Lancer

Is it possible to be married, successfully raise a family, work AND run a satisfying campaign?

It can be argued that WotC tried to appease fans of 2ndEd as well as obtain a new target market in the new generation of roleplayers. They tried to appease old fans by keeping holy cows like levels and hit points but at the same time tried to be a "modern" system as well with its streamlined nature. I do agree that 3E could have been a much better system (I might have even be compelled to switch) had they not tried to deliver such a mixed bag and been more consistent. Pick one.. Either you are a modern system or you are not. By trying to give elements of old and new systems (classes, levels AND streamlined mechanics huh?) in the sake of trying to make the biggest bucks they ended up creating a confusing mess of a system that alienated many vets. Myself included. I haven't looked at my 3E rules in years but this might be the number one reason why I found 3E unneedlessly difficult to learn. And I have been saying this all along..

As much as I dislike 3E, Enderwiggin and J.E. Sawyer might find this surprising but as Jediphile has I have also incorporated aspects of 3E that I like into my 2ndED campaign. Yes, even I. One of the few things that bothers me about 2ndED is how ridiculously powerful PCs are relative to monsters after achieving about Level 10 or so. After about Level 12, a fighter with decent STR and weapons can hit just about anything with a 2 or 3 on a d20 (translates to a 90-95% chance to hit) and the other character types aren't much worse off. It gets to the point where rolling dice becomes almost unnecessary because unless you roll a 1 you are not missing your opponent. This, IMHO, takes a lot of the drama out of the game. Therefore, besides modifying the THACO and Str charts a bit I have employed a 3E mechanic by using the -5 to hit rule on subsequent attacks. Ignoring the optional Mastery rules for now and just using specialist attacks while using the standard THACO ans Str charts: At Level 15 a STR 17 fighter's Base THACO is 6. Say he has a Long Sword+3 His Modified THACO is 2 (6-3-1). At 3 attacks per two rounds the fighter can hit anything with an AC of 0 or worse with a 2 or better. With the -5 rule in effect the fighter needs a 2 (95%)and a 7 (60%) to hit on round one. And a 2 to hit on round 2. I like this much better because now there is a *real* chance that the character can miss an opponent with a decent AC but he still has an easy time hitting monsters with poor ACs. Employing PO's Mastery rules and my revised THACO/Str charts the benefits of using this mechanic is even more obvious. But this is the basic gist.

I don't know about that. I think the D&D fanbase gets pretty alienated with the release of every edition. I'd be willing to gander that at least half of the AD&D 2ndED vets continue playing their game and haven't switched at all. Why would you if (as Jediphile and I have mentioned) 2ndEd's mechanics are second nature to us and therefore why change? This concomitant with your own house rules that you have been comfortable with forever and it makes no sense to change. As far as the current 3E fanbase, I don't think you can undermine the importance of the new generation of roleplayers.. Those who got introduced to RPing for the first time through 3E spurred by games like BG, KOTOR and NWN.

What I don't get is that some of the 3E advocates have played earlier editions of AD&D "for years" yet they claim they hate them. How can you play something you hate for so many years? Either they liked 2ndEd a lot more than they are letting on or they "forced" themselves to play something they couldn't stand for years. Why would you force yourself to play with a ruleset you can't stand... And for so long? It just doesn't make sense.

I don't seem to have as much free time as I used to. I am a full-time graduate student, not married yet, but that won't be too far around the corner. I am assuming some of you are married, might have kids, or even be students like I am. Where the heck do you find the time to game?

I was curious as to how other fellow DMs/GMs find players for their campaigns. Do you all just have lifelong buddies that you play with that you met long time ago through school/work? Or do you guys put ads online in gaming sites, in stores etc? Or just bug the neighbors to play? Or some other method? Basically, my questions for GMs/DMs comes down to: -What is the main method(s) you use to locate players for your campaigns? Has it become harder to get players now (especially with the steady popularity of CCGs )? -And has it become difficult to run campaigns as family or work committments increase for you and your players? In my particular situation, I am a full-time grad student doing research so it is probably close to impossible to be doing any serious GMing.

Definitely. If I had to place my bet on a master martial artist or an expert boxer to win in a streetfight.. My bet is definitely going to the martial artist. Bruce Lee was able to knock out grown men with one blow. I am surprised that Tyson even received as many voted as he did. This poll seemed like a no-brainer to me.

