D&D - Thinking outside of the box

[Jürgen Hubert]

Threads like this one make me think that D&D has become too damn self-referential.

In this thread, the question of the original poster was whether it was possible for a paladin to have a succubus cohort. Of course a combination like this is hard to imagine - which I suppose is the point - but the sheer number of people who said flat-out "No" surprised me nonetheless.

D&D 3.X can be seen as a framework for any number of settings and cosmologies, and this framework is a lot looser than most people think (although still tighter than that of some universal games, such as GURPS). Yet because D&D has for most of its history been associated with a small number of settings whose cosmologies are more similar than they are not, many people seem to see any deviation from these supposed "standards" as "not true to D&D" (this thread has more such sentiments, with a number of posters claiming that ultimately only Greyhawk "is true to what D&D is all about").

All this to me seems to be rather close-minded. Why not expand your ideas about what is possible and what not in gaming, instead of fretting about what is "true" to any supposed "core ethos" of D&D?

Read some gaming books outside of D&D or d20. Try GURPS, it has plenty of fascinating ideas in its various topical books that are system-independent. Or Call of Cthulhu, which goes a lot deeper than just the "tentacled horror" aspect you might have heard about. Or even the White Wolf games, though they are becoming self-referential on their own. Or any of the many other independent games out there.

Or how about reading some books on real world folklore and mythology, not to mention religion? There are some amazing ideas ready to be mined!

Do anything, except getting stuck in your One True Way(TM).



Sorry for the rant. I hope I made any sense...

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Play D&D however you have fun. It is a game, after all.

I'll stick to my pseudo-western-Eurpoean-medieval-with-a-dash-of-Tolkien Greyhawkian D&D, thank you very much, 'cause that's what gives me the most fun. I've played "out of the box" variations, and not cared for them. It isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't expect everyone to like my "traditional" D&D. But don't dump on the One True Way(tm) just because that's what some of us prefer.

 

[greywulf]

I'm with Jurgen on this. It's one thing to know D&D's core asumptions, and a far better thing to know how and when to break them.

A lot of D&D's sacred cows are enshrined in the rules - including how magic works, alignments, how the planes work, etc - and that's fine, as it gives us a baseline. We know what we're talking about when we say it's a D&D campaign.

But it's when we start to make the game our own, using the system as a jumping off point into our own creation - that's when we become Games Masters, not Games Slaves.

 

[Li Shenron]

Do anything, except getting stuck in your One True Way(TM).

Personally I experience many more situations where gamers want anything they had in mind to be allowed just in the name of "fun", even if it doesn't fit with the setting. Allowing everything imaginable can be just as close-minded as never wanting to change a thing.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

It's when we start to make the game our own, using the system as a jumping off point into our own creation - that's when we become Games Masters, not Games Slaves.

Sigged.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Personally I experience many more situations where gamers want anything they had in mind to be allowed just in the name of "fun", even if it doesn't fit with the setting. Allowing everything imaginable can be just as close-minded as never wanting to change a thing.

Don't misunderstand me - I certainly don't my players everything, and I am not putting everything possible into the setting, either. Though it's often a good idea to be accomodating to the wishes of the player, some work with the themes of a certain setting, and some don't.

What I meant was that when you are building a setting - or just interpreting it - you should not feel constrained by what is considered to be the "standard" for D&D. Don't be afraid of significant departures from the norm, as long as the setting is thematically strong and internally consistent.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

I'll stick to my pseudo-western-Eurpoean-medieval-with-a-dash-of-Tolkien Greyhawkian D&D, thank you very much, 'cause that's what gives me the most fun. I've played "out of the box" variations, and not cared for them. It isn't for everyone, and I certainly don't expect everyone to like my "traditional" D&D. But don't dump on the One True Way(tm) just because that's what some of us prefer.

If you have looked at other variations, and then decided that they were not for you, then that's good enough already. What annoys me is when someone refuses to even consider that other possibilities exist.

I certainly don't have anything against "standard" D&D campaigns - I've run and played in my share of Forgotten Realms campaigns, after all. All I want is a sense of recognition that those kinds of settings are not the sum of the existence of D&D, and that other possibilities do exist.

 

[Mystery Man]

Jürgen, I owe you one big fat apology.

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

Jürgen, I owe you one big fat apology.

Huh? What for?

 

[diaglo]

If you have looked at other variations, and then decided that they were not for you, then that's good enough already. What annoys me is when someone refuses to even consider that other possibilities exist.

I certainly don't have anything against "standard" D&D campaigns - I've run and played in my share of Forgotten Realms campaigns, after all. All I want is a sense of recognition that those kinds of settings are not the sum of the existence of D&D, and that other possibilities do exist.

try OD&D(1974) mang. it is exactly what you want.