better end up being either too rigid to really let the players go wild with their ideas or too restrictive in the possible effects of these ideas. My ideal system would treat the various abilities of a fighter, such as his fighting styles, his weapons, his armor and what not somewhat akin to how Mage: the Ascension treats spheres. No, not that fighters would suddenly be able to make magic like effects, but how they use their skills is something more dependent on context and situation, with guidelines to the GM of how to take care of it, and maybe even rules suggestions, but nothing definitive. By the way, this is exactly what I am trying to do in my own game system, though only God knows whether I will manage it.
Funny, you using 4E as an example, seeing as I've stated in multiple threads, multiple times how I dislike that system, particularly because it goes out of its way to block shit like this. I do, however, like 3.5 and Pathfinder, systems where stuff like what you mention is more than possible.
I just use 4e cause it is a system that takes the other side of the coin very far, and thus is n easy comparison. Sorry if it seemed I was accusing you of liking it.
Summa summarum: You like AD&D, and I really have no problems with that, but your arguments of placing it descriptively above 3.5 et al are arbitrary and irrational. I've told you these things before, and I'm fairly surprised I have to listen to the same arguments again. AD&D is arbitrary, it's a mess, and it was designed without an overarching goal. It isn't even a system in a sense that a system is a coherent set of rules that are all tied to the same core. I love it to death anyway and often play it, since it is the system I played the most as a kid without a doubt, but when taking time to consider what makes a good system and what we should strive for in the future, AD&D is the very anti-thesis to that.
Well, you can do this stuff in 3.5. You can do this stuff in 4e too. But a lot on those systems are just in the way and don't help me with anything. For example, if I play things my way in 3.5 e, a wizard could probably end up with the same effect of having a feat, a prestige class or even another baic class because I let him have a new spell. If a game I was playig had a long downtime and a fighter asked to try to practice a certain fighting style, I probably would let him have a feat or two, outside of the ones you normally get leveling. Or maybe several skill points. I wouldn't feel bad in the slightest by adding a monster that could reduce your basic attributes, without any means of getting them back, or a magic artifact that would exchange our intelligence with your strength. Given I am doing this, it seems I am taking the stuff in D&D 3e and just throwing it away until it is like 2e or 1e again. Of course, there is a lot of stuff I don't like in 1e or 2e too. Like the weapons vs armor class rules. But these things are much easier to get rid off without feeling you are breaking the basic balance of the game. Because there isn't one in first place. The basic balance is in how you tie things together and come up with stuff as a GM.
Let's end it on a consolidary note, since the two of us so often have this debate: I hope, and I believe there is a slight chance from what we've seen so far, that Next can unite us all
. I sincerely hope a generally clever and smart guy like yourself, you irrational like of AD&D not withstanding, is giving them feedback during the BETA.
I really need to take a look at it to see how it is going along. Thanks for reminding me.
just call me Horm
