This is the second in an series of articles where I tackle 2 short subjects on 4e from a DM’s perspective and ask for your thoughts. The 1st one can be found here.
While I was reading stuff on D&D 4e on the various blogs, news sites and the Worlds and Monsters book (which I finished last week), I began to see another of the driving philosophies of the designers and developers.
I explored one last time which was ‘nothing has to stay in the game if it wasn’t fun’.
The other philosophy is related to the 1st one and could be summarized, in my mind as “out with the bad Retro-Stupid, in with fun one.
Definitions
Before we start a flame war because I apparently called earlier editions of D&D Stupid, let’s define our terms shall we? The term Retro-Stupid was defined 2 years ago by Jeff Rients when he poked at the Gamist/Narrativist/Simulationist model of RPG theory apparently for fun.
Thing is, as humourous as these definitions may be, they are accurate, at least the Stupid and Retro ones… (I’ll leave exploring the Pretentious definition to other bloggers and pundits)
He defines Retro games as:
Retro games make use of settings, mechanics, or assumptions that are now considered outdated by the rpg mainstream, but these same assumptions once defined that mainstream. Does a game have classes and/or levels for no damn reason? That’s a retro design element. Do you have a group of PCs going on ill-defined adventures with little or no motivation? That’s another hallmark of retro design. These games may be old, or intentionally designed with an old school vibe.
and then he defines Stupid as:
Stupid games do not take themselves seriously. PCs can die horrible deaths and other grim stuff, but that horrible death might involve being eaten by a horde of zombie chickens. Big dice charts, such as wandering monsters or random mutations, are often associated with this style of game. Most comedy games fall into this category, as do all the good versions of Gamma World. The new editions of Paranoia and WFRP look pretty Stupid to me as well.
By these definitions, Retro-Stupid gaming is one where the rules don’t make sense anymore (or never had) when compared to modern RPG design concepts and where characters could die in arbitrary ways by sticking their heads in the mouth of a Statue (or dropping their magical sword in icy crevices on a flat % roll) .
That’s why I believe that Jeff clearly had Advanced D&D and it’s predecessors in mind (among others) when he wrote those definitions.
Out with the Retro-Stupid
The 4e design team had a clear mandate to cut in the game’s ‘fat’ for the Core set of books. I believe that in that crusade they set out to get rid of some of the legacy Retro-Stupid elements that we associate with D&D like Save or Dies, Level drains, armour-based Spell failures, Speed in feet, Symmetrical planes, etc.
Still some elements of Retro design were kept because, well they were created in the 1st D&D game and still define it. Things like character levels and arbitrarily defined character classes. Doing away with those would probably push things too far away in terms of brand recognition.
This cleanup has allowed the entry of more ‘à la mode’ (as ‘in fashion’ not as in ‘served with Ice cream’) rule designs such as the much discussed ‘Class Balance’ initiated in 3.x and now heavily influenced by the more successful MMORPGs.
Now all characters are supposed to be equally useful in combat, baring efficient character design by a player, from level 1 to 30. This may end up pushing away some other Retro-stupid concepts like ‘Sorcerers kill all mooks all the time’, ‘Bards suck’ and Front loaded mutliclass characters (I’m looking at you Mr. D&D 3.0 Ranger/Paladin/Figther).
It also opens up a discussion on how, much like in Magic the Gathering, a player’s skill will affect how effective a character can be. (To be saved for later when we all have the Players Handbook in our hands).
In with the… Retro-Stupid?
Now here’s the hard part of my argument… In the last years, I’ve seen a definitive return to the roots of the game in the products created for d20 and mostly by those written by the current D&D designers (Rich Baker, Rich Burlew, Mike Mearls, etc).
Its like you see a rules progression from the early version of D&D ‘peak’ somewhere in the middle of D&D 3.x’s life and an inverse ‘feeling’ progression from late 3.5 onwards.
When you remove the rules elements of our classic Retro-Stupid fantasy games of the 80’s what remains is a series of encounters where impossible, often cool, brain-twisting things could happen that needed players to be creative (not rules-savvy) to get out of.
Gravity less or frictionless rooms filled with diseased-ridden razor sharp spikes? Yup been there. Pulsing Altars that could either produce a magical item or eat a player character’s soul? Yup, done that. This was the cool stuff of Retro-Stupid games. Yes you could die at the drop of a dice… but so could you score a Wish!
