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Heteroglossia and D&D: Why D&D Speaks in a Multiplicity of Playing Styles
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<blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 8789442" data-attributes="member: 16586"><p>To clarify my stance from earlier in the thread:</p><p></p><p>I'm not saying that Masks isn't strongly themed by default, but it absolutely can be extended in all sorts of ways. I just do not view it as less thematically constrained than D&D. I don't view angsty teenage superheroes as more specialized than ragtag group of adventurers of assorted fantasy races go off on adventures where they explore strange new environments and fight lots of things (mostly monsters). Like if I want to play a game that's mostly grounded in social intrigue with a much more elided timescale the class design of D&D is just as fundamentally inadequate from my perspective*. I also do not view Masks as fundamentally harder to extend or alter than D&D. Actually kind of easier. A new playbook involves a lot less design work than a new class in any version of D&D.</p><p></p><p>* Not saying the game cannot handle individual social intrigue scenes. Just that the mechanics of the game actively push away from a game where that is the focus.</p><p></p><p>Figured I would elaborate towards why : When a game gives you buttons there is a natural tendency to want to push the buttons it gives you. I found this to be a problem personally when attempting to use Mutants and Masterminds for an X-Men style angsty teen super game even though the players were all on board. The presence of detailed power writeups on players' sheets tended to focus player attention on the details of their powers and using them to solve problems rather than on the interpersonal relationship stuff we were trying to make the focus of play. The rules got in our way and pulled play away from our intended focus despite an xp reward systems that should be pretty good for this stuff.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Campbell, post: 8789442, member: 16586"] To clarify my stance from earlier in the thread: I'm not saying that Masks isn't strongly themed by default, but it absolutely can be extended in all sorts of ways. I just do not view it as less thematically constrained than D&D. I don't view angsty teenage superheroes as more specialized than ragtag group of adventurers of assorted fantasy races go off on adventures where they explore strange new environments and fight lots of things (mostly monsters). Like if I want to play a game that's mostly grounded in social intrigue with a much more elided timescale the class design of D&D is just as fundamentally inadequate from my perspective*. I also do not view Masks as fundamentally harder to extend or alter than D&D. Actually kind of easier. A new playbook involves a lot less design work than a new class in any version of D&D. * Not saying the game cannot handle individual social intrigue scenes. Just that the mechanics of the game actively push away from a game where that is the focus. Figured I would elaborate towards why : When a game gives you buttons there is a natural tendency to want to push the buttons it gives you. I found this to be a problem personally when attempting to use Mutants and Masterminds for an X-Men style angsty teen super game even though the players were all on board. The presence of detailed power writeups on players' sheets tended to focus player attention on the details of their powers and using them to solve problems rather than on the interpersonal relationship stuff we were trying to make the focus of play. The rules got in our way and pulled play away from our intended focus despite an xp reward systems that should be pretty good for this stuff. [/QUOTE]
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Heteroglossia and D&D: Why D&D Speaks in a Multiplicity of Playing Styles
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