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.

I don't know what crazy version of D&D you've been playing but one where the players constantly kill each other, die all the time and have to compete with a dozen other parties trying to delve the same dungeon doesn't sound much like D&D to me!

---

Originally posted by GRIMACHU
I don't know what crazy version of D&D you've been playing but one where the players constantly kill each other, die all the time and have to compete with a dozen other parties trying to delve the same dungeon doesn't sound much like D&D to me!

---

Don't know what crazy version of MMORPG you've been playing but one with no persistant world, no crafting, no pvp and where you are forced to run the same dungeon over and over again just to level doesn't sound much like MMORPG to me!

All good points, but he was making assertions that those things were D&D things, not MMO things.

Besides which, what you mention sounds like an MMO, it doesn't sound like an RPG.

Obviouly you havent played D&D Grimachu

While I do agree that in a normal D&D session there usually isn't any PVP (if you allow this you usually end up with chaos), he does bring up a valid point that the game does not follow the ruleset for D&D very closely.

Tumble and some of the dynamics of the game are very different from D&D as it is set out.  Actually, I do think however that Neverwinter Nights was fairly close to the D&D rules.  I am disappointed in general that they did not follow the rules as laid out.  I would have thought it would have been simpler to follow the rules then to alter the rules in the fashion that Turbine did.

---

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.

---

not that i like DDO that much, BUT.....

- So your D&D sessions are all about killing other players? Really? well, that might as well be so, but i hope you DO realize that the majority of people do not play like that. In most D&D games, the players are a GROUP that goes around together, usually linked by friendship, love, companionship, you name it. There are the occasional arguments and fight, but the game is in no way centered on PvP, no RPG is beside, maybe, paranoia :)

- In a normal D&D session, how many other adventuring parties you encounter in your dungeons? 100? 5? 1?. It is left to the Master of course, but i have still to encounter a game in which i stumble over adventurers at every corner, you?

-True, when you die, you die. BUT a D&D master usually do not kill the characters just like that. For one, you can acquire easily enough resurrection scrolls or powers, for second, usually the game is ABOUT the characters. having them die all the time is no fun, at least in my opinion. The occasional heroic death (or stupid death if the player really screw up) is part of the game (and must be or then the challenge goes out of the window), but surely not something that happens every session.

So, bottom line: i do not find DDO particularly enticing either, but saying it isn't same as the P&P game BECAUSE of those reasons sounds wrong in my ears.

The wonder of pnp D&D was the freedom of behavior, freedom of world and freedom of game play.  I totally agree that DDO is NOT D&D, and never will be, until they can recreate the freedom on in the online world.

There is no way that anyone can start an argument to invalidate the pvp issue.  Some of the posters here have said that pvp is not what pnpD&D is about.  Perhaps not in their version, but the point is, we could do it if we wanted.  paper D&D was about a group of friends playing characters in a game run by the DM. The DM ran the NPC's and sometime they were friendly, sometime they were enemies.  The point is whether its a player character or a non-player character, the freedom was always there to spice up the game with freedom of choice, evil pc's, buidling a castle, setting up a magic shop or a black smith, or build a galleon...get the picture.Freedom of game play. 

DDO has none of it. Its just a mulitplayer dungeon hack, not RPG or MMO, due to the instancing of every adventure.  There is no validity in saying things like "...nobody wants to line up to kill the bad guy at the end"... to justify instancing.  That is a cop out.  They obviously had a mind set to make it a controlled quest situation, which then leads to the instancing decision, but with a little lateral thinking, they could have had a true MMORPG, with freedom, by instancing the quest handout, but running numerous different quests in the same dungeon, where parties can meet other parties, and are not chasing the same result.  SOME instancing is valid, but not everything.

DDO is a flop, I am sorry to say.

1. I dont see how you can get any fun playing with a DM that helps you all the time and dont let you die anyway. Also i dont see how you can consider that your DM can be good not allowing you to fight vs other players. So what you play is a limited version of D&D, you just erase part of the rules and dont allow chaotic evil players, and you call that D&D. That is a baby care game what you play.

2. Well in D&D, me as DM, i have put many of other adventurers in the same dungeon. Actually that makes lot of fun cause you can fight vs them, cooperate with them or just interact with them. I suppose you just know to enter a dungeon and smash all in the way, and of course you dont fear to die, causse your DM wont let it.

3. As i said you play in a baby care center. If you like that its up to you and i dont like to play that and i dont like to make games as DM in that way. Players learn how to play and survive and just dont go madly in the dungeon. Many DMs just make some mobs impossible to kill or players impossible to kill, so just change things without any realism and without following the rules, that is crap. When i see a DM cheats i dont play any more with him, and i dont care he cheats to my favour, i dont want any help from DM. It is true that DM can change the rules of the game making his own version of D&D but never change those rules in any moment as he wishes, as they use to do.

If those reasons sound you wrong it is cause you have never readed the rules. Just a tip, there is an alligment called Chaotic Evil which players can choose, and i tell you cause i suppose you dont know about it or maybe you are just trying to win argueing things that you make up on purpose.

---

Originally posted by gurthgor

1. I dont see how you can get any fun playing with a DM that helps you all the time and dont let you die anyway. Also i dont see how you can consider that your DM can be good not allowing you to fight vs other players. So what you play is a limited version of D&D, you just erase part of the rules and dont allow chaotic evil players, and you call that D&D. That is a baby care game what you play.

2. Well in D&D, me as DM, i have put many of other adventurers in the same dungeon. Actually that makes lot of fun cause you can fight vs them, cooperate with them or just interact with them. I suppose you just know to enter a dungeon and smash all in the way, and of course you dont fear to die, causse your DM wont let it.