What’s that joke about a Gygaxian dungeon? (I can’t find the source so I’ll Paraphrase)
You come into a room with 3 doors. Behind Door Number 1: Instant Death! Door Number 2: A Magic Crown! Door Number 3: 4 Giant Bees guarding a bag of flour…
Weee!
When I read a (true) Gygaxian dungeon (Including the recent Maure Castle in Dunegon Magazine, it’s a 5$ PDF that’s totally worth it!), I’m still amazed how he managed to create actual stories in such limited environment as a series of underground rooms. It’s always about Gang A hating Gang B that shares the same dungeon level. If the PCs actually refrain from killing everything, they could harness this social situation in ways that were very satisfying (like my players using the 300 dungeon-bound slave orcs of the first part of Against the Giants to strike at the drunken partying Hill Giants of the upper level).
What I’ve read on 4e’s development and reading the late D&D 3.5 books seems to point toward capturing this (the fun parts at least). So while 4e seems to move away from Retro-Stupid design, it seems to completely embrace the Retro-Stupid feel!
The fundamental difference I see now is that while Adv. D&D was based on Gary’s internal sense of rules whose algorithms had to be guesstimated by DMs who wanted to create their own stuff, the 4e game will be based on actual algorithms of an integrated game engine.
Both try to capture the exact same thing though: Fantasy Heroic Action.
While Adv. D&D depended on players trusting the DM (which when gone bad gave rise to a whole culture of Bad DMs and Killer DMs), it seems to me that 4e wants to achieve the same level of good, clean, fun Retro-Stupidity while shifting part of the trust to the game’s engine.
(Incidentally for an excellent discussion on trust in RPGs, read this blog post, it’s pure gold)
This is particularly evident in the Dungeonscape sourcebook, which along with the Magic Item Compendium and The Tome of Battle, seems to define what 4e will be all about.
Dungeonscape invites DM to create encounters and role playing challenged based on functionality and role instead of logic and consistency. This is where you see roles like Controller and Brute defined for combat opponent. Traps are presented as combat encounters that invite participation by the whole party to disarm.
In fact the whole book tries to re-validate the dungeon as the perfect adventuring environment.
And as much as some of my more vocal players prefer story-based adventures peppered with site-based dungeons, the call of the massive, story-filled, trapped and tricked Retro Stupid Dungeon sings to me!
I’m so doing an undedark campaign.
On a parting note, may I point out to the fact that Saving Throws will now be a 50% thing most of the time (with some modifiers)… doesn’t that look strangely like a Retro-Stupid flat 50% chance? (However, such saves for continuing effects like poison and Paralysis are often re-rollable from round to round.. so it’s better Retro-Stupid… not worse)
Next time, I’ll tackle the new World (or non-world) of D&D 4e.
Your turn! Will 4e be a Retro-Stupid game?
Good post.
I think 4e is going to be Nouvelle Stupid. Nouvelle, because it’s intentionally (for good or ill) moving away from the Retro in favour of the hip, cool world of CCGs and MMORPGs in all their shiny big pixel gloriousness. Personally, I think that’s a Good Thing as it’ll give the game a much needed injection of new players. It’s just a shame that they also took Dungeon magazine off the shelves and are moving toward a digital subscription model which required a bank account or credit card, meaning the game will now be for over 18s only. Goodbye, 12-year old gamers. We’ll miss you. Ah well.
And Stupid, because the mechanics /still/ don’t make sense. Again, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but just once it would be nice to be able to explain the /why/ behind a mechanic. Again, not a gripe as such, but an observation about D&D as a whole.
For example: a lot of the 4e engine is going to boil down to abilities which are usable 1/day, 1/encounter, at-will, or whatever. Why? What’s the rationale behind a fighter being able to do a Passing Attack once per encounter? Why can the Ranger use his Split the Tree power once per day? I’m not talking reasons of balance or meta-game logic here, but the kind of reasoning one character would use to another.
Of course, D&D has never been a particularly logical game, and that’s a part of it’s charm and Stupidity. It’s how it is, and that’s fun.
So there you have it. That’s my definition. 4e is Nouvelle Stupid.
As an aside: The World’s Largest Dungeon is pure, unadulterated Retro Stupid. And I love it!
Meh.
