D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[Charlaquin]

I don't think "good game design" correlates 100% with "fun." I certainly have encountered games I thought were well-designed that I didn't think were fun.

Agreed! I think this is often a problem in D&D, that people get too caught up on whether or not certain rules or other design elements are individually fun, and lose sight of whether they are fit-to-purpose for their role in creating an overall experience that is enjoyable. Lots of games that I love playing have elements that are not fun in a vacuum, but that the game experience as a whole would be the worse for lacking.

 

[Ondath]

It don't think I have witnessed accusations of "pretention" since the 90s when AD&D players balked at WoD players.

The mods needed to intervene on such a post just one page ago.

 

[Imaro]

I'm aware of only a tiny fraction of RPGs that exist, and I'm familiar with the rulesets of far fewer; as such I'm not personally aware of a non-D&D RPG whose design has deliberately set out to support multiple player constituencies. At the same time, the very fact of my unfamiliarity with the majority of RPGs means I would not assert, or accept as fact an assertion, that no such game exists.

Didn't say you should but it'd be nice if even one example could be pointed to as an example.

That being said, we can clearly point to past editions of D&D for examples. For instance:

• Tome of Battle was clearly a "module" that was robustly designed within the parameters of the 3.X engine to provide an alternate experience of martial combat for a player constituency that WotC (a) realised was underserved by the core options in the PHB and (b) decided to support.
• The Epic Level Handbook (especially when taken together with Deities & Demigods) is clearly a "module" designed to support a player constituency that wanted amazingly gonzo mythic gameplay.
• 3.X psionics is clearly a "module".
• Supplements that introduced new ways of using magic, such as Incarnum (however badly it was designed) are clearly "modules", insofar as they were intended to appeal to player constituencies interested in alternatives to 3.X's classic Vancian spellcasting.
• Looking at them with "game" in mind, the myriad game settings of 2e are clearly "modules" that are intended to support different ways of playing the game that might appeal to different player constituencies, especially since they actually came with (often rather significant) alterations to the core ruleset; I'm also comfortable asserting that by the standards of D&D design at the time, these were "robust".
• The Basic/BX/BECMI lines versus AD&D 1e, although presented as separate product lines, are "modules" of D&D intended to appeal to different player constituencies.

But these don't change the fundamental way the game is played...

How is the playstyle of using Tome of battle different from the playstyle of regular 3rd edition? It offers a different type of martial class but that's no different than having the spellcasting differences of a warlock vs. a wizard.

Epic Level Handbook... Not too familiar with this so I'll ask... how does the fundamental playstyle change when using this book.

Psionics/Incarnum/etc. Again add player options but don't change the playstyle of the game.

Same with the campaign settings mentioned... the playstyle isn't really changed... Maybe we are talking about two different things here.

 

[Malmuria]

It's ok for there to be different types of games, and not all of those games have to put mechanics first. John Harper said it well (Blades in the Dark, p. 161) (And, without getting into it, I think this approach can be applied to the way someone might run a traditional game like dnd):

FICTION-FIRST GAMING
Fiction-first is a bit of jargon to describe the process of playing a roleplaying game, as opposed to other sorts of games you might be used to.
In a standard board game, for example, when you take your turn, you choose a move from one of the mechanics of the game, and then use that game system to resolve what happens. You might say, “I’m going to pay two stone to build a second fort on my home tile.” We could call this process “mechanics-first.” What you do on your turn is pick a mechanic to engage, then resolve that mechanic. Your choices are constrained by the mechanics of the game. You might color it in with some fictional trappings, like, “The brave citizens of Baronia heed the call to war and build a stout fort!” but the fiction is secondary; it’s flavor added on. In other words, the fiction is brought in after the mechanics, to describe what happened.

In a roleplaying game, it’s different. When it’s your turn, you say what your character does within the ongoing fictional narrative. You don’t pick a mechanic first, you say something about the fiction first. Your choices in a roleplaying game aren’t immediately constrained by the mechanics, they’re constrained by the established fictional situation. In other words, the mechanics are brought in after the fictional action has determined which mechanics we need to use.

For example, in Blades in the Dark, there are several different mechanics that might be used if a character tries to pick the lock on a safe. It’s essentially meaningless to play mechanics-first. “I pick a lock” isn’t a mechanical choice in the game. To understand which mechanic to use, we have to first establish the fiction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think immersion is necessary or even particularly desirable all the time. You can still have the "anything can be attempted" ethos without having to inhabit the world or your character. It can still be a game and be "limitless."

Immersion is always desirable in any game I play or run.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would tentatively nominate GURPS here, along with Amazing Engine.

Savage Worlds too.

 

[overgeeked]

Because it's more than just a game. People generally don't object to the gamist nature of boardgames or videogames, because they are simply games.

I honestly think that exact attitude is part of the problem. It's not somehow mystically more than the sum of its parts. It's not a magical object. It's a game. I'm not saying it's "just" a game because I'm not trying to reduce it or make it less than it is, I'm trying to honestly look at it as it is, not place it on a pedestal. Regardless of how people use the game, it's still a game. Regardless of what people get out of it, it's still a game. Regardless of how people feel about it, it's still a game.

RPGs are interactive storytelling, which can sometimes conflict with the rigid confines of the rules.

But they're really not. Humans will create a narrative from literally anything. A random sequence of utterly unconnected events happens to you throughout the day and yet, by the end of the day, you will have formed a narrative about your day in your head that connects them all and gives meaning to meaningless events. That same process is at play here. That's where the story comes from in RPGs. The mechanics themselves don't produce story. Even dedicated storygames, which D&D is explicitly not, still don't produce coherent stories unless the participants mangle and distort the game events into something vaguely resembling a story.

This is partially why RPGs need a GM: to provide a balance between the narrative needs and rules of the game.

RPGs need a GM because the PCs have tactical infinity, the ability to try anything. Without a GM to adjudicate that, the rules would be, by necessity, tens of thousands of pages long covering literally everything it's possible to do.

 

[overgeeked]

Although it takes some work to parse the "I cast a flame cantrip on my swords and backflip onto its back and cut its head off" in a way that flows with everything. (Letting them regularly cast cantrips that hang on someone else's weapon or for set up the next turn on their own was an easy fudge to run with, as is narrating the result if they actually did kill it with that blow - as opposed to when it still had dozens of hp).

I absolutely love that. Good for you for encouraging their creativity instead of squashing it.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I think a bunch of people here would greatly benefit from a campaign or two of Rifts.

 

[Cadence]

But they're really not. Humans will create a narrative from literally anything. A random sequence of utterly unconnected events happens to you throughout the day and yet, by the end of the day, you will have formed a narrative about your day in your head that connects them all and gives meaning to meaningless events. That same process is at play here. That's where the story comes from in RPGs. The mechanics themselves don't produce story. Even dedicated storygames, which D&D is explicitly not, still don't produce coherent stories unless the participants mangle and distort the game events into something vaguely resembling a story.

It feels like some on ENWorld might disagree about how some games actually make a story and some don't? (Although that then flies off into what is a story and I'm pretty sure D&D doesn't get any of the good stuff in that discussion.)

RPGs need a GM because the PCs have tactical infinity, the ability to try anything. Without a GM to adjudicate that, the rules would be, by necessity, tens of thousands of pages long covering literally everything it's possible to do.

Aren't their GM-less RPGs? (Google says so, but I litteraly went no farther than seeing that things vaugely relevant looking popped up).