Is D&D 3.5 a board game?

[Zander]

Or is it a role-playing game? Are role-playing games and board games the same thing? Are role-playing games a sub-set of board games or are board games a sub-set of role-playing games?

Or are they two separate groups with an intersection comprised of hybrids? If so, is 3.5 a hybrid?

I used to think that the answers to these questions were pretty clear-cut: board games and role-playing games were not the same thing, and D&D 3.5 is a role-playing game. But I bought a game a couple of weeks ago that has made me rethink all this. Am I wrong to doubt that 3.5 is a role-playing game?

 

[Epametheus]

It's a role-playing game that can be very easily played as a board game.

I find the fact that trying to play the game without a grid just doesn't seem to work to be rather annoying, myself. The games I've been in where we were able to get away with playing without a combat map, we also happened to have no magic-users whatsoever.

 

[BigFreekinGoblinoid]

Hmm... D&D is definitely not a board game - more like an excuse to play with dolls/action figures (even if you only use counters or dice etc... ). If you think about it, Role Playing is/was a very integral part of most everyones experiences playing with dolls/action figures as a child. D&D is just a little more structured doll play.

Certainly sounds childish when put in this way, but it's very hard to refute the many similarities.

Don't think about it too hard, or it might just ruin the hobby for you.

 

[Impeesa]

Runs fine without minis for me... in the event of a particularly complicated battlefield, we'll use hastily made scribbles on scrap paper to track positions, that's about it. Are we the exception?

--Impeesa--

 

[Myris]

I've never played with a grid, minis, or any type of extras (other than the occasional mood music or candles...and a world map or dungeon map can come in handy...). Maybe I'm just weird, I don't know I personally hate board games and never did like the push by Wizards to use D&D as one....but I guess I can see where it can help a game, especially in combat

I suppose my answer to the original question would be: it's a matter of preference, really. If you like board games and want to go that route, Wizards helps to expand the rules a bit for that. Otherwise, there's plenty of info to play a roleplaying game instead...or there's the hybrid route So, 3.5 would be a roleplaying game that can be used with a board and minis....

 

[Trainz]

Runs fine without minis for me... in the event of a particularly complicated battlefield, we'll use hastily made scribbles on scrap paper to track positions, that's about it. Are we the exception?

--Impeesa--

How do you handle things like Attacks of Opportunity ?

And when a fireball goes off, how do you know how many critters are affected, and if some players are in the blast ?

Who's gonna win the Superbowl ?

 

[d20Dwarf]

How do you handle things like Attacks of Opportunity ?

And when a fireball goes off, how do you know how many critters are affected, and if some players are in the blast ?

Who's gonna win the Superbowl ?

Wing it.

Wing it. Trust the DM.

Sure looking like a 2002 rematch, Rams/Patriots.

 

[WayneLigon]

I've never understood the 'we must use minis now!' and the 'It's a board game now!'-type arguements ad debates and flames.

To me, 2E and 1E were much more grid-oriented and wargame/ board-game-oriented that 3E is. 3E is just the first version that tried to make things simpler by using a grid-reference. Every single module that I've ever seen for D&D has been laid out in a grid, often creating buildings and castles in utterly unrealistic forms for the sake of the grid (save for the always excellent UK modules, Ravenloft, Dragonlance and a few other spotty exceptions such as Ravager of Time). All unit references were in 'inches' rather than feet, yards, whatever; obviously a holdover from the wargaming roots of Chainmail. I played 1E for a decade or more and we always used minis. Everyone else I ever gamed with used minis until the things got so expensive that no-one but the hard-core wargamers and later the Blood Bowl/Warhammer people could afford them. After that, we used old minis, or counters or standups or just dice.

I played years of Call of Cthulhu with no map, no minis, etc, and we also did Vampire and other Storyteller games that way. At the place I play the most, space was at an absolute premium for many, many years so we seldom ever used a board or minis there save for times when it was absolutely necessary to know where someone was in relationship with others.

It's certainly possible to play 3E without minis; we've done it since 3E's been out, and we've done it with a grid and counters. The map will usually come out at some point, though, for the same reason it always has: so we know where everyone is in relationship to everyone else in case there is an arguement about cover, ranges, areas of effect, or whatever.

Spells had ranges and areas of effect before 3E, remember? People still have movement rates, arrows still had ranges, and creatures could only move so far in a round. It was just as important to know positioning then as it was now. Any difference now is just an illusion of perception.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

I find D&D combat more akin to a historical war model than Parcheezi, to be honest. The presence of a battlemat alone does not make D&D a board game in any way, IMO.

Personally, I can't imagine playing D&D without a battlemat. Trying to remember the precise locations necessary for a lot of the abilities to work (AoOs interacting with flanking position, Chain Lightning striking foes that must be 30' from the primary target, Fireball hitting foes around corners, whether or not an ally is within range of the bardsong, etc. etc.) would be too much for me, plain and simple. I could never keep track of that magnitude of spacial positioning, as a DM or even as a player.

The grid allows me to not worry about remembering relative locations of friends and foes, and instead concentrate on RPing my character, even in the midst of battle. I find it far more of an RP-ing aid, than a detriment to RP.

 

[tzor]

First of all it is not a "board game." A board game generally requires a fixed board. There are some exceptions, mostly involving games where the board can be broken into pieces and moved or adjusted into different combinations, but in general board games require fixed boards.

The notion that 3.5 suddenly requires mineatures is as bizzare as the notion that 3.0 somehow "invented" half orcs. Both were in common use in the original edition of AD&D. 1E constantly went into "map" references, using map inches instead of feet, and having the value of an inch differ between indoor and outdoor situations. In the 1E DMG, armor class was dependant upon the direction the character was facing, and thus the necessity of mineature figures was more important then than it is in 3E, where any old marker can represent a creature or character.

One can argue that to some extent D&D is a wargame, because D&D has its roots in war games and in part because they share the same need for a tactical map. Yet, one can also argue that it is only a wargame at times, when those times call for it. The more options that are available to the players the more there is a need for an overview of the situation. The less options that there are for the players the more boring and one dimensional combat becomes.

Now one can argue that you don't need mineatures per se, as long as you have some common reference to determine who is where and other conditions of the area. Unless you have such a common reference, it would be difficult for any two players to have the same understanding of the situation. Common references do not remove the need for imagination, or for description, for both are always required of a good game, but the facilitate a common language for the quick description of graphical and positional details of dynamic conditions common in combat situations.

You might even say it's a left brain/right brain thing.