Armchair Gamer's Flavors of D&D

[Dragonblade]

Eh.

They seem pretty arbitrary and indistinct: a single campaign, even a single session, could combine much of what is there. They are far from all encompassing. And, like so many of these posts, mischaracterize the "old days".

Indeed, they are not exclusive categories. Many games and styles did overlap. This is merely an effort to codify the most commonly seen tendencies. And again, these styles are also reflected somewhat in the actual products put out by TSR and later by WotC. You can clearly see the Paladins and Princess style dominating a lot of 2e era TSR products.

Anyway, several gamers who did play in the "old days" gave the original thread their blessing already as being fairly apt descriptions of the most common playstyles back in the day. Granted everyone's own personal experiences are unique. I started with AD&D back in the day myself, and our game was very Knaves and Kobolds. When 2e came out, we played a lot of Paladins and Princesses, and continued playing that through 3e with a touch of Spellcasters and Simulation before moving on to Warriors and Warlocks in 4e.

 

[S'mon]

Well, I can certainly see how M&M's emphasis on pacing and high-action distinguishes it from P&P. In P&P you're supposed to have extended periods of just wandering around, soaking up the ambient good vibes, before/after the big bad obvious evil shows up and is defeated, right? It's like the D&D version of Chicken Soup for the Soul. 4e's advice to "get to the encounter, get to the fun" seems adverse to this.

I think Paladins & Princesses play does depend on non-hostile interactions with NPCs, yup and powerful magic items are as often gifted by friendly NPCs as they are found in loot caches. Presenting 'the Land' as a nice place worth preserving is important in high fantasy P&P (not a concern in swashbuckler P&P as the Land is rarely threatened in that style, eg The Princess Bride), although Star Wars tends towards the M&M style - the only indication the Land is worth fighting for is in the intro text "The Old Republic was the Republic of Legend..." - and skips straight to the action. Hollywood movies where you never pause to catch a breath do feel more M&M even when they utilise nominally P&P tropes.

 

[pemerton]

I think Paladins & Princesses play does depend on non-hostile interactions with NPCs, yup and powerful magic items are as often gifted by friendly NPCs as they are found in loot caches.

My 4e game has plenty of non-hostile NPCs - including helpful gods - and powerful magic items have often been gifted by them. (The treasure parcel rules allow this very easily.)

So there's at least that much P&P in it.

 

[haakon1]

I think the categories are pretty clever . . . my own gaming style, like many folks, draws from many of them.

I'd say I'm primarily "Dungeoncrawls & Demons" -- which seems to be related to loving AD&D, 3.5e, and Pathfinder material, which are indeed the only things I like very much.

I do like elements of:
-- Knaves & Kobolds: I love low-level adventures, and D&D as the Vietnam War rewritten in fantasy has often been a conscience part of my plot designs. (I love RECON.) But my PC's are not knaves, and don't backstab each other.
-- Paladins & Princesses: I like adventures where the goal is to do good, and rescuing the helpless can often by a plot element.

So if you run a "gritty", low-level adventure where the goal is rescue NPC adventurer POW's, in a dungeon crawl, what's that? 'Cause that's kinda me.

 

[Ratskinner]

Eh.

They seem pretty arbitrary and indistinct: a single campaign, even a single session, could combine much of what is there. They are far from all encompassing. And, like so many of these posts, mischaracterize the "old days".

I dunno. One or the other seems to pretty much capture everything I remember about the way back when. I think that these flavors are meant to be more like colors than strict categories. I don't find it problematic at all to consider a given game to be a mixture of several. The group I'm with now openly expresses their preference to start in one style and let the game evolve into another.

 

[Ratskinner]

I am not 100% sure that W&W is a distinct category; I tend to agree with the implication of @Balesir 's post upthread, that W&W is P&P done right: ie with the moral decision-making left in the right place to avoid railroading.

That said, maybe W&W is distinctive in combining P&P story sensibilities with mechanically heavy action resolution.

My impression is that W&W is the mechanically heavy action resolution, and the resultant consistency of expression of the designated stylistic elements. I tend to agree with the OP characterizations of those elements as well. P&P is a part of it, but certainly there are other heavy influences as well.

OTOH, maybe I'm reading into it. That consistency/rigidity is one of my few complaints about 4e.

 

[Ratskinner]

I think I'd characterize my preferred style as a bit of P&P, but turned on its head, sorta. Maybe P&P if Marx was writing the fairy tale. My kings are rarely good and always scheming, my villains are rarely pure evil (excepting the occasional mad priest), my peasants are almost always pure-hearted, the princesses strong yet bound in their world, the heroes struggling to find their place and maybe make the world a little better.

Maybe call it: "the Prince & the Proletariat"

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Maybe P&P if Marx was writing the fairy tale.

Karl, Groucho, or Richard?

 

[Libramarian]

How about P&P by David Lynch? The fair princess seems to get really hot and bothered whenever the PCs talk about how bloody and dangerous their adventures are...

(Blue Velvet Rose?)

 

[TerraDave]

I have many problems with these...but for the sake of focus

What makes you say that?

"Knaves & Kobolds (1972-1977, 2005+): "This encompasses the kind of game...run by Gygax and Arneson"

From what we know, Gygax and Arneson had many of the things mentioned in many of the categories in their games...its very misleading to put them in this one, alone.

But again, I just don't think they "styles" are that distinct, and I don't think they capture key elements of play style.

For Gygax and Arneson, you could probably say, based on what they have posted and been reported by on their games:

*Players could appeal to the rules, but the DM was very much in charge and made the call, they were not slaves to the dice;

*Players would expect to have capable characters, 3d6 in order with crappy results would just be rerolled, and those characters would often stick around for the long run;

*Simulating a fantasy world (e.g. Gygaxian naturalism) was balanced with keeping play fairly fast and loose, more so then is implied in, say, the AD&D rules;

*They could go gonzo (crashed space ships, trips to Mars and the starship Warden, ancient robots, meeting gods and demon lords, etc);

*Characters would use henchman and players would have multiple characters; there were points were armies were raised, etc, though that was only part (not the main part) of the game;

*As allowed by the rules...characters did not have to have a good alignment;

*Early campaigns did focus on a big dungeon...but they did other stuff;

*A lot of rules alternates were tested...and dropped (more elaborate combat rules, characters making magic items, etc).

*The early campaigns were open for exploration, but backstory was very much there, and themes and "plots" developed, even if they were as simple as "fight all these giants and find out what is behind them".

All of these things could have been, and where, different in someone else's D&D game, and I don't think Knaves and Kobolds, or the other ones, really capture that very well. I also don't think they capture some of the tensions that ran underneath these choices.