D&D 5E As a Player, why do you play in games you haven't bought into?

[Raunalyn]

It can be difficult to find a good game that another DM wants to run.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

OCs? What's that?

"Original characters". Also called "fan characters" if they're made for fanworks of an existing IP. It's largely a late Millennial/early Gen Z fanfiction thing AFAIK. Can be targets of mockery if they're hypercompetent, overly edgy, or both.

The observation here is that the character creation rules of 5e are well-suited to making characters in this vein by giving options well-defined enough to provide guidance but still open-ended enough for creative interpretation. Also, I'd hazard a guess that a lot of 5e's target market comes from that 2000s/early 2010s fanfic culture. Hence players being as invested in their player characters as a fanfic writer would be in their OC. /r/dnd is filled with art of people's OCs/PCs.

 

[Lanefan]

"Original characters". Also called "fan characters" if they're made for fanworks of an existing IP. It's largely a late Millennial/early Gen Z fanfiction thing AFAIK. Can be targets of mockery if they're hypercompetent, overly edgy, or both.

Ah. Never heard the term - thanks for the explanation!

The observation here is that the character creation rules of 5e are well-suited to making characters in this vein by giving options well-defined enough to provide guidance but still open-ended enough for creative interpretation. Also, I'd hazard a guess that a lot of 5e's target market comes from that 2000s/early 2010s fanfic culture. Hence players being as invested in their player characters as a fanfic writer would be in their OC. /r/dnd is filled with art of people's OCs/PCs.

I didn't think 'fanfic culture' was that big of a market share.

Whatever the tweet is, I can't see it.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

Whatever the tweet is, I can't see it.

Uh, the text of the tweets reads as follows:

Theory: the primary activity of 5e isn't violence, it's making OCs. The game gives you lots of well defined options to customise your character (species, class, background, alignment, subclass etc etc) - so its actually pretty well suited to 'this is my cool character I made' as a mode of play. The fighting and adventuring and stuff is secondary to making characters; they're a chance to show off and explore the cool OC you made, rather than the point of the game.

 

[Oofta]

"Original characters". Also called "fan characters" if they're made for fanworks of an existing IP. It's largely a late Millennial/early Gen Z fanfiction thing AFAIK. Can be targets of mockery if they're hypercompetent, overly edgy, or both.

The observation here is that the character creation rules of 5e are well-suited to making characters in this vein by giving options well-defined enough to provide guidance but still open-ended enough for creative interpretation. Also, I'd hazard a guess that a lot of 5e's target market comes from that 2000s/early 2010s fanfic culture. Hence players being as invested in their player characters as a fanfic writer would be in their OC. /r/dnd is filled with art of people's OCs/PCs.

Coming up with a cool character concept has always been part of the game for me, even if a decent percentage of the time it start with a cool mini I just painted.

But there's a big difference between fanfic and a D&D game. Unless you're running a solo party, you have to mesh with other players and the DM's vision of the world. Or at least you do in my games. So, sorry your prima donna PC is just one member of a group and the campaign world doesn't revolve around the PC group. Kind of like how in real life we don't always get what we want.

That does require compromise of the player's vision sometimes. Doesn't mean they have to compromise on what they think or feel, just that they only control their PC not the world, or the world's reactions to the PC's actions.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I didn't think 'fanfic culture' was that big of a market share.

It's an enormous part of current pop culture. Check out r/dnd and related subreddits, dnd hashtags on twitter, instagram, and tumblr, etc. Most of it is about people's characters.
As for fanfic culture in general...dude it's huge. I can't even begin.

 

[Dire Bare]

Coming up with a cool character concept has always been part of the game for me, even if a decent percentage of the time it start with a cool mini I just painted.

But there's a big difference between fanfic and a D&D game. Unless you're running a solo party, you have to mesh with other players and the DM's vision of the world. Or at least you do in my games. So, sorry your prima donna PC is just one member of a group and the campaign world doesn't revolve around the PC group. Kind of like how in real life we don't always get what we want.

That does require compromise of the player's vision sometimes. Doesn't mean they have to compromise on what they think or feel, just that they only control their PC not the world, or the world's reactions to the PC's actions.

Agreed, being heavily invested in your character has been the "norm" for D&D for a long time. Perhaps not in the very first Gygaxian dungeons, where player characters dropped faster than flies . . .

D&D is collaborative fanfic. Each player is (likely) invested in their character, and hopefully the group is collectively invested in the story.

Pop culture is just catching up with US! Not that fanfic is anything new itself.

 

[matskralc]

I can't reconcile this sort of idea with being able to play or run any kind of mystery, as if everyone has some narrative control there's nothing stopping someone from just adding in the solution and thus negating the whole point of the mystery.

Not everybody plays RPGs to win.

 

[MGibster]

Agreed, being heavily invested in your character has been the "norm" for D&D for a long time. Perhaps not in the very first Gygaxian dungeons, where player characters dropped faster than flies . . .

Blackleaf! Noooooooo!

 

[Don Durito]

Why is democratizing fictional authority a bad thing? Why does giving narrative control to the players make a game "not a role-playing game"? Fiasco and Dream Askew lack GMs entirely, instead being a collaborative effort; are they not "role-playing games"? Band of Blades has a GM, but puts the troupe management mechanics and parts of the history of the world and the legion in the players' hands, does that tip it over the line? Seems like an overly restrictive definition.

I said in 'the traditional sense of the word'. I'm not interested in debating semantics, it's mind-numbingly turgid. They're different enough that the first two don't interest me at all, and I very much doubt the last would either (Blades in the Dark fell pretty flat).

A consequence of D&D's game culture, hence why I think the push towards vesting certain parts of the narrative in player hands is ultimately a good thing. At the very least, it makes them more responsible.

It;s a thing. Not a good thing, not a bad thing. Just a thing. I have a group full of GMs as players. When I tried offering some degree of narrative control they really weren't interested. Why? Because they want to play. This sort of thing has niche appeal and there's no reason to think that's about to change any time soon.