smathis wrote:moes1980 wrote:I have to admit, combat in DnD basic is little more than taking turns rolling d20's and hoping you hit before you get hit.
I agree and disagree here. I think it depends on the DM and the players. But a lot on the DM. We played a short LotFP (Basic D&D retro-clone) game recently and the players were trying all sorts of things. It helps when the DM does stuff first. So when this thing popped out of a sarcophagus, crawled along the wall and jumped on the Cleric's face... yeah, people started doing all sorts of stuff. From trying to choke it out MMA-style to trying a flying dropkick. It also helps if you don't penalize them for trying something out of the box. I usually let the player's attack damage be whatever their weapon is, plus or minus a die type based on description.
You'll see a lot more camels getting punched if a Fighter can do a d6 or d8 with his fist -- instead of a d3. Kinda falls in line with OD&D's only using a d6 for damage. Of course, taking 8 points of damage from a punch won't kill somebody (usually). But it is fun, and that's what I'm going for.
I hope DCC gives some guidelines for spicing up combat. DM advice, mechanics or whatnot. It sounds like a blast. So maybe they already have that part figured out.
Well, yeah....I was talking in a strict sense of how DnD basic's combat rules are set up. It took DM and player creativity to spice things up, and often it took alot of creativity and thinking just to survive, as simply going toe to toe with monsters in a stright up fight would often mean pc death. You have a good point and made me think of the idea that what made the older editions more fun despite being rules light was that the rules didnt get in the way of player creativity. 3.x, to an extent, and more sore with 4th ed, every action your character can take is so structured that it makes it difficult for players to step outside of that box of rules and definintions. I think in the DnD basic book it saysing something like "on your turn you can move and take an action, which usually includes drinking a potion, making an attack, openining a door, or a similar action" and that was it. Now, you have minor actions, standard actions, move actions, and free actions, and they are all defined on a chart. Its not a "your character can take an action" but more of a "your character can take ONE of these actions from this list."
You are deffinintly right about alot of it being on the DM's shoulders. despite 4th ed's problems, I have been in a couple of campaigns that made it feel somewhat like the old days and that was due to the DM working hard at setting the mood with vivid discriptions.
But my main point was that DCCRPG looks like DnD basic but with spiced up combats with random spell casting effects and the MDoA, and luck, and those kinds of rules. The game is still rules light, but combat has become much more unpredictible and exciting. At least, that is what it sounds like. I am really looking foward to trying it
