[EDITION WARZ] Selling Out D&D's Soul?

[Hussar]

A thought occurs that illustrates the difference between our divinely windy short one and our chromatically challenged friend.

Recently there were a couple of threads discussing the relative merits of a couple of modules - Temple of Elemental Evil and Keep on the Borderlands. These two modules very nicely encapsulate the difference between the 15 minute campaign and the deeply prepped one.

Take Keep on the Borderlands. It contains next to no information that is not pertinent to the PC's right now. NPC's have no names, there is little or no history to the Keep, we have no one that the Castellan reports to, heck, we don't really even know what happened last week, let alone last year. No NPC's are included that aren't specific to the adventure. This is about a skeletal as it gets.

Compare that to Homlet. Homlet has an intricately detailed village with just about every inhabitant named, given a history and family, and a brief blurb including motivations. There's a ton of extraneous information in an attempt to create a fairly realistic (ish) simulation of a medieval village. We have information on the village's history, it's geographic location in the larger world and even information on neighbouring villages and cities.

Is Homlet a "better" setting than Keep? Not in my mind. Did I have more fun in one than the other? Again, not really. I liked them both. And played them both several times at various ages and under a couple of editions.

RC, I'm sorry, but I don't buy the idea that a campaign must be deeply detailed in order to be more fun. I know you want to detail out the WLD more fully, and, hey, whatever floats your boat. Me, I ran and run it pretty much as written and my bunch are having an absolute blast. Running a shallow campaign has been the most fun I've had DMing in years. All that "must have story and depth and character development and angst and..." stuff that came in with 2e has taken a FAR back seat to sitting down and playing.

For me, I have far more fun playing the game than spending time piddling about figuring out the nitty gritty details of a setting.

The original question asks about the soul of D&D. To me, the soul of D&D is playing the game. Not amateur theatrics, not prepwork, not anything else but sitting down with a group of people and playing the game.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Come on, pointing to Star Wars as an example of depth of setting is ludicrous. Star Wars is far closer to a 20 minute setting than a 20 year one.

The point was not that Star Wars is particularly deep; the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers. There is a reason that all those cantina aliens now have names and backstories. Things that are not immediately important hint at a larger worldview, and as pattern-seeking animals we are automatically prone to trying to determine what the over-arching pattern is. I know that I have personally spent many an enjoyable hour discussing Doctor Who, and retconning events to create a pattern in which apparent contradictions prove not to be. In the event that some form of over-arching pattern actually exists, and is discoverable, those moments of discovery can create intense satisfaction.

As far as Keep on the Borderlands vs. Village of Hommlet goes, both modules provided an incredible depth IMHO. Although the characters in Borderlands were not named, and all of their interactions were not spelled out, there was enough information there for the DM to supply the rest. It simply required work, for which the DM gained the flexibility to add the module wholesale to an existing world. Heck, I recently ran the Caves of Chaos in 3.0, and it went splendidly. Conversely, Hommlet is tied into the World of Greyhawk, and requires more work to disentangle from its setting. You have to create new patrons for the various spies, for example....in many cases, you might want to rename characters (and the village itself) to mesh better with the campaign setting you choose (if not Greyhawk). In other words, the Village of Hommlet required the same work as Keep on the Borderlands, if you wanted to place the module into a different setting.

RC


EDIT: And, no, Hussar, depth in world building =/= character angst. Honestly, lots of the 2e modules inhibited role playing IMHO.

 

[Hussar]

both modules provided an incredible depth IMHO.

Ok, your definition of depth and mine are completely different. How much incredible depth can a module provide in 25 pages, the vast majority of which is taken up by the combat encounters in the cave? Good grief, the Keep is actually 6 pages long! That's not depth, that's the exact OPPOSITE of depth. That's a bare bones skeleton that has no flesh on it at all.

The NPC's in the keep had no names, almost no motivations (other than a single evil cleric), no background, not even a physical description. How can you possibly equate that with depth?

