D&D General Games People Play: Looking at the Gaming Aspects of D&D

[Clint_L]

The point is, long campaigns aren't a some kind of feature of rules-heavy games. It's a byproduct of human beings resolving complex rules that makes the density of important events per session low.

D&D, when played on a properly configured VTT that automates everything isn't suited for years-long campaigns either, because you are chewing of 3-4 PnP sessions worth of content in one.

My campaigns are heavily integrated into D&D Beyond so everything mathematical is already automated. I also don't run tons of encounters, focusing more on story.

I'm trying to clarify your argument - do you think that folks are engaged with years-long campaigns because they just have no other choice? If so, then I disagree. I am arguing that there is a system of intermittent rewards built into the heavy emphasis on rules and randomness that promotes long-term engagement. Other long-form, shared storytelling options are available, but folks keep overwhelmingly choosing this one.

Edit: I emphasize that I am not taking sides or arguing that one thing is better than another. My favourite RPG is Dread, an indie-RPG with rules so simple you can, and I have, explain them in their entirety in less than a minute before successfully playing the game. No dice. Almost all narrative.

I am trying to look at the success of rules-heavy RPG games, particularly D&D (though from my perspective, they're all basically D&D) and speculating as to causes. If the density and slowness of the game was strictly a negative, then it seems reasonable to suggest that people would stop playing it. But the opposite has happened. So maybe those aspects are features, not flaws, at least from the perspective of many players.

 

[loverdrive]

You can get better by learning more about your char, its skills etc. but you cannot look ahead in the published adventure. That is the difference between studying for a test and cheating by having access to the questions in advance

But pretty much every game that features...

• ...asymmetrical opposition, requires learning match ups
• ...maps, requires learning the layout

You don't get better at Warhammer by rereading your army codex three hundred times, you get better by learning what other armies can do and figuring out counterplays at every stage of interaction. That is what allows Warhammer, as flawed as it is, to be a more or less interesting game.

If you don't know what you'll face, you can build your character only in a vacuum, which removes any skill expression from character creation. If you don't know what maps you'll face things on, you can't act with intentionality and map out routes. And the fact that you can't (or, at least, isn't supposed to know) whether an encounter was there from the start, or modified by the GM to specifically screw you over/let you win doesn't help either.

 

[Pedantic]

But pretty much every game that features...

• ...asymmetrical opposition, requires learning match ups
• ...maps, requires learning the layout

You don't get better at Warhammer by rereading your army codex three hundred times, you get better by learning what other armies can do and figuring out counterplays at every stage of interaction. That is what allows Warhammer, as flawed as it is, to be a more or less interesting game.

If you don't know what you'll face, you can build your character only in a vacuum, which removes any skill expression from character creation. If you don't know what maps you'll face things on, you can't act with intentionality and map out routes. And the fact that you can't (or, at least, isn't supposed to know) whether an encounter was there from the start, or modified by the GM to specifically screw you over/let you win doesn't help either.

I think you're translating a bit too literally from CRPGs here. You can still build up a body of knowledge about how to handle problems within the constraints of a system, even if unique problems aren't generally repeatable, and preparation for specific problems is also possible with adequate sign posting. There's absolutely procedures of play you can generalize and improve on over time.

That, and the structural loop of a long form campaign game means that while you might not face the same 3 fire giant encounter, you're going to face a lot of encounters and learn widely applicable combat options as they keep coming up, and in classic D&D, you're going to walk into several dungeons. Plus, there is still a body of knowledge you're building up that people occasional grump about as metagaming, but no one seriously expects players to ignore. Everyone eventually internalizes that undead don't breath, that outsiders have various elemental resistances, that certain spell effects come online at various levels and so on.

You're very focused here on precision and strategy as measures of skilled gameplay. Making the right inputs at the right time, and having the right plan, but I'd say that skilled gameplay in TTRPGs is mostly tactical. The better videogame analogy is a strategy roguelike, something like Slay the Spire. You're ultimate knowledge is going to be less granular than it is in that game, where you'll eventually memorize every enemy's attack patterns and possible move sets and appearance rate, but the same general principle of building a core deck that has the tools to handle all of them and then navigating its expression round to round as each semi-random situation unfolds is similar.

