Gaming Pornography: Will 4th Edition lead to a more Realistic and Useful Game?

[SHARK]

I think it's natural that as we add more and more rules for more and more things that don't exist in the real world -- magic, monsters, etc. -- the game becomes increasingly self-referential and divorced from reality.

Some people enjoy that, or don't even notice it, but many of us have long enjoyed learning about the real world by exploring a hypothetical fantasy world, and much older fantasy writing hews much closer to historical adventure with a twist from a touch of fantasy.

When I look back to my early gaming years, most of the decisions we made in the game were grounded in the game world, not in the game rules -- Where do we set up camp? What kind of kit did we bring? Wait, we're running out of food? How do we find these Caves of Chaos? "Bree yark!" They're surrendering!

I would love to see the next version of D&D take more cues from real life exploration and military adventures, but I doubt it will.

Greetings!

Very true, mmadsen, very true! Excellent post!

My friend, E-mail me! We need to talk! It's been a long time!

E-mail SHARK:
BIGHUNGRYSHARK@AOL.COM

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[SHARK]

"Ducant fata volentem, nolentem trahunt."


Once again, I enjoyed reading the comments. Even those in opposition.
Once again some made me think of things I hadn't quite thought of before in the way you expressed them.

Well, I got a few minutes before I hit the sack after traveling about today.
So instead of trying to answer everybody separately I think I'm gonna respond in the following way.

I think some of you got perfectly what I was driving at. And some of you didn't understand at all. C'est la vie. Some people are gonna get what you mean, some are not, and some people are gonna argue with you that the sun is green even at noon when it's there for all to see, because you said it was yellow. That too is life.

But instead of all that minutiae I'm just gonna tell ya a little story to illustrate the point and see if this makes what I'm saying any clearer.

When I was a kid and played D&D, or DM'ed D&D, and was the usual case, it was not uncommon, as a matter of fact, it was the rule, that during any particular gaming session, the game itself would stimulate a discussion about literature, about ancient warfare and/or the Cold War with the Soviet Union (we were in it at the time), about religion, God, the church, myth, education, the future, history, science, business, economics, gaming itself, technology (this was before the PC and public internet so we usually discussed World War II fighters, nuclear submarines, or not yet built spacecraft), art, music, chess, different languages (I don't mean drow elvish or hellpsawn, I mean Latin, Greek, Korean, etc.) other games, film, what we intended to do in real life (our goals and possible occupations), crime, school, taxes, politics, women (females anyway, we were really too young to date women) and so forth. After the game, because of the game we had just played or because of something that happened in the game we would often hang around for hours and discuss or argue the very same subjects, ranging around everywhere, discussing almost everything, how it affected us, what it meant, where it might lead us, and so forth.

This was the norm and it happened almost every game whether I was DM, or player, and no matter what gaming group I ran or found myself in.
This is the way my friends and I gamed and the way the game functioned.
When we brought in people who had never gamed before, or gamers from other groups, it still functioned in that way.

Then I gave up playing for a long time. I had too much else to do. In the intervening years I went to several colleges, got married, had a number of different occupations, had children, bought houses, bought land, invested, started some businesses, became a officer of different organizations and agencies, became involved in my church, became a coach, did some missionary work, became a writer, and involved myself in other matters in the world.

Then after my children began to age I wanted them and my nephews and some of the kids in the church and neighbor kids to be able to have some of the same types of beneficial gaming and role playing experiences I had when young and which had been inspired by D&D. So to get back into gaming before devising my current setting I decided to investigate and join some of the local gaming groups. So I found a few and attended some sessions, playing off and on in each for a few months. All the groups employed the 3.0 or 3.5 systems.

During the game the conversation ranged all the way from this rule to that rule, what spells are best used in this situation or that, how many and in what way skills can best be used in any given situation by a particular character given the number value, what the flavor of the game and setting and campaign really was supposed to be and how it functioned (Oh Lord, how many, many, many pointless conversations about "flavor"), what character had the most potent set of feats, what magical device might best be seized by assassination, and so forth. Not that there's anything wrong with that in and of itself, but ... every game, with every group... WENT... THAT ... WAY. Oh, every now and then I'd try to change the conversation from, "do you think Penecalifar should take another to hit bonus or do you think it would be best to up his armor class by a combination of upping his dexterity and buying a +4 Shield of Protection from Interdimensional Teleportation?" (I mean, heck, they had a few extra at the local armory, so why not, right?) to something less interesting, like international terrorism or "you know what Erasmus says about Interdimensional Teleportation don't ya?"

One time something ironic happened in the game and I quoted Shakespeare's John Falstaff. From the looks I got not only did they not get the joke they didn't know where the reference had come from or what it even meant in relation to the present situation regarding the characters. Once we started talking about the way a Paladin was behaving and I asked the guy playing him what his deity would think of his behavior and he told me, "My character doesn't really believe in him or care what he thinks, I just play this guy cause it fits the flavor of the stetting and rounds out the party well."

