D&D 5E Is D&D a Story or a Game? Discuss.

[DaveDash]

For me D&D had always been more of a game than a story.

Whilst there are story elements to D&D, the enjoyment for me comes from thriving within the boundaries and rules provided by the game.

Sitting around a camp fire is telling a story - that