Well. I'll start from the bottom as it is extremely easy there.

You go and take an optional rule from a 20 years old book and try to prove a point with it? Woah! way to go! It says right there that is optional. so... what as your point again? that permadeath is parth of D&D? and who was denying it? I was saying that characters usually do not die every 5 minutes, not that they do not die at all..... missed something have you?

I mean, there is a setting for AD&D called "Spelljammer" that is all about spaceships and giant space hamsters, so i suppose D&D is all about spaceships and giant hamsters right?

Second, you delude me. You go and take a passage of an official book that actually tell you to change the rules of the game. And here i was, thinking that for you house rules were like.. i dunno, a blasphemy? Way to contradict yourself, first you go and all are uptight and "holier-than-thou" about changing rules and then you go and support a passage that tells exactly that?

Oh it is also very nice of you to just throw away the most recent edition(s) of D&D, on which DDO is based, by the way, just because you do not agree with them. Yeah, now those are "stupid" editions for "baby care centers" while the real "men" plays D&D 1st edition, red box. but please, i thought we were having a somewhat mature conversation here, not a childish debate... but then i migth have been wrong and you are just doing this for your pleasure of pissing people off.

now, your first passage: I'm fair. I never favor the monsters or the players. I play the enemies role. This shows me you have not understood a word i said.

Let's see if you get it this time: First issue: player's freedom:

My players are free to do what they want in my game. I might try to direct them trough clues and NPCs, but that is common stuff right? I surely would never dream to deny a player's action. If they want to burn down that farm, well go ahead, burn it down. there will be consequences, of course, but surely they are free to do as they please. They are not puppets and i do not write a book.I really do not know where you got this impression, if a RPG campaign is a book, then it has numerous writers, the DM and each player do their part.

Second: Challenge and death:

if my player put himself in a dangerous situation, he can die. If he does some stupid thing, he will die. If there is a nice fight going on, he can die.They do not have a life insurance on their characters, nor will they be immortals.

Third: Rules != Roleplaying. You can roleplay without books, without rules and using just your imagination, if you so wish. getting all attached to a rule in a RPG system is really silly. those rules were made so you could run your game and make it fun. if you think it is not fun, why should you use such a rule. Of course, use judgement in changing the rule, they were made for a purpose and the system was (supposedly) tested to see that it works.

Fourth: House rules are decided before the game starts. surely not in the middle of the game, i wonder where you got this impression, but then it seems to be your personal hobby to completely change the meaning of other people's words. First you are against changing rules completely, now it is changing them in middle of a game (that we never discussed), so what it is? can you decide?

Fifth: Cheating. Cheating is a fail-safe mechanism used when things are going toward a non-fun direction. That passage you cited speaks a lot of good things, it speaks of playing the roles of the monsters and to be fair, to not favor the monsters nor the players. So what you do when the dice are doing it for you? What you do when fate decides that tonight the players die? you unfairly just shrug and kill them all? even if it is the first game of the adventure and they have not done anything particular to deserve such a death? even if it took all the afternoon to do their characters and they have each wrote a good page and half of background and were looking forward to the game? you think this is fair?

The dice are not fair. they do not give out equally good or bad. you could roll 10000 times a critical hit in a row. There is no "Ah! i rolled a 1, so next time i WILL roll good". Nope, you can roll 1 and then 1 and then 1 and then 1 and then 1 and then 1 and then 1 and so on. you think that is fair? What? your 20th level barbarian has suddenly forgot how to use a weapon?

Cheating is such a fail-safe mechanism that helps you preventing having such strokes of too good or too bad luck. it KEEPS things fair, it do not make them unfair!. Of course it CAN be exploited. But then, if you do not trust your DM, what you are playing with him for? I mean, the DM can exploits a lot more things than this. nobody knows what there is behind the next corner, the DM could decide, on whim, that there is a giant red dragon there, just passing by and roast all the chars.. is it bad dming? yes and it does not involve any cheating on his part.

Giving over control of your game to the dice might seems good idea for you and i respect that. I think is unfair toward the players that can die in the most unrealistic ways, but hey it is your way, go for it. I just ask you respect my wish to not kill a player, just because Lady Luck tonight says so. It is OUR game, not Lady Luck's game. I believe dead of a character should be a very important moment of the game and it should have purpose. it should have a reason behind it.

