Boy am I seeing a lot of hate and anger being spewed at the D&D 4e announcements (just try any forum: Enworld, Okay…Your Turn and RPGnet for a sample). I must confess that I also have been part of that strong resistance to change/Lashing-out-at-Hasbro’s- blatant-money -grab.
But, but but… as I go through the motions of planning and playing out my 5th D&D 3.x campaign, I can’t help thinking that some of it is getting stale. I’m not bored or burnt out of D&D, far from it, but let’s say that the system’s, um, shall we say ‘imperfections’ are starting to irritate me more than before. And most of theses irritants are systems the 3.0 designers decided to retain from earlier editions because it defined D&D throughout the years. Namely:
- Save or Die effects (How I hate those!)
- Spell Resistance
- The Grapple rules
- Bland magic Items
- The need for a healer in all parties
And I’m not alone in finding it so, just look at my player’s choice of characters. So maybe a new edition, with fixed mechanics and new outlooks could help in this.
(Aside: I’m a very mechanistic gamer and I’m noticing how much it shows in my posts. I know that cool modern mechanics is what brings me to a RPG and retains me. In my opinion, Story-telling motivated roleplaying don’t need fancy mechanics and can occur whatever the system… However, I’ll concede that it can be argued that one of D&D’s flaws is that it’s mechanics can and do hinder Role-playing in certain groups. Does it for our group? I’ll leave the question opened for further pondering)
However, lately there has been a new ‘wind’ of D&D design that seem to point towards things to come. Ever since the latest batch of designers/developers like Mike Mearls, Jason Bulmahn and Rich Burlew joined the lineup, some new very promising concepts have been put to press:
- Iron Heroes (what I like to call the early prototype of D&D 4e, or D&D 3.75)
- CoolerMagic Items (Magic Item Compendium)
- Way Cooler Fighter classes (Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords)
- Function-based Encounter design (Dungeonscape)
And from what I can glean from the Wizards’ D&D insider blogs these concepts are here to stay.
And that makes me optimistic and interested for what Spring/Summer 2008 will bring.
Do D&D mechanics hinder roleplaying? My buddies and I have been known for making up a rule to manage a unique situation and look for the actual rule after the game.
So the answer is yes: D&D rules are sometimes annoying.
-Writing / copying / learning spells
-grappling
-Spell resistance
-flight speeds
-gnome punting
All tedious rules to use.
PS: Can we get your e-mail address anywhere on the site?
Agreed on spells and Flying… Gnome Punting is a lot easier with the crib sheet we made… 🙂
The Battle Box action cards help for Grappling but it remains a god awful mechanic.
I haven’t posted my email on the blog yet, it’s phil.a.menard(at)gmail(dot)com
Thanks for posting, I enjoy your blog a lot and will go from lurker to poster soon ;).
I was thinking about your post. Do the annoying rules affect your ‘role-playing’?
They slow the game down, they can kill an action sequence. They can stop a game to a grind… all true.
But I don’t think they come up during actual role-playing. I mean they don’t stop a character from making a speech or another character from questioning a NPC.
I’m just sayin’ 🙂
Well in your game the rules rarely slow things down, but that may be because between you and me we rarely need to check the book for a basic rule.
The things that slow down play is the all mighty game stopping grapple and the perusal for recurring “what does that spell do already? Does it need somatic? Does it ignore SR?”
But as far as role-play is concerned I never felt that it restricted my option.
Thanks for the nice words Yan… how many XPs do I owe you now? 🙂
Then again, I do seem to recall that you are the ultimate rules optimizer that I know.
What’s that I see on your character sheet? DR, Invisibility at will, Flight?
And what is that I see in your equipment? Oil of Evade Grapple? Amulet of Incredible Spell Penetration? tut tut tut!
🙂
Damned to many books… I did not know this oil and wand existed… Must have them!! 😉