cougent said:
I could not disagree with you more on that statement unqualified. It has been my experience that players must come to some basic agreements from the start or else you end up with total chaos that no one enjoys... even though they may be playing the character they want to play.
Well, I disagree. Or rather, I think that players need to be friendly to one another, basically, and to be indulgent to one another's character choices. I think that having an interesting group is more fun than having an "effective" group. I'm kind of Chaotic that way, I guess.
Obviously "how much structure is necessary" is a question that only each individual gaming group can answer. I prefer less structure, a game where the players sort of come to the table saying "this is my character's story and goal" and the DM builds a plot around it. Now, obviously, some people don't give their characters goals or backstories when they make D&D characters, and that's fine... but I don't think it's unreasonable that in that case, the in-game plot should lean slightly in the direction of those characters who have more focused goals. (The people who don't have strong goals will still get to fight and do stuff, and since nothing's ironclad n D&D, the people with focused goals may end up dying and then the people without goals will become the center of attention again. Not that everyone shouldn't share the attention as equally as possible, but if one guy's character background is "I am an orc barbarian" and the other guy comes to the table with a lengthy list of contacts, family background, backstory, goals... well, it makes sense that the DM would use the second character's invented mythos, while also trying to build up opportunities for the first character/player to get more involved and to have more presence in the world.)
Now that I've said this, someone is gonna chime in and say "You are biasing the game towards people who like to come up with complicated goals and backgrounds! Not all people like to do that!" Well... what do you expect? It's not a "who can write the longest character background" contest, but if one person puts a lot more effort into designing their character, then they deserve that effort to be incorporated into the game. In terms of actual gameplay time and face time, the DM should try to spend equal amounts of time with everyone, of course. The DM should try to encourage everyone to get involved, using the old standard method of "the NPCs all talk to the shy player's character" method or whatever. But just as people who show up at the gaming table more often get more XP (because they're not missing sessions), people who don't come up with any character background shouldn't complain if the majority of plot hooks come from the characters who do have detailed backgrounds and concepts. Basically -- every player deserves attention, every player is the star of their own story, but I think it's fair for the DM to encourage characters to be more creative by rewarding it in the players' character design.
Now obviously some people are going to prefer more simple, "the players go here and fight these monsters and do this" kind of adventure setups. And sure, those can be fun. But I like more complicated stories as well.
cougent said:
I can't imagine D&D without alignment, one of the many 4E concepts that is totally confusing to me.
Well, I agree. I'm curious how they'll pull it off, but I'm sort of wondering why they're doing it. The negative part of me thinks that it's an attempt to make easier-to-follow plots... I mean, I hate to drag out the MMORPG comparison, but in a standard MMORPG all the characters handle the quests the same, so the concept of "evil" and "good" has no meaning, whether you're playing a Necromancer or a Paladin.
Which IMHO is lame, since I *want* the game to encourage people to try to roleplay Evil or Good or Something In-between, as encouraged by the mechanical system of alignment, rather than the default setting being "who cares whether we're evil or good, we're the heroes".
Obviously most RPGs don't have clear systems of evil or good either, and people manage to play heroes, but... most RPGs aren't set in fantasy worlds inspired by novels like Lord of the Rings where evil and good are most definitely real forces, capital-G Good and capital-E Evil. (Or Elric where you've got capital-L Law and capital-C Chaos.) And this is why alignment is useful... because in a fantasy setting where Good and Evil and Law and Chaos are real absolutes, it makes sense that the players should be encouraged to think of their characters in these terms.
Oh, I should confess, though... my last D&D campaign? No alignments. But it was a highly variant campaign set in ancient Egypt, so it was set in a world where there *wasn't* absolute good or evil. :/ I specifically wanted a murky realpolitik feeling. But as long as most D&D settings are going to encourage black-and-white, good-vs.-evil thinking, which 99% of them do, then there's no reason why this shouldn't be laid down in the actual ruleset.
