OT: D&D and multi-classing.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Originally posted by spoon:
Narf, talk to your DM. If you want to play a Dwarf Druid/Fighter, maybe he'll let you without the xp penalty in favor of going on some sort of quest or something... who knows. Good DMs will often let you get away with bending the rules if it doesn't break the balance. [/QB]

Well, I would, but I don't even have a group to play with.

But I got a plan: Buy a starting adventure and start a group.

Anyone know any good starting adventures?

[Alneyan]

"Find players and a potential DM available at roughly the same time" remains one of the best starting adventures out there. If you happen to know how to solve this one, please let me know.

[geoschmo]

You can't be a jack-of-all trades unless you are willing to be a master of none.

[General Woundwort]

Boy, does this conversation take me to Way Back When. Haven't played such games since college. But the discussion caught my attention because it reminded me of an article I read awhile back by a guy named Martinez, on the way (A)D&D and modern mass-market fantasy stereotypes the themes and backgrounds in Tolkien's works. It's a bit on the philosophical side, and would probably interest only hard-core gamers and/or Tolkien geeks (I at least qualify in the latter), but it does have interesting points...

Trampling the Legacy, Remaking the Myth


EDIT - Quote from article most pertinent to this thread...

The presumption of Class and Profession permeated the popular imagination and took readers away from the universal optimism which Tolkien advanced.

In Tolkien's world, a well-to-do Hobbit can be dragooned into masquerading as a common burglar (not a pocket-picking thief, although he tried a little of that to poor effect). Tolkien allows a common gardener (essentially an NPC henchman in gaming terms, a non-player character who tags along with the player character) to rise to become Master of Bag End, founder of a prominent Shire family, and Mayor of the Shire (perhaps with the longest ever tenure in that office). Sam wasn't just a gardener. He was an individual with feelings and priorities and desires. He just managed to focus so well on what he was doing that people are often surprised to learn Sam had a girlfriend.

Middle-earth allows kings to be bards, warriors, healers, scholars, and smiths. Barbarians transcend cultural boundaries and become civilized peoples. Ancient lore is not treated as something that only a special group of people can understand. Anyone may learn a little something of each race's special lore. Dungeons and Dragons removed these potentials, these aptitudes, from the imagination of fantasy readers and writers alike.

[ June 19, 2004, 03:26: Message edited by: General Woundwort ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

Hmm...typically, barbarians have generations of lore in songs and stories. I don't see that in D&D.

One difference between Tolkien and D&D is that in Tolkiens world, magic is a natural result of certain places (the well that Frodo looked into), emotions (That guys sword telling him that it would gladly drink his blood), the will (like the making of the rings) or a natural extension of that persons being (Tom, Gandalph, Aragorns ability to heal with Kingsfoil).

In D&D, magic is something you study and twist to your own ends. Emotion plays no part. It's mechanistic.

In both cases, anybody can do magic or interact with it. But in Tolkien's world, it's, well not mechanical.

[ June 19, 2004, 04:27: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

Well, yes.

D&D isn't about sophisticated role-playing or collaborative story-telling. It's about bashing stuff.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

True, true.

[Fyron]

Only if you play with a group that doesn't do sophisticated roleplaying and collaborative storytelling... If you play with the right group, D&D is most certainly about such things. If you play with a group that just wants to hack'n'slash, that is what you get.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

True, but the actual format is tilted towards hack'n'slash. From the hordes of beings with a definite alignment that are there primarily for you to slaughter without a thought if their alignment is one your character doesn't like because after all they can't change to the lack of a description area on the character sheet, D&D is more supportive of hack'n'slash.

It's not a matter of can't, it's a matter of format. 6 adventure's on the begginers adventure box and only one of them involves diplomacy. And that's at swordpoint, once you've defeated him, if you feel like it.

[ June 19, 2004, 21:42: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Fyron]

Storytellers usually write their own campaigns and adventures... Also, the beginners adventures are supposed to help you learn the rules. The DM can modify them to include more diplomacy if he wishes to easily. Good DMs just use published adventures as a starting point for their own adventures, or as sources of ideas. Additionally, hack'n'slash adventures are easier to write and to play. They sell better, usually. A sad but true fact.

Descriptions and such go on pages of lined paper, not on the actual character sheet. There is no room for it there, and what is the point of printing out or photocopying pages of blank lines?

The rule books are meant to provide the basic platform from which to build the stories of your adventures. There are numerous campaign settings you can purchase that have lots of backstory type stuff in them, with much more detailed info on various races, rather than a listing of stats. Do you want the monster manual to be 8,000 pages long, or to just have a dozen creatures in it?

It is a game. In order to play a game, you need rules. This is what the core rulebooks (and supplemental ones) are. They provide the framework. They are not meant to provide endless stories to roleplay.

[ June 19, 2004, 21:55: Message edited by: Imperator Fyron ]