The whimsical element of D&D vs AD&D

[Lanefan]

A simple litmus test:

Are people laughing?

If yes, that usually indicates they're having fun.

If no, it becomes harder to tell.

Me, I look for players who can make me laugh. I then try to return the favour. I also prefer a game system where the whimsical is encouraged over a system that takes itself overly seriously.

Lan-"keep on laughing"-efan

 

[ExploderWizard]

Or, could it be that back in the day, we were twelve years old and pretty much didn't care about most of this stuff?

Or, perhaps, after twenty or thirty years of gaming, some of us have developed the ability to judge our own tastes and aren't willing to waste time on things we don't enjoy?

Or, perhaps even back in the day, some groups did play more serious games, with lots of drama and the like? After all, Dragonlance is certainly "back in the day" and, besides possibly Kender and gnomes, lack a considerable amount of whimsy.

There's a whole host of reasons why people don't want anagrams and silly names at their table. Simply dismissing them as intollerant is pretty harsh.

It could also be argued that in theory, a 12 year old is more self indulgent and less mature than an adult (hopefully) so it follows that if we could get along with each other and understand the nature of give and take back then, it shouldn't even be an issue for adults.

Tabletop gaming is first and foremost a social activity. It is something we share with other people in order to have a good time. Getting along with the others in the group socially is vital to making the game work.

Simply put, the other people in the group are ultimately more important than the game, system, campaign, adventure, or whatever. If that isn't the case then you are starting out with problems already. How many threads do see around here about problem players or DM's? The overwhelming concensus to fixing these problems is to deal with them head on and talk with the person causing the issue. The game won't survive long if the people problem isn't resolved.

Most gaming groups get together to have fun and even when playing serious horror campaigns the occasional funny will crop up. So what? A game so tightly wired to a particular mood that it cannot survive a joke or two will never survive contact with human beings period.

 

[Raven Crowking]

That cuts to the very heart of the difference in assumption between Gygaxian AD&D and WOTC's take on D&D. One is kid gloves, the other more "damn the torpedoes". Which one is going to lead to the most fun being had by all? Now there's the motherlode of the debate. WOTC would have you believe that fairer is always better, as if we were playing Monopoly. I'd suggest it's nowhere near that clear-cut and simple, that such an approach cleaves away a lot of what made D&D fun and so very special in the first place, and that so few notice what has been lost is part of what we're discussing here.

Wish I could XP you again for this. This is a nice description of the difference.

I'd also add that under Gygaxian AD&D, somehow everyone ended up dressed up in a christmas tree of magic items anyway, despite drow treasure losses.

Speak for yourself! Not every game was like this.


RC

 

[Hussar]

EW - I'm reacting to the idea that if someone has a strong preference for a particular type of game, he's suddenly labeled as "intolerant". That's pretty harsh, IMO.

In my mind, play the games you enjoy. Sometimes I like lots of whimsy, sometimes I like a little. And, you're right, if cracking a single joke during play destroys the session, someone REALLY needs to loosen up.

But, OTOH, if the DM is working to set up a mood, and putting a fair bit of effort into it, perhaps backing off on the one liners might help as well. After all, as you say, the game is a group effort.

Bottom line, I agree with your last post a lot more than the one where you characterize anyone who prefers a certain kind of game as being intolerant and overly sensitive.

 

[Barastrondo]

A simple litmus test:

Are people laughing?

If yes, that usually indicates they're having fun.

If no, it becomes harder to tell.

Me, I look for players who can make me laugh. I then try to return the favour.

Yep. Whimsy has everything to do with the people you play with.

I also prefer a game system where the whimsical is encouraged over a system that takes itself overly seriously.

This is less important to me, because a rules system has a tendency to repeat itself. A funny result on a table will recur eventually, and there won't be any variation on the mechanics. Players, on the other hand, will evolve their humor. They'll do new spins on running gags, sure, but they will also come up with new things every session. Players can read a room or a situation in ways that dice can't.

 

[ExploderWizard]

EW - I'm reacting to the idea that if someone has a strong preference for a particular type of game, he's suddenly labeled as "intolerant". That's pretty harsh, IMO.

In my mind, play the games you enjoy. Sometimes I like lots of whimsy, sometimes I like a little. And, you're right, if cracking a single joke during play destroys the session, someone REALLY needs to loosen up.