With boxing rules, Tyson probably would win. In a streetfight, however, Bruce Lee would kick his a$$.

Yet.. For all his "greatness" Mike Tyson in his prime still lost to James Buster Douglas... Who lost to Evander Holyfield just a few months after. This happened many years before he became the "shadow of a fighter" that faced Lewis and Holyfield. Not to mention, Holyfield was already an aging fighter in his own right by now and had major heart problems grave enough that doctors told him he should retire from boxing. And he *still* beat Tyson....TWICE.

There is definitely some truth in that about the AD&D vet in me being set in his ways. I got the main 3E books a while back when it first came out played it for a couple of months (in fact played the ToEE module), realized I like 2ndEd better and never looked at the game again. To make a long story short, I was just never impressed enough with 3E to ever want to change to it. It still has a multitude of balance problems and messed up mechanics (as you mentioned and I touched upon) that for me to have wanted to make the big effort to change to it, it would have had to have been*A LOT* better than 2ndEd. I don't think it is a lot better than 2ndEd at all. It is good that it is streamlined, but as you mentioned, there are probably enough problems with it to balance out the good. To add, I am not one to just throw away my money. Why spend tons and tons of money on a new edition that is only marginally better (at best) than the system you have currently? Not to mention, I already have tons of source material for the older 2ndEd I have collected over the years, annals of house rules enough to fill up Fort Knox and all your settings have statistics done in that edition. To have made the herculean effort to change to 3E it truly needed to have been superior to 2ndED and in virtually all aspects. 3E needed to have really blown 2ndEd out of the water. 3E failed to do this for me and since I was already well set in my ways there was never any desire to change to it. @ Jediphile: Oh and thanks for saving me work from going to my 3E manuals to come up with why it is not such a great system. :D ..I may still have to, I dunno. Being not a fan of 3E, I don't play it at all so I obviously don't know my rules there nearly as well as I do 2ndEd or even OD&D.

I don't need books in my face to run 2ndEd nor did I memorize any tables either.

Bingo. And there lies the root of the problem. Who would be crazy enough to memorize those tables? Why the heck would you? I never memorized any tables in 2ndEd. All the info that PCs needed were right on their character sheets, all the info *I* needed was on the DM Screen and perhaps an extra scrap sheet, and the THACO system was (I thought) very easy to follow. Simple. Efficient. Because of its streamlined nature, if you are *really* motivated of course it would be easier to memorize 3E tables than 2ndEd tables since values were separated by equal increments. Hence it becomes a matter of memorizing simple arithmetic sequences. But this is still a *big* chore. Since I have never tried to memorize tables nor did I need to this point is irrelevant. I just don't see why anyone would try to memorize all those tables from the PH/DMG for both editions! That's nuts! My point is that there were more *rules* in 3E than 2ndEd. Mechanics were fewer in number but more variables were involved. I don't have the motivation or time right now to go get me 3E books and 2ndEd books to give a full exposition. But if you really want to I can come back with specific examples in the near future. Sorry, I don't get what you are trying to get at here. You are asking why I don't convert my settings to 3E. My answer was I don't because I don't like the rules. It is simple logic. The fact that my settings are no longer supported through 3E makes me like it that much less.

Congrats man.. I don't know if you WILL have time to switch to a new system when that happens! But try to enjoy your gaming (and life, in general) as much as you can until then!

Anyhow, what is so great about Toon, out of curiosity? I don't know much about it but isn't it a cartoon setting? How is it compatible with a fantasy setting?

I know. I just got the new WoD sourcebook recently. I need to find time to sit down and read it!

There might have been fewer mechanisms in 3E.. maybe.. But the mechanisms were much more rules heavy. I only pull certain aspects of that book for my 2ndEd campaigns and AoO wasn't one of them. Yes, it was in PO but it wasn't in the core 2ndEd rules. That was the beauty of PO in that you can pick or ignore whatever aspects you like as you saw fit. For 3E, OTOH, AoO was obligatorily made part of the core rules. You had no choice in the matter outside of house rules. This is very vague and relative. I don't know how to answer this. But needless to say, I thought PCs in 3E were *too* powerful. Maybe, others don't. But I did. From the looks of things, I think it will even outdo 2ndEd here and be worthy of the Guiness Book of World Records. Yes. Because they like 3E and 3.5rules and I am happy for them. I, however, don't. Not including learning AoO (which to this day I never mastered), I thought there was still much more memorization with 3E than 2ndEd.