The big difference is just that a TTRPG needs to be calibrated so that all content can be sight read, assuming a reasonable baseline knowledge of the game, because you're not going to get to try it again. That, and we offload the question of scaling the game to player skill entirely to the GM who's expected to get it right.

 

[mamba]

But pretty much every game that features...

• ...asymmetrical opposition, requires learning match ups
• ...maps, requires learning the layout

if you want to be perfect yes, but you can figure out great combos for your party without taking the enemy into account and they will work most of the time. You can figure out tactics and know which to use when without knowing the map in advance.

This gets you 90% of the way, the last 10% require cheating, but they also are not needed. If I had a feeling my players read the adventure in advance to get an advantage, I’d have a talk and if that does not help then either that player has to leave or I will change things sufficiently that things are different enough.

If you don't know what you'll face, you can build your character only in a vacuum, which removes any skill expression from character creation.

not sure how that removes anything, also if you have a rough idea (which you probably get over the course of the adventure) that is enough, you should not know that stat block

If you don't know what maps you'll face things on, you can't act with intentionality and map out routes.

so what, you can still act with intentionality in the situation. Do you think explorers know every minute detail in advance (these days maybe, but think back 200 years).

Do you think Marco Polo or Cortez had a map of the lands they would go to and knew what they would encounter? Improvisation is a large part of this

And the fact that you can't (or, at least, isn't supposed to know) whether an encounter was there from the start, or modified by the GM to specifically screw you over/let you win doesn't help either.

it makes no difference, realistically you would have no way of knowing and as far as I am concerned you should not know

You seem to treat this like a puzzle with an optimal solution and given all the information it just might be, but then it stops being a game to me and the actual game is arriving at your optimal solution before you even begin playing. You turn a game into the equivalent of a crossword puzzle, no thanks

 

[loverdrive]

I think you're translating a bit too literally from CRPGs here. You can still build up a body of knowledge about how to handle problems within the constraints of a system, even if unique problems aren't generally repeatable, and preparation for specific problems is also possible with adequate sign posting. There's absolutely procedures of play you can generalize and improve on over time.

I've played D&D quite a lot, and I cannot say that I'm really any better at it than someone who just recently figured out how the rules work. I ain't leaving them in the dust. And people who have way more experience than me don't either.

I have practically no experience with CRPGs, and those I've played (Fallout series, Shadowrun: Returns and Elder Scrolls series) aren't particularly good games, so... Maybe?

This gets you 90% of the way, the last 10% require cheating, but they also are not needed. If I had a feeling my players read the adventure in advance to get an advantage, I’d have a talk and if that does not help then either that player has to leave or I will change things sufficiently that things are different enough.

So you'll cheat just because someone dared to take steps to improve at the game. Gotcha.

not sure how that removes anything, also if you have a rough idea (which you probably get over the course of the adventure) that is enough, you should not know that stat block

You are not sure how having no way to plan removes planning skills?

Do you think explorers know every minute detail in advance (these days maybe, but think back 200 years).

I don't see how it's even remotely relevant.

it makes no difference, realistically you would have no way of knowing and as far as I am concerned you should not know

I shouldn't know whether I actually deserved to win/lose through my skill, or whether GM just decided to let me?

 

[mamba]

So you'll cheat just because someone dared to take steps to improve at the game. Gotcha.

that is very much the opposite of what I said, but yes, reading the adventure you are a player in to get the battlemaps and statblocks very much is cheating in my book

You are not sure how having no way to plan removes planning skills?

you can plan, you just cannot create a plan exactly to the situation you will find yourself in. If you go to explore an ancient tomb, you can prepare for that, but you cannot prepare for say encountering monster X in room 2 and trap Y in room 4, the way you would if you read the adventure.

It is really simple , you preparing for a test is you preparing. You reading the questions in advance is you cheating. Now translate this to D&D

Also, stop twisting my words, I say very much the opposite of what you pretend I did.

I don't see how it's even remotely relevant.

and that right there is the problem. You are not playing D&D, you are solving a puzzle

I shouldn't know whether I actually deserved to win/lose through my skill, or whether GM just decided to let me?

yes, you would have no way of knowing and it does not matter.

