Has D&D become too...D&Dish?

[SSquirrel]

One could make the argument that console games are appealing to a whole different demographic than roleplaying games. Basically, WoW handles the core of what D&D is about while being easier to pick up and play as far as the vast majority of gamers are concerned.

Actually, you can't really say the first sentence. A large portion of the people I know who play WoW (myself included) havedone varying amounts of RPing in their life. Plenty of people out thehre who never picked up a D&D or RIFTS book are playing WoW yes, but it's appealing to those of us who play D&D as well. It helped my fiancee and I keep the RPing itch down during this last year or so w/o a tabletop group. Esp once my guild started using voicechat. Feels more like a bunch of friends sitting around the table adventuring together. The DM doesn't talk much tho and has a billion quests already planned out for us to pick up at will. Or we can work on exploration or fighting other players or crafting nifty stuff.

WoW is dominating all the other MMOs b/c of ease of play, something Blizz is really darn good at. A lot of the D&Disms are still found in WoW and people are fine with them, maybe even enjoy them. The second sentence I can go along with no worries WoW is easier than getting people together, explaining rules, having dices, making sure people remembered characters, etc etc. Instead bring your computers over and we'll have a LAN party and go thru Scarlet Monastery! heh.

All that said, I can't wait till I get Ptolus in August and maybe find myself a gaming group again one of these days *sigh*

 

[SSquirrel]

Yes, but that's because it required 2000xp for a fighter to hit second level, and 2500 for a wizard/mage.

It took a rogue only 1250, and a cleric 1500.

Levelling slowly, however, once you hit 10th level, was very true. When it took 100,000+xp to level up, and you were getting 2-3k experince per encounter, it made a difference.

We liked to start people at 5th level mage XP. Mage was the standard value we used. It meant some classes would be higher (8th thief I believe) but we had better ranged options

"It's focus on combat means that its easy to pick up and play and new players won't feel so silly about it. Compare the amount of entry through D&D to WoD, for example. I think part of the reason for that is that most people aren't as interested in improvisational theater as they are about seeing their enemies driven before them."

Actually, WoD is no more theatrical than D&D if you run a heavy roleplaying group. The whole getting up, running around doing rock paper scissors is just the LARP version. Tabletop runs a lot like D&D only it was usually a smoother event when combat came up, least with my old WOD group I played in.

 

[JohnSnow]

Plenty of people out thehre who never picked up a D&D or RIFTS book are playing WoW yes, but it's appealing to those of us who play D&D as well.

And you would be part of a tiny minority, rather than the "vast majority" of gamers I mentioned in my post. People who want their entertainment from videogames aren't going to start getting it from tabletop RPGs. It's delusional to think so. Yes, some of them will play both. But to think that WoW will somehow pull people into D&D is, well, absurd.

do you know the background of the cleric or the druid?

the cleric just like the fighting man and the magic user were the only classes available in OD&D. clerics got some advantages from both the other classes and disadvantages of their own. they filled a unique niche. no spells at level 1. no edged weapons. ability to wear good armor. use of more magic items than fighting men less than magic users.

the druid on the other hand was introduced as an NPC class only. a hybrid of the magic user and the cleric class. when it went PC class the rules for PC classes had changed.

variable hit dice for hps although the cleric class which now included the druid was still a d6

So you're saying that in OD&D, the cleric was more than just a mobile aid station? Okay, I'll buy that. My memories of the white box are sketchy, since I only played a few games with a friend's copy. By the time of AD&D, that seemed to be one of their primary roles.

It seems to me that D&D needs to revisit itself from time to time. And it needs to do it with fresh eyes for what it's providing. The developers shouldn't just continually refine the game for people already playing it. Sure, keep your core audience happy.

So, diaglo, I'm curious, why do you still play OD&D? Why not AD&D, Rules Cyclopedia D&D, AD&D 2nd Edition, or even some flavor of Third Edition? Why the original game still? If there's a response more detailed than "it's better," I'd be interested to hear why you think it's better.

I can't guarantee I'd agree, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. I think it might be relevant to this discussion, but if others disagree, we can take it elsewhere.

 

[JohnSnow]

Again, why should D&D be held to the goal of modeling a specific fantasy novel? Why is D&D not allowed to break it's own ground?

Umm...did I mention a specific fantasy novel? I guess I did use the Lord of the Rings as an example of the literature that got ME interested in fantasy gaming...

Why can't D&D break its own ground? Because people don't usually decide to try out playing D&D because of an experience playing D&D. They may decide to take it up as a hobby because of that, but they're not going to "try it" based on "trying it." They're going to try it because something about it appeals to something they're interested in.

Breaking new ground is fine...for existing players. But that's the point. The game seems to be, in my opinion, primarily targeting its existing market. It's about making D&D for D&D players, not D&D for everyone else. If the game's development even recognizes an "everyone else," they usually start shooting at the computer gaming crowd. Which I've said above I believe is flawed logic because you're talking about different kinds of entertainment.