True, removing TOEE from Greyhawk might be difficult, IF you care about setting or feel that setting matters. If you don't, then you don't have to change any of the details. Simply incorporate them into your homebrew and away you go. Since the homebrew setting is going to replaced next year anyway, it doesn't matter.

the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers.

Nope, it caught some of the viewers. The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen. Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it. Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.

Plot catches people's attention. Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The point was not that Star Wars is particularly deep; the point was that it was the details (the extraneous materials) of the setting that caught most of us as viewers. There is a reason that all those cantina aliens now have names and backstories. Things that are not immediately important hint at a larger worldview, and as pattern-seeking animals we are automatically prone to trying to determine what the over-arching pattern is. I know that I have personally spent many an enjoyable hour discussing Doctor Who, and retconning events to create a pattern in which apparent contradictions prove not to be. In the event that some form of over-arching pattern actually exists, and is discoverable, those moments of discovery can create intense satisfaction.

For the near-obsessive fans, yes, having every alien in the Cantina have a back story makes the world more enjoyable, because for near-obsessive fans, bits of trivia and lore are a lot of fun.

For those just interested in having fun watching the film, the scene is not a wealth of potential obscure trivia, but a moment where they can feel like Luke, when the aliens and the weirdness assault the senses. The Cantina is the moment when you start feeling like this is a big, scary place that Our Hero is about to step out on, a world filled with creatures the likes of which he (and us, as the audience) have never seen before, and definately should be affraid of in many cases. These aren't just humans in funny suits, these are scary beings from another world, and with how the Cantina is described, suddenly you're scared for the little farm boy and the old man.

In the 15-minute setting, you don't have to worry about the backstory in your version of the Cantina, just about what effect you want it to have -- in this case, the effect of disorienting and intimidating the characters and the players (the audience). What intimidates people in a fantasy world? Giants. Goblins. Thugs of unknown skill. Giant swords. Barbarians. Maybe a half-fiend or a half-dragon. Dirty floors, pit fighting, a one-eyed barkeep with a hook for a hand...they all have their story, and maybe they'll even mention it, ("I lost me hand when I kilt me mum for a silver piece and a mug o' ale....hehehe, daddy didn't like that...") but unless somebody asks, you never have to know or tell...it's enough to "describe intimidating thugs." The back story, if the players are interested, can be made up as you go along, pulled from thousands of cliches of "tough thugs" bouncing around in your head already.

But in my 15-minute setting, I'm not really interested in building obsessive fans. I'm not going to market toys based on this setting, I'm not going to write a novel about an obscure NPC, I'm not going to need that information unless the PC's decide it's important for some reason. So generally, the mood at the table if one of the PC's questioned the barkeep about his missing arm for more than a few mintues would be "Okay, can we get on with it? We're here to find a pilot, not get Scruffy's life story."

Nope, it caught some of the viewers. The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen. Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it. Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.

Plot catches people's attention. Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.

Different things will catch different people. If I *ever* had someone interested in the "obsessive fan" stuff about a setting I created, I'd be putting more work into them. Turns out, I'm really the only one who would even know about half of it, and it's not that much fun for me, so it's really wasted effort.

Instead, I give the PC's the *feel* they should be experiencing with descriptive words of a mental picture I have. I'm not building the world in abscence of the PC's, rather building it specifically *for* them (and for me, too).

 

[Lanefan]

Re: Star Wars:

Nope, it caught some of the viewers. The rest of us were watching the plot and oohing and aahhhing over the finest special effects we'd ever seen. Ask non-fans about Star Wars trivia like the patrons in the Cantina (and even the name of the cantina) and they can't name it. Ask pretty much anyone who Luke Skywalker's father is, and they can.

Plot catches people's attention. Fiddly bits in the background catch fans.

And we as gamers are what, exactly? Fans, of course! Fans of the game, and thus interested in the details. Difference is, where in SW we have to live with the details given us, in D+D we can and do provide our own. Modules like Keep on the Borderlands represent the surface of a pool that is exactly as deep as we want to make it.

