Overwhelmed by Rules

[Rob G]

Has anybody else thought sometimes theres just too many rules. Too many books.

They seem to bog down the game. Sometimes i wonder if we would just be better off using the simplyfied starter set and playing. Rules light and all.

PLus characters are often defined the prestidge classes they take. It seems this takes the creative imaginations away from players. I say think up your own pestidge class. No added powers just roleplaying stuff.

Any opinions?

[Darth Deucedropper]

I hate all the rules. It slows down plating time to a halt. These complicated rules are for the "nerds" nerds that have to have every little detail spelled out. I had fun dming my nephews the other day because there was no surprise round no spot check no move then attack no oppurtunity attacks and so on and so forth. But on the other side of this there has to be many rules due to power gamers. Many of the rules are to keep them in check. Also it seems to me that 3.0 is just off the hook with rules. I could be wrong but 2.0 seemed alot simpler. Lastly as for prestige Classes I like them and most of them seem to be more to create npcs anyway which is cool to keep things fresh for the players I mean after a while u just get to know what every class is capable of .....enter the prestige class ah seemingly a rogue but alas surprised the party is at his other abilities.

[abisai]

Absolutely.

I feel like 3.0 streamlined the DnD rules into cohesive thing that made sense. However, this really codefied every detail into neverending supply of rules stacked on rules. Long gone were things like dwarves not being wizards "just because" and introduced were a million prestige classes of wizard a dwarf could become.

Recently I tinkered around with the thought of a totally bare minimum of rules system. No levels, but 100 points you earn as you play - like XP. Each point gives a power, or ability, that sort of thing. 25 were magic, 25 were weapons ability, 50 were other things. For example, one point to get you the ability to levitate, if you earn another point and have that, then you can use a point to get the ability to fly. It was a wacky system that would effectively eliminate spellbooks, spell lists, classes, and anything else. You would describe you character however you wanted and powers as you felt best depicted, with the rules not defining you. For instance, any weapon would do the same damage capacity. Yeah, there's likely something like this in existance I figured and I just stopped at a point where I got bored with it.

Back to DND, yeah too much to slow down gameplay. The prestige thing rewards whoever bought the book, not the better player. I really feel that the only way to get the benefit of a prestige class fully is to prepare your character for it from jump street. But that's not roleplaying, that's rules adherance. I did it with Kashmir in that I was able to say from 1st level what I wanted to become, but that is hardly the case all the time, especially with split class stuff. Split class stuff gets shorted in my opinion, since I think those tend to be more interesting things after playing prototypical characters, but the prestige classes are less interesting and more rigid as a whole. Like around here I was going to play a cleric/thief. The only prestige available was a Temple Raider of Oldiramma. Screw that. I guess you could split prestiges as well, but that's less interesting and they tend to be more class specific - again as a whole - for my money.

Again, back to the point of the thread... yes, too much. I feel like the point is the roleplaying and the game itself. Character development is awesome, but the rules seem to dictate rather than foster this too much I feel. It would be good if there were a way to take away from the time looking up rules during gameplay and that nonsense. It would be good if there were less design to characters and more evolving naturally. It would be good to focus more on "it's a vampire" and less on "cast negative plane protection" or "how many hit dice do you think the monster has left, I only have x number of x level spell left and I think there is a chance there is a high level spellcaster walking around under improved invisibility and I need top level spells and hope that my level exceeds his and that I can dispel good enough to beat his spell caster level and that Bobby's rogue can flank him with that dagger of doom while Phil the Barbarian rages for three rounds while he can and then gets out of providing cover so Tommy the archer can bomb away, but that may not allow flanking for the dagger, which is more powerful, so maybe I should cast Endurance on the barbarian and tell the archer to go fuck himself in the corner with healing.........."
Just seems like there is a way to modify the system to get around this thinking.

[Darth Deucedropper]

Torres screams " BOY HOWDY DAVE"

[abisai]

howdy Fred ;D

[Darth Deucedropper]

Boy howdy just means I heartily agree

[abisai]

Darth said:

I hate all the rules. It slows down plating time to a halt. These complicated rules are for the "nerds" nerds that have to have every little detail spelled out.

When I played down here there were genuine article nerds and this was absolutely the case. And it literally stopped the game. Several times over. Until the campaign ended because the DM was sick of them needing so much attention. One chick had a PHB with fucking sticky note tabs like it was college algebra class or something. Her husband (I referred to him as King Dork) would literally quote rules, conversions, editions, as if that was the point. They demanded to know things like encumberance. I get enough of that in my real life, I roleplay an adventure, not buying rations.

This was a good thread. I wanted to revive it.

[Ringleader1]

I have a mini-2 page DnD cheat sheet. It's kind of like a DM screen but for players. It has all the actions and special tactics, DC's and Turning charts ect.. I made it, some down loaded from the web, and I cut and pasted different parts to make game play smoother for my self. All so I would not have to ask questions as much. I'll bring a couple of copies the next time I play, when ever that maybe? I think Rob said in a couple of weeks when Buck comes back to town. I think there should also be set number of spell casters as looking up spells takes too much time. I myself would prefer a non-spell caster just for the fact of not having to deal with spells. More story, less rules and a little role-playing never hurt.

[abisai]

I did an Excel file for 3E spells that auto calculates everything and gives you all that mumbo-jumbo at a glance. I guess that was a cheat sheet thing too - non of that flipping through the PHB for the duration of detect magic, etc. etc.

What is cool about the technology now is that everyone can have their own little cheat sheet based on whatever actions that character tends to take. Archers, thieves, whatever. Guy that makes potions every session can have whatever crib notes he needs to his potion making. Guy that lassos ropes over walls and uses skills to climb all over the place has his modifiers. Summon Monster guy can bring his monsters all ready calculated. Etc. etc.

Cannot wait for 12/18/04

[Rob G]

I have so much BULLSHIT like that.

Mad cheat sheets. Monster cards, spell cards, Programs that calculate everything. But i simply have so much i cannot sort through it to find what i want.

[abisai]

Isn't that why Gygax had Rob Kuntz be his DM sidekick - to crunch numbers and bullshit like that?
Get Jacky to help you out Rob. ;D