What happens when you are in a homebrew campaign rather than playing a published adventure? You can no longer cheat and you cannot answer this either…

 

[loverdrive]

you can plan, you just cannot create a plan exactly to the situation you will find yourself in. If you go to explore an ancient tomb, you can prepare for that, but you cannot prepare for say encountering monster X in room 2 and trap Y in room 4, the way you would if you read the adventure.

Look.

There's this cool game called ULTRAKILL. I've played it enough to know exactly when and where which enemies will spawn, so I can aim at enemies head before the bastard even spawned, shoot, turn around on a pure muscle memory to another enemy, switch to the shotgun and pump them full of pellets. This allows for a great skill expression, and a great player can absolutely clown on enemies where a poor player will keep seing GAME OVER screen over and over again.

If there was no layout to learn and things would change every time, the skill ceiling of the game would be much lower.

Players knowing in advance exactly what awaits them makes any game more interesting.

What happens when you are in a homebrew campaign rather than playing a published adventure? You can no longer cheat and yo cannot answer this either…

Well, if D&D was actually a good game and had, say, prescribed hard rules for building adventures, a point budget for monsters, etc, the answer would be very simple.

yes, you would have no way of knowing and it does not matter.

So, skill doesn't matter and doesn't influence the game in any tangible verifiable way. Thank you for making my point for me.

 

[mamba]

If there was no layout to learn and things would change every time, the skill ceiling of the game would be much lower.

or it would require different skills, like thinking / reacting on your feet. The game you describe needs memorization and reflexes, these are not the only two skills in existence

I like your example though because it is precisely what I consider the issue with your approach. You want a tightly scripted game with no room for improvisation, where you can plan out everything in advance and then just need to execute your plan, when D&D is a game of improvisation.
Ultrakill is pretty much the polar opposite of D&D and I find it telling that you chose it as an example.

To me you might just as well read the adventure at home and think about what you would do in any given situation. I don’t see why you need to actually play it at all

 

[Pedantic]

I've played D&D quite a lot, and I cannot say that I'm really any better at it than someone who just recently figured out how the rules work. I ain't leaving them in the dust. And people who have way more experience than me don't either.

I have practically no experience with CRPGs, and those I've played (Fallout series, Shadowrun: Returns and Elder Scrolls series) aren't particularly good games, so... Maybe?

Sorry, I was using that as shorthand for digital RPGs in general, and I was specifically thinking about action RPGs, which seem to be where you're drawing a lot of your view of skilled play from. That's my mistake, I should have been clearer.

Your examples are really doubling down on execution as the marker of skill though, which I just don't think is the only way to do it, nor one that's particularly well suited to TTRPGs. If that's the most important criteria, than yeah, I think they're intrinsically pretty bad at it. You can't really do time pressure, you can't do reaction speed, and TTRPGs almost never repeat precise scenarios, so you're not going to try out different lines of play repeatedly within identical conditions.

I do think there's a lot of ability to draw generally knowledge from repeated similar scenarios, however, and I think there's a lot of gameplay challenge joy in moving from a broad general knowledge base and some reasonable stock strategies to trying to optimize for a bunch of tactically specific scenarios.

 

[Clint_L]

@loverdrive, I find your criteria for what makes a game good or not good quite extreme in the context of a storytelling RPG. Surely what makes any story fun and interesting is the surprise, the not knowing in advance what will happen. So the rules for any such game have to allow for almost infinite variables, as the players will always be reacting to the unknown, whether it is a unique combination of opponents, and strange new environment, and unfortunate series of dice rolls, or anything/everything else, probably in combination.

So I am wondering how a storytelling RPG could work, from your perspective. Do you enjoy playing such games at all? They seem inherently antithetical to what you describe as good game design. What is an example of a good storytelling RPG, from your perspective, and what makes it good?

Edit: I am trying very hard to not come off as judgmental. I have a tendency to do that, and it seems likely that we have very different taste in games. Please take my questions in good faith: I am trying to wrap my head around a very different perspective from my own, but I am not asserting that my position is the correct one (or that there is a correct perspective when it comes to such qualitative matters).