D&D gaming style preference changes

[Argyle King]

Absolutely!

Once upon a time I was very "simulationist". I used to try to organise spells into themed paths, write intricate combat rules and critical hit charts. I'd work out ways to track encumbrance and rations and ammo.

Nowadays I do none of that. I'm clearly now "gamist". I just wanna have fun, and I don't want the PCs to be realistic I want them to be fantasy heroes doing ridiculous things! I play much more fast and loose with the rules, I try never to say "no", and focus on fun more than anything else.

I've actually gone somewhat the other way. While I would never say I was a hardcore gamist, there was a time when I really didn't care about the realism of the rules. As long as there was some basic idea of reality, I was happy. This is the attitude which carried me through Rifts, D&D 3E, a system I tried to invent myself, and into my first few sessions of D&D 4E.

Now I'd say I've shifted a lot more toward the simulationist camp. I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore simulationist, but it's pretty obvious that I enjoy some sort of baseline reality which is more in line with what I see in the world around me. While I do enjoy the super powered romp & stomp and hack & slash style with totally over the top PCs and monsters quaking in their boots from time to time, I've come to feel that I prefer my heroes to be leading armies rather than battling them. I also like knowing that my character's story matters and has actual value in the game world rather than simply being a plot vehicle to explain why I'm slaying monsters. I don't see anything wrong with my hero wanting to relax every now and enjoy investing some of his hard won loot into other endevours. What's wrong with want to take a break from the hard work of slaying dragons to enjoy a pint of ale and raise some llamas?

I'm not against breaking reality; I still highly enjoy games which feature super heroes, magic, and things that defy reality. However, I at least like those features to give a passing nod to reality. If my wizard casts a fireball, yes, it is magic; however, once it's in play, I expect it to behave like fire. Likewise, if I'm in town and start blatantly breaking the law, I expect that -mechanically speaking- the guards will have an actual chance of enforcing the law without the DM needing to resort to DM fiat.

For some people, realism takes away options and fun. For me, having some amount of realism gives me more options because I can expect the system to handle both the goody-two-shoes Paladin *and* the burn-down-the-orphanage-for-kicks evil character. In a very gamist & very PC centric system, the latter can be tough to handle due to the PCs being so much stronger by default than NPCs and monsters. Granted, I can railroad somebody into a 'run from the law' skill challenge or simply just fudge things to bring the PC under control, but I don't like DMing that way. I'd rather have the game world react in a way which seems reasonable and be able to focus more of my energy on writing the story and running the game.

I think part of my change may also be due to the fact that I've become something of an avid world builder. I love to build worlds. As such, I appreciate a certain level realism in the way that I can expect the game world to react to the actions of characters (both PC and NPC.)

Overall, I suppose -if this makes any sense- I've become something of a Narrativist by way of Simulation. I like to have depth to my stories, and having rules with more depth helps me to do this in a consistant manner. I play rpgs for very different reasons than why I play other games; when I want more of a Gamist experience, I tend to play something like Yahtzee, Munchkin Quest, Cthulu Dice, or Chez Geek.

 

[Gothmog]

Yep, I went through several "phases" too.

Age 10-14 (1983-1987)- I actually started with MERP (Middle-Earth Role Playing), and moved on to D&D after about a year. My experience with MERP heavily influenced my gaming style though- I was very detail-oriented and thought there needed to be a rule for everything. I played more than ran games during this period, although any adventures I ran tended to be published (MERP had a TON of excellent sourcebooks and adventures which I still have and draw inspiration from). We also tended to have some pretty munchkinny, power fantasy moments, which while it was fun at the time, I wouldn't be able to tolerate it now.

Age 15-18 (1988-1992)- Mostly playing D&D at this point in afternoons and evenings after high school. I usually ran games, tended to homebrew stuff, and they tended towards powergaming and dungeon crawls. I also ran a Dragonlance game during this period for about three years which went completely wahoo and totally against canon for the world, but we didn't care- it was fun.

Age 19-23 (1992-1997)- When I started college, I recruited some new players and retained some old players who stayed in town for college, and we started a new campaign in a homebrew world based loosely on a combination of medieval earth and Howard's Hyborea (the world of Conan). This was a darker fantasy, simulationist, sword & sorcery style 2e AD&D game that focused on worldbuilding, history, and integrating the characters into it. By this point the group had progressed past powergaming, and everyone voluntarily and enthusiastically developed involved background stories that tied their characters to the campaign setting. I still went by RAW mostly, bending rules where needed- we did what was fun and made the most interesting story within certain limits. It was probably the best gaming and my first "golden age" of gaming- we'd game every Saturday from noon to whenever we collapsed from fatigue, and the players were really into the game and seemed to love every minute of it. We still get together 2-3 times a year for a weekend and continue that campaign.

