Li Shenron
Legend
First of all, sorry for not having been able to find a proper title 
I just would like to hear how people think their D&D approach is or should be.
In general it appears to me that many players at our gaming table would like to think of their character as some sort of alter-ego which they are leading through his/her existance just like they are living their real life, except that is happens in an obviously very different world.
This means that they usually want a lot of details about their characters, they like to flesh them out as completely as possible, even if sometimes it has vague consequences gamewise, such as the character past story, her personality traits and inner believes, and sometimes even keeping track of things like all the little adventuring tools they have in the backpack.
It also generally means that they like to have a slow development of the character, they like feeling that everything is gained at a cost and with effort, so for example they don't like glissing over with a simple roll about how the group found the key to the prison, how they bluffed past the guard, or what happened during the long travel between two distant locations.
Another important factor for them is realism, especially on a large scale. For example, it is necessary that mundane death happens now and then, even if it has nothing heroic but was just bad luck on a climb check or a critical hit from a scared horse's hoof.
When they have the chance to DM, they delight in designing much more than they actually need to play, such as completely defining the cosmology or the pantheon, or writing down the whole list of kingdoms in the world, cities in the kingdom and even shops in the city. Beside, it's important for them to have the important NPC fleshed out to the last skill modifier.
They are also keen on adding a level of complexity in the gaming rules by using variants or house rules which expand a topic (anything from weapon proficiencies to combat injuries, from magic rituals to language skills, etc...).
This player often is a fan of fantasy sagas, Tolkien first and foremost, where the world is sometimes more important than the events.
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On the other side aother kind of players instead percieves D&D as something like a heroic tale, or better a movie, and as such it just has to be cinematic and exciting.
Everything which is not functional to the story is not really needed, although not necessarily bad. Character details are few but important, even if only for roleplay, and those few which are used must be stressed openly during play, such as a distinctive voice or mannerism.
They like playing the game by "scenes", for example jumping completely over the voyage which took the group a month to travel from the town to the villain's secret castle in the mountains, unless there was a cool random encounter in between. Often they don't like half-played situations such as a 10-minutes vignette to retrieve the prison key with a little character interaction and a few rolls, and they prefer either a full sub-quest with lots of action or otherwise a single roll to do the whole job and move on.
They don't mind dying for a bad roll on a climb check, only as long as they fall from at least a few hundred meters and their clash against the ground is legendary loud...
As a DM, they bother much more in creating dramatic encounters or cool fights and an interesting plot rather than detailing the setting. They are often fans of variant rules which add randomness or scramble things a little bit on the short-term or otherwise simplify the long-term issues (e.g. action points or vitality/wound points).
This player typically never misses the most flashy movies at the theatre.
---
Ok, this division is of course a bit simplistic
and each of us is something of both of the two, but it'd be nice to hear where you all position yourself between the two extremes...
Now that I think about it, I'll add a simple poll with 2 option, just for the fun of it
. I won't add an option in between, which would surely get the most votes, otherwise the poll would actually make more sense than it is supposed to make 
and take over the discussion...
I just would like to hear how people think their D&D approach is or should be.
In general it appears to me that many players at our gaming table would like to think of their character as some sort of alter-ego which they are leading through his/her existance just like they are living their real life, except that is happens in an obviously very different world.
This means that they usually want a lot of details about their characters, they like to flesh them out as completely as possible, even if sometimes it has vague consequences gamewise, such as the character past story, her personality traits and inner believes, and sometimes even keeping track of things like all the little adventuring tools they have in the backpack.
It also generally means that they like to have a slow development of the character, they like feeling that everything is gained at a cost and with effort, so for example they don't like glissing over with a simple roll about how the group found the key to the prison, how they bluffed past the guard, or what happened during the long travel between two distant locations.
Another important factor for them is realism, especially on a large scale. For example, it is necessary that mundane death happens now and then, even if it has nothing heroic but was just bad luck on a climb check or a critical hit from a scared horse's hoof.
When they have the chance to DM, they delight in designing much more than they actually need to play, such as completely defining the cosmology or the pantheon, or writing down the whole list of kingdoms in the world, cities in the kingdom and even shops in the city. Beside, it's important for them to have the important NPC fleshed out to the last skill modifier.
They are also keen on adding a level of complexity in the gaming rules by using variants or house rules which expand a topic (anything from weapon proficiencies to combat injuries, from magic rituals to language skills, etc...).
This player often is a fan of fantasy sagas, Tolkien first and foremost, where the world is sometimes more important than the events.
-
On the other side aother kind of players instead percieves D&D as something like a heroic tale, or better a movie, and as such it just has to be cinematic and exciting.
Everything which is not functional to the story is not really needed, although not necessarily bad. Character details are few but important, even if only for roleplay, and those few which are used must be stressed openly during play, such as a distinctive voice or mannerism.
They like playing the game by "scenes", for example jumping completely over the voyage which took the group a month to travel from the town to the villain's secret castle in the mountains, unless there was a cool random encounter in between. Often they don't like half-played situations such as a 10-minutes vignette to retrieve the prison key with a little character interaction and a few rolls, and they prefer either a full sub-quest with lots of action or otherwise a single roll to do the whole job and move on.
They don't mind dying for a bad roll on a climb check, only as long as they fall from at least a few hundred meters and their clash against the ground is legendary loud...
As a DM, they bother much more in creating dramatic encounters or cool fights and an interesting plot rather than detailing the setting. They are often fans of variant rules which add randomness or scramble things a little bit on the short-term or otherwise simplify the long-term issues (e.g. action points or vitality/wound points).
This player typically never misses the most flashy movies at the theatre.
---
Ok, this division is of course a bit simplistic
and each of us is something of both of the two, but it'd be nice to hear where you all position yourself between the two extremes...Now that I think about it, I'll add a simple poll with 2 option, just for the fun of it
. I won't add an option in between, which would surely get the most votes, otherwise the poll would actually make more sense than it is supposed to make and take over the discussion...
