Alex_P said:
Character creation is pointlessly random.
The mainstay of the game is rather-tedious hit-point attrition (and, especially in AD&D 2nd Edition, rules that turn the cleric into an hp-battery), but it's got all these other bits, like save-or-die magic, that completely short-circuit that entire mechanic and just give you a random chance to win a battle (or force you to quick-load, if you're on the receiving end).
Trying to use pen-and-paper rules in a video game really hamstrings it. D&D's course-grained actions (in "rounds") and spell-slot mechanics really take most of the nuance out of spellcasting. The inclusion of D&D's handful-of-encounters-then-rest style of resource management creates painful dissonance between the game mechanics and the narrative of play.
Character creation is random if you use the most basic rule for it, in which you roll 3d6 for each attribute, yes. With that option, you have no choice over which attributes get which scores, and as such there is no way of choosing your class; you have to let the rules choose it for you. Baldur's Gate, however, essentially uses the rule where you role 18d6, add up the scores, and divide them among your attributes as you wish. This way, it's much easier to choose which class you want to play. There is still an element of randomness to it, I admit, but it's hardly pointless.
I do agree on the hit-point attrition, though. It is obviously dependent on other factors like magical protection, but it does basically come down to attrition, I admit. Despite that, the fact that the cleric
is a hit-point battery, while supporting the attrition argument, does a great deal to prevent winning or losing the battle from being a random chance. In many cases, it all comes down to how you use your magic: healing spells, protective spells, etc. The death spells are a bit of a short-circuit, I suppose, but there are only two of them (I think), both are high-level spells, and few people use them frequently as a result. In my opinion, the fact that they're high-level magic works well, because, to me at least, it makes sense that powerful mages would be able to, essentially, kill with a word.
While the gameplay is divided into rounds, in the BG games at least, it effectively plays out in real time, or at least appears to. The fact that it is, at heart, turn-based has very little impact on what the player actually does; and besides, it's not like there's any shortage of turn-based RPGs. In a tabletop game, the fact that it's turn-based is no problem at all, as there would, really, be no other way of handling combat. The spell slot system does seem a little odd, but Final Fantasy does much the same thing: you don't have a mana pool; you have a set number of each spell.
It may seem like I'm trying to argue the AD&D rules are flawless, but honestly, I'm not. I suppose in a way I'm just playing Devil's Advocate here, trying to show that the rules don't necessarily deserve the bad reputation they have. They're not perfect, but no RPG ruleset is, and I like them for what they are.