Age 23-30 (1997-2003)- During this time I was in medical and graduate school, so I didn't get as much time to game, and I was in a new city. I made a few abortive attempts at starting groups, but due to time factors and group personality conflicts between some players, the games never really went anywhere. I also had a friend who worked at a FLGS there, and I played with some new groups in very short (5-10 adventure) campaigns in a variety of systems. However, I learned a LOT during this time about what I do and don't like in gaming, was exposed to new ideas and playstyles, and got exposed to a lot of new games, either by reading them, or trying to play them. I ran and played quite a bit of 3e during this time, but eventually gave up on it and went to other systems (2e, Classic Deadlands, Fading Suns, and eventually Savage Worlds) since it didn't scratch the gaming itch and preferences I established in my college days.

Age 30-34 (2003-2008)- I moved back to my home city, and got a job as a professor at a university. All of a sudden I had all kinds of time free to game, but most of my old friends now had families and career pressures, and weren't able to game as much as we would have liked. We played some WHFRP2 and 2e during this time, but things didn't really get going like we hoped they would due to real-world pressures.

Age 35-36 (2008-2010)- Ah, the second "golden age" of gaming! When D&D 4e came out, I read it and loved it- it almost perfectly fit my gaming style and preferences, and what few flaws it had I could tweak into what I did want. I hadn't been this excited to run or play a game in many, many years. I was determined to get a weekly group going, and was lucky enough to meet a great group of guys and gals through the FLGS who were willing to play. We still have a weekly game going, although we alternate between D&D 4e and Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader. I also recruited some former students I had become friends with after they graduated for a weekly 4e game- all of them were new to gaming, and let me tell you its so exciting and refreshing to see them experiencing the feelings I had back when I started gaming! Now, I tend to still prefer dark fantasy, simulationist, PoL-type games with a lot of backstory and character motivations, but I look at rules as simply guidelines, and nothing rigid or that must be adhered to. I updated the old homebrew world for 4e, and never looked back. I also recently moved into a new house, bought a Sultan gaming table, and got a bunch of my Dwarven Forge stuff out of storage for weekly use- its gaming Nirvanna now! it simply doesn't get better than this!

 

[Desdichado]

Well, yes and no. Rather than big swings in style and tastes, I tried lots of things, and gradually homed in on and refined my style, I think.

My attachment to system and genre has occasionally been rather faddish, though. Starting in the mid to late 80s, I actually started hating D&D and was a confirmed anti-D&Dist for many, many years. Until 3e was released, actually. Then I loved it again.

Then certain aspects of it started grating on my tastes again, but rather than abandoning it, I just kinda tweaked it to my taste. Thanks again, OGL, for making that so easy by providing me so many options in print to borrow!

Throughout, though, I've always approached the game from an "authorial" style. I was interested in RPGs because I was reading Tolkien, Lewis and Lloyd Alexander and wanted to recreate that kind of thing in a different medium and in a collaborative way. I tend to see my characters the same way an author would, and have the same type of attachment to them, and I've valued more immersion, less mechanical structure (unless it was descriptive of the characters) and other structural elements that made the game more resemble a movie or a book, except one in which we were all collaboratively the authors.

So I never valued dungeon crawling, or the wargaming approach, or even looser campaigns like sandboxes very much, because they didn't scratch the itch that got me into gaming in the first place.

That's never really changed for me. If anything, I just grew to understand and be able to describe what I wanted from the game better over time.

 

[pemerton]

When I started playing I played dungeon crawls. Then I started GMing and tried to build stories but didn't really know how. I was influenced by books like Manual of the Planes (1st ed), Wilderness Survival Guide and Oriental Adventures, as well as a certain tone in the mid-to-late 80s Dragon magazines, towards a more simulationist style. This was partially out of a sense that this was what "real roleplaying" was all about, and partially out of some sort of world-buidling desire. But I never found it very satisfying - the greater attention to detail didn't produce greater fun.

Then one weekend as a 16-year old I GMed a Keep on the Borderlands 1 shot with two multi-class thief PCs that never left the keep. I set up a few situations with locked rooms and NPCs, the players initiated their own actions - breaking into things, blackmailing and exposing cultists - and I discovered the sort of game I wanted to GM: character-heavy player-driven, where I provide as many thematically-rich game elements as I can (gods, slavers, factions, mysteries, etc) and the players build their PCs up in response to them. I found out what I wanted out of world-building - not detail or sandbox per se, but a complex and interrelated set of these thematically-rich elements.

The next 20 or so years was about finding the right ruleset. Although I played a fair bit of 2nd ed AD&D I was never a huge fan, and certainly would never have GMed it. Playing a range of games at Cons reinforced this judgement - the AD&D game was almost always the least satisfying.

