D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[TwoSix]

While I've never run prep heavy games if I understand what the term is supposed to mean, I also don't see why it matters or why anyone would feel the need to repeatedly make the claims that people who still support a style are just clinging to the past.

Haven't you said, several times, that you're games set in the campaign world that you authored for the past 20+ years?

How is that NOT prep-heavy? You have 25 years of prepped notes to refer to.

 

[Emerikol]

Yes, but that's a fairly facile statement.

"What preferences of playstyle do you have?"

I prefer old school sandbox with a well developed world where the adventures are play skill based and resource management is important.

"Why do you have those preferences?"

This is the harder question. Why do I prefer vanilla bean ice cream more than chocolate fudge?

"Do those preferences make you prefer certain games over others?"

Yes.

"Do your preferences shift if you're playing one set of mechanics over another?"

No. They might shift if I'm playing a one off versus a campaign. My preferences are campaign driven.

"If I have a different set of preferences, will they clash with you as a DM? As a player? Can a different game or set of mechanics minimize that clash?"

Maybe. It depends on what they are. I doubt mechanics can fix playstyle differences. We just play in different campaigns if we have differences we can't reconcile.

"How common are my playstyle preferences? Will it be easy or hard to find a like-minded group of individuals with whom my preferences don't clash?"

Uncommon in the world. Somewhat common among roleplayers though not as common as whatever D&D is being served up these days by WOTC.

Those are all more interesting questions, just in the context of the subject of the OP.

I'm not sure they were all that interesting. The goal should not be to make people play a game together by negotiating out a bunch of compromises. That sounds horrible. A game is supposed to be fun. If it can't be fun then do something else even if it is not roleplaying.

 

[Aldarc]

Haven't you said, several times, that you're games set in the campaign world that you authored for the past 20+ years?

How is that NOT prep-heavy? You have 25 years of prepped notes to refer to.

It feels a bit like wanting to have it both ways or having their cake and eating it too. The game is both heavy prep and not heavy prep depending on what criticism of their fantasy elf game needs deflected.

 

[Oofta]

Haven't you said, several times, that you're games set in the campaign world that you authored for the past 20+ years?

How is that NOT prep-heavy? You have 25 years of prepped notes to refer to.

My prep for my next adventure? Mostly thinking about alternatives and if it will be fun while I'm doing other stuff or lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. I did write up a journal entry and now that I've got the basics down I'll spend another half hour to an hour building encounters and double checking names.

If that's prep heavy you have a far different definition than I do. I run a very player directed game, it just happens to be in an established world because I, and my players, enjoy the setting.

 

[TwoSix]

My prep for my next adventure? Mostly thinking about alternatives and if it will be fun while I'm doing other stuff or lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. I did write up a journal entry and now that I've got the basics down I'll spend another half hour to an hour building encounters and double checking names.

If that's prep heavy you have a far different definition than I do. I run a very player directed game, it just happens to be in an established world because I, and my players, enjoy the setting.

Remember, my entire post you objected to was in the context of a reply to this:

What many of you don't seem to ever understand is the opposite. The fact that many of us prefer a style where the DM's creation of the setting is perhaps the most important thing the DM does. That making the setting feel like a real place in the same way a good author crafts a setting is important to us. We want to adventure in an immersive believable setting. We want to interact with NPCs and establish relationships with them. We don't want to do things that pushes us out of that immersion and if we contribute to the setting while playing as a character that will shatter the suspension of disbelief. You may feel differently but we feel as we do.

That idea, that "the DM's creation of the setting is perhaps the most important thing the DM does" is specifically what I was calling out as the atavism. THAT is what I meant by "prep-heavy", a game in which the creation of the setting is a laborious affair deserving of being appreciated.

 

[TwoSix]

I'm not sure they were all that interesting. The goal should not be to make people play a game together by negotiating out a bunch of compromises. That sounds horrible. A game is supposed to be fun. If it can't be fun then do something else even if it is not roleplaying.

But that's the world we live in. It's pretty rare to find a group of people that have completely shared preferences.

One of my current DMs is much more in the style of what you prefer, with a detailed world and heavy prep. I still enjoy his game because he does that style well, and I understand and embrace that style when I'm playing it, even though it's not to my preference.

And in exchange, he embraces most of my differences in style when I take a turn DMing. No one in my group crosses their arms and grumbles "that's not how roleplaying games should work".

 

[prabe]

It feels a bit like wanting to have it both ways or having their cake and eating it too. The game is both heavy prep and not heavy prep depending on what criticism of their fantasy elf game needs deflected.

I don't disagree. I've put some work into the setting I'm running in over the past few years, and I gave the players for the third campaign a ~5500-word document about the city they were going to start in. That does seem like some heavy-ish prep. I then asked the players for people, places, groups, and events in the city their characters were connected to, and while the starting scenario is very GM-authored, once they finish it, I expect them to choose and pursue their own goals, and I expect to put things between them and those goals. I do not do much prep before any given session, because if I know what the situation is, I can respond/react to what the PCs do, so the individual sessions are arguably prep-light, and the ongoing campaign will (and does) feel that way. I don't see any real conflict between these things, it just means if I'm talking about how much I prep I need to be clear when I'm talking about.

 

[Oofta]

Remember, my entire post you objected to was in the context of a reply to this:

That idea, that "the DM's creation of the setting is perhaps the most important thing the DM does" is specifically what I was calling out as the atavism. THAT is what I meant by "prep-heavy", a game in which the creation of the setting is a laborious affair deserving of being appreciated.

Is it really a laborious affair if it's a labor of love?

In all seriousness, my work doesn't "deserve" anything. This has the same old same old derogatory implication. That because I want to make an interesting world that is more than paper thin I'm somehow lording it over my poor players and demanding that they respect mah authoritae. Give me a break.

 

[soviet]

Who's to say what people are responding to? All we really know is that WotC makes a lot of money off 5e and 5.5 D&D as they present it. I wouldn't make any assumptions as to exactly why and what they like best about such that they are willing to throw money at WotC for it.

I haven't.

 

[TwoSix]

In all seriousness, my work doesn't "deserve" anything. This has the same old same old derogatory implication. That because I want to make an interesting world that is more than paper thin I'm somehow lording it over my poor players and demanding that they respect mah authoritae. Give me a break.

Again, I never said this or even implied this.

@Emirikol said "the DM's creation of the setting is perhaps the most important thing the DM does". If that's the most important thing the DM does (not the only important thing, but "perhaps the MOST" important), that certainly sounds like something that would require labor (hence, laborious) and certainly deserving of being appreciated in play. (Why wouldn't players appreciate a DM's labors?)