D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[CellarHeroes]

In my experience most people are reluctant to deviate from the rules written in the book, even if these rules go against their preferences. I complained about Exalted, and after one campaign with the second edition rules I basically rewrote all the powers and bunch of other stuff to be more of my liking. I have quite a bit of houserules for my D&D game. But most people don't do this. There are a ton of threads on this forum where people complain about some aspect of the game, but they still refuse to implement houserules or even official optional rules that would fix or alleviate the issue. They want the official rules to be changed to their liking. So yes, official rules is what most people will use, and if the discomfort gets too high, like with 4e, they just abandon the whole game rather than change the game.

Some of my other hobbies include sports, board games, and card games. All of these have rules. I like rules, they're what make a game. What makes Spades different from Hearts? A couple of rule changes.

Since there are SOOOOO many different RPG systems out there, I pick the rule systems I like instead of fixing a system just because it's popular. If I choose to run 5e, I can pick and choose what sourcebooks I want to allow based on the rules added or changed that I don't agree with.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So people, who would abandon free form play if given the choice, must never be allowed to have that choice? The only way we can have free form play is if we force everyone to play a single way?

Again I think a modular optional approach is the best one here. You set the default at the most basic version of the game, and you have multiple optional rules that can be used. I point again to NWPs because those were fully optional, plenty of people didn't use them, it didn't hurt if you used them but joined a group that didn't use them, but on the whole most people I knew used them (there were however a lot of GMs and players who were adamant at the time that skills of any kind had no place in D&D). And NWPs weren't even the only skill system offered in the game. Both weapon proficiencies and non-weapon proficiencies were optional (the entire chapter is optional). In addition to NWPs, there was the option for secondary skills.

And NWPs were not some minor afterthought. They covered a lot of areas of play and became something that got expanded in many of the supplementary books. Here is the list of the core NWPs in the revised version of the PHB (note I usually played using the first version of the 2E PHB not this one):

One thing this doesn't do is get too deep into social interaction because they were taking pains not to have anything interfere with RP. But you can easily imagine a layered social combat system presented in an optional chapter or a separate "Complete" book. But even so, there are lots of things on this list that can come up as part of social interaction

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Questions to people who want more involved social mechanics. What do you actually mean by this? Have you used the rules from DMG? Why are these not sufficient? What are the aspects you wish more rules support on? How do you envision your ideal social mechanics working, and how do they integrate with roleplay?

 

[Minigiant]

That arcane magic has lost its drawbacks over the editions is IMO a huge failure of design leading directly to this century's constant howls that wizards are too powerful. I long ago made Druids into Nature Clerics (they were a subclass of Cleric anyway, in 1e) and with that came the Cleric drawbacks along with the benefit of being able to be any alignment.

I blame, once again, lack of new classes and new spells for no wizards that could have spells that arcanists lack.

Psions would have finer telepathy and telekinesis.

Oracles would have finer divination and outsider summons.

Shadowmancers would be have better shadow based conjurations, illusions, and necromancy.

Gish/swordmages would have finer turned artificial weapon and armor buff

 

[Oofta]

Adventurers league? Did that ever became a thing? I was just looking at their site and i could only find one game in whole Milano Metro area, zero in Vienna or Munich ( cities where i live and where i lived). Or their online locator doesn't really work. PF Society usually fares better, but last time i went to PFS game, most of people there also know each other and play or played in each others home games.

On topic, convention games and PFS/AL are special cases. But i think that those are more popular in US than in European countries. Even LGS games are not that common here from my personal experience.

I just signed up for a gaming convention and will likely be playing with people I've never met. I've done AL quite a bit in the past, even if it doesn't really fit into my current schedule. In the US one of the better ways to find a group is Meetup.org, and AL is quite active. No idea about your area.

 

[Oofta]

For some reason, rules treat social conflict and physical conflict very differently. Let's be honest, most of the rules in phb are there for resolving physical conflicts (aka combat). If NPC wants to, he can attack PC with fists, weapons or spells all day long. But if he wants to "attack" him socially, then it's ether magic or try to role play. FE NPC can try to grapple pc. But it cant verbally grapple. It just doesn't make sense. ( From broader perspective, yes, i know, player agency, i get it ).

People understand taking physical damage, everyone has stubbed a toe or similar. On the other hand people like to believe they are in control of their own thoughts, beliefs and emotions. So telling a person what they think or believe goes against that core understanding of self. It's totally logical that people don't want their PC's sense of self altered by someone else barring magic because D&D assumes that to at least some extent that you become and control who the character is that you're playing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Right. The idea is that since the player only has his one character, he's 1) more invested in the character and what it does, and 2) has far more limited options than the DM. The DM controls everything else and isn't as invested in the NPCs, because they are essentially environment.

I think what @Lanefan is overlooking is that the way it currently works is what he says should happen. He says that what the works on the NPCs should work on the PCs. It does. The PCs can influence the NPCs via roleplay and ability checks to do things, and the NPCs can get the PCs to do the same exact things. It's only the methods that are different. One one hand there are mechanics, and on the other hand the player gets to decide based on his roleplay and knowledge of his character. Both sides are still capable achieving the same results.

The player also gets to decide based on what they think is the most successful course to accomplish their goals, regardless of what makes the most sense for their PC to do in the situation. The DM is constrained by what the player rolled; the player can react however they like regardless of DM action. And again, as @CreamCloud0 has been saying, the PC is only mechanically compeled to react in a combat situation or if a spell is cast upon them; the social stuff is always freeform when directed at PCs, and they can choose to ignore anything they don't like for any reason (most likely self-interest IME) or for no reason at all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Random spell selection? Constantly losing spells? Having a literal "(s)he sees you when you're sleeping, (s)he knows if you're awake, (s)he knows if you've been bad or good" setup?

Yeah, I would say these things are pretty clearly annoyances implemented because the tools they impede access to are overpowered. That's the whole point of the old school spellcaster design; make it so effective play is only achievable by gritting your teeth and enduring the stuff actively preventing you from playing your class.

So you personally find those things annoying and have a personal theory as to why they exist in some games. Fine. I have my own preferences and feelings about aspects of the games you prefer. But it is absolutely no more than your personal opinion and speculation.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is not about my preferences. They can add all sort of things, they can change how the game works. But history has shown, that what happens if people don't like those changes or the new mechanics enough, is that they just abandon the game, not that they keep playing and change the bits they don't like. So in that regard it makes sense for WotC to try to keep the game in such condition that it appeals to majority of players, instead of adding things that cater to small groups of disgruntled players.

I don't think that there is any indication that more extensive social mechanics is something a lot of people feel is needed, so there is no need for WotC to include such and risk alienating the people who think the game is fine as it is.

And adding social mechanics as an optional subsystem would risk alienating their player base? Really? The game is so fragile that including such as an option is too dangerous to the current official game's so very lauded popularity?

I do not believe it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And adding social mechanics as an optional subsystem would risk alienating their player base? Really? The game is so fragile that including such as an option is too dangerous to the current official game's so very lauded popularity?

I do not believe it.

I don’t think an optional subsystem would. I do think a core default system would because that would make it the official way of playing. But optional rules that are truly modular have not historically presented big issues