Geez...Where do I start? -3E was about 10 times harder to learn. There seemed to be many, many more rules to memorize than 2ndEd *despite* being more streamlined. If that is not a failure in design I don't know what is. -AoO is the most nonsensical, unneedlessly difficult concept to learn I have ever seen in an RPG (That includes GURPS and Shadowrun!). And it really doesn't work well in practice. -All the ridiculously powerful PCs and monsters, feats, and what not made powergaming even more of a problem than it ever was in previous editions of AD&D. -Not to mention that the overabundance of prestige classes and sourcebooks that inundated the store shelves is the same mistake that 2ndEd had done with it kits and its sourcebooks. It is ironic since WotC did advertise the end of kits when 3E first came out. - Lack of support for the settings I am interested in.. Planescape and Mystara. Well, SLA Industries is radically different from AD&D. It's not even a fantasy setting. It's not even class-based. Yet it was one of the easiest systems to pick up. Easier than AD&D even to learn. Ironically, D&D 3E which is supposed to be more similar to AD&D 2ndEd than SLA could ever be was *much* more cumbersome to learn besides its streamlined nature. Learning 3E was almost as bad as learning GURPS.... Or Shadowrun.... ALMOST

What do I consider good tactical combat? AD&D 2ndEd with Player's Option:Combat and Tactics.The ability to use miniatures, and positioning. Simple but satisfying combat mechanics that don't take 20 minutes to run a game round. However, complex enough (more complex than CoC) to be able to do things like ranged combat in a satisfying fashion. There is more but that is what comes to mind right now. You are right about this. I view it as a step backward. OD&D. Basic D&D. Quite a ways back.

Lemme add one thing.. The only modern ruleset that I have enjoyed as much as AD&D was SLA Industries. Oh man.. Now *that* is one kickass game. The only reason I don't play it is since it doesn't have the financial backup like the big boys (WotC, GURPS, White Wolfs) the world is not very fleshed out yet.. Not sure if it ever will be. The company that develops it is tiny.

I have never played/GMed Toon and as said in my previous post, I like AD&D a lot so I have never had the desire to change to another system. Though I always like trying out others (and I have tried out quite a few). Isn't that the cartoon roleplaying game?

Being able to combine detail and quick combat resolution without getting bogged down in needless minutiae. Good tactical combat. Excellent thoroughly fleshed out settings with complicated/beliveable worlds with many, many gameplay options (i.e Mystara,Planescape). Speaking of which, medieval/ancient fantasy is probably my favorite type of setting to roleplay in so of course that is a bias. AD&D also had had tons of support. Didn't say you did. But I did state some people do. I don't accept it. d20 sucks and I agree with this. It is not that I like thief skills and proficiences to be on different scale it is more like none of these things have ever bothered me. To me they are just rules, just like any other system has rules. And I seriously don't find them any more cumbersome than anyone else's. In fact, I find AD&D rules to be simpler to learn than many other systems. True the rules aren't as streamlined as say 3E, GURPS, CoC, or WoD but I always found them surprisingly easy to learn. And for me, AD&D simulates reality close enough I don't need detailed rules for pissing.

Sublimating rules? It is no different than the application of "house rules" in your own campaign although all the major aspects of 2ndEd were there (hp, classes levels..etc). Furthermore, a good GM can render the "faults" of a given ruleset irrelevant through brilliant execution of his story. Planescape Torment proves that a campaign is only 5% the ruleset and 95% the quality of the story/creativity of the DM/GM.

This is what it comes down to. What you consider to be a "fundamentally dumb" system I consider to be a stroke of genius. I used the word "crappy" in a sarcastic sense to describe AD&D (notice the quotations) since some of you think systems like GURPS are so much better. I for one think AD&D 2ndEd is the best thing since sliced bread. To me, AD&D 2ndEd overall has a better ruleset than GURPS, CoC, or whatever system you can throw at me. And yes, even AD&D can be made better (like all other systems), but to me, it is and *has* been one of the best systems around. To me, it is the best thing we've got. So you are right.. Why would I accept other inferior adaptations if I feel I already have the best? And again this comes back around full circle to people's tastes. We are all different in what we perceive as "good" or "bad." What might be a crappy Chevy Cavalier to you, to me is a Mercedes Benz or even a Ferrari.

I guess not. I think I should get a reward for least replied topic ever!