D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Oofta]

I don't think that was the point at all. The point was that D&D was unoffensive to enough people to get groups. Meaning everyone liked it well enough so grouping is easy. The game you really like is perhaps not everyone's cup of tea. So you can't get a group. For roleplaying, D&D has to be the easiest to find a group for these days.

But that is not accurate. For some people, they play because they can't find a group that wants to play their preferred game. For others, D&D is their preferred game for them and their players. It's just a happy coincidence that it's easy to find other players.

 

[Emerikol]

But that is not accurate. For some people, they play because they can't find a group that wants to play their preferred game. For others, D&D is their preferred game for them and their players. It's just a happy coincidence that it's easy to find other players.

Nothing I said disputes that if you read my whole post.

 

[Maxperson]

You have to agree though that D&D has an enormous brand recognition advantage over almost every other game system. A lot of D&D players likely have never even heard of games ranked 4th and beyond in sales. Some probably don't even know of Pathfinder though that is rarer. These boards are not indicative of normal in ANY way.

Now having said that, I am not arguing I know everyone's preferences. I would argue the fact most people play D&D is not proof of your case though.

It does have enormous brand advantage. Yes. I think it's also a large number of folks first encounter with RPGs. The thing with humans is that we often stick with what we learn first and continue to like that the best, even when presented with other versions. Humans don't change their minds easily, which means that even if many/most players were not "ignorant" of other RPGs, a huge number would continue to like D&D the best.

 

[Emerikol]

It does have enormous brand advantage. Yes. I think it's also a large number of folks first encounter with RPGs. The thing with humans is that we often stick with what we learn first and continue to like that the best, even when presented with other versions. Humans don't change their minds easily, which means that even if many/most players were not "ignorant" of other RPGs, a huge number would continue to like D&D the best.

Well that would be one assumption. I'm not sure it's right or wrong. I think if getting a game were super easy, that the distribution would spread out over multiple playstyles. Maybe the current 5e style would still have a plurality of votes but I doubt it would have an absolute majority like it does now. People would also play a lot more different games so a game that tries to be everything to everyone wouldn't appeal as much.

 

[Maxperson]

Well that would be one assumption. I'm not sure it's right or wrong. I think if getting a game were super easy, that the distribution would spread out over multiple playstyles. Maybe the current 5e style would still have a plurality of votes but I doubt it would have an absolute majority like it does now. People would also play a lot more different games so a game that tries to be everything to everyone wouldn't appeal as much.

5e isn't a playstyle. 4e isn't a style. 1e, 2e and 3e were not styles. Hack N Slash is a style. Power Gaming is a style. Heavy RP is a style. Sandbox is a style. 5e is in fact spread out over multiple playstyles.

 

[tetrasodium]

Playstyle isn't mechanic though. Take 5e. Sandbox is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Linear is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Dungeon Crawl is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Hack N Slash is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Heavy Roleplaying is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Superhero is a playstyle that I can do well with it. Many games don't go past 5th level and you can do pulp decently with 5e if you play low levels. Power Gaming is a playstyle that 5e does decently. And on and on.

There is no one true playstyle that 5e does that you have to fight against. None. It's simply a game of mechanics that does just about any playstyle decently to well, just like all the other editions.

That's not a play style, it's an adventure or campaign style &both of them are undermined by overly generous mechanics in recovery dismissal of darkness as a risk and inventory capacity among others. Both of them will involve shallow tactical combat near unkillable PCs who launch right out of the gate as super heroes endowed with almost bottomless hammer space power who make notoriously hard to kill monsters like trolls & worse look positively fragile.

 

[Maxperson]

That's not a play style, it's an adventure or campaign style &both of them are undermined by overly generous mechanics in recovery dismissal of darkness as a risk and inventory capacity among others. Both of them will involve shallow tactical combat near unkillable PCs who launch right out of the gate as super heroes endowed with almost bottomless hammer space power who make notoriously hard to kill monsters like trolls & worse look positively fragile.

No. That's exactly what a playstyle it. It's a style of play. Or are you really arguing that a style of play is not a playstyle?

 

[prabe]

Sorry to reply a bunch of pages later, my morning and this thread both kinda got away from me.

Since you cropped my original post so severely, I'm going to drop the whole thing here:

"Makes sense," like "improbable" or "nonsense," is going to be very much in the eye of the beholder, innit? I mean, as well as context mattering and all-a-that: In a game where, for instance, Fate (not the game) is a theme, all sorts of coincidences seem plausible and appropriate.

Also, reposting it preserves some context--it has been a few pages ...

only to a degree

Obviously there's no point in disputing taste, but what I was at least gesturing at was the idea that there are coincidences I might roll right over in a book about vagabonds roaming American history in search of the American Dream (Paradox Bound by Peter Clines) that I'd just bounce right off of if I were reading a novel that was more of a thriller/mystery type thing; and even in the latter genre, there are probably things that, say, David Gordon might do in his Joe the Bouncer novels that work, but which would clash and/or fall flat if someone like Dennis Lehane or S.A. Cosby were to do them. Context will matter a great deal, as I said (and as you cropped out).

no, that is exactly what I was talking about when I said that there is no creative challenge here, you can always come up with some highly improbable nonsense to explain it. All it takes is suspension of disbelief

Again, good job cropping out the conditional so you could reply to some other meaning, Making things work, in the sense of remaining consistent with already established fictions, is in fact a creative challenge if you allow the players to add, or to suggest additions. There is also in fact a challenge, if you ask the players for additions, in figuring out how to use those additions, other than as things to arbitrarily randomly destroy. One of my own bright lines is that I will not fridge things the players give me in their backstories, or when I ask for them outside that. I might threaten them, but I'm not going to present their death/destruction/irredeemable corruption as a fait accompli.

 

[soviet]

No. That's exactly what a playstyle it. It's a style of play. Or are you really arguing that a style of play is not a playstyle?

If there are infinite playstyles, a game covering five of them doesn't seem that flexible.

 

[prabe]

If there are infinite playstyles, a game covering five of them doesn't seem that flexible.

Truthfully, I don't care how many playstyles a game covers, or supports, or whatever verb/s you want, so long as it covers the one I'm trying to do at the moment, and the situation/s that have emerged. I've had PCs in my D&D 5e games solve a murder mystery, and resolve a labor dispute, and interrupt a currency scam, and destroy an artifact that would have eventually destroyed the world, and risk themselves to meddle in the affairs of the noble fey, and talk a would-be conqueror into taking better care of his own domain instead of invading, and close more portals to Very Bad Places than I can count. Those adventures have been different from each other in the narrative, and some of them have probably (I'd have to think hard to say one way or the other) necessitated different playstyles (both from the players and from me as DM).

Gods, that's a long response for something that's really not meant to be all that argumentative. Sorry.