3. As i said you play in a baby care center. If you like that its up to you and i dont like to play that and i dont like to make games as DM in that way. Players learn how to play and survive and just dont go madly in the dungeon. Many DMs just make some mobs impossible to kill or players impossible to kill, so just change things without any realism and without following the rules, that is crap. When i see a DM cheats i dont play any more with him, and i dont care he cheats to my favour, i dont want any help from DM. It is true that DM can change the rules of the game making his own version of D&D but never change those rules in any moment as he wishes, as they use to do.

If those reasons sound you wrong it is cause you have never readed the rules. Just a tip, there is an alligment called Chaotic Evil which players can choose, and i tell you cause i suppose you dont know about it or maybe you are just trying to win argueing things that you make up on purpose.

---

Ok, i was gonna to just drop it as it seems you can't understand what i am saying. so i will go trough it one more time.

1)I never said that the DM do not let the players die, nor that you can't fight with other players. These things happens, conflict and a sane fight do happens. but they ARE NOT THE FOCUS OF THE GAME. they are occasional event, not the thing the game is centered around.

As such, dropping them, while limiting freedom (and freedom is always getting limited in a videogame, no matter what), are not seen by me as raping of the D&D concept .

About Chaotic Evil, that depends. sure as hell i won't allow a chaotic evil character in a mostly good party and other way around. it is not so definite, though, if the guy has a good story as of why he is joining such a party (maybe he is a spy of some arch villain or something else more creative) I would allow it. It won't last very long though. Either he will do his mission and leave the party, or somebody find out and it either ends in the prison or in the graveyard for the guy. Alternativly, it happened that the evil person just started to like working with these particular guys and continued to go along with them, never truly befriending each other, but having a sort of truce between them. the Good guys thinking that at least they can keep an eye on him and the evil guy thinking to use the group as his personal hit squad (or so he thinks).

2) at the same time? what you were mastering? hundreds of people?

3)as i said before, the players are not immortal in my games. They do die. Also about your "DM cheating", keep in mind this is roleplaying we are speaking about, not rollplaying. The story and the drama must come before the system. If I get lucky with the dice and roll 20 critical in a row, i will change the dice results. It makes for a more dramatic story if the dragon do not kill the whole party with the first attack, don't you think? The rules (and the dice) are there to give the DM a mechanical aspects of the game, but is all about the story in any case.

It is rule number one of any good roleplayer and i am surprised you do not know it: Story first, system second.

Such a thing do not make things "unrealistic", just more drammatically appropriate. The Archvillain SHOULD escape, unless the players really have a good plan and prevent his last minute escape.

I know perfectly there is a Chaotic Evil alignment. and i know it is 1 of 9. Chaotic Evil, also, are NOT team players. they tend to kill each other before too long.

Let me restate my points: A) "PvP": is not the main focus of D&D. it might happens in a session, yes. But it is definitly not the main focus, or the game is over for at least 1 player very very shortly.

B) "instancing": DMing multiple groups of adventurers at the same time it is hard and very rare happening. the averager gaming group is 4-6 people and that makes 1 group. period. If you, with your leet skillz, can DM 10-20 people succesfully, well good for you, but i don't believe it.

C)Permadeath DOES happens in D&D games, but it should be occasional. Or then your players like to reroll characters every session?

Bottom line: No PvP, No permadeath, instancing do not ruin the D&D atmosphere in my opinion. They might ruin the MMorpg atomsphere, making the game not so good (at least the pvp and instancing parts, permadeath as harsh as you want has no place in any mmorpg), but they surely do not go against the D&D spirit.

1 - Focusing in keeping the players alive and not letting them be chaotic evil ( so that they can kill other members of group ) is not the best way to make a good game, but i suppose your players are similar to you so they will like a game without challenge and freedom

2 - I tell again for the slow ones. Obviously i talk about adventurers npcs that they find.

3 - The story and the drama cant be out of the rules, that is crap. A good story is realistic, and players must fear what they find, other things are just a happy tale, Harry potter tales.
OMG , you just dont follow the rules and besides change the rolls....and you say you play D&D. You remind me a lot a DM me and my friends played a long time ago, and he just cheated all the rules and rules were "unknown". Of course you couldnt die either, maybe you changed but you didnt die. At first everybody liked it but soon ppl realized how it was and they left. We had very fun moments laughing about their games. Also he tried to cheat playing with me, when i was the DM, several times, and belive me ppl didnt like that.
It is true that there are ppl that like cheating, even paying money for better stats and such, that is quite sad.

Hahaha, a good rp ??? you call yourself roleplayer?? come on. You are anti-roleplayer, you just play something you make up and thatdoent have any rules and any logic. You know its better you just write a small book aboout the adventure and the players can read it cause anyway you are going to do what you want. You dont even let them be as they want, man, you are just writting a book for yourself. And i bet you are very young, i dont think a more mature person can think like you, maybe i am wrong but i dont think so.

Of course for you permadeath doesnt have any sense, unless its part of your book. You say it happens but it is just occasional... as i said you just take care of your baby adventurers so that they die the right times...pathetic.

I am amazed how some ppl get fun. As i said some ppl even pay money for better stats or items, and ppl that like playing a game where there are no rules, where all is what DM says, so why to play ? i dont find the sense why your players play with you really.

Btw, check games like Trials of Ascension that has very good ranking or The Chronicle, both are with permadeath. You cannot play them yet but they have lot of followers.