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Does/Should D&D Have the Player's Game Experience as a goal?
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<blockquote data-quote="overgeeked" data-source="post: 9235920" data-attributes="member: 86653"><p>Well, yeah. The rules of the game literally define the game experience. The game <em>is</em> the rules. The rules shape and direct play. They cannot be disconnected. The only difference between hockey and baseball is the rules. The rules of the game literally define what the game is and what the game is about. Tabletop RPGs get weird because the referee can decide which rules to use, which areas to focus on, which rules to exclude, etc. This is also why it's so hard to discuss RPGs. Everyone's coming at the conversation from their own preferences and prejudices instead of starting from the book itself, from the rules themselves.</p><p></p><p>So if you have ~1500 pages of rules almost entirely focused on the fighting and killing of monsters, guess what...you've got a monster-fighting game on your hands. That game having ~20 pages on social interactions doesn't make it all about social interactions. That same game having ~20 pages about exploration doesn't make it all about exploration. It's still a monster fighting game with some social interaction and exploration tacked on.</p><p></p><p>Note how they're not mutually exclusive propositions. You can have a monster-fighting game like D&D that also has some spare tools in the toolbox. You can have a monster-fighting game like D&D that is also a cooperative story-telling game. The stories you tell using that game will naturally gravitate towards monster fighting because that's what the rules are focused on, but the rules are not limited to that.</p><p></p><p>Yep. Different games have different rules which produce different kinds of play. Again, the defining feature of game rules is creating different play experiences based on the rules. Even games that are otherwise very close in rules. Old-School Essentials plays very differently and produces very different sessions than Dungeon Crawl Classics. Both of which produce different experiences than D&D 5E. Etc.</p><p></p><p>Yep. That's where most of my house rules are focused. If I think this official rule is boring or makes for boring play, I remove it. If I think this house rule would make for more interesting play, I add it. Same reason I homebrew monsters and magic items. The players being able to draw on their encyclopedic knowledge of the game and/or simply Googling the stats of a monster or a magic item makes for boring play. So I do what I need to in order to prevent that from happening.</p><p></p><p>It might, in an ideal world, cut down on a few arguments about what the game is about...but it probably wouldn't. Focused games that do a few things really well work infinitely better than games that try to do everything with heaps of specific rules. Generic systems work better if, and only if, they have looser, more abstract rules. General conflict resolution rules instead of specific combat rules, specific grappling rules, specific negotiation rules, etc.</p><p></p><p>I always try to talk about what I'm going for in tone, feel, and playstyle when first discussing the possibility of running a game. Pre-session zero. I put as much as I can into the pitch for the game so players can decide if they want to play up front. If they're in, then we do your normal session zero stuff. It works better that way, for me. I've tried it the other way round and been burned too many times.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="overgeeked, post: 9235920, member: 86653"] Well, yeah. The rules of the game literally define the game experience. The game [I]is[/I] the rules. The rules shape and direct play. They cannot be disconnected. The only difference between hockey and baseball is the rules. The rules of the game literally define what the game is and what the game is about. Tabletop RPGs get weird because the referee can decide which rules to use, which areas to focus on, which rules to exclude, etc. This is also why it's so hard to discuss RPGs. Everyone's coming at the conversation from their own preferences and prejudices instead of starting from the book itself, from the rules themselves. So if you have ~1500 pages of rules almost entirely focused on the fighting and killing of monsters, guess what...you've got a monster-fighting game on your hands. That game having ~20 pages on social interactions doesn't make it all about social interactions. That same game having ~20 pages about exploration doesn't make it all about exploration. It's still a monster fighting game with some social interaction and exploration tacked on. Note how they're not mutually exclusive propositions. You can have a monster-fighting game like D&D that also has some spare tools in the toolbox. You can have a monster-fighting game like D&D that is also a cooperative story-telling game. The stories you tell using that game will naturally gravitate towards monster fighting because that's what the rules are focused on, but the rules are not limited to that. Yep. Different games have different rules which produce different kinds of play. Again, the defining feature of game rules is creating different play experiences based on the rules. Even games that are otherwise very close in rules. Old-School Essentials plays very differently and produces very different sessions than Dungeon Crawl Classics. Both of which produce different experiences than D&D 5E. Etc. Yep. That's where most of my house rules are focused. If I think this official rule is boring or makes for boring play, I remove it. If I think this house rule would make for more interesting play, I add it. Same reason I homebrew monsters and magic items. The players being able to draw on their encyclopedic knowledge of the game and/or simply Googling the stats of a monster or a magic item makes for boring play. So I do what I need to in order to prevent that from happening. It might, in an ideal world, cut down on a few arguments about what the game is about...but it probably wouldn't. Focused games that do a few things really well work infinitely better than games that try to do everything with heaps of specific rules. Generic systems work better if, and only if, they have looser, more abstract rules. General conflict resolution rules instead of specific combat rules, specific grappling rules, specific negotiation rules, etc. I always try to talk about what I'm going for in tone, feel, and playstyle when first discussing the possibility of running a game. Pre-session zero. I put as much as I can into the pitch for the game so players can decide if they want to play up front. If they're in, then we do your normal session zero stuff. It works better that way, for me. I've tried it the other way round and been burned too many times. [/QUOTE]
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