D&D for the D&D experience

[Quasqueton]

When you use the D&D rules, are you doing it to play Dungeons & Dragons, or are you trying/wanting to emulate something else – books, movies, myths, etc.?

What I’m getting at is, I see a lot of folks mention how they alter the D&D rules to match non-D&D stories.

For instance, in the thread on the availability of raise dead, some people brought up how heroes in books, movies, myths, etc. don’t come back from the dead “easily”.

Often the D&D spell casting system is complained about because it doesn’t match any movies, books (other than Jack Vance’s), myths, etc. Hit points are decried because they aren’t realistic. The availability of magic items is derided because they should be rare and wondrous.

I play D&D for the *D&D* experience – not to get a LotR experience, or a medieval Europe experience, or a movie experience. Maybe this is why things like hit points, magic items, raise dead, and teleport don’t bother me.

Quasqueton

 

[Henry]

When playing *D&D* specifically, I'm usually doing it to play D&D -- I'm being, to a certain extent, "gamist" about it. However, I've played plenty of other RPG's, M&M, Grim Tales, Feng Shui, Black Company, etc. to emulate a certain genre, or a world of a given novel, etc.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

For the most part, to get a D&D experience. However, sometimes I like a different spin on things, and may run a historical or historical fantasy campaign, in which case I'm looking for a different experience. Or I might want an Aliens vs. Marines experience, in which case I might run Savage Worlds. Et cetera.

Incidentally, I think this is one area where the system really does matter and make a difference (and may be at the root of various "that's not D&D to me" opinions).

 

[Joshua Randall]

I play D&D for the *D&D* experience [....] Maybe this is why things like hit points, magic items, raise dead, and teleport don’t bother me.

Ditto.

Also, the older I get, the less interested I am in debating crap and the more interested I am in playing the game.

 

[Greg K]

As far as I am concerned, D&D is what you make of it w/ the rules and supplements being a toolbox. Just look at settings like Darksun and Ravenloft. That said, I am not trying for the default flavor the designers built into the core rules much of which I dislike.

 

[Fifth Element]

Also, the older I get, the less interested I am in debating crap and the more interested I am in playing the game.

QFT. Just play the game you want to play it. Nothing else matters.

 

[el-remmen]

The "D&D Experience" is a gestalt of just about every moderate to long term player's experience playing what they called or understood to be Dungeons & Dragons.

It is near-LARP immersion role-playing with people getting up from the table to speak in character with others, and it is gamist moving a miniature to the most precise tactical square on a battlemat and turning to a fellow player to say, "And now you move your fighter to that square so we can flank and my rogue can use a sneak attack". And it is introducing variant or homebrewed rules to emulate action movies or Middle-Earth or what-have-you.

There is no such thing as a "pure" D&D experience. Rather it is a shared experience by many disparate groups and players with great areas of overlap and fringe areas that hardliners would argue are "not" D&D, but never-the-less are.

In fact, I would posit that it is in the differences in how we play the game and yet generally all recognize it as D&D that the game has its strength - and the discussion of these differences leads to its fertility of ideas and variation in setting and tone and keeps the game alive.

One of the most fun conversation when hooking up with new D&D gamers is parsing out the different ways different groups handled the same basic ruleset. "Oh, we never bothered with individual initiative or weapon speeds" vs. "Oh, we created our own detailed initiative system to work out the limitations and pitfalls of the existing one". I have no idea if this is less common in 3E, but in the history of D&D itself it was certainly overwhelmingly the case.

So, I guess to make a long story short, I'm saying I don't see the distinction Quasqueton is making. Emulating a "LotR experience, or a medieval Europe experience, or a movie experience" is as much a D&D story as is following the Slaver Series to Giants to the Drow to the Demon-Web Pits.

 

[Snotlord]

It all about the setting really. I use the Forgotten Realms for the D&D experience. When I use my homebrew setting I shoot for something between Conan and LotR.

 

[Maine-iac!]

Ditto.

Also, the older I get, the less interested I am in debating crap and the more interested I am in playing the game.

Ditto on both!

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I play D&D for the *D&D* experience – not to get a LotR experience, or a medieval Europe experience, or a movie experience. Maybe this is why things like hit points, magic items, raise dead, and teleport don’t bother me.

QFT.

Though in all honesty my D&D experience is somewhat western-medieval-Europe-meets-Tolkien-with-Vancian-magic. Greyhawk/Mystara/FR does it. Eberron doesn't.