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

[overgeeked]

My imagination has far better "graphics" than any computer game.

Mine too.

Frankly, if I felt the way you do, I can't imagine even bothering the RPGs.

Because they offer something that's unique.

To me you're basically saying that the whole point of RPGs doesn't work for you.

Well, immersion is not the "whole point of RPGs" so...

You obviously get something out of it, but our perspectives are probably so divergent that we would never agree on what is good game design.

Yeah. Hanging out with friends and family, meeting people interested in the same hobby, throwing some dice and hanging out. The ups and down, triumphs and failures of playing the game. That's what I get out of it.

 

[Aldarc]

My imagination has far better "graphics" than any computer game. Frankly, if I felt the way you do, I can't imagine even bothering the RPGs. To me you're basically saying that the whole point of RPGs doesn't work for you. You obviously get something out of it, but our perspectives are probably so divergent that we would never agree on what is good game design.

Meh. Art Style >>> Graphics.

 

[Undrave]

I don’t get it.

Even if the game is about simulating a secondary fantasy world the PCs inhabit and they are on a hard-scrabble quest to survive from zeros to heroes, encumbrance and torchlight are of dire importance, etc…it’s still a game.

Even if the game is about sitting around with your friends, drinking some beers and eating some pretzels while killing some orcs…it’s still a game.

Even if the game is about epic quests and cosmic heroes tearing down gods…it’s still a game.

D&D is a game. So why do people object to it being treated like a game?

I don't get it either! 4th edition was constantly maligned because it dared to be transparent with the players and DM so we would know how to modify it to our liking. "Here's what this spell does in technical and clear detail" "Here are the target numbers we expect per level." "Here is what we expect the players to have by that level in terms of magical loot" "Here is what a monster of that XP value should look like." "Here is the role we designed the class to fulfill in party combat"

I really appreciated the honesty and lack of obfuscation.

 

[pointofyou]

I'd argue that those weren't well-designed games then. Because yes, good game design leads to fun gameplay. Not every game is fun for every player, of course. But a heap of rules, no matter how elegant, that produces boring gameplay is not well designed.

I didn't say "boring." I said "I didn't find them fun."

I don't think that's really an objection to the players knowing the rules, rather it's an objection to the rules being so badly designed. At least that's my objection to optimization. I don't care that the player knows the rules and can exploit them...I really hate the fact that the game is so badly designed that there are such glaringly obvious exploits in the game. Like...one person reading the book and making a post breaks the game...and yet the "professional game designers" completely missed that? People with basic math skills can spot that this combo is mathematically superior to every other option...and yet the "professional game designers" completely missed that? Fire the "professional game designers" and hire the people who can break the game in an afternoon with basic math skills and some thinking.

But, the flip side of that is players who know the rules and think they're limited to those rules. That's not how tabletop RPGs work. PCs have tactical infinity. That's what the GM is for. To adjudicate all the nonsense the players get up to.

On the contrary just about every time I see any GM complaining about "exploits" or "the players thinking they're limited to what's on their character sheets" it seems as though the GM is complaining about the players using the rules to make decisions. And every time I see anyone blather about "tactical infinity" it seems to be about the GM deciding based on rules the players don't or can't know which the further play goes that direction the less like a game it feels to me.

 

[Undrave]

The real issue, AFAICT, is that those that don't like limited-resource martial "powers" don't like the idea that you (as a player) get to chose what you (the character) get to accomplish with a mechanically acknowledged disconnect between the two "you"s.

Like casters do...

 

[Charlaquin]

Really. I may be misunderstanding the intent of the OP and maybe it is clarified elsewhere in this thread. However, I a have never seen anyone, outside the satanic panic, who didn't think it was a game.

I’ve had many exchanges where I talk about the way I rule something in the game, and someone asks “why rule that way instead of this other way that I think is more realistic?” to which I’ll answer that I think my way creates a better gameplay experience, and they’ll respond that they care more about “simulationism,” or “immersion” or “verisimilitude” or some other such phrase over “gamism”. I think that’s the kind of thing OP is getting at.

I think what’s really happening there is not that my interlocutor actually rejects the notion of D&D being a game, nor that they don’t think the gameplay experience is important. Rather, they have different gameplay aesthetic preferences than I do, and are perhaps trying to express that using vaguely-defined D&D-forum-jargon.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Not that I personally want that kind of social combat, but given how much more popular WotC 5e is than everything else, how many people have to like something in gaming for it to count for you as "catching on"?

I dunno... at least to me it's mainly about feel.