But, OTOH, if the DM is working to set up a mood, and putting a fair bit of effort into it, perhaps backing off on the one liners might help as well. After all, as you say, the game is a group effort.

Bottom line, I agree with your last post a lot more than the one where you characterize anyone who prefers a certain kind of game as being intolerant and overly sensitive.

Everyone will have their own preferences of course. Preferring one style of play or one system more than others is not intolerant in and of itself. It is the refusal to accept that the desires of others may not match yours 100% of the time that causes problems.

 

[rounser]

This is less important to me, because a rules system has a tendency to repeat itself. A funny result on a table will recur eventually, and there won't be any variation on the mechanics. Players, on the other hand, will evolve their humor. They'll do new spins on running gags, sure, but they will also come up with new things every session.

I think that this bit of design home truism (leave it all to the players) is very, very questionable indeed.

For starters, I don't think this matters as much as you make out here. You can trip over your scabbard in totally different contexts, use an item in totally different ways, and if you don't build it into the system you're guaranteed it's going to come up in play a lot less. And you can always add more tables (e.g. Wand of Wonder including Dragon magazines has about 6, I think), or solve the problem the Hackmaster way, which is to use d10000 rolls. (It's worth playing at least once purely to be able to roll d10000s for that matter.)

Certain sets of game rules naturally lead to certain types of play, which is why Diplomacy differs from Risk in terms of player attitude. Arguing that players could be as conniving in Risk as they are in Diplomacy if they choose to be is a bit of a cop-out, because Diplomacy is always going to be less random than Risk, and therefore involve less "aw, what bad die rolls" moments. Diplomacy is also more likely to be going to lead to relationship harm than Risk, because in Risk you can always blame misfortune related to dice as being the reason why you're having to backstab someone. In Diplomacy, there's nothing random, it's just plain old betrayal.

Players view the game through the filter of the rules and the world, and if you don't aid them in a certain direction then they'll tend towards what those rules suggest by default. One complaint about 4E's rules is that players begin to interpret the game world in terms of their powers. That happens in less serious games too, where the rules actually support whimsy, and generates results in terms of gameplay accordingly.

Players can read a room or a situation in ways that dice can't.

They're also inspired by random results, and whimsical rules elements, and can build on that colour. If there's no colour to begin with you've given them no tools to do their thing, so they'll tend towards the dominant themes of the game which you do bother to support with the rules. If the Spear +2 Backbiter didn't exist, we wouldn't be imagining amusing uses for it.

 

[chaochou]

I was looking at the original MM not so long ago and was loving the illustrations. The Otyugh. That picture always made me laugh as a kid. I swear if I had a character now which ran into an Otyugh I wouldn't have the heart to kill it - the lovable, grinning, tripedal lummox.

Those illustrations, the cartoons in the DMG, are as much a part of my childhood as the Ernest Shepherd illustrations in Winnie-the-Pooh. Or Star Wars wallpaper. The game is old enough now to exert a powerful nostalgia.

But still, do I want to play White Plume Mountain, with its magic waterslides in the air and crazy inverted ziggurat, glass wall, fish tank rooms full of monsters? Not much. Maybe for old time's sake, for the nostalgia, but it wouldn't be the same. The whimsy has faded for me, but I don't think I can get it back any more than I can get the early 80s back.

 

[Hussar]

Certain sets of game rules naturally lead to certain types of play, which is why Diplomacy differs from Risk in terms of player attitude. Arguing that players could be as conniving in Risk as they are in Diplomacy if they choose to be is a bit of a cop-out, because Diplomacy is always going to be less random than Risk, and therefore involve less "aw, what bad die rolls" moments. Diplomacy is also more likely to be going to lead to relationship harm than Risk, because in Risk you can always blame misfortune related to dice as being the reason why you're having to backstab someone. In Diplomacy, there's nothing random, it's just plain old betrayal.

But, Rounser, would you argue that Risk is a better game than Diplomacy? Or just different games catering to different tastes.

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On another note, something that I like to use to add a bit of whimsy to games is I typically have one player who likes to have some sort of item or ability that lets him pull random stuff out of his pocket/hat/thin air. So, I use this fantastic little table that I stumbled across years ago. Great stuff.

 

[jonesy]

You could always play Risk and Diplomacy at the same time:
Risk + Diplomacy = Stratocracy | BoardGameGeek