D&D General D&D as an lore fan vs a tools fan

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

For the most part, I have very little interest in other people's lore or settings at this point and can spin up my own at the drop of a hat.

In contrast, while I'm capable of making my own tools, it's not my passion and takes more time. That's the stuff I'd rather pay for.

 

[Parmandur]

Some people collect things for their utility, others for the joy of ownership and collection. Similar behaviors with different roots and motivations, which I think is the idea the OP was exploring.

I like D&D and buy D&D material for its utility in creating a game; I have no interest in the D&D material purely for its fictional content.

Well, also...both? Both are good...? Not really in conflict per se.

 

[TwoSix]

Well, also...both? Both are good...? Not really in conflict per se.

Oh, no, there's no conflict. I wasn't trying to assert they were two distinct poles that couldn't mix, merely that they were different motivations that might manifest in similar purchasing habits.

 

[UncleGoblin]

Great question Morrus

For me its both, but mostly lore. My players want their new builds and player options. And the DM backend engine needs tools to engage that and the weird players decide to do. Those DM tools are mainly new stuff, but I also use ancient tools like dungeon turns, hexmaps, class titles and followers showing up at certain levels.

However my most prized books are lore books. When I meet new D&D people I love that we have a shared reference in D&D lore. Running a game in good old FR right now and I love I don't have to lore dump all the time, the player's know the world, the names and the tropes. I can just focus on the micro cosmos around them. And even though I will never use all of this lore, my mind still craves more very niche information about dwarven military garrisons, druid homicidal career paths or some other nonsensical fantasy details.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

I just want to have fun.

Tools don’t matter as much to me as lore. This preference doesn’t obviate the fact that both are what make the game fun.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

i pretty much agree with you on rules in that they should be functional enough to play the game as intended out of the box with no or minimal tweaking, because otherwise why the hell am i buying them. i'm perfectly fine with tweaking rules to support how a setting or campaign works, but i think most people are fine with that so it probably doesn't mean much.

i actually think the rules are EXTREMELY important to the experience. they do a lot in establishing how the game world feels. just as an easy example that i'm sure you'll recognize, adding half your level to everything makes 4e feel much, MUCH different from 5e - 4e feels much more like the party are mythical heroes ascending into legend by fighting what should be invincible foes, while 5e...i mean, the foes can definitely be threatening, but i don't really think there are many monsters in 5e that couldn't be defeated by a large, prepared army. and even 4e feels different from pf2e in that regard because of how each game handles crits. in 4e, even that seemingly invincible foe could theoretically be destroyed by an army of regular soldiers if they were careless enough to get crit a million times. in pf2e? hell no, that monster is LITERALLY invincible to those people, they literally cannot even deal damage to it. and that's just one aspect of each game.

Then yeah, I'd say "tools" is the answer closest to your position. I voted both because I really do love a lot of particular bits from various settings (primarily Eberron and Points of Light), but if I had to choose I'd definitely pick tools over lore.

 

[SothFan]

I just want to have fun.

Tools don’t matter as much to me as lore. This preference doesn’t obviate the fact that both are what make the game fun.

Could you play with unofficial lore? In the beginning there was no lore except for what was tethered to the rules. Ravenloft seems to be big now, but did not exist for like a decade.

Could you play with another game or stories lore? What is that lore did not fully match the tools like that Age of Sigmar people were talking to me about last year?

Not trying to single you out among the crowd but your post sparked inspiration to ask you these questions.

 

[Argyle King]

Thinking more...

Earlier, I had said that I preferred the D&D lore. But some other responses in the thread helped refine my thoughts.

There are some specific parts of lore that I like, such as Dragonlance as self-contained story. I don't necessarily want to play Dragonlance, but I enjoy that lore and that story.

More broadly, with D&D as a whole, there are not specific NPCs, characters, and so forth that I particularly care about. However -as someone else said upthread- I like the broad strokes: roughly color-coded* dragons, cosmology concepts, beholders, etc.
(*I've started to melt this into a hodgepodge of other dragon concepts from DCC, general mythology, and other influences, but it's still a nice shorthand way to telegraph upcoming challenges to players. Also, I liked the 4E explanation for how Bahamut and Tiamat came to be.)

Still, I choose the D&D lore over the D&D toolkit for many of the same reasons mentioned in my previous post.

 

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

Could you :snip:

Yes, to all your questions.

Sometimes people get too hung up on lore; they adhere to it like their campaign’s very existence depends on it.

Which is weird for a game that assumes DMs are going to do the lion’s share of creating (even if using a published campaign world).

I’m not familiar with the Age of Sigmar, but I have played in more than one campaign where DMs mixed in lore from fantasy worlds that weren’t official D&D settings—all while using or modifying the tools (game mechanics) at hand to make it work.

Is this possible on the digital side of things? I would think so. It’s not too hard to reskin something and present it as something else.

(edited to fix a typo)

 

[guachi]

For me, lore exists for the players to interact with. Sure, I might be able to look on my shelf and see near 40-year-old books I've read a dozen times and never used at the table, but in principle the book exists for players to interact with the people, places, and events inside.

The world changes as soon as the PCs exist and begin adventuring. Because of that a "Forgotten Realms Experience" or any such D&D game world equivalent has no real meaning to me.