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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6182054" data-attributes="member: 5143">I don't.  Other than GURPS, Hero System, or a couple of other generic games(and even those are debatable), I've never seen one that *IS* open ended.When I sat down to play D&D for the first time, I was told "Here is the list of classes, here is a short description of what abilities you get with each class...which one would you like to take?"  No one ever said, "This game is D&D...you can be whatever you want!  Just write down what you want to be and that's what you are."Actually, that's a little false.  My VERY first game of D&D I was told "Ok, we are all playing using premades since I am running you through the Dragonlance Chronicles.  You are Laurana.  Here is your character sheet.  The game is D&D...the idea is you pretend to be the character you are given and act in character for them."I've NEVER considered roleplaying to be open-ended.  In fact, in pretty much every way, roleplaying was described to me by what you were NOT allowed to do.  As an example:"This is D&D, it's a fantasy game where all sorts of mythological creatures exist but the world is in medieval level technology so there are no cars or computers or anything.  You play a character which you generate using these rules.  You choose a class from this list and gain its abilities.  You choose a race from this list and gain its abilities.  Then, after that, you make up a personality for your character and the goal is to think like he would.  Make decisions using only what he knows and his likes and dislikes.  If you make decisions using out of game knowledge or act in a way that your character wouldn't, we call that metagaming.  It's bad."I've heard this argument about 100 times and it always seems rather silly.  How does having a limited selection of races and classes make the game suddenly become a computer game?  D&D has ALWAYS had a limited selection of races and classes and/or feats.  Even in 3.5e there is a limit.  Most games don't let you make up your own feats.  If there isn't a feat to do something, it's likely impossible.The irony, of course is that these computer RPGs that you don't want D&D to become like have the structure they do because they were trying to be like D&D.  D&D has a limited set of races and classes, so do the RPG computer games that came after it, since they were attempting to emulate it.And a limited choice of races and classes doesn't suddenly make D&D a computer game.  In D&D, I can visit every city in the entire world, the DM gets to make up what they look like.  In a computer game I can only visit the cities that were programmed into the game.  In D&D, people I talk to can intelligently answer questions I ask them and can interact in a realistic way.  A computer game can't do that.  In D&D, the monsters can react to our tactics in a meaningful and intelligent way.  Computer games can't do that well.  The DM can, if they choose, make up new classes or races and add them to the game if they feel it's appropriate.  Even players can ask and possibly get access to things that weren't originally in the game if they want to.  In a computer game, nothing new appears without waiting for an expansion pack.Seriously, what difference in choice do you have when creating a character for any of the old Gold Box D&D games compared to a 1e D&D game being run with the rules out of the book?I'd rather no new material be generated than a book full of stuff that I have to spend work to allow in my game.  I don't want to spend $30 or $40 on a new book only to have to have my next 4 or 5 sessions of my game ruined as one character proves to be overpowered, so we errata his abilities only to have the next session ruined because we didn't errata them enough only to have the next session ruined because now that we've errataed his abilities the player is no longer having any fun and is complaining all session, and so on.The reason I spend $30 or $40 on a book is so that they can do all that work for me.</blockquote>

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