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Message: <blockquote data-quote="N'raac" data-source="post: 6728722" data-attributes="member: 6681948">hmmm...shorter, but not a lot shorter...Really?  What motivated all those "roll randomly - many you get a huge powerup and maybe you get killed" magic items and artifacts, then?  These are an artifact of the "if the character dies, I'll just roll up another one - my character LOVES Russian roulette" mentality.Much of the problem with this aspect of the thread is defining "game".  She is certainly not engaged in a "game" with rules to adjudicate success and failure, a defined beginning and end, and set victory conditions.  In that sense, I agree this is not a "game".  In my particular view, she is at the "RP" extreme of the continuum and is engaged in improvisational theater - "RP" with no "G".With all respect, and full acknowledgement this is an accurate dictionary definition, I don't find it a helpful definition in the context of this discussion.  In fairness, that is more likely because I (and, I think some others) are restricting the terms "Game" to "Game with mechanical rules" than because we are correctly using the more broad, and more technically correct, definition of a "game".To the extent this is true, it does not mean that there is nothing to the game other than a design to be deciphered which is in place prior to play, or even that this is a, much less THE, defining feature of an RPG.  Our extract from Strategic Review provides a perfect example of the random results tables being used by (and thus viewed and known by) the players to play the game without a DM.  In fact, the failing called out in that article arises solely due to the absence of DM improvisation in the form of special rooms.I’ve played more than one iteration of Dungeon!  It is not D&D, largely because it lacks both role playing (character personality, not tactical planning) and DM improvisation.Umbran addresses this better than I will.  I will simply say that I don’t find any of the above likely to persuade me to the superiority of your viewpoint.Actually, the absence of a consistent definition of “roleplaying” is at least as big an impediment to this discussion as the lack of a consistent definition of “game”.EXAMPLE:  Dungeon! Board game.Not to age you,  but Chainmail is over 40 years now – Strategic Review turned 40 this year, and OD&D hit 40 last year.  Makes me feel old, I’ll admit.  But maybe that’s because I don’t want to admit (to myself) that I am getting old, if not there already.  Sigh…Anyway, emphasis added above.  This matches my group, and I think it also indicates why a lot of gamers remain in the hobby when board games, card games, etc. come and go much more rapidly.  It also emphasizes, however, that we have our preferences and others have different preferences.I referred to role players and roll players a bit above.  I prefer a certain balance between the two.  Your group’s balance sounds like it matches my own, but that’s largely because:(a)    Both elements are there;(b)    My balance is perfect, so if you are having fun you must use the same balanceNow, item (b) is a pretty facetious way of simply stating that I project my preferences on you, possibly without even realizing it.  Maybe your game is more focused on mechanical roll playing than mine, or maybe I would be a rules-lawyering min/maxer in your group because you are way more focused on the role play and story elements.  I doubt we will ever know, because I suspect we will never game together.But we all fall at various places on the continuum between “Role Play/character personality/story” and “Game/mechanics/tactics/rules mastery”.  At some point on the continuum (different for each of us, to some extent), we move so far towards the one that the other just isn’t there any more and we are playing a pure “Game” (Dungeon!) or just “Role Playing” (bakery; improve theater).To me, the evolution of Wargame to Role Playing Game was a shift along that continuum moving out of pure “Game” to embrace “Role Playing” to some extent.  I do not believe for a minute that the early Gygax or Arneson tables lacked “story” and “personality”.  There was little, or nothing, magical about those early rules sets.  It was the addition of role playing, in my opinion, that differentiated that infant D&D from its wargaming ancestors, and allowed it to survive, and flourish, over the last 40+ years.</blockquote>

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