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Post by Daos on Oct 16, 2023 8:12:47 GMT -8
This thread is dedicated to me brainstorming on updating 2E to be more palatable for a newer generation. Anyone is free to add their own input, but at the end of the day, the decision is mine.
Note: Any changes discussed here will not affect the current game, so there's no fear of your character getting nerfed or anything.
Also note: Any changes discussed here will only affect Lost Souls, and not my other games. Although if a change works really well, I may adapt it to other games, as well.
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Matt4
Paragon
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 16, 2023 14:41:16 GMT -8
Oh my God finallyyyy I was waiting for this post since you announced it you were going to do something like this!
But I'm going to sleep now, so I'll comment tomorrow (or maybe the day after, tomorrow I have too many things to do)
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Post by Daos on Oct 16, 2023 16:13:51 GMT -8
I haven't actually said anything yet, so...this should be interesting. ^_^() Just, uh, try not to overwhelm me. I'm imagining this massive wall of text in my head. Or one of those cartoon things, where a character unfurls a scroll and it just keeps rolling like 50 feet on the ground.  |
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Post by Daos on Oct 17, 2023 8:51:26 GMT -8
Okay, I thought I'd start at the beginning of the PHB, which would be character generation.
There are like six different methods of character generation in 2E. The one I've been using lately is '4d6, drop the lowest, arrange to taste' one. It's not my favorite, but it is probably the most popular. My favorite is '3d6 down the line'. It creates truly random characters, and allows players to break out of their ruts and try things they might not usually try. It's also a lot faster, as there's less choices to make.
But let's face facts. There's no way in the depths of Baator that 5E players would ever go along with that. Even if I compromised and said '4d6, drop the lowest, down the line,' it would probably still be a very hard sell.
So I was thinking of offering both methods, allowing the player to choose one or the other. And if they choose the down the line method, I'd offer some kind of incentive for it. I'm not sure what, yet. Extra starting gold? Extra XP? I think it's worth considering. After all, sometimes you just don't know what you want to play and would like some doors closed for you so you have fewer choices. Or that's the case with me, anyway, in the extremely rare instances I am a player.
The trick is figuring out what kind of incentive to offer that would be strong enough to convince some people to try it, but not so strong that it breaks the game. Hmm...anyone have any thoughts on that?
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Post by Igordragonian on Oct 17, 2023 9:11:24 GMT -8
In my Al qadim I offer for people who roll low an extra feat.
and if VERY low a magical item.
Which I think can also help to shape the fluff.of the character.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 17, 2023 9:51:43 GMT -8
I can't say how people would react to it, but I like (at least in theory) the idea of offering 3d6, arrange or 4d6 drop, in order. The tradeoff for less flexibility in what abilities have high scores is higher scores in those abilities. As I've said before, even though 2E is another version of D&D, it's basically a completely different system. I think emphasizing the differences and appealing to people who're willing to try something new is going to be better than warping 2E to fit 5E expectations. There are definitely going to be parts that should be changed to be more like 5E (and I'll let you know when I feel that way!) but this isn't necessarily one of them.
I gotta say, I might suggest adding in some sort of...ability score modifying tradeoff, post-roll? Like, in addition to their racial modifications, a player can give their character -1 a stat +1 a stat, as a sort of last-minute adjustment if they want to play a particular character? I find it cool how 2E's philosophy is that "the dice decide what sort of character you play, and what cool stuff you're allowed to have." And I, personally, think it's neat how that might mean playing a character with different cool abilities and whatnot than you expected. But rolling low and being barred from ANY cool stuff--as a 5E player, that just sucks.
Essentially, there's GOING to be moments like this where a player is disappointed that they can't play a character they wanted because of the rolls. Of course, some people just can't handle conflict well and are going to get angry no matter how you respond as the DM. But I think an official, pre-set rule for how to handle these situations is going to cause a lot less strife then making a ruling on the spot. The pre-set rule is written in stone, so to speak, the players are less likely to feel like someone is getting special treatment or argue about it.
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 17, 2023 14:08:26 GMT -8
"I want to make 2E more palatable to younger players!" "My first change will make it harder and with less choices available!" Oh Daos, Daos... What am I gonna do with you?  |
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 17, 2023 14:15:20 GMT -8
Jokes aside, Gravity's idea to grant them more flexibility is good.
Personally I think they should get a +10% EXP bonus for as long as that character remains in play. Yeah, you got a character you didn't want, but at least s/he will level up faster and it'll become stronger quickly.
No to the more starting money, it's a mostly dupe/useless thing anyway. What are you gonna do, buy two plate mails? And eventually everyone's gonna have more money anyway, but the player will still have the random created character (which..I don't think are that desiderable anyway)
Magic items..I'm not convinced, who is gonna chose it? The dm? The player? And then what happens if the other players starts finding (better?) magical items too? It will make their "sacrifice" lose its meaning..you need a solution that will always make a difference between the players that used this method and the ones who didn't.