I GMed a little bit of but never played 3E, and had no desire to - although mechanically robust in all sorts of ways it nevertheless seemed to me to combine some of the least attractive features of AD&D and Rolemaster. (I'm sure that this is not a fair judgement, but it does accurately capture my feelings.)

I GMed Rolemaster for a long time - 1990 to 2008 - but while it delivered very richly defined and playable PCs, aspects of the mechanics increasingly got in the way. For me, it was reading essays at The Forge that helped me work out what aspects of the game were working for me, and what aspects I was needlessly clinging onto just because I thought they were part of "real roleplaying".

For me, the announcement of 4e was a big thing - it coincided with likely changes in group composition and with an increased desire on my part to find a game more conducive to my playstyle. Me and my players are now playing 4e.

Given my preferences, I probably should be GMing a more explicitly narrativist game like The Burning Wheel or HeroQuest, but my players are probably a bit more traditionalist than I am in their gaming preferences. And we all enjoy the fiddly character building, tactical combat aspect and fantasy tropes of a more traditional fantasy RPG like 4e.

On the theory that the older you get the harder it is to change, I can see us sticking with 4e for a fair while.

 

[WheresMyD20]

First phase: 1985-1988
Started with Basic D&D. We didn't know what we were doing most of the time, but we had fun.

Second phase: 1988-1991
Played lots of Rolemaster. We did a lot of powergaming and loved the gory critical tables. Eventually added some AD&D 2e to the mix.

Third phase: 1994-1997
Played several different systems. Tried to be really creative with campaigns. Never really found a "perfect" game system.

Fourth phase: 1997-2005
Returned to AD&D 1e/2e with a vengence. Experimented a little with 3e when it came out. Gave 3e up entirely and returned to 1e when 3.5 came out. Campaigns in this phase were pretty balanced overall.

Fifth phase: 2006-present
Only play classic (pre-3e) D&D and retro-clones now. Campaigns are mostly exploration and puzzle-solving with some combat to spice things up. The Tomb of Horrors is a good example of what I want in a D&D adventure now. It's challenging and it forces players to think in order to survive. I've totally lost any patience I've had for role-playing characters. Sitting around pretending to be elves and gnomes and talking in character never interested me, but now it just gets on my nerves.

 

[WheresMyD20]

I GMed a little bit of but never played 3E, and had no desire to - although mechanically robust in all sorts of ways it nevertheless seemed to me to combine some of the least attractive features of AD&D and Rolemaster. (I'm sure that this is not a fair judgement, but it does accurately capture my feelings.)

I've played a lot of Rolemaster and have similar feelings about 3e. It's interesting that Monte Cook worked on Rolemaster before working on 3e. I don't know how much of an effect his Rolemaster experience had on the design of 3e, but I get the impression that it had some significant impact.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

First, I know that my personal playstyle has changed since 1977. I was a dyed in the wool power munchkin in the 70s, started becoming a roleplaying munchkin in the 1980s, and since 1991 on, would consider myself a roleplayer who has the ability to powergame...if the situation/PC calls for it.

Second, I also know that it is possible to have one's playstyle be relatively static for decades. I've been gaming with a buddy of mine since 1985, and but for one Paladin and a couple of other PCs, he always plays a Mage. And those mages' spellbooks are virtually interchangeable.

 

[Pig Champion]

When I was younger I went through a simulationist stage until I got to high school and started to study drama, then I used to play very thespian style games.

Now-a-days I use a lot of writing and psychological techniques when running games. If I had to describe my gaming style now it would be, Moral pornography under the rule of cool.

 

[airwalkrr]

I've gone through a lot of different stylistic phases. I would have to describe my experience as of the "full circle" variety. When I first started playing AD&D, things were simple. No minis, no maps, low level, lots of imagination. Now, with running 3.5, it seems like there is a huge focus on the tactical game as opposed to the strategic, and to be honest, I've tired of it. I long for the old days when we did things fairly simply. My favorite systems are 1st ed. AD&D and Palladium, for different reasons. I love the smorgasbord of options in Palladium games. I also love that every campaign in Palladium is very tailored to the group. With AD&D, I just like the relative simplicity of it. Sure, there may be tables for everything, but just to play a regular old dungeon crawl, you don't need to know a lot. Initiative, attack rolls, even spellcasting; it's all pretty straightforward.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I haven't really changed that much. Superhero was my favourite genre when I was 15 and it still is. I've never really liked realism, mostly because I've always been too ignorant about the real world to run or even play in a realistic game. I've always been ambivalent about rules-heavy systems like HERO or 3e or M&M. Like a lot of geeks, I find complex systems interesting in and of themselves (I believe this is a large part of the appeal of such systems) but they mostly just get in the way of running a good rpg session.

In my early teens, I used to cheat, I think I grew out of it some time in my late teens.