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Post by takewithfood on Dec 20, 2010 18:05:28 GMT -5
There aren't even rules in D&D for what happens if you don't sleep. That's always bugged me. ^___^
I think the hack&slash in D&D comes from the strange fantasy economics, and the XP system. The game essentially requires you to hand out hordes of treasure and magical items, as challenge ratings at high levels assume you have buckets of magic gear. Sometimes you'll come home from a day or two of "adventuring" with enough money to buy a small country, and only in recent editions have they written a page or two about how to go about spending that sort of money in a semi-realistic fashion.
The bulk of your XP tends to come from killing things, and though it's suggested that you give XP for avoiding fights as well, many of the DMs I know ignore this rule and expect you to kill things. Many D&D groups have come to that point where someone is 12XP away from a level up at the end of the adventure, and they ask the GM if they can go out and find a single goblin to murder in order to finish off the level.
Those are the two areas where the game tends to focus a little too much on hack&slash gaming. To some extent you can sorta blame the Monster Manuals/Compendiums, too, as the typical D&D monsters are difficult to fit into a realistic ecosystem; the result tends to be miscellaneous "dungeons" filled with monsters who appear to do little more than wander around, waiting for adventurers to kill. They tend to congregate with other monsters of about the same difficulty, adding additional members to their groups until they achieve some sort of challenge rating equilibrium.
A lot of this is kinda bad/amateurish gaming, but it's what most players are introduced to when they first get into the game. I remember some of my early gaming sessions sounding just like that. Ambitious DMs can work around these cliches and pitfalls, but it takes some work and some creativity.
~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Dec 20, 2010 18:10:30 GMT -5
There aren't even rules in D&D for what happens if you don't sleep. That's always bugged me. ^___^ ~TWF Untrue. 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and 4 all have rules for what happens if you don't sleep.
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Post by ironfox on Dec 20, 2010 18:20:34 GMT -5
I thought no sleep led to the "Exhausted" status effect which is pretty nasty.
I do see your point in the XP and Monster ecosystem though. There are supplements that address that sort of thing but as far as the Monster Manuals go, the best you get are the "insert monster name" Society part at the end of it's Stat and ability sheet with little to no idea of how these creatures interact with others.
On the other hand I've always loved creating my own ecosystem and having preexisting guidelines would just have my players thinking that they know more about the world's boogie-men than their creator!
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 20, 2010 18:29:19 GMT -5
3rd and 3.5e don't have rules for what happens when you don't sleep. I think it's perhaps assumed that you become exhausted or fatigued, but it isn't actually spelled out anywhere. 2e and AD&D were too long ago for me to remember, but I'm pretty familiar with the 3es. If you can find me a page number, though I'll look it up.
They have rules for forced marches, but that's for traveling. There's really nothing in there about staying up for several days in a row.
I do enjoy working on ecosystems, too, though. They're complicated enough (or at least, they can be) that I understand why they don't print that sort of thing right in the DMG. I do wish they'd include a little more about demographics and populations, though. I've been in too many games where it always seems that 99% of the population live in cities, and the other 1% live on farms - not the other way around.
~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Dec 20, 2010 18:35:05 GMT -5
3rd and 3.5e don't have rules for what happens when you don't sleep. ~TWF Yes, they do. Ignoring the spell-caster specific consequences... if you don't sleep, you become fatigued, and if you continue to fail to sleep, you become exhausted.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 20, 2010 18:38:12 GMT -5
Everyone says that, but where is that actually spelled out in the rules? Do you by any chance have page number or a quote from the SRD?
~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Dec 20, 2010 18:41:42 GMT -5
Everyone says that, but where is that actually spelled out in the rules? Do you by any chance have page number or a quote from the SRD? ~TWF Nope, I never had to use the SRD, but its definitely in the PHB for both editions. Not that I have my 3/3.5 books anymore (or rather, I do, but they're in my parents' garage waiting to be used as kindling)
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 20, 2010 18:46:08 GMT -5
Sorry, dude, it really isn't there. Page number, or it didn't happen. ^__^ There are a lot of threads out there where people are equally surprised to find a lack of rules for going without sleep. EDIT: My physical copies of the books are in the box labeled "garage sale", and I think they have a piece of tape on them that says "25 cents". lol I stick to my digital copies, now. ~TWF
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Post by WildKnight on Dec 20, 2010 18:59:01 GMT -5
*shrugs* I find it insanely hard to believe that literally EVERY group I've ever played with has known this rule, yet it doesn't appear anywhere.
I also would like to point out the multitude of threads out there that suggested that the "bag of rats + greater cleave" thing was totally legit. Just because players can't figure it out, doesn't mean it wasn't spelled out properly, it just means that players are, well, players.
I read somewhere once that role-players have a higher average IQ than the rest of the population. I often find that extremely difficult to believe.
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Post by takewithfood on Dec 20, 2010 19:09:07 GMT -5
I know, it's always surprising. My group got by for a long time.. possibly a year or two before we encountered this little oversight. We had a Ranger in our group who liked to sleep in his armor, and he switched to medium armor as soon as he got Endurance (which allows you to sleep in medium armor without penalty).
There was a dwarf fighter (I think he was a dwarf) who had imagined himself sleeping in his plate mail this whole time, and I guess the player had never read the rules about sleeping in armor. When he found out that he'd be fatigued if he actually slept in his armor, he jokingly suggested "What if I don't sleep?" We had a good laugh, but then we couldn't actually find out what would happen. We each scoured our books and came up empty. I did some searches for the rule, and found that other people had come across the same problem.
Pathfinder apparently wrote up some easy rules, but they never actually printed them for some reason. Probably forgot; the devs have admitted to forgetting to put a few things in.
~TWF
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Post by malice on Dec 21, 2010 15:30:28 GMT -5
I read somewhere once that role-players have a higher average IQ than the rest of the population. I often find that extremely difficult to believe. Given the rest of the population, I find it pretty easy to believe. Being smarter than everyone else really isn't that special if everyone else is obviously stupid.
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Post by WildKnight on Dec 21, 2010 15:54:33 GMT -5
Given the rest of the population, I find it pretty easy to believe. Being smarter than everyone else really isn't that special if everyone else is obviously stupid. Knowing someone who is more cynical than me is really strange.
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Post by Jet on Dec 21, 2010 17:01:26 GMT -5
Given the rest of the population, I find it pretty easy to believe. Being smarter than everyone else really isn't that special if everyone else is obviously stupid. Knowing someone who is more cynical than me is really strange. I lol'ed. Hard.
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Post by malice on Dec 21, 2010 17:11:32 GMT -5
If you look at how the world has "developed" for the last decade or so, it's not surprising that someone who grew up in this crap will have an increased capacity for cynicism.
I think I'm actually not that person. I consider myself typical for my generation as far as how jaded I am or am not. I just like speaking pessimistically because it makes me smirk.
Speaking optimistically feels like a joke no one gets (including me), speaking moderately is boring and equally unrealistic (Happy mediums are both an oxymoron and uncommon), so I find smiles in the worst case scenario.
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Post by ironfox on Dec 21, 2010 17:15:39 GMT -5
If you look at how the world has "developed" for the last decade or so, it's not surprising that someone who grew up in this crap will have an increased capacity for cynicism. I think I'm actually not that person. I consider myself typical for my generation as far as how jaded I am or am not. I just like speaking pessimistically because it makes me smirk. Speaking optimistically feels like a joke no one gets (including me), speaking moderately is boring and equally unrealistic (Happy mediums are both an oxymoron and uncommon), so I find smiles in the worst case scenario. I think I might print this and hang it in my room.
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