Glyfair
Explorer
I was contemplating recently the experience system in D&D and what it rewards you for while reading comments about D&D being about "killing things and taking their stuff."
I was thinkiing that you can look at a game and see what it is "about" by looking at what it rewards you for. Even if the developers had a different plan, if they reward you for something you'll see an emphasis on that in gameplay.
Now, D&D is complex. At the heart, it rewards you for overcoming adversaries, traps and other challenges. Of the three, overcoming adversaries is the most straightforward when it involves combat. So, it should be no suprise that most D&D games have a focus on combat. That doesn't necessarily mean they all revolve around combat, but they have a strong focus.
D&D, does however, attempt to be the flexible game system by recommending you tweak the experience system by rewarding it for other things. So, D&D games certainly allow groups to vary from the norm and you see a lot of variations between D&D games of those willing to tweak their games.
Runequest, on the other hand, rewarded you for using your abilities. If you succeeded with an ability during an adventure during a stressful moment, you had a chance to increase that skill. So, you saw a lot of players trying to be as versatile as possible. Fighters, for example, would hit with their sword and then use their mace for the next combat. You also were able to train those skills, so you saw a lot of focus on training (and earning the money to train, or favors that gave you free training).
The Dying Earth RPG rewards you for inserting certain phrases (drawn from Jack Vance's books) into your roleplaying in the most appropriate and fun way. Thus games tend to focus on a lot of conversation and interactions to gain the most opportunity to use that phrase.
Just because a system doesn't directly reward a certain behavior doesn't mean it won't be emphasised. For example, most roleplaying campaigns reward roleplaying with in character benefits. If you make friends with the royal guard, you may be able to get troops to help you assault an enemies lair. So, you'll see roleplaying in most games, but won't necessarily see a strong emphasis on it overall in certain games. It depends on a groups overall preferences.
Do you think this holds true across most RPGs? Have you noticed a tendancy for campaigns to focus on the things that the RPG system rewards? (Not just one campaign, but over several campaigns and several groups)
I was thinkiing that you can look at a game and see what it is "about" by looking at what it rewards you for. Even if the developers had a different plan, if they reward you for something you'll see an emphasis on that in gameplay.
Now, D&D is complex. At the heart, it rewards you for overcoming adversaries, traps and other challenges. Of the three, overcoming adversaries is the most straightforward when it involves combat. So, it should be no suprise that most D&D games have a focus on combat. That doesn't necessarily mean they all revolve around combat, but they have a strong focus.
D&D, does however, attempt to be the flexible game system by recommending you tweak the experience system by rewarding it for other things. So, D&D games certainly allow groups to vary from the norm and you see a lot of variations between D&D games of those willing to tweak their games.
Runequest, on the other hand, rewarded you for using your abilities. If you succeeded with an ability during an adventure during a stressful moment, you had a chance to increase that skill. So, you saw a lot of players trying to be as versatile as possible. Fighters, for example, would hit with their sword and then use their mace for the next combat. You also were able to train those skills, so you saw a lot of focus on training (and earning the money to train, or favors that gave you free training).
The Dying Earth RPG rewards you for inserting certain phrases (drawn from Jack Vance's books) into your roleplaying in the most appropriate and fun way. Thus games tend to focus on a lot of conversation and interactions to gain the most opportunity to use that phrase.
Just because a system doesn't directly reward a certain behavior doesn't mean it won't be emphasised. For example, most roleplaying campaigns reward roleplaying with in character benefits. If you make friends with the royal guard, you may be able to get troops to help you assault an enemies lair. So, you'll see roleplaying in most games, but won't necessarily see a strong emphasis on it overall in certain games. It depends on a groups overall preferences.
Do you think this holds true across most RPGs? Have you noticed a tendancy for campaigns to focus on the things that the RPG system rewards? (Not just one campaign, but over several campaigns and several groups)
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