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

[doctorbadwolf]

Yeah, that isn't the only defining difference. In fact you are, IMHO, confusing cause with effect. The defining difference is open-endedness. THE core difference between RPGs and board/parlor games is that they have open-eneded situations and rules which are designed to accommodate means of adjudicating arbitrary fiction states. I mean, the 4e-era Ravenloft board game (Curse of Strahd?) has all the RP you could ever want, but it is a closed-ended game, only specific situations can arise and only designated actions can be taken. There's plenty of fiction attached to them, its practically oozing out! But in the end fiction can only really feed back into mechanics when you can do anything and it can be adjudicated. Its not the resulting story anyone cares about (well, probably SOMEONE does somewhere). Instead what they care about is the doing of stuff at the table and how it lets the players use creativity to evolve the situation instead of just gamist tactics. This is also why the replay value is very high on RPGs, they are unlikely to play out in largely the same way over and over like a board game.

A board game is very, very, rarely an example of interactive storytelling. It’s more like an analog video game. You are experiencing a pre-packaged story (no matter how branching or non-linear), not telling a new one as a group activity.

And again, open-ended situations are literally meaningless unless they contain elements of and lend themselves to telling stories.

Absolutely no one would play a game that is just as open as D&D, but devoid of any story elements to use to tell a story interactively. Game Piece 1 is meaningless. Rogue has meaning. The difference is story, not that one is more open-ended.

 

[ECMO3]

It occasionally forces him to move. It does not make him fight better. There's a difference. Think of it like an intelligent sword in D&D. 99% of the time the fighter using it is the one with the skill and in charge. Occasionally the sword exerts its will over the fighter and makes him do something.
'

It kills entire people without his input at all and it explicitly says in the book in multiple fights that enemies would best him without the sword. Its tates the sword was moving his arms of its own will in the swordfight he won against his cousin with Mournblade. There are numerous times in the books where the sword moves to block a strike against him.

Being in charge 99% of the time is not the same as being less powerful. The Sword is what makes Elric as awesome at swordplay as he is. It is not all 100% the sword, but it is a lot of the sword, probably like 60% - 70% is the sword.

There are enemies in the books that the sword does not work against, and against those enemies Eliric is not nearly as powerful. Fighting humans or monsters that can be drained and fighting enemies that can't be drained (like the bird people on the Island with the Aroich statue) is night and day with it specifying in the text that he is not much use against the latter.

 

[Maxperson]

It kills entire people without his input at all and it explicitly says in the book in multiple fights that enemies would best him without the sword. Its tates the sword was moving his arms of its own will in the swordfight he won against his cousin with Mournblade. There are numerous times in the books where the sword moves to block a strike against him.

Being in charge 99% of the time is not the same as being less powerful. The Sword is what makes Elric as awesome at swordplay as he is. It is not all 100% the sword, but it is a lot of the sword, probably like 60% - 70% is the sword.

There are enemies in the books that the sword does not work against, and against those enemies Eliric is not nearly as powerful. Fighting humans or monsters that can be drained and fighting enemies that can't be drained (like the bird people on the Island with the Aroich statue) is night and day with it specifying in the text that he is not much use against the latter.

You're conflating things there. The reason why he struggles against the enemies that can't be drained is not because his skill drops. It's because the sword can't kill with a little cut and he actually has to stab them well enough to kill, which he is good at doing. It's also because he gave up his potions and the sword revitalizes him with the souls stolen, and it can't do that. If he had his potion he wouldn't have struggled nearly as much against those enemies.

As for moving his arm. Yes, I already covered the intelligent sword domination. It occasionally takes over. Usually it's purely Elric's skill combined with the sword's ability to drain souls.

 

[Umbran]

No, they aren't. For exactly the same reason that an author choosing to create a world that is full of bigotry, or sexualized violence targeting women

Mod Note"
You seem to be likening questions of game balance to issues of sexual violence and bigotry.

That constitutes hyperbole and inflation of rhetoric that isn't constructive, and this seems to be becoming a bit of a pattern. Please dial down the rhetoric.

 

[ECMO3]

You're conflating things there. The reason why he struggles against the enemies that can't be drained is not because his skill drops. It's because the sword can't kill with a little cut and he actually has to stab them well enough to kill, which he is good at doing.

Exactly, it is because his skill as a swordsman is not superhuman. His skill as a Swordsman is the second best in the world, but still pedestrian, especially when faced with numbers. Stormbringer makes him into a god-like swordsman.

If he had his potion he wouldn't have struggled nearly as much against those enemies.

Not true. He had his potions in a fight with a couple dozen bird people and still struggled, and this was after he beat an entire city when his sword as useful against humans. He struggled in the fight with the Barbarians before he found Stormbringer and he had his potions at that time.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A quibble re XP.