Lanefan

 

[I'm A Banana]

Modules like Keep on the Borderlands represent the surface of a pool that is exactly as deep as we want to make it.

Welcome to the world of the 15-minute adventure design: it's exactly as deep as we want to make it (turns out, it usually doesn't want to be made that deep).

 

[Lanefan]

Welcome to the world of the 15-minute adventure design: it's exactly as deep as we want to make it (turns out, it usually doesn't want to be made that deep).

15 minute adventure design is one thing. 15 minute setting/campaign design is another, and there's a *huge* difference between the two.

Lanefan

 

[I'm A Banana]

15 minute adventure design is one thing. 15 minute setting/campaign design is another, and there's a *huge* difference between the two.

Not really. You design an adventure for the night in 15 minutes. 15 more, you have an adventure for the next night. As you string these adventures together, developing the locales and the NPC's, you build a campaign around the adventures, the things mentioned there, and the events happening there. Viola! Setting!

 

[Odhanan]

If the players liked political intrigue and the DM decided his game would revolve around a month long dungeon crawl, and he is upfront about this, the players have to decide whether or not to play. Nothing more. This doesn't make him a bad DM.

A DM who doesn't want everyone - and I mean everyone - to really enjoy the time they spend at the game table isn't a good DM.

You react like this, I guess my friend, because you are of the opinion that you just think about a campaign you want to run, propose it to potential players and from there, they take the decision to participate or not. Which is fair game, in all honesty.

We are talking about human beings, however. This means that players may have many different reasons to come play at the game table, and many reasons to actually enjoy coming at the game table. This also means, concurrently, that some players will have reasons to play that will override their dislike for this or that gamestyle - they might enjoy spending time with their friends, enjoy rolling dice and eating pizza, doesn't matter. But we're talking about real people with very different kinds of reasons to play.

I guess I feel that you just want one sort of gamer at your game table. Which is perfectly fine by your standards if like you say, you're telling it upfront to whoever wants to play. But it's also your responsability as the host to admit that some people might just not enjoy some part of the game and rectify the aim so that everyone ends up pleased.

You're doing some preventions up front, that's great! But that's just prevention, and some players will come to your game table eventually and find something they dislike. If by then they tell it to you fair and square, and you answer "you agreed to the playstyle/campaign theme/whatever before playing, so too bad, man!", then I think you're not trying hard enough to make everyone have fun around the table, or in other words, you are too rigid with your own rules while we are speaking of real, breathing, inconsistant sometimes, complex most of the time, human beings.

 

[RFisher]

I'm going to call this out specifically, because I *have* seen this happen. Over and over again. 3e is making people better at running games, and many of the more recent supplements and redesigns are headed even further in that direction. The DM's chair is no longer a coveted seat of power and authority, a throne bestowed upon you by "alpha male" status and mastery of rules in obscure tomes. It's something anyone with an inclination can be good at. And part of the reason they can be good at it is because 3e provides a very solid foundation of how a game of D&D works...the foundation can be moved and altered, but it's a very good foundation.

(O_O) The DM's chair has never been such a thing in any of the groups I've played in under any system. Anyone could take it at any time & usually everyone did at least once. Everyone has done just fine, although we each have our own style.

Don't get me wrong. I have experienced a bad DM before, but it's a rare thing & never a member of my regular group.

What I have seen is DMs and players intimidated by a complex system that, for them, are no fun mastering. They would seldom--if ever--complain, but it was plain to see once I started looking. I saw it with Gurps. I saw it with Rolemaster. I saw it with Hero. I saw it with 3e. (Maybe even on occasion with OAD&D, though most people I've known have run OAD&D more like Basic & less by-the-book.)

That's one of the big reasons I tend to prefer less complex games these days. While I might enjoy mastering the rules, I've found I have more fun when everyone at the table has a roughly equal grasp of the rules.

You would think that after a while I would stop being amazed that we all seem to have such different experiences of the same hobby, but it keeps happening. (^_^)