D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Reynard]

I'm interested in both.

You don't have a team without members. And you don't have members without a team.

It's like saying one should be interested in the fabric, while not caring one iota about any of the threads. Without the threads, it's "fabric" in concept only. But a pile of disconnected threads is merely the material of fabric, not fabric itself. It is only the union of both--the individual pieces, and their collective structure--that makes fabric.

Likewise, story. Without the individual members, it's a "story" in concept only. With exclusively individual members, no wider network to fit them into, it's got the pieces of a story just randomly jumbled about.

Or if you prefer a food analogy: If you replace the cream with tomato puree, and the clams with sausage, and the potatoes with tortellini, and the Old Bay with salamoia bolognese, it's not clam chowder anymore, even if it has the right structure, because it has (effectively) none of the components. Likewise, a carafe of cream, a container of chicken broth, a pile of potatoes, a bowl of freshly shucked clams, and a container of Old Bay aren't clam chowder either. The former has lost all but the tiniest similarities to clam chowder, having only the most fundamental structure (soup). The latter has all the components, but components alone don't make clam chowder, the cooking does.

The whole thing--components, structure, and execution--is important. Telling folks to enjoy the components of a clam chowder isn't going to make them any more likely to listen to you, no matter how much you explain that nutritionally it's equivalent.

It isn't a story until it is over.

 

[CreamCloud0]

It isn't a story until it is over.

untrue, a story's a story even as it's happening, even before it's finished.

 

[Remathilis]

For D&D, I feel the unified d20 mechanic was a huge leap forward.

So was putting all classes on a single XP progression and balancing them against each other.

So was removing the legacy restrictions on class and race so you can build the character you want.

It's amazing how many HUGE improvements 3E made to the game, even though I find it beyond complicated.

And of course 4E and 5E continued the work, even if they didn't always get it right.

It's funny how, even in the most intense OS vs new era debates, you rarely see strong defense of race/class restrictions and level limits. There doesn't seem to be as much calls for "elves shouldn't be bards!" And "dwarves should only reach 12 level max" as I see for a lot of other aspects of AD&D. Then again, I don't hang in OS communities, so maybe there is a hidden wellspring of support for halflings only being mid-level fighters and thieves.

 

[Remathilis]

The whole thing--components, structure, and execution--is important. Telling folks to enjoy the components of a clam chowder isn't going to make them any more likely to listen to you, no matter how much you explain that nutritionally it's equivalent.

It reminds me of the man who ate three eggs, a pat of butter, a cup of shredded cheese and some mushrooms, in order, and then declared he ate an omelette.

 

[Reynard]

untrue, a story's a story even as it's happening, even before it's finished.

But a game isn't a story until it is over. RPGs generate stories by virtue of being played, but they aren't "A Story". Stories have beginnings, middles and ends. they have plots and characters, high and low points. None of that is true with RPGs except in retrospect. The story we tell about the game we just played IS the story, generated from the game. Treating an RPG like a "story" with important predestined plot points is a good way to ruin the "game" aspect and impinge on the most important element of RPG play: player agency. RPGs are games where we play to find out what happens.

(Just because the world is a weird place, I will go ahead and specifically say "all this in my opinion" as if it weren't obvious from the start.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

But a game isn't a story until it is over. RPGs generate stories by virtue of being played, but they aren't "A Story"

I mean...no?

Because that's literally what Dungeon World was specifically designed to do. It was designed to already be story in the very moment of play. Not after. During.

 

[Reynard]

I mean...no?

Because that's literally what Dungeon World was specifically designed to do. It was designed to already be story in the very moment of play. Not after. During.

I have never played Dungeon World, but isn't it a PbtA play-to-find-out game? If so, that makes it even LESS of a story than neo-trad 5E.

 

[Artamo]

For reference, the above was written by Rob Schwalb. I am not trying to cast aspersions on the man himself, he sounds quite reasonable (despite his claims otherwise). But the position he is presenting here...is exactly what I summarized above. WotC has to placate jerks who demand that other people never be allowed to enter the so-called "Big Tent" edition.

That was a really interesting, and for me, somewhat exasperating article/link. There was one comment in particular that struck me:

He said:

You see I cut my teeth on Tolkien, Homer, Mallory, Howard, Alexander, and the rest.

I struggle to imagine how someone cannot come to grasp that there’s now multiple generations that have a completely different Appendix N in mind. I read exactly one of those authors as a kid, my inspirations for D&D were more Harryhausen and Coscarelli than Mallory or Howard, and that is always going to be an ever changing thing. My kids probably take more inspiration from shows like Demon Slayer or Ghibli movies than anything from the original Appendix N books.

 

[Reynard]

That was a really interesting, and for me, somewhat exasperating article/link. There was one comment in particular that struck me:

He said:


I struggle to imagine how someone cannot come to grasp that there’s now multiple generations that have a completely different Appendix N in mind. I read exactly one of those authors as a kid, my inspirations for D&D were more Harryhausen and Coscarelli than Mallory or Howard, and that is always going to be an ever changing thing. My kids probably take more inspiration from shows like Demon Slayer or Ghibli movies than anything from the original Appendix N books.

I would go so far as to say that most people who are discovering D&D now, their personal "appendix N" is full of things directly inspired by D&D itself, from video games to anime to Stranger Things.

 

[Willie the Duck]

But a game isn't a story until it is over. RPGs generate stories by virtue of being played, but they aren't "A Story". Stories have beginnings, middles and ends. they have plots and characters, high and low points. None of that is true with RPGs except in retrospect. The story we tell about the game we just played IS the story, generated from the game. Treating an RPG like a "story" with important predestined plot points is a good way to ruin the "game" aspect and impinge on the most important element of RPG play: player agency. RPGs are games where we play to find out what happens.

(Just because the world is a weird place, I will go ahead and specifically say "all this in my opinion" as if it weren't obvious from the start.)

Also preemptive (and hopefully obviously)-- this is all In My Opinion
I feel like this is kind of a 'there's no such thing as instantaneous velocity'* kind of argument. A story that is unfinished at the time of being noted isn't not a story, it's an incomplete one. It doesn't go along as not-a-story until the end and then retroactively become one all along. If it somehow gets interrupted before completion and never gets finished, then it's just incomplete. If it's a never-ending story, well then we already have a rather famous one of those (or take your pick).
*because velocity is movement over time, and instantaneous removes the time aspect

As for stories having to have specific structural qualities, perhaps ones that you shouldn't try to enforce in your gameplay -- well, we say that a story needs X, Y, and Z, but that's usually what it 'needs' to be a good fictional narrative someone would want to enjoy when partaking in the story as the primary entertainment avenue (best practices, as it were). If the story is 'just what happened (in the game)' there doesn't need to be highs and lows, climaxes, or even endings (see above). And there absolutely does not need to be anything that removes player agency (that is completely a game design choice, one that can exist in any type of game, and gets to/has to stand on its own merits, not on whether something is a story or not).