To me... Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws never caught on with the general D&D populace. I can't quantify it in any meaningful way... but my general sense just from what gets talked about in places like this, videos I've seen with people playing or talking about 5E, and when I've played with folks at cons and such... those things are never really discussed and no one seems to care whether you have them or not (and they don't seem to get mentioned in the course of playing.)

Are there some people for whom Traits, Ideals, Bonds, and Flaws are an important part of their game? I'm sure there are! But are there enough of them to make WotC believe that it is imperative they now also appear in 5E24? If I was to venture a guess, I'd say no. I don't think they are going to make it, because they never "caught on" as an important part of many players games.

The same way I would say that no specific type of Warlord class has caught on as being such an important part of 5E's third-party circuit that WotC should consider adding it officially to the game. Now have there been dozens of "let's make a Warlord class" threads here on EN World? Yup! Are there always players who say they want Warlords and participate in such threads? Yup! But have any of these Warlords that have been designed been such a hit with even a certain section of the community that it would ring a bell back in WotC HQ that says enough people want it? Not from where I'm sitting it hasn't. I don't believe there has been any Warlord class that has "caught on" to even the fringes of the D&D community such that we hear people talking about playing Warlords in their personal games. Now it's entirely possible I'm wrong about that and there are indeed many, many players and tables that have 3PP Warlords being played. I just haven't felt that that is indeed true though.

So if we're talking about what needs to be brought into the 5E24 D&D revamp... my feeling is that there are just some things that are not that popular of an idea and thus the need for a version of it be brought into the books just isn't there. But if something DOES appear? That's cool. I could be surprised.

 

[DEFCON 1]

You didn't say "even half." You said nobody at all wanted this stuff. Those two are very, very different standards--and I was responding to the standard originally used. If you are backing off of that standard, and instead saying that you haven't seen the majority of people want these very specific things, then okay; but that would be not only a far weaker claim, it would also be quite different. No longer a sweeping generalization about all possible ways to make the other pillars more engaging, and no longer a "nobody wants that," it would instead be most people don't want these specific changes. Which...I mean, sure, in absence of actual survey data, I can't really say either way what a majority of people think, but the claim is so weak that it's hard to deny.

What I got from the statements by overgeeked was that they wanted mechanics for the other pillars of the game that were at least approaching the level of mechanical heft that Combat has. Maybe I misunderstood. If they were just looking for a little bit more than a one-and-done roll for the other parts of the game... even just turning all exploration and interaction into skill challenges so there will be at least three rolls minimum for every incident or action (although probably closer to 5, 6 or 7 depending on successes/failures)... then fine. I do not disagree with you that there are many players at least here on EN World that want the "rules of Exploration" cleaned up, so by that frame of reference then you would be right (as I'm sure any cleaned-up rule set would include more than just a single die roll.)

But just a cleaned up ruleset wasn't the impression I got, it seemed like as I said they wanted an actual "game" to play. And that was what I was bouncing off of. Cleaned up rules on how to adjudicate travel is one thing... but having an "exploration mini-game" to me is something else. Same way cleaning up the stealth rules is one thing, but having an "infiltration mini-game" of special rules on par with Combat something else. If I misunderstood their intent, then mea culpa.

 

[dave2008]

I’ve had many exchanges where I talk about the way I rule something in the game, and someone asks “why rule that way instead of this other way that I think is more realistic?” to which I’ll answer that I think my way creates a better gameplay experience, and they’ll respond that they care more about “simulationism,” or “immersion” or “verisimilitude” or some other such phrase over “gamism”. I think that’s the kind of thing OP is getting at.

I think what’s really happening there is not that my interlocutor actually rejects the notion of D&D being a game, nor that they don’t think the gameplay experience is important. Rather, they have different gameplay aesthetic preferences than I do, and are perhaps trying to express that using vaguely-defined D&D-forum-jargon.

That may be, but it wasn't clear to me in the OP.

 

[dave2008]

That's....really difficult to respond to, then.

Because there are a LOT of things, on this very forum, where people are pretty antagonistic to any approach to D&D play that involves gameplay conveniences that are not in keeping with (their individual, often incorrect) understanding of IRL physics/biology/etc. Which is what being resistant to considering D&D as a game means. Folks who hate treating D&D as a product of human artifice, a thing intentionally designed for human entertainment with abstractions, simplifications, and ignored or elided things that are inconvenient or not very engaging.

Those people are quite common on this very forum. So it's...just hard to respond. If you don't see that opposition, I don't know how I could communicate it to you.

That may be, but it was no clear to me in the OP that this is what they were talking about. IMO, the viewpoints you describe are just different ways / tastes to play the game, but it is still very much a game. I never consider such arguments to suggest they are not playing a game, just that they want more simulation, or whatever, in their game.