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Post by Daos on Oct 17, 2023 15:31:18 GMT -8
In my Al qadim I offer for people who roll low an extra feat. and if VERY low a magical item. Which I think can also help to shape the fluff.of the character. Unfortunately, there are no feats in 2E, so that wouldn't really work here. I gotta say, I might suggest adding in some sort of...ability score modifying tradeoff, post-roll? Like, in addition to their racial modifications, a player can give their character -1 a stat +1 a stat, as a sort of last-minute adjustment if they want to play a particular character? I find it cool how 2E's philosophy is that "the dice decide what sort of character you play, and what cool stuff you're allowed to have." And I, personally, think it's neat how that might mean playing a character with different cool abilities and whatnot than you expected. But rolling low and being barred from ANY cool stuff--as a 5E player, that just sucks. I had considered that, as well. But maybe a straight +1 without the penalty as incentive. The only issue is, I wasn't sure if this was sort of undermining the whole point of choosing randomization. Unless it was something like, "You get a +1 to your highest roll" so you get the bonus but are still beholden to whatever your rolls are. Essentially, there's GOING to be moments like this where a player is disappointed that they can't play a character they wanted because of the rolls. Of course, some people just can't handle conflict well and are going to get angry no matter how you respond as the DM. But I think an official, pre-set rule for how to handle these situations is going to cause a lot less strife then making a ruling on the spot. The pre-set rule is written in stone, so to speak, the players are less likely to feel like someone is getting special treatment or argue about it. Oh, sure, even back in 2E's day, there were always players who would pitch a fit if they got low or even mediocre rolls (the 3d6 down the line method can often result in builds of like all 10-12s, which admittedly is kind of boring.) It wasn't even uncommon for someone to join up, roll their stats, then immediately withdraw from the game because they weren't good enough. That, sadly, is just something that cannot be changed. I think I would probably write something like, "If you choose the 'down the line' method you are beholden to whatever you get, good or bad, so don't take that route unless you are ready to live with it." "I want to make 2E more palatable to younger players!" "My first change will make it harder and with less choices available!" I think there's some confusion. The intention is that the player can choose which method--Down the Line or Arrange to Taste. But I'll offer incentives for the former, as I doubt anyone would choose it otherwise (unless they are just feeling lucky/random, that is). So, if anything, I'm offering more options, not less. Personally I think they should get a +10% EXP bonus for as long as that character remains in play. Yeah, you got a character you didn't want, but at least s/he will level up faster and it'll become stronger quickly. That's a possibility, too. If it stacks with the bonus one gets for having their Prime Requisites over 16, that's quite a boon, as well. It might result in more Multiclassing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, just something to take into account. Since the main downside to Multiclassing is the XP being watered down. |
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 7:23:28 GMT -8
Next up: Level Limits. May as well just get rid of them. I had before, and it didn't have any impact on my games.
Their main reason for existing is to keep the game human-centric, but as evidenced by this game (in which the party has only 1 human), they don't really work. At least, not for my games, which rarely make it past level 7 (and that number is far, far lower for pbp games). Most level limits don't kick in until around 10 at the earliest, so...it just never comes up.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 18, 2023 7:34:53 GMT -8
Agreed. I don't see any reason to incentivize a human-centric party anyway. Humans are boring
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 7:54:49 GMT -8
Which, ironically, was the whole point of level limits. Humans are boring. We can't see in the dark or resist magic or live for hundreds of years.
When the game was first created, they realized that there wasn't much reason to play humans when you can be an elf or a dwarf or whatever. And they couldn't give humans any cool stuff, because well, humans don't have any cool stuff. We're real. It's fine to make up whatever you want about fantasy races, but if you say humans can fly or breathe underwater, people will rightly call that out. So I guess the only solution they saw was to chain all of the other races down with multiple restrictions. Like level limits, class restrictions and ability score minimums/maximums and adjustments. Take those away, and humans have nothing.
And without those restrictions, it also raises some worldbuilding questions, like why don't elves rule the world? They live pretty much forever and are better than us in pretty much every way. Every fantasy setting should be an elf-centric world that some humans just happen to live on.
I know other editions struggled with this, as well. In 3E, humans were given an extra feat, but I don't think it helped any. In 5E, humans either get a +1 boost to all ability scores or an extra feat and proficiency with variants. And it still doesn't help. Nobody really plays humans in 5E, either.
Anyway, kind of getting ahead of myself, but Races are next anyway, so maybe a good segue for that.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Oct 18, 2023 8:49:22 GMT -8
Wow, I don't see it that way at all. I've thought Humans were always decently popular in 5E. I'm pretty sure that Human Fighters are the most common character combo according to Adventurer's League statistics, and people are always picking Variant Humans for the Bonus Feat. I've had a decent number of Humans in my games--though to be fair, it's mostly the one player in my old high school group who likes playing Humans.
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Oct 18, 2023 9:02:02 GMT -8
Wow, I don't see it that way at all. I've thought Humans were always decently popular in 5E. They are. Variant Humans especially as you pointed out, thanks to their free starting feat. At my tables humans, half-elves, and elves are the most played races by a long shot. |
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Post by Daos on Oct 18, 2023 9:05:35 GMT -8
Really? That hasn't been my experience at all in 5E.
Lost Mines of Phandelver: Halfling (x1), Dragonborn (x1), Tiefling (x1)
Tyranny of Dragons: Kender (x1), Half-Elf (x2), Draconian (x1)
Champions of Krynn: Kender (x1), Dwarf (x1), Elf (x2)
Chronicles of Overmorrow: Elf (x1), Human (x1), Half-Elf (x1), Aasimar (x1)
Journeys to the Radiant Citadel: Elf (x1), Tiefling (x1), Dwarf (x1), Gnome (x1), Human (x1)
Most of my games didn't have humans, and only two did (one each).
But I also hear that sentiment you expressed earlier in the community. "Humans are boring." Whenever I play one, I usually get some kind of criticism about it. "Why are you playing a human when you can be literally anything else?" (Of my three 5E PCs, two have been human, the other half-human.)
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