I love D&D. My reaction to most computer games is..."Meh." I know a few people who play both. Most of them are people who already played tabletop RPGs and took up computer games as well. They aren't (usually) people who played computer games and decided to take up tabletop RPGs. And I know LOTS of people who play computer games and have NO interest in taking up D&D.

But that's a side point. The core point is that I think D&D (especially) is mostly marketing itself at existing D&D players. It's designed by D&D players, for D&D players. It is not, in my opinion, designed to capture the larger audience of people who don't yet play the game, but might be willing to try it. Like, oh, 95% of the women who have the same interests (D&D excepted) as geeks like us.

 

[hong]

I find it interesting that all these complaining threads usually follow the same pattern:

"D&D only does D&D well! It doesn't do generic fantasy!" (implied subtext: emulating generic fantasy is desirable)

"Actually, these days generic fantasy is MMORPGs."

"Well, in that case it shouldn't try to ape generic fantasy!"

 

[Hussar]

Why can't D&D break its own ground? Because people don't usually decide to try out playing D&D because of an experience playing D&D. They may decide to take it up as a hobby because of that, but they're not going to "try it" based on "trying it." They're going to try it because something about it appeals to something they're interested in.

I believe that you are mistaken here. Many people who come to the game are coming to it because they are being introduced by an existing player, or because they happen to go to a store which stocks DnD products. Perhaps they do DDM or Magic at the local FLGS and pick up DnD.

The idea that someone will read Book X and suddenly get interested in DnD is about as likely as someone playing WOW and getting interested in DnD.

The gateway to DND is not DND. It is also not fantasy lit. THe best gateway to DnD are DnD like games, like DDM or Magic. That gives you the bones of the game - combat mechanics, rules features, adjudication - and then DND fills up the rest.

 

[Glyfair]

The gateway to DND is not DND. It is also not fantasy lit. THe best gateway to DnD are DnD like games, like DDM or Magic. That gives you the bones of the game - combat mechanics, rules features, adjudication - and then DND fills up the rest.

I know that a majority of the recent players I got into D&D came from my Mage Knight players, in fact. The second biggest group is lapsed D&D players who were looking to get back into the game.

I personally didn't get into the game because of an interest in fantasy. Sure, I liked it and read it. I was more into comic books, however (and it would be a few years before a superhero RPG I found playable was released).

I got into D&D because I was looking for an open-ended game. Board games were too limiting for me. Why can't I try to run for office in Atlantic City so I can decrease these huge tax bills?

 

[Psion]

Breaking new ground is fine...for existing players. But that's the point. The game seems to be, in my opinion, primarily targeting its existing market. It's about making D&D for D&D players, not D&D for everyone else.

I think this is true, but I think it has nothing to do with emulating novels. D&D is fantasy, and most fantasy fans should recognize some common tropes without having to have it be a simulationist experience.

D&D could choose to emulate a specific subset of fantasy novels, and to a certain extent it does. But to do so to a large degree forces you into making design decisions that can compromise it's playability as a game.

But really, D&D springs from classic fantasy that many readers are familiar with. The races, quest-style, and certain aspects of creatures and mythology are strongly inspired by Lord of the Rings; many adventures stylings are also drawn from Leiber. Many character types are drawn from European history and Arthurian myth. Magic is strongly inspired by vance. These are not ill-recognized authors or books.

 

[diaglo]

So you're saying that in OD&D, the cleric was more than just a mobile aid station? Okay, I'll buy that. My memories of the white box are sketchy, since I only played a few games with a friend's copy. By the time of AD&D, that seemed to be one of their primary roles.

yeah, what the cleric did as its main component to the game was introduce religion and alignment.

which as JoeBlank points out can be removed with little difficulty.

just as the thief is not a necessary class and wasn't in the OD&D booklets.

So, diaglo, I'm curious, why do you still play OD&D? Why not AD&D, Rules Cyclopedia D&D, AD&D 2nd Edition, or even some flavor of Third Edition? Why the original game still? If there's a response more detailed than "it's better," I'd be interested to hear why you think it's better.

I can't guarantee I'd agree, but I'd be interested to hear your reasoning. I think it might be relevant to this discussion, but if others disagree, we can take it elsewhere.

interestingly, i have been able to get some of this out recently here without going into a why this is better than that edition war.

the biggest difference for me has always been the power creep added by the later editions. each one upping the previous. Supplement I Greyhawk started the trend.

 

[wedgeski]

The cleric and druid are D&Disms. Why is "druid" a separate character class from "wizard?" Why does the druid's "wildshape" ability need to be a protected niche? The game has become more about preserving itself than modelling fantasy for its audience.

This is an interesting POV but above all, D&D is a *game*. We need to be careful making judgements about design elements that are there for purely that reason, and no other.