Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Their artwork in DCCRPG is fine but their maps - for purposes of ease of reading and practicality at the table - are in general the worst I've ever seen.
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D&D 1E Seriously contemplating an attempt at a retro AD&D
- Thread starter deganawida
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
And immediately brings out the all-too-obvious question: if F-MU Bob can cast in armour, why can't single-class MU Jenny cast in armour?It works fine.And it lets them actually use all their class abilities, which is the baseline for multiclassing. You are paying full xp for each class, after all.
Removing the ability to cast in armor simulates one particular vision of a game world, but it's not one with any particular grounding in the source fiction. While wizards generally don't wear armor in the literature and that's a trope, characters who both fight and use magic (like Elric) have no issues doing so in armor, at least in pre-D&D fiction. And generally in post-D&D fiction that's not based on D&D.
Remember, 1e doesn't have armour proficiencies. Instead it has straight bans on certain armours for certain classes, with the clear rationale being that wearing heavier armour makes the skills of that class unusable. Following this rationale leads to a multi-class character either having to follow the restrictions of both classes or have one class be unusable while the heavier armour is being worn.
Slash-Pierce-Bludgeon is a good thing for helping define monster immunities or resistances e.g. skeletons only take half damage from non-bludgeonong.
Can’t agree with that based upon the maps that I’ve seen (which is by no means all or even most of them). I’m blown away by them.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
They look nice and fancy etc. as art pieces but for DMing purposes a map isn't an art piece, it's a practical document. On the DCCRPG maps I've got it's way, waaay too hard to see the relevant details among all the extraneous (and unnecessary!) artwork.
When I'm repeatedly asking myself "Is that supposed to be a room or is it just some more stupid decoration?" I know a map is useless.
Voadam
Legend
I don't see that as the clear 1e rationale.
From the 1e PH MU class description page 25:
"Furthermore, they can wear no armor and have few weapons they can use, for martial training is so foreign to magic-use as to make the two almost mutually exclusive."
My read of this is that the clearest rationale is that for most MUs they have no martial training. Almost mutually exclusive is not always mutually exclusive, just usually exclusive. The exotic elven non human multiclassed fighter magic users would be considered as having martial training though and would be a rare exception.
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I’d rather have the artwork and deal with a little mess. I can deal with deciphering anything if it needs it during my prep.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
I get where you're coming from, but I couldn't disagree more. The DCC RPG maps I've seen are utterly stellar. They don't waste space around the edge of the map. They fill it in with evocative art. Take this one, as an example. There's nothing confusing about it. Everything inside the map is clean and in the PCs' space. Everything outside the map is evocative art. It's a fancy border. There's a few minor spots of overlap. Like the brambles at top and bottom. Or the beastman's spear overlapping the wall. But that's not something that should trip anyone up.
But sure. If you wanted to insist that everything there was really in the game, it would still work. Giant beastmen in the ravine. Giant brambles everywhere. A dead giant. Giant axe and helm. Screaming ghosts off to the left. It's all still relevant and evocative. Radically change the adventure site. But still completely on point.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
All that "evocative art" is useless and superfluous. The DM is the only person who is ever going to see it, and the DM - who is in theory using the map as a quick reference during play - is the one person who doesn't need to see it.
I should be able to, at a quick glance, see on any map the scale, the direction, and the features it is trying to show me. Here, the scale is given but the squares are only intermittently shown on the map, and I count myself lucky to have found the easy-to-miss "North" marker. The rest should be nothing but white space, with maybe a few numbers or words to indicate what is what when I refer to the text, leaving the eye to focus on the actual map as that is what matters here.
overgeeked
B/X Known World
I’d argue they’re the one person who most needs to see it. They have to convey the scene to the players. They need the most solid idea of what things look and feel like otherwise they have no hope of conveying that to the players.
Why is there art in the books? Same reason there’s art on the map. To evoke. I get that you don’t like it. But that same argument could be made for stripping all the art out of the books. We have Google now, and “AI” art programs. We don’t need to “waste space” with art in books any more.
To be fair, DCC RPG is not a gridded maps and minis game. It’s more theater of the mind or rough estimates maps and minis game. That one was also heavily modified to be a player-viewable map. All the secrets were removed and in so doing, the little bit of “grid” pattern that is there does not line up.
I always show the players the map after they’ve completed the adventure. Too good not to share.
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