D&D General Styles of D&D Play

[TwoSix]

It is entirely a side point, but I just have to say this six cultures of play never matches my understanding of gaming culture at all. Especially he Neo-trad designation. It just feels completely off to me somehow

Everyone has different experiences, I guess. To me, neotrad is just a focus on character concept and character abilities (often, but not exclusively, through combat) as the core loop of play, but embedded in the trad focus on developed world setting and storyline.

BG3, as a recent example, is IMO a neotrad TTRPG experience in a CRPG. There's a well-defined setting, and a structured plot that the characters are going to experience. But the focus of play is on watching those characters grow and change as they experience the plot, and that plot is centered around the specific situations of those characters.

You can play the game as a traditional trad storypath game with just your main character and anonymous hirelings to see the plot, but the best experience of the game is with the specifically designed characters and experiencing all their various interactions.

And yes, the boundaries are certainly blurry, but so are the boundaries between classic play and OSR play, or when trad play cleaved away from classic play sometime in the early '80s, although the roots were there only a few years into D&D's creation.

 

[Maxperson]

Adventurers league? Did that ever became a thing? I was just looking at their site and i could only find one game in whole Milano Metro area, zero in Vienna or Munich ( cities where i live and where i lived). Or their online locator doesn't really work. PF Society usually fares better, but last time i went to PFS game, most of people there also know each other and play or played in each others home games.

On topic, convention games and PFS/AL are special cases. But i think that those are more popular in US than in European countries. Even LGS games are not that common here from my personal experience.

It might be more of an American thing. There are quite a few here. I'm in Los Angeles their online locator found 34 games/stores within 25 miles of me.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Got it. Hasbro doesn't have the money to add stuff to D&D, unless it's stuff you want them to make. Ok.

More accurately Hasbro doesn't want to make loss-leaders, and any new material it wants to put out are going to be high production values and high production runs and put into a whole lot of stores. When you are producing full colour hardback books with large amounts of (non-AI) artwork you'd better be planning on selling more than 500 copies - and if you are going to lower the quality by e.g. going paperback and black and white that weakens the brand so Hasbro doesn't do that. And they aren't interested in taking the risk of loss making ventures.

 

[Micah Sweet]

More accurately Hasbro doesn't want to make loss-leaders, and any new material it wants to put out are going to be high production values and high production runs and put into a whole lot of stores. When you are producing full colour hardback books with large amounts of (non-AI) artwork you'd better be planning on selling more than 500 copies - and if you are going to lower the quality by e.g. going paperback and black and white that weakens the brand so Hasbro doesn't do that. And they aren't interested in taking the risk of loss making ventures.

One more thing to add to the mosaic of why I don't like WotC or their work.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Everyone has different experiences, I guess. To me, neotrad is just a focus on character concept and character abilities (often, but not exclusively, through combat) as the core loop of play, but embedded in the trad focus on developed world setting and storyline.

BG3, as a recent example, is IMO a neotrad TTRPG experience in a CRPG. There's a well-defined setting, and a structured plot that the characters are going to experience. But the focus of play is on watching those characters grow and change as they experience the plot, and that plot is centered around the specific situations of those characters.

You can play the game as a traditional trad storypath game with just your main character and anonymous hirelings to see the plot, but the best experience of the game is with the specifically designed characters and experiencing all their various interactions.

And yes, the boundaries are certainly blurry, but so are the boundaries between classic play and OSR play, or when trad play cleaved away from classic play sometime in the early '80s, although the roots were there only a few years into D&D's creation.

I guess my issue, and I like the blog it came from, is the article when it first came out lots of people had issues with the categories, but it has somehow become taken as gospel. I know very few people who agree with his breakdown if play cultures

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not off the top. I can't remember if by RAW some of the 4e forced-move combat effects (pulls, pushes, Come And Get It, etc.) could be used by NPCs against PCs; if they could, that's as close as I can get right now.

Pushes and pulls, yes - but most of them are from e.g. ogres and happen by brute force. There are some fear effects that cause people to recoil in 4e - but honestly they feel less mind-controly than the 5e "you can not move closer to your target" frightened condition.

 

[TwoSix]

I guess my issue, and I like the blog it came from, is the article when it first came out lots of people had issues with the categories, but it has somehow become taken as gospel. I know very few people who agree with his breakdown if play cultures

You don't have to agree with someone's definitions to recognize their utility. The fact that those terms are still getting used demonstrates that they must have some kind of resonance. If they didn't make any sense at all, they wouldn't have become "taken as gospel", right?

 

[Bedrockgames]

This whole argument reminds me of users who would tell me "All we need to do is add a button that does X." While true, it was also pointless. First, there's a lot of hidden costs, second it doesn't take into account other priorities.

People can always request whatever they want, sometimes the answer will be "no".

Of course. The answer can always be no. None of us know what WOTC is thinking and I don't think any of us have a real strong grasp of the numbers in terms of what is represented. But it is fair for people to discuss what they want, and if what they want sounds pretty reasonable, which it does to me, I don't see an issue in having the conversation. Like I said, I am not a fan of social mechanics. But I also don't see the point in debating people who want them when they are making sound requests.

 

[Maxperson]

But optional rules are not free. It means less effort and investment in other areas.

This doesn't bother me. I don't need everything to go my way and I'm not going to begrudge someone an optional rule or three that I won't use. I never have and never will.

There are plenty of optional rules for this, they just aren't published by WOTC.

And for a lot of people not being official is a problem.

 

[Bedrockgames]

You don't have to agree with someone's definitions to recognize their utility. The fact that those terms are still getting used demonstrates that they must have some kind of resonance. If they didn't make any sense at all, they wouldn't have become "taken as gospel", right?

Just because something is taken as gospel, doesn't mean it is sound though