What direction will D&D head in?

[rounser]

I think you need to watch better action movies.

I think your argument would be better served if we were talking about the Feng Shui RPG.

That's what a good DM is for, to make sure the railroad that gives meaning and significance to what would otherwise be random acts of violence stays intact.

Sure. Blame the DM. It's the DM's fault that the rules don't make enough sense to suspend disbelief for purposes of believing in D&D's fantasy world.

 

[hong]

I think your argument would be better served if we were talking about the Feng Shui RPG.

Pish tosh. A good gamer can perpetrate violence in any ruleset.

Sure. Blame the DM. It's the DM's fault that the rules don't make enough sense to suspend disbelief for purposes of believing in D&D's fantasy world.

I don't understand what you mean.

 

[rounser]

Pish tosh. A good gamer can perpetrate violence in any ruleset.

And if that were all D&D players wanted from the game, we'd be better served by something like Soul Calibur or Tekken.

I don't understand what you mean.

We were talking about this:

Honestly, at least the "rules which are meant to reflect the physical reality of the game world can hamper roleplaying" bit, I'd like to see that argued out. Perhaps my brain just doesn't work well, but I honestly can't see how that works.

...and you've switched gears to talking about the DM, not the rules.

Yes...technically a good DM can make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, but it's still a pig's ear of a ruleset.

Good DMs are also very thin on the ground, so you can't rely on them to make up for rules that rely on handwaving suspension of disbelief all the time.

In other words, you haven't successfully supported your premise with that line of argument, either.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

A system that makes perfect sense doesn't necessarily create an enjoyable gameplay experience.

The real world is totally realistic, but there are a lot of people not happy with the experience it provides them, or would at least have difference experiences from time to time. Hence we play, read books, and watch movies.

They all provide us with experiences different from our normal ones.
This means that neither has to match our experience and our understanding based on that experience. We take joy and seeing something new.

A game system should be judged by the gameplay experience it provides. There is no need for it to map everything to real world concepts if it manages to provide an interesting and enjoyable experience, in short, it should be fun playing it.

So, is it fun?

 

[xechnao]

So, is it fun?

What will people say if I say that yes, it is fan but not (as) a roleplaying game?

 

[hong]

And if that were all D&D players wanted from the game, we'd be better served by something like Soul Calibur or Tekken.

Nonsense. If I wanted to play a competitive game, I'd play a board game.

We were talking about this:

No, you were talking about this:

And there are a lot of idiosyncracies and handwaving that a movie or MMORPG or novel can get away with and D&D can't, and vice versa, because they are totally different media!​

Yes...technically a good DM can make a silk purse out of a pig's ear, but it's still a pig's ear of a ruleset.

Nobody was talking about a ruleset.

Good DMs are also very thin on the ground, so you can't rely on them to make up for rules that rely on handwaving suspension of disbelief all the time.

There is no need to handwave suspension of disbelief, because all you have to do is say that you are simulating an action movie like WoW.

In other words, you haven't successfully supported your premise with that line of argument, either.

Argument?

 

[hong]

What will people say if I say that yes, it is fan but not (as) a roleplaying game?

I will say that in MY day, generic food metaphors used peanut butter and ice cream, and we LIKED it.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

What will people say if I say that yes, it is fan but not (as) a roleplaying game?

Just answer the question.

The qualifier is a nice way to say "yes, but I have higher ideals of role-playing" which I find ridiculous and sometimes borderline insulting - If it could be insulting to imply that someone else is enjoying a game that just pretends to be a role-playing game. Am I now just pretending to pretend to be a Elf Dragonborn Warlord now, or what?

Think about these things:
- How can I get to a situation where I need to use the Diplomacy skill just using the game rules, and never role-playing? Heck, how do you even get into a fight with Goblins without role-playing? How is the answer different from any "accepted" role-playing game?
- What if I gave you a rule system for character virtues aka the Exalted system? Would these rule turn 4E into a role-playing game?

 

[xechnao]

Just answer the question.

The qualifier is a nice way to say "yes, but I have higher ideals of role-playing" which I find ridiculous and sometimes borderline insulting - If it could be insulting to imply that someone else is enjoying a game that just pretends to be a role-playing game.

This is not so consistent with your message above. Your argument was that what is most important is to have "fun" and fun can be found in many mediums such as playing, read books, and watch movies. So I am saying that I have fun with 4e as a boardgame gameplay experience but not as a roleplaying game. You should have no problem with this or think is ridiculous or insulting if you believe what you wrote above first place.

 

[rounser]

A system that makes perfect sense doesn't necessarily create an enjoyable gameplay experience.

And a system that is fun in an abstract sense doesn't necessarily create a fun or believable immersive experience.

Storytelling is fun. Creating worlds is fun. Creating heroic sagas is fun. Creating villains is fun. These are all types of fun that D&D needs to support, and hinge on the ability of the ruleset to represent a believable fantasy world and reality, without handwaving to the point that suspension of disbelief fails.

It's not about arguing for one or the other, but rather that the balance has swung too far towards one extreme. Too much flavour and believability has been sacrificed on the altar of convenient game design of crunch, when much more of a compromise between the two should have been shot for.

If the rules can't suspend disbelief for D&D's world, there is patently little point in playing D&D. Without that immersiveness, you'd be better off with something like M:tG, and get a concentrated hit of that type of fun. D&D shouldn't be forced into that niche, because when it stops representing a believable fantasy world, a large chunk of the point in playing it simply evaporates.

(Oh, and IMO M:tG doesn't represent a believable fantasy world. The novels prove that - it just draws on fantasy concepts for flavour, and the conceit of a setting in the abstract which doesn't really map to what happens during a game of M:tG....except if you were veeery generous.)

Now, some folks here have cast-iron suspension of disbelief, and for them this will pose no problem. Not everyone's like that, though, and I think D&D can do much better in this department, which is supposed to be one of it's fortes.