mmadsen said:
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.
Well put.
mmadsen said:
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.
See, I hear that, but I'm not entirely for it. Our early D&D games were that way as well, because that's what early D&D was about. Exploration, the dungeon as puzzle, traps that had to be outwitted rather than defeated through class abilities, etc. Over time, the game moved toward a tactical strategy game and away from strategic resource management game. This is a change that looking back, is much more fun for me.
Hearing about Gary Gygax running a game for the EnWorld mods, and the loooong stretches of nothing happening that were part and parcel of the old-school exploration model, I'm actually well pleased that those elements aren't as present.
For example, for nostalgia's sake, I was going to update The Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun for my 3e group a couple of years back, and it was so crushingly dull, I let (coughinsistedcough) them just bypass the entire maze with a
find the path. a.k.a. "
find exciting part of the adventure."
Now, I know that there are players out there who love that kind of thing, but they don't play at my groups. There was some serious eye-glazing going on, and I realized now why we tend to hand-wave all the real-world referential exploration/adventure type of details.
Because we'd honestly rather play in a fantasy comic book complete with villain speeches, witty quips, moral predicaments and nasty fights raining down one after another in a patently unrealistic fashion.
I do think you can cover human themes in that kind of game in a tangental way-- motivations, decision points, politics, etc. In fact, you can ground the game in the game world through those big themes. "Why are there bandits here? Something fishy is going on, let's go investigate this remote outpost looking for answers (knowing, because it's D&D that wherever we roam, there will be a giant brawl with fireballs and flashing swords)."
Not always the stuff of Liberal Arts programs, but usually a good time. Where the rubber meets the road, my groups want to pack the most fun into the experience. We get our intellectual edification from other sources, like sports and reality television.
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