You are just crazy. You just say that you didnt say things you said.

I showed you that you lied saying that the RPGs allow cheating or similar things. The ones that made the version 3.0 are Wizards of the Coast, an new enterprise, remember that, they are not the creators of D&D.

I even showed you that the original version of D&D ( the creators of D&D ) say DMs that cheat are not good, so take that as you want.

I think this conversation is going even worse now, you just deny things you said, and even say that you just can play without a rulebook and just using your imagination. That is just absurd. I cannot imagine how absurd would be a game with a DM that just tell me that i got a critical without even rolling for it for instance.

It is ok, for me its enough, just play what you like. If are really sure your players know what you do and you and they like it its ok, that is the most important not saying what is roleplaying or not.

Maybe we are both right about what should be DDO if it is really based in 3.0, cause actually in 3.0 they let do just whatever you want with the rules or whatever, so DDO can be what it is now or just a card game online or a chess or whatever.

we agree to disagree and let's leave it at that.

I just wanted to add that Gary Gygax, the creator of D&D basic you used in reference, is still working right now and some of his works are actually expansions for the d20 system, also called D&D 3.5.

Oh, and one of the creator of d&d 3.0 and 3.5 is Monte Cook, editor for TSR way before they got bought from WoTC.

It is not that WoTC created writers from a void, when they acquired TSR, they got most of their employers as well and those guys wrote the system.

Skip Williams, another author of 3.0 and 3.5, was involved with the creation of AD&D 1st edition and he also, when TSR got bought, just continue working for WoTC.

Finally, the third writer of 3.0-3.5, is Jonhatan Tweep, the only not coming from old school TSR, but from other venues, like Ars Magica, Over The Edge and so on.

Fact is the guys that wrote 3.0-3.5 all are old time developers, not some new writer that just popped out from WoTC pockets.

And, for the record, I do not particularly like the 3.5 system either, I much prefer White Wolf stuff.

The creators now dont have all the power as they had in TSR. Also they dont hire the ppl of the team, and they cannot make all decisions as before. So everything is different.

The only thing clear is that the creators of D&D say cheating is for bad DMs, face that, and dont tell me excuses.

sure. I'm evil. and a bad DM... oh.. and the Devil as well.

Now, sorry, i have more players to corrupt and worlds to dominate <insert satanic laughter here>. Oh, let's not forget the players that i abuse every day. Ah yes, i love their screams for mercy in the morning... mmmmmmmhh.

Attention:

DDO will be supporting PvP in October

That is all....

Yes, you suck as a DM.. Its not evil, not the devil or anything. heck, they at least have some pride. You are just sad. But I am sure the other 11 year olds think yer great, so its not a problem for you. Just.. To cheat in an RPG... No skill at all, just pathetic. Might as well just give them the loot right away, the turn on the telly.

Cant believe you play hurt and mistreated after such a sad confession. I have heard 4 year olds playing cowboys and indians follow more rules than that.

Errr...

Peoples are disgressing and forgotting the MAIN point.

D&D is a RPG.

DDO is an ACTION-MMO with a rpg skin.

Nowhere did they ever say so, they advertise as "real D&D", as a mmoRPG.  If the game would have been a RPG rather than an ACTION game, maybe it would have work.

When I hear peoples focusing on silly stuff, I think they are missing the point themselves.  D&D is the King of the RPGs.  DDO is an ACTION game.  Nuff said.

Nobody should be talking about the fries if they got the wrong meal order at a restaurant.  If you order sea food and they bring a beef-burger, the side fries hardly matter!  It's hardly matter if the burger is actually good or not, the whole point is that you order sea food and they bring something else.  Is it an insult to call it a D&D product?  Nah, however there definitely need to be more information about the fact it ISNT a rpg as someone would expect it to be.  By-products are always welcome, but they have to advertise as by-products, a Star Wars shirt is always welcome, but it isn't a video game nor a movie, but a shirt.  In the case of a video game, it is easy to let's peoples believe it is another genre, and you really shouldn't...it has to be clear that this is an action game, not a rpg.