On the AD&D XP tables, a MU sits behind the fighter up to and including 6th level (35 vs 40 thousand). But from 7th to 13th level inclusive, the MU needs fewer XP (and sometimes is a full level ahead - eg a 10th level MU needs the same 250 thousand XP as a 9th level fighter; needs fewer XP than the fighter to gain their next level; and will reach 12th with the same 750 thousand that the fighter needs for 11th). Both need 1.5 million to reach 14th, and thereafter the fighter earns three levels to the MUs two.

Personally I've always thought that it's a weird bit of design that, at just about the same point the MU starts to become a dominant build vis-a-vis the fighter, they also get a level boost.

Fair point! It's been a while!

 

[Composer99]

A board game is very, very, rarely an example of interactive storytelling. It’s more like an analog video game. You are experiencing a pre-packaged story (no matter how branching or non-linear), not telling a new one as a group activity.

And again, open-ended situations are literally meaningless unless they contain elements of and lend themselves to telling stories.

Absolutely no one would play a game that is just as open as D&D, but devoid of any story elements to use to tell a story interactively. Game Piece 1 is meaningless. Rogue has meaning. The difference is story, not that one is more open-ended.

This seems rather close to claiming that the following activities don't count as playing a roleplaying game:

• Classic D&D play - that sort of "pawn stance" dungeoncrawl that emphasises player care and deliberation in play.
• Playing through an adventure path (which, after all, is almost entirely "pre-packaged story").
• Preferring to play D&D (or other RPGs) as a sort of fantasy life sim, with no intent to "tell a story interactively" except insofar as one is describing the fictional goings-on of fictional characters in a fictional world.

I rather doubt that's what you mean to imply, but it come across as pretty easy to get from defining RPGs as centering around "interactive storytelling" - especially centering around "telling a new [story] as a group activity" - to excluding those kinds of play.

Another issue I have with this definition is that there are definitely games that exist for the purpose of "tell[ing] a story interactively" - indeed, specifically for "telling a new [story] as a group activity"! - such as Tell Tale, that are definitely not RPGs. In other words, to my mind, simply centering RPG play on "interactive storytelling" is insufficient to define RPGs as a type of game.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Self-limitation is relevant because Gandalf self-limited. That's 20th level ability we see due to him taking out a CR 19 or 20 creature is not even his full power. Maybe he could warp reality and hurl magic like a D&D wizard or Merlin. Maybe he could surpass them.

I agree that it is relevant, but in a way you're not really accounting for.

The reason Istari Maiar aren't super-powerful asskickers like some other Maiar seems to because that's their role - they are intended to not be dominant, to not to being doing everything for everyone, and to be working with subtlety. Why? Because if they don't, they'll just break the world. If he did behave that way he'd have fallen to evil or at least monomania, I think it's fair to suggest. Tolkien definitely had the view that power that's actually used - at least to control or harm others, or for gain - is power that corrupts. It's one of the most persistent themes in his works.

And absolutely a comparison to D&D could be made there, but it also illustrates the utter folly of giving one particular kind of PC essentially "UNLIMITED POWERRRRRR!" and then just expecting them, with no guidance or rules limitations or consequences, to self-limit.

It's also notable that there are only 5 Istari Maiar, all of them in the forms of relatively unattractive old men (as far as we know). Neither of those things is an accident.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree that it is relevant, but in a way you're not really accounting for.

The reason Istari Maiar aren't super-powerful asskickers like some other Maiar seems to because that's their role - they are intended to not be dominant, to not to being doing everything for everyone, and to be working with subtlety. Why? Because if they don't, they'll just break the world. If he did behave that way he'd have fallen to evil or at least monomania, I think it's fair to suggest. Tolkien definitely had the view that power that's actually used - at least to control or harm others, or for gain - is power that corrupts. It's one of the most persistent themes in his works.

They were forbidden to show their majesty and power because the Valar feared that the elves and men would follow the Istari, rather than be guided by the Istari to defeat Sauron. It wasn't because they would break the world.

It's also notable that there are only 5 Istari Maiar, all of them in the forms of relatively unattractive old men (as far as we know). Neither of those things is an accident.

5 wasn't intended. The Valar decided to send 3, but 2 of them took friends. It also seems that they did not go to Middle Earth as old men, but aged into it.

"For with the consent of Eru they sent members of their own high order, but clad in bodies as of Men, real and not feigned, but subject to the fears and pains and weariness of earth, able to hunger and thirst and be slain; though because of their noble spirits they did not die, and aged only by the cares and labours of many long years."

After 1000 years they were all kinda old codgers.

 

[Cadence]

They were forbidden to show their majesty and power because the Valar feared that the elves and men would follow the Istari, rather than be guided by the Istari to defeat Sauron. It wasn't because they would break the world.

I mean, I assume Melian was much, much, much more powerful than any of the Istari and she didn't break the world.

(Or did she).

In any case, I wonder how what Gandalf did (besides exercising restraint) would compare to what a mere elf like Fingolfin could have done as far as helping.