At this point in my gaming “career”, I don’t believe it would be possible to change D&D to result in a game I actually enjoy playing, and still be left with anything that vaguely resembled Dungeons and Dragons. I know everyone is enthusiastic about 4th edition, and I really hate to be the guy pouring scorn, but just how different is it going to be? There’s still classes. There’s still levels. The focus of the game, to extrapolate from the ENTHUSIASTS who are raving about it, is still going to be about killing things and taking their stuff.
There’s nothing wrong with that, but Diablo and WoW do it better (IMHO).
Wow, incredible post! I think that was one of your best ever. I think you are absolutely right that a lot of early stuff was based on designer’s feelings of how things should be, and less on mathematical variables. This can be good and bad. It doesn’t provide as much balance (which is important in a crunch based game), but it allowed a lot more openness in action. I find that when I’m DMing 3rd edition, I have to hunt up a rule to see if the action that a character attempted is doable, or if it is covered by some feat and so they would have to have the feat. I find that when I’m playing under more D&D entrenched DM’s, stuff that I try often meets with “sorry that just isn’t the way its done” a lot. A lot of that is DMing style, and I always find alternatives if the rules don’t support what I want to do. Conversely, when I’m running systems like BESM or white-wolf, I find I have to do a lot more on the fly figuring out how something should work because there aren’t rules for me to fall back on or reference.
GAZZA: I see where you are coming from with the 4e reluctance. I am not a D&D guy by my playing preference, and I played 2nd Ed., skipped 3rd, and just now got roped back into it because of eberron. To me, the stuff that they are doing with 4e sounds like they are designing some of the core elements to be a little more improv. friendly. I’ll save final judgment until I see and can get a better feel for the product, but it looks promising in the changes that they are planning. It will still be classes and killing monsters, so when I want something different I’ll definitely be playing other games, but it seems like it will be an improvement upon some of the core ideas of other editions.
Well yeah, to each their own of course. And who knows – perhaps I’ll eat my words. 🙂
Greywulf – Just a note. ‘Stupid’ is not when the rules don’t make sense, but when the game doesn’t take itself seriously.
In fact, rules that don’t make sense don’t put it into any of the three categories by default, unless they are remnants of an older design conceit and are outdated, which applies Retro to it.
That said, 4e will still fall into Stupid, as well as Retro (though less than previous editions.
Why could Clerics turn undead 3+Cha times per day? Why could Barbarians only Rage X/day when it’s the defining ability of their class? Infinite other questions apply to this.
The answer to most of them is either “game balance” or “legacy”, neither of which is a good in-character answer. But to me, changing the answer to “game balance” is a good choice, when the other option is “that’s how it’s always been”.
I doubt it’ll be the system I’ll be asking people to run so I can play in it or one I’ll be itching to run myself. That said it does seem like they’re improving things in general. But that’s kind of to be expected from pre-release marketing hype. Oddly enough I’ve actually had people vehemently defend such kludgy nonsense as save or die spells so I’m not sure if it’ll be as well received as they’d like the first month or two it’s out. Out of the current group of 6 people I play with one is a casual player and could care less what we play as long as it doesn’t hurt his head. I think two are looking forward to the new edition, one I think is indifferent and one is more insulted that he’s being asked to buy yet another set of incompatible books that he’ll be giving the new system a real hairy eyeball before bothering with it. Personally I’d rather play something else but if I end up playing D&D anyway having some of the cruft cleaned up and fixed is sort of a bonus.
I’m off for the whole day, playing some Rock Band and goofing off… I’ll be back Monday morning to discuss this further….
Thanks for the nice feedback.
All these mechanics are there for game balance. Everyone can and should make up their own in-game reasons.
When I read a book I don’t care how improbable it is that the good guyss abilities perfectly match the villain’s abilitites. It makes for a good story.
Find a good reason for the mechanics to make sense and you’ll end up with a richer game.
Just my 2 cents.
I make no bones about my addiction to 2e. It just makes sense to me! It’s nice and mutable.
Now, in regards to 4e, I entertained the idea, because quite frankly it gets kind of lonely playing an old system. However, while in my research I didn’t find that it really supported the types of stories that I like to tell, nor does it attract the players that I DM for.
This system seems fully supportive of medium scale warfare, which really doesn’t sound like much fun to me. Combat is just a small part of D&D, and a very small part at that . . . at least with my DMing style.
If I can tell a thrilling story using 2e system, why update? I don’t understand why people have problems with the rules, if you don’t like something, then ignore it for a while and see how it effects the game.