If you want permadeath then when you die. Log out, delete toon and start again.

Roleplaying is all about communal storytelling. Any roleplayer will tell you that. Rules Lawyers however...they're the ones who use the rules to pass off their playstyle as the only one which is ever 'right'.

Personally I'm glad of the rules lawyers. For without them there'd be no yardstick with which to measure good solid roleplay.

D&D is a decent game. Sure it needs work. Like better interaction with the environment, the ability to actually have your PC play any role in the world you choose. If a game ac tually gave us the tools for communal storytelling then the niche market would have a place and could simply fade away from the rules lawyers completely.

As long as the DM and players are having fun then all is well. No idiot no matter how bad their english has a right to tell anyone who to play any game. If you think you do you got more issues then what constitues a good game.

Worst game I ever saw online

go in a dungeon and its lit  up like las vegas

all the dungeons look  the same

its CRAP

it s one big loot run  they forgot to make  the game

in 2 months I been everywhere and saw everything

had all the best items and it was so easy that I  now look bavk at it as  it can only be a ruse  so that turbine make money from suckers to pay the cost of their epic  LOTRO

I cant see any other reason for this game being here

out  of 10 I give it a 2.5 

if you can  get through the whole game by 2 months  who do they expect to keep as customers  nobody they expect them all to  be   out of D&D and into  LOTRO as soon as it  hits the stands

its beyond imagination how bad this game is

Yes, it fell short of the mark to say the least, and it's definitely an insult to more than a few people.

But all those people who proclaim over and over again that it's just not possible to recreate the magic of a D&D session in a computer game are wrong.  There are huge obstacles, yes. But they are not insurmountable. What are some of these obstacles?  Let's see.. there's regulating the passage of game world time, the pace of the action or advancement, the ability to effect a living world and a response from the world itself. 

Sounds like a job for the human brain!  What about a DM for every ten players or so, and a -very- flexible game system?  What kind of monthly fee would be acceptable for that, I wonder?  You want to tie a rope around your halfling buddy and chuck him across that chasm?  (Who hasn't?)  DM to the rescue!

Here is a glaring contradiction: D&D has always been limited by imagination.   The real insult here comes from the people who impose the limitations of their own imagination of other's.  Of course that's easy to say when it's not your lively hood being risked by some crackpot game designer.

Originally posted by gurthgor

This is not D&D, better call it neverwinter nights 2
- no pvp, no freedom, the basic rule of a RPG
- instanced dungeons - no mmorpg, just multiplayer game
- no permadeath - in D&D you dont respawn, if you die you die unless you are rezzed

I was very happy when i heard long time ago i would see D&D online some day but now i am dissapointed.

Ahahaha! I'd hate to play with your DM.

DnD is one of the worst games for PvP. The balance is way off. More importantly, the designers never made an effort to balance it, either.

So what about the instances? DnD doesn't scale to MMO levels very well. It has always been about small groups adventuring.

As for permadeath... Are you a masochist? Do you only enjoy things when they're painful? Of the dozens of campaigns I have played, I've never had to worry about permadeath. The DM has ALWAYS made sure there was a way to avoid dying or being resurrected. You know, like a DM should. Permadeath is just a mechanic to kill a campaign. It makes even less sense in an MMO considering the fact that you don't have a DM sitting there with you who can decide "Gee, maybe I should scale back the number of zombies a bit in the next encounter."

Now, if you want to talk about poor adaptations of DnD, look at Neverwinter Nights 2. It's a fun game and all, but the very core of why you would make a CRPG of DnD is customization, and that game really likes to hamper that. I mean, Monk unarmed damage is hard coded into the friggin' engine!

I don't think DDO is the best translation of DnD to an MMO, but at the same time, I don't think even the best translation would fair very well as an MMO. It inherently loses a lot of the appeal of PnP DnD, which is complete free-form adventures that you create. We are a long ways off from being able to replicate a decent DM, complete with creative thought processes, in a CRPG of any sort, let alone an MMO. So go ahead and complain all you want, but you're just looking like a fool. You completely miss the point of DnD as a whole.