Re: [Wargamer] DnD fans debate whether sushi is unrealistic in a make-believe game

On Fri, 6 Sep 2024 23:50:01 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:

On 9/6/2024 6:31 PM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

Although maybe it's all just lingering resentment over 2nd edition
D&D's much-maligned attack-roll system that is the cause of it all.
Taco is only one letter away from THACO, after all. ;-)

I occasionally understand THAC0, but even when I was playing with it it
felt like an enormous kludge. Either the old table-lookup method or the
simple Attack-roll system from 3rd edition always made more sense (and
were mathematically equivalent.
DnD has had this habit of keeping utterly baffling artifacts from the
early times of the hobby for way too long, long after everyone else
already switched to something way easier.
The same actually with descending AC. I know the arguments for it, I
just don't know why anyone would be making them in good faith.

I'm a firm supporter of descending AC, but I can't in any way argue
for its inclusion in good faith. As much as I dislike a lot of stuff
in 3E+, I can't disagree that many of the changes they made _were_ for
the better. Especially stuff like changing AC going up as it improved.
Old-school D&D was really weird in how, in some cases, lower numbers
were better and in other cases, you wanted to roll high. 3E (and
onwards) fixed a lot of these oddities.

My preference for AC-going-down is almost entirely nostalgic. I like
it because it's what I learned, and I feel oddities like that are one
of the things that gave D&D its own character.

    [There's maybe a little gatekeeping involved too; a bit of
     "keeping the rules weird to keep the normies out." But
     I'm not proud of that bit ;-)]

But, yeah, mostly when I argue in favor of AC-goes-down, it's meant
pretty tongue-in-cheek. Same with THAC0. I mean, I can do it in my
head and enjoy it, but boy did it discourage a lot of people from
engaging with the game. I mean, it was better than the constant table-
look-ups of 1E but not by much.

But, honestly, the rules and mechanics were never the most important
part of our games anyway. We stuck with old-school D&D because of
familiarity more than anything.