D&D General How Important Is The "Shared Experience" To You?

[Laurefindel]

“Hey, gang, time to play!” — Super important

“Oh, you play [same TTRPG I play]?” — somewhat important

Anything beyond that? Not at all. The beauty of TTRPGs is that no table is the same. Heck, no campaign is the same. The moment every campaign and table are the same, I am done with the hobby.

In other words, shared experiences mean nothing to me, unless I am actively sharing the experience with you at the table.

But I think that’s what the OP pointed at; no two games are the same, no two campaigns are the same, even when the same material is presented to all, and that’s the beauty of it.

My running of Curse of Stradh is sure to be very different from yours and that’s what sharing experience is. I like knowing how you got through it, where you got the sword, how the DM modified the adventure, how Stradh was played etc.

I mostly run (and play in) homebrewed settings or custom game in a published setting, but learning how different people dealt with similar situations (in TRPG in general) is fun for me.

I remember a few years back when all my friends played through the original Fallout pc game in very different ways. It was one of the first games that would allow you to do so and I have very fond memories of it because of this. It still comes back in our conversations once in a while.

 

[Greg K]

Is this shared experience important to you? Do you like comparing experiences with other players who have gone on the same adventures? Is it a selling point for you?

Not at all to all of the above.

 

[Reynard]

My running of Curse of Stradh is sure to be very different from yours and that’s what sharing experience is. I like knowing how you got through it, where you got the sword, how the DM modified the adventure, how Stradh was played etc.

Precisely this, for me. Most of my TTRPG career was running homebrew games, but even then there is shared experience: fights versus ancient red dragons, mimics, and cursed intelligent swords are all common enough that everyone has a story to tell. More recently, running on Fantasy grounds, i use a lot more modules and that is a different but still interesting shared experience: how did your players deal with X, what did you have to change about Y, and so on.

 

[billd91]

Shared experience of some sort is always important to a hobby community as a factor in maintaining some community bonds and cohesion. That shared experience can come from rules, published works, community events, and so on. The more places and methods for sharing experiences, the more the community members have opportunities to relate to each other and bond.
So, yeah, kind of important.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For tabletop games, it's more like a possibly-interesting perk when it applies, not really a draw. As a DM, I tend to go for more highly-contextual conflicts that don't necessarily "translate" well without a lot of backstory.

For video games, on the other hand, it can actually be a major draw. Part of that, I think, is that video games reach so many more people, and the experience is necessarily more "cleanly" shared by the people who play it. (Though I've had some...frustrating...issues on that front lately.)

 

[Li Shenron]

Just curious:
The "shared experience" of having explored Undermountain, beaten the Storm King or descended into Avernus is a thing some people find valuable and is one of the features of playing pre-written campaigns, APs and organized play seasons.
Is this shared experience important to you? Do you like comparing experiences with other players who have gone on the same adventures? Is it a selling point for you?

It is nowadays!

It's one of the reasons I decided since 5e to run old editions published adventures rather than my usual homebrew. I run games mostly for casual players that and I like the idea that if they don't stick around, maybe they'll play again with others some day and be able to say "oh... sure I've been in the Temple of Elemental Evil before!".

 

[Stormonu]

Having a reference point isn't a bad thing. Useful as a DM sometimes for comparing/prepping to run said adventures and seeing how others have done it (and finding ways to make it better or incorporate ideas), and the possible pain points in the adventure.

As a player, that "uh-huh, we've done that too" can be fun and in a sort of way of comparing high scores and experiences ("We trashed Azalin with his own rod." "Oh, why didn't we think of doing that?").

It has a minor influence on buying - I'm not likely to buy/play an adventure if there's a lot of bad reviews (like say, the thread on "Descent into Avernus"...), and I'm more inclined to pick something up/play something if I know other people have had good experiences with it (ex., Curse of Strahd).

 

[tetrasodium]

Just curious:
The "shared experience" of having explored Undermountain, beaten the Storm King or descended into Avernus is a thing some people find valuable and is one of the features of playing pre-written campaigns, APs and organized play seasons.c5
Is this shared experience important to you? Do you like comparing experiences with other players who have gone on the same adventures? Is it a selling point for you?

The answer boils down to a mix of things that are present in different degrees in o5e than past editions & forks. In past editions combat was less tuned for success with more nivhe protection. The shift makes o5e a predictable game of balanced combat, not a world to explore and lore to uncover. The unification of rules has made the game easier to play, but also has transferred a blandness to everything. If the game isn't going to have that element of wonder, it should at least be tactically interesting with lots of character options

Those things are what create the foundation for d&d's "shared experience & 5e is sorely lacking in both.

Spoiler: Compare these two

• Old Module: "we finished $oldModule">"wow that's awesome, how did you do it? My group did it once & $awesomeThing happened where we just squeaked by..."wow that sounds cool one of the players had this cool build & I had that cool build that each involved several important choices to make them really play different when we did $specificPart"
• New Module: "So we finished $new module">"awesome how'd it go?">"the usual I guess.. healing word yoyo healing through combat & the will to keep showing up for fights we couldn't lose">"hmm... any cool stories?">"Yea I guess one of the players made an awesome dish for the potluck one week.. oh also that one item was completely broken since everything it got used on was designed to be absolutely smashed by a party who doesn't have it"

Without those elements to provide a foundation where gameplay events elevate above the mundane to create competence porn type stories to bond over there just isn't much experience to share anymore unless you have a great GM who can fight the system hard enough to create an awesome story that's probably tough to share.

 

[MNblockhead]

Important but not all important. While I enjoy creating my own campaign worlds and adventures, I quite enjoy talking with people about both classic and new modules we've both played. Tomb of Horrors may not be a good adventure, but I love the nolstalgia, talking with other players, and the tropes and easter eggs it is spawned.

 

[Reynard]

The answer boils down to a mix of things that are present in different degrees in o5e than past editions & forks. In past editions combat was less tuned for success with more nivhe protection. The shift makes o5e a predictable game of balanced combat, not a world to explore and lore to uncover. The unification of rules has made the game easier to play, but also has transferred a blandness to everything. If the game isn't going to have that element of wonder, it should at least be tactically interesting with lots of character options.

You could search/replace "o5e" with "AD&D" and this sentiment would echo clearly from 40-odd years ago. That is to say, it was bunk then and it is bunk now.