Dungeons and Dragons CAN’T compete with WoW, the fact that they are trying to is silly really. WoW isn’t really a role playing game, no video games are really role playing games because no matter how immersable a video game claims to be, you are still limited by the programing of the thing. Having a fixed rule for everything that a PC can do would be placing the same stupid limitation on a table top pencil and paper game. You can play a game like that all by yourself, and where is the fun in that?
I think that the fact that they are moving away from things that have always been there is a bad direction to go. These things worked! Dragons are always exciting to a gaming group, and it is exciting to try an figure out what kind of dragon that you’ll be facing before you even enter the dungeon.
If you want to jump from the roof onto a horse to make a thrilling get away, THEN DO IT!!! Want to sword fight your arch-nemesis on a run-away coach, then ON GUARD!!!! The goal is to have fun, and by putting every last thought into a system just seems to dumb it down. And by saying that Oh! You can’t have a swordfight on a moving vehicle because you don’t have that feat isn’t fair. It’s a fantasy game where you play the hero, and by god you should be able to do all of the crazy stuff that heroes are known for!
-RIP
@Greywulf: Thanks for the Kudos. One of the things that pained me about 3.0/3.5 was that a lot of the powers and abilities were limited for balance purposes but the sometimes badly written fluff tacked over it was saying loudly that it wasn’t for balancing purposes.
We’ll see how 4e handles those.
@Gazza: To each his own. I’m not trying to sell 4e to the undecided or the NON-ENTHUSIASTS 🙂 to borrow your expression, I’m interested in understanding the decisions behind the new game.
And while Diablo and Wow do allow monster murder for loot… neither gives me the satisfaction of creating our own stories around a game engine that brings me a lot of fun.
However, I disliked 2e tremendously (and switched to Gurps)… maybe D&D will follow the Inverse of the Star Trek movie pattern for me and I’ll end up hating 4e.
@ John: Dude! Thanks! How much do I owe you? 🙂
@ Lanir: I get a feeling when I read comments from players like you and Gazza that you, like many others, would love to play other RPGs but are often stuck with a group whose majority wants to go for D&D. That must suck… The hobby is too small to attract sufficient players… however, maybe the 4e phenomenon will bring more players in the fold of other games.
First the 4e backlash will make some players want to move away from it and be receptive to other games. Plus maybe as D&D 4e brings in a new generation of tabletop gamers, some will branch out in the wider hobby and discover other games built on different paradigms….
@ Yax: Agreed.
@RipperX: Way cool on your stance on 2e. But I really don’t think WotC is trying to poach on Wow territory… but It’s borrowing rules design elements from it.
However, there will be people who grow tired of the limited scope of MMORPGS. Smart, creative people like we all are here. They will hope that there could be more to this and tabletop RPGs might offer what they are seeking. It did for me when I was reading Sword and Sorcery novels and then I discovered A D&D.
Ripper X –
Actually, limitations like this are what 4e is working to remove.
If you want to have a fight on a moving vehicle, 4e is saying “Dude! That’s awesome! Go right ahead! I may ask you to roll to keep your balance once or twice when you attempt something crazy, like a flying jump kick from one vehicle to the next one, but fucking go for it!”
Seriously, just because rules exist for a situation, it doesn’t mean that you aren’t meant to go beyond that situation and use those rules in new and exciting ways. Rules don’t have to be limitations. A well-designed ruleset can do more to enable creative gaming than having no rules at all.
Chatty: I think you’re right. I have my reasons for liking or disliking certain systems and I know some of them are even kind of silly. I liked 2e for a long time because it let me dream up a lot of stuff. When I saw Earthdawn and a bit later GURPS I was won over though. 3e could have done it for me but the combo of some really bad games (you know you’re in trouble when you get snuck up on by optimized dwarf warriors equal in level to you, 1 per party member who pop up, do one move action and attack before you can do anything while being supported by invisible archers who fire d10 arrows at you that all magically break before you can salvage them) and mechanics that recalled wargames more than RPGs just couldn’t win me over from the style of game I was used to.
My main hope for 4e is that the mechanics start to support non-combat activities (not the direction they’re going from what I’ve heard) or the mechanics just get lighter overall, allowing for an easier to run and mod game. I know a group that wants to can make roleplay the main focus of any game but that’s easier done if the system has a low overhead.
Chatty: Can’t speak for Lanir, but you’re spot on for me. I would be quite happy to never ever play Dungeons and Dragons again.