Now if that were one group, one setting, one game, okay, I understand the occurrence probabilities of empirically unverifiable anecdotal situations as well as the next statistician. But when it was every game, with every group, and in every setting, my astute powers of deduction and observation began to make a few calculations regarding likely and on-going catalytic agents of cause and effect.

Now if ya get the point of this story, then you do, and nothing else need be said. And if ya don't get the point of this story, the ya don't, and no further explanation is probably gonna help. And if ya get it and still don't care, well then, it doesn't really mater either way at all, does it?

But in my considered opinion the correlation between in-game atmosphere and corresponding value, and in-game method and system of execution is just a little bit more than coincidental synchronicity.

Anyway just think about it for awhile and next time you're at your game see how much time you spend preparing for and discussing feat progression and rules clarification versus something far less important, like, oh, I don't know, like living...

Well, good night all.
I got stuff to do in the real world tomorrow.

Greetings!

Excellent post Jack! I understand quite well your point. You make a very good argument for how the flavour and style of the game has changed over the years. Back in the day, all the games I played in with people were like you suggest in the beginning section of your story. Nowadays...well, things and styles have certainly changed.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 

[Wormwood]

Anyway just think about it for awhile and next time you're at your game see how much time you spend preparing for and discussing feat progression and rules clarification versus something far less important, like, oh, I don't know, like living...

I have 108 hours a week to consider life.

Four hours of geeking out on rules and game systems is not too much to ask.

ps. I nominate this thread for the Passive Aggressive 2007 Award.

 

[outsider]

Anyway just think about it for awhile and next time you're at your game see how much time you spend preparing for and discussing feat progression and rules clarification versus something far less important, like, oh, I don't know, like living...

Another thought provoking post, as I expected. Well done!

 

[Thurbane]

I have to honestly wonder - if people are genuinely upset or offended by the OPs posts, why continue replying? Surely the addage of "don't feed the trolls" applies?

For myself, I think he raises some valid points, which are somewhat obfuscated by flowery prose and heavily loaded terminology...

 

[haakon1]

I too have gamed for 30 years, since I was a wee lad of just 9, back in the late seventies. And Jack7 makes a very valid, though hidden point. There was something to the 'connected with the real world' mystique that is missing these days.

Nod. I started 25 years ago, but I also see the point.

In AD&D, there were ghosts and vampires and wolves and harpies and dragons orcs to fight. Now, there's warforged and morhg and lots of other stuff that's not derived from the real world, the mythology of the real world, or Tolkienesque fantasy (most of which is derived from the real world).

I hate spikey armor is usually how I express this discontent with 3e. I manage to avoid it in my game, but I suspect 4e will promote spikey armor over chainmail that looks like chainmail to an even greater degree than 3e did.

 

[shurai]

I bumbled around with the words until I decided to just come out and say it: I think Jack7's heart is in the right place.

One can use negative words like pornography or hedonism, or positive words, like pleasure or enjoyment. The other thing can be called education or self-improvement just as easily as elitism or masturbation (someone actually said this, earlier). So both purposes for playing D&D can be spoken of with words that carry judgement in both directions, and advocates of each are doing so. If I could quote Shakespeare better I might have some wry comment here about the sweet smell of roses.

Whatever the words are, I agree with Jack7: Entertainment that enriches is superior to entertainment that does not, even if the former is less entertaining. What can I say? I'm not interested in sound and fury that signifies nothing. Sometimes I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness when I mention it, and it occurs to me then that maybe I should remember where the phrase "head on a platter" came from -- people don't take kindly to it. They get offended, and methinks, doth protest too much.

I don't think Jack7 deserves to be criticized for being an elitist in any case. He's trying to pass the flame of knowledge on to his kids. He doesn't need his liver eaten out for lamenting the fact that he believes that changes in roleplaying culture and system mechanics have made this harder.

Some have argued, of course, that 3rd Edition is (and 4th Edition will be) malleable to meet the needs of very divergent play styles. This is true, to a point. As the integration between form and function increases (as I think we are told it will in 4th edition), I think really changing the way the game works becomes increasingly Sisyphusian. My own experience with homebrewing suggests that victories tend to be Pyrhhic, in any case.

-S

PS - How many Trojan horses can you find? : P

PPS - I'm so sorry, an opportunity to make an obscure reference is like a siren's call to me.

 

[Numion]

Well, if 3E is RPG porn, this thread surely rates as mental masturbation.

 

[Shadeydm]

Well, if 3E is RPG porn, this thread surely rates as mental masturbation.

Which makes this post what...a money shot?

 

[Doug McCrae]

In AD&D, there were ghosts and vampires and wolves and harpies and dragons orcs to fight. Now, there's warforged and morhg and lots of other stuff that's not derived from the real world, the mythology of the real world, or Tolkienesque fantasy (most of which is derived from the real world).

AD&D also had displacer beasts, rust monsters, gelatinous cubes and flail snails.