"I'm good at D&D"

[Halivar]

The one who is "good" at D&D is the one who has the most fun possible when everyone else is having the most fun possible.

 

[Asmor]

I would love to play with people who are "good" at D&D. A few years ago I was in a D&D 3.5 group with a guy named Brad Willer. He was very fun. He came to have a good time. He made jokes and laughed at other people's jokes. He smiled. When combat started, he would get into the action and dish out damage. He didn't know the rules so well that he could rules-lawyer it, but he knew the rules well enough to make an effective character. So, he contributed to the team.

He bathed. He was fit. He was normal and well-adjusted. He showed up on time. He had a good story to tell if there was down-time. He was relaxed and never got pissy if people did unexpected things (like talking about a TV show for 20 minutes). He tried not to metagame. He tried not to steal the spotlight or otherwise micro-manage other people's characters.

He never undermined/berated/argued with the DM, but if he felt the urge to second-guess the DM, he did it pretty damn nicely. He'd accept house rules, even temporary on-the-spot made up ones that conflicted with the books. When it was his turn, he knew what he was going to do -- nobody ever set a timer on him, which is way more than I can say for myself. I get timer'd a lot, as I hem & haw and try to figure out which of 30 spells I want to cast. But not him.

Lastly, he gave his characters personality. We never LARP'd, and even thought just speaking in character voices was weird. But even with those limitations, he managed to have a hilariously over-the-top warrior who was certifiably dangerous, arrogant, and endearing all at the same time. The other players rooted for him.

So, yeah. I think you can be good at D&D. I wish more people were. Hell, I wish I was as good as Brad.

(with apologies to Kevin Smith)

Banky Edwards: Alright, now see this? This is a four-way road, okay? And dead in the center is a crisp, new, hundred dollar bill. Now, at the end of each of these streets are four people, okay? You following?
Holden: Yeah.
Banky Edwards: Good. Over here, we have a perfect player (Brad Willer). Down here, we have a rules-lawyering, angry as ****, agenda of rage, bitter grognard. Over here, we got Santa Claus, and up here the Easter Bunny. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first?
Holden: What is this supposed to prove?
Banky Edwards: No, I'm serious. This is a serious exercise. It's like an SAT question. Which one is going to get to the hundred dollar bill first? Brad Willer, the Grognard, Santa Claus, or the Easter bunny?
Holden: The grognard.
Banky Edwards: Good. Why?
Holden: I don't know.
Banky Edwards: [shouting] Because the other three are figments of your ****ing imagination!

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I am good at D&D...well sorta.

I am a good DM...no screw humliaty I am a GREAT DM. I have run sucessful games for almost 15 years, I can count on my hands the number of players who hated them. I have run at cons and been told howmuch fun and how crazy my games are, and I have never had a player leave my game mid session...

I am ahorrable player though, I know all the rules, and sometimes other players try to get me to be the 'extra rules lawyer' when the DM is not takeing there side. I am also easy to anger when I see DMs do certian things. (I just got pissed at my saterday DM becuse he had 2 level 13 ogers and 10 level 11 Orcs in a random encounter for our 4th level party. He said we were ment to run, and got mad I wanted to try to stop them)


Infact I think now that I put some thought into it most (not all there are exceptions) people who excel at DMing are not the best players (some like me just suck, others are out right problem players), and the best players I know make the worst DMs...funny how that works...

 

[Scribble]

I think there are different meanings. I mean being "good" at D&D overall is a weird concept. I mean the point of the game is to have fun... So I guess if you aren't having fun then you're not so good at D&D?

If you mean good at keeping you character alive? That's another thing, because yes you can be good... You need to know when to use your abilities, what you are best at, what you are worst at, tactics, teamwork, etc...

 

[Korgoth]

Yep, you can be "good at D&D". Here are some ways:

-Recognizing when it's time to fight and when it's time to run
-Knowing what abilities monsters have and what "level" they are
-Knowing when to check for traps and disarm them
-Knowing how to check for traps and disarm them
-Mapping well
-Working as a team in combat
-Avoiding combat if possible (pre-3E)
-Knowing when the risk is worth the reward
-Being able to solve riddles and puzzles
-Building a powerful character (more for 3E and on)
-Knowing when to rest
-Knowing what spells to memorize and when to cast them

This.

Take it another way:

A guy playing a magic-user going on an adventure to slay the goblins of Bleak Hill who memorizes Magic Missile instead of Sleep...

A guy who draws the map and gets the party lost/going in circles because he gets his right and his left confused...

A guy who runs from a kobold while he's unhurt, but charges straight at a troll from which the rest of the party has decided to flee...

A guy who blurts out an obviously wrong answer to a riddle and gets one of the party death rayed as a result...

A guy who puts himself in bad tactical positions and the rest of the party gets beat up or killed trying to save him...

A guy who gets into pointless fights with wandering monsters that could have been avoided...

A guy who blunders into traps, ignores obvious clues, and needlessly angers powerful NPCs...