However, my core group of 4 (including me) prefers D&D to anything else. And a night of roleplaying even a “bad” game still beats most other forms of entertainment – so I still play it.
But like I say – to each their own. If I even have a point – and I’m not sure I do – it’s just that there are lots of D&D players that never play anything else, and that’s a shame. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone whose favourite RPG was something OTHER than D&D that you could say that about. About the only other franchise with a similarly large following is the White Wolf stuff, and you aren’t going to meet many Vampire players that have never played D&D (in my experience).
I’m prepared to believe that lots of people have tried many games and play D&D out of preference. It’s just that I’ve never actually met any of them. 😉
@ Gazza: You do have an excellent point and a post about having to follow the majority would probably gather a lot of interesting comment.
Just so you know, I have played the following RPGs since the mid 1980’s:
Adv. Dungeons and Dragons (for about 4-5 years)
Marvel Super Heroes (1st and 2nd Editions)
Robotech
Mekton
Gurps (for 8-10 years)
BESM
Cyberpunk 2020 (as a player)
D&D 3.0
D&D 3.5
Iron Heroes (a d20 fantasy derivative)
I abandoned Gurps for D&D 3.0 after reading the Players Handbook and being blown away by the crunch.
The main point for D&D in our group is the support material… I mean we all have busy lives and creating an adventure from scratch is a lengthy process.
The shear amount of published adventure for D&D really helps CDM in his game preparation. But that being said we we’re ready to move on from 3.5 and here comes 4e just in the nick of time… 😉
I am currently running a 2nd Edition game and don’t see it has retro-stupid or retro. I also have my 4e books on pre-order and can’t wait. I am REALLY excited to get the 4e rules in my hand so I can take a look. I have been out of gaming for a long time so I have skipped 3 and 3.5 rules.
I don’t think systems are to blame. I like to story games that have plot and an environment that doesn’t revolve just around the characters. It makes for interesting games. I have done that with the basic set, 1st edition, and 2nd edition. I am guessing I could do it with any rule system. Granted this normally meant writing up lots of house rules to cover non-combat things.
All that said, since I have come back to gaming I have looked into a lot of different rules and have found tons of other rules that match my DMing style more. I just haven’t found one that is a medieval, fantasy and it would be difficult for me to find players. It is hard enough getting a D&D group together consistently.
Good job on the site and the blog postings. Thank you.
Lanir –
Well, D&D in all its versions has always been a pretty crunchy game, so I could never say it’s going to be mechanically light. But it should end up lighter than 3e, at least. Beyond that, we don’t really know.
But for the mechanics to start supporting non-combat activities, I don’t know where you’ve been reading, but that is most definitely the direction they’re going. There will be extensive non-combat challenge systems, for both skill-based challenges and social encounters.
You won’t have heard about the specific mechanics because they haven’t shown them off yet (except for a small amount of the skill challenge system), but they definitely exist.
jeffx –
Well, remember that while the titles may seem degrading, the things they imply are not meant as such. While the “stupididity” of a 2e game usually depends on the DM, I don’t think there’s really any question about 2e’s design sensibilities being somewhat retro.
Heck, just from THAC0 and different XP charts for every class, I can’t even imagine how 2e could not be considered retro (as defined above) by these standards.
I have bin playing D&D from the original box set, moved on to AD&D, played 2e a couple of times and went back to AD&D (It might have had something to do with the DM but I was completely turned off by it, disliking the system is putting it lightly), found other gaming systems like GURPS, Shadowrun, Wight Wolf, Dead Lands, Heroes, D6 Star Wars, Star Trek and others that I cant even remember at this moment, loved them all, they all had something I liked and disliked.
Then…D20 D&D 3.0 came out…I fell in love with D&D all over again. The wide open skills set ( one of my first characters was a paladin with a maxed out Bluff), the new twist on proficiencies( a Wizzard could use a battle Axe but took a negative on every swing, but he could still use it), its explanation for almost every maneuver you might think of(almost) so I did not have to feel like I am playing a “Home Brew” game and make up some rule. It still had things I did not like(Grapple is a big one) but all in all it was a wonderful system. Easy enough for me to teach my Girlfriend how to play but hard enough to keep my interest and not feel like I’m playing a idiot game. The thought of buy more book for 3.5 turned me off WotC, then came Mutants & Masterminds, Star Wars D20, new Shadowrun edition, ext. Eberron brot me back to my D&D roots, I caved and got my the bare minimum of 3.5 books and tons of Eberron material.
1) To say D&D is about killing and looting monsters leads me to believe that you have ever had a good DM.
2) To compare table top RPGs to Diablo or other MMORPGs makes me think that you have never truly rollplayed and only played hack/slash games.
3) To say you prefer 2e to 3.5 leads me to believe that you prefer “Home Brew” games/worlds.(2e is definably NOT stupid but is definably VERY RETRO)
I have my 4e book on pre-order, I am going to like and dislike some things about the system (I already like a dislike some things) but the main thing to remember is that is not the system that makes a fun, is the group of players you are with that makes it fun.
Major Kudos on this thread…good job.
@ Lokycat: Welcome to the blog. You were all over the place I see! A true roleplaying geek! Just so we’re clear… the Stupid of Retro-Stupid means that the game allows for silliness and light games by providing the tools to do so like Fumble charts, Random Encounter tables for all situations and insanely stupid (but maybe funny) ways to die… it doesn’t mean that the game itself is stupid…
Paranoia is the perfect Stupid game…. it’s good fun for a few hours but I wouldn’t play a campaign of it.
@GAZZA – Glad to see I’m not the only one with a “D&D or nothing” group. 🙂
Okay, not completely. Two of my players are into mutants and masterminds and that may lead to a true20 game, but the liklihood of anything else is right out.
That said, I actually like 3.5, I just get tired of only running 3.5 games and want to change things up on occasion.
4e sounds promising enough that, like Chatty, my 3.5 material may find its way to the “sell me!” pile after 4e comes out.
@Crusader808: Welcome to the blog! (man, this is nice so many new people!) Here’s the list of former D&D edition books I’ll keep:
The Adv. D&D DMG: This book, while a bad reference book for a game by today’s standards, is a gold mine of Gary’s thoughts on the game and the hobby. Many of the tables are still worth it.
Adv. D&D Dungeonneer’s Survival Guide, THE Underdark reference.
The 3.0 Core books, for nostalgia’s sake and because Monte Cook’s DMG is up there with uncle Gary’s
The DMG II for Robin Laws’ essays and the good ideas sprikled all over the place.
Ptolus (It cost 120$ man!)
Dungeonscape (Because deep down, I’m a Dungeon whore)
Return to the temple of Elemental Evil (The maps are worth it!)
That’s about it…
@LokyCat says, “To say you prefer 2e to 3.5 leads me to believe that you prefer “Home Brew” games/worlds.”
I believe this to be leveled at me, & I think that you are correct. Lots of people think that this is a bad thing . . . I really don’t know why. I had never thought of my games as being home brewed, but now that you bring the subject to my attention, you are definitely correct. I think that the game should be your own, and unique in lots of ways, while keeping true to core rules. Maybe this is why I have never tired of Second Edition?
-RIP
@Rip: Actually I too do Home-brewed more than published settings. But for the inverse reasons… I like a game’s mechanics 1st and enjoy the fluff after.
I think that A.D&D 2e was all about attitude and flavour. It’s adventure designer Wolfgang Baur’s favorite system too.
I think it’s because it developed so much personality in a restricted timeframe.
(I’d argue it was evolutionary, in order to stay ahead of the World of Darkness Wave)
I find no fault with anyone preferring it to later versions of D&D, I really don’t. However, so far, preference for 2e has been an accurate indicator of people who don’t share my personal tastes with RPGs.
But I really would love to see the fluff love that 2e got into a game whose mechanics I grok.
Duhh…maybe I should have gone to that link were the definition is before I opened my mouth.=P
I did read the entire blog and I will be checking you out in the future. =)
You can thank geeksdreamgirl for that, or hate her…well see>-)
As for the comment…2e is more rules that you can shake a stick at so is easy to turn it in to a “home Brow” game. Don’t get me wrong…I have nothing against home brew game…I my self rather play established games/words. I like to know want my character can and can not do. I’m not a rules lawyer by far(I actually dislike rules lawyers) but like to know the rules and world info(fluff) or at list be able to open a book and research it with out having to pick the GMs brain for 30Min.=P
P.s.
By reading my story being told from the eyes of a Drow…What category duos my champaign story fall in to?
P.s.s.
OMG…”I grok, you grok…lets grok together.”
Thats my favorite quote(and book) of all time.=)