D&D General GenCon TV: Celebrating D&D

[Clint_L]

I think that’s one way of looking at it, but as evidenced by the 4e round table discussion, there’s a whole other side that looks at that and says “No, I’m the player, you’re the designer, I’ll tell you if your rules are good, and I expect them to be so, because I just want to focus on the ins and out of playing my character. I’m saving my creative juices for the characters, the setting and the adventure itself. Don’t ask me to leave my imprint on the rules. That’s the other guy’s job.”

That was stated in so many different ways during that session, but it also underscores why there are people dramatically turned off by it, and others who thought it was the next best thing.

Yeah, I basically agree. I don't want to get too much into the whole 4e debate because it tends to become its own thing, and probably this specific issue needs its own thread if such can be accomplished without edition warring. I do think there is a spectrum of attitudes about the extent to which the game's rules need be prescriptive, and I'm not convinced there is a right or wrong approach. Just different tastes. Certainly mine tend strongly towards less prescriptiveness.

And for me, even setting aside different attitudes about the codification of the rules, the core D&D assumption (any edition) that the players will routinely be tasked with designing setting and story is still powerfully innovative and creative, and in these videos you can see how that goes back to the roots of the miniatures wargaming community.

I love TTRPGs but I might be really a miniatures guy at heart. The contents of my garage certainly suggest as much.

 

[overgeeked]

I don’t know how one could miss it. I know Guder was annoying but it was rolling off of him every time he talked.

Ah. I'm only getting half the conversation so missing the specific context of what you're talking about. Carry on.

 

[overgeeked]

Not just secret sauce but to me this is the basic recipe. Like, this is how it's supposed to work. Obviously not everyone feels that way and I respect that but my feeling has always been "but isn't hacking your own rules what D&D is?"

Exactly. DIY and hacking the rules is an intrinsic part of playing these games. It's not a boardgame. It's not a video game. The rules are not set in stone and customization of the game to suit the players at the table can only ever improve game play.

 

[Mannahnin]

Exactly. DIY and hacking the rules is an intrinsic part of playing these games. It's not a boardgame. It's not a video game. The rules are not set in stone and customization of the game to suit the players at the table can only ever improve game play.

I'll go along with that almost to the conclusion, but I've certainly seen house rules go wrong and achieve undesired results.

 

[TwoSix]

Exactly. DIY and hacking the rules is an intrinsic part of playing these games. It's not a boardgame. It's not a video game. The rules are not set in stone and customization of the game to suit the players at the table can only ever improve game play.

I agree with you, but I absolutely know (and play with) gamers who do not feel comfortable with that. They want to play the game that is in the books, and they're not comfortable with adding new things that change the ideas in the game that they're familiar with.

 

[Mark Hope]

I'll go along with that almost to the conclusion, but I've certainly seen house rules go wrong and achieve undesired results.

Same - I've seen plenty of my own blow up in my face. But I think that's part of a learning process that helps you refine your approach.

Like, I'll always tell my players "hey, I want to try this thing but I don't have a playtesting department so just let's give it a go and if we don't like it, we'll change it". Or rather, my players are my playtesting department

But yeah, you're inevitably going to find it going wrong. Inevitably. Comes with the territory

 

[TiQuinn]

I agree with you, but I absolutely know (and play with) gamers who do not feel comfortable with that. They want to play the game that is in the books, and they're not comfortable with adding new things that change the ideas in the game that they're familiar with.

I think this is where soft skills and session zeros really help. There have been times that I as a DM, or my current DM who I'm playing with has had to sell the system we want to try out to the players, and part of that is being honest about what the goals of the system are. It's helpful for TTRPGs to say what they are and what their designers intend the to be. Then the DMs need to communicate that to the players. We had one guys bow out of our recent games because he was strictly tactically minded - he was only interested in two games: Gloomhaven and 5e...and he got antsy when we didn't make 5e feel more like Gloomhaven to him.

 

[overgeeked]

I'll go along with that almost to the conclusion, but I've certainly seen house rules go wrong and achieve undesired results.

Sure. And so have I. In my experience, they get changed and refined until the results are desirable. Unless there’s a mismatch of preferences and expectations between the players and referee.

I agree with you, but I absolutely know (and play with) gamers who do not feel comfortable with that. They want to play the game that is in the books, and they're not comfortable with adding new things that change the ideas in the game that they're familiar with.

I know some players like that, too. I try to avoid playing with them because of that. I’m not interested in an inflexible boardgame with RP layered on top.

 

[Clint_L]

What each episode of this excellent series is making clear is how much of an impact the overall gaming zeitgeist of the time had on each successive iteration of the game. We've discussed the influence of WoW and MMORPGs on 4e, and of DIY wargaming culture on OD&D. Certainly in 5e you see a kind of reactionary, throwback impulse that probably had a lot to do with older players coming back to the game or getting their kids into it, and how that manifested itself as part of a wider embrace of nerd culture traditions via pop culture and the internet. 5e is, at its heart, a fairly reactionary version of D&D (and I say that as someone who prefers it).

It's seldom as simple as "this thing led directly to that thing." But when they mention, for example, that two designers simultaneously came up with the idea for encounter powers etc. during the planning of 4e, it's hard not to notice how much those resemble cooldown management in MMORPGs, just as the notion of saving throws arose out of wargaming way back in the day. The zeitgeist matters. Now we are seeing the influence of actual play shows on the game's continuing evolution. It's healthy, IMO.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Started watching the OD&D video. How the fudge is this 6 hours long?

So far an hour in its the history of D&D. Pretty fun for just chatting.