... is bad at D&D. And if you can be bad at something, you can be (at least relatively) good at it. You can at least be as "not bad" as possible!

Yes, you can definitely be good at D&D.

 

[Wycen]

"I'm good at D&D" is a statement I can hear coming from a child or someone new to DnD, who either doesn't quite get it yet, or has been told by a parent that they did good. In these cases it would be a valid, though strange statement.

 

[fireinthedust]

This.

Take it another way:

A guy playing a magic-user going on an adventure to slay the goblins of Bleak Hill who memorizes Magic Missile instead of Sleep...

A guy who draws the map and gets the party lost/going in circles because he gets his right and his left confused...

A guy who runs from a kobold while he's unhurt, but charges straight at a troll from which the rest of the party has decided to flee...

A guy who blurts out an obviously wrong answer to a riddle and gets one of the party death rayed as a result...

A guy who puts himself in bad tactical positions and the rest of the party gets beat up or killed trying to save him...

A guy who gets into pointless fights with wandering monsters that could have been avoided...

A guy who blunders into traps, ignores obvious clues, and needlessly angers powerful NPCs...

... is bad at D&D. And if you can be bad at something, you can be (at least relatively) good at it. You can at least be as "not bad" as possible!

Yes, you can definitely be good at D&D.

Speaking as the DM of a player like this... yes, but it depends on how much fun it is to watch these characters get smashed horribly by their mistakes. Or the pizzaz the player has while doing it all.

I've got an experienced player who reeeeally likes charging in stupidly. It took him some melee smashes and a good talking to, but he's mellowed out.
However, he's a low-Int Barbarian, whose player hasn't figured out the nuanced differences between 4e and 3e Barbarians.

I've also got a really fun player who isn't a brilliant tactician, but his energy is really good. When his Eladrin mage's leg gets polymorphed into Iron, and he wants to use a wish from the deck of many things to fix it, I give him pointers about wording wishes.

but I've had really rude players who just happen to know the rules better than I do. They... just don't get informed when the next game is.

I would say I'm getting better as a DM. I've had rotten games, but that was due to planning errors and oversights. Also personality conflicts. Now I choose people to game with, and introduce new people to the game that I think would work well in my groups.

 

[Sadrik]

Good at D&D == System mastery
Good at D&D < Fun to play with

 

[Umbran]

Well, one can certainly be good at the tactical combat game that is part of all editions of D&D.

One can also be a "good roleplayer", in roughly the same way one can be a good actor - creation of a persona with depth of character, and clear, thoughtful and engaging expression and portrayal of that persona.

One can also be good at working with the social dynamic inherent in gaming - teamwork, knowing when to take your own spotlight, and when to help the other players take the spotlight, and so on.

 

[Gothmog]

I think "good" at D&D has meant different things over the years. I'll explain...

In 1e/2e AD&D, being "good" at D&D meant you knew what to do in game, and how to survive. Learning to check for traps, and HOW to check for traps, making accurate maps, working as a team (our old motto in 1e was "never separate the party", using strategic hit-and-run tactics, knowing when your resources were tapped, and yes, knowing when to retreat when outclassed made you "good" at D&D. The drawback here was it was easy to fall into a "DM vs. players" mindset (and while that can be a HUGE amount of fun, its not what I really enjoy in a weekly game).

In 3e, this changed- the focus was on building a powerful character and "gaming the system". While it can be fun to mess with all the options and build a character, a lot of people I played with and talked to took it to ridiculous extremes. Now, I know not everybody used the rules in this fashion, but it was the playstyle implied in the core books, and the endless power-up splats that came out. I played quite a bit of 3e with a wide range of groups, and pretty much universally people built their characters from levels 1-20, finding broken combos, and spamming the same tactics/attacks over and over again (trip monkeys, APAATT, sunder, etc). They also tended not to work as a group well, and had almost no notion of retreat, subtlety, or mapping skills. Were they powerful? HELL yes. Were they "good" at D&D? Not in the sense of the 1e/2e sense of the phrase, but they were "good at D&D" for what 3e presumed. For me and my core group, the playstyle 3e encouraged left a lot to be desired.

4e has kind of mixed the 1e/2e aspects of teamwork and smart strategic play with the 3e aspects of character building. 4e doesn't have hardly any of the broken combos of 3e (at least so far), but it does require some system mastery in that you need to understand how to build your character and which abilities best fit his theme and other abilities. The nice part is, you're unlikely to make a sucky character, even if you're a newbie gamer- the system isn't designed with the intentional traps of 3e. But equally (or even more) important in 4e is the party working as a team to overcome challenges and achieve victory, and knowing when to retreat (which happens regularly in the 4e games I run and play). For us, 4e has hit the perfect balance of 1e and 3e, allowing us to have the positive aspects of being "good at D&D" from both systems, while having none of the drawbacks.

And for me personally, being "good at D&D" requires the ability to roleplay and think/behave as his character, regardless of the edition. If someone is playing simply an amalgamation of numbers with the personality of a cardboard box, they can rock out on survival, system mastery, and tactics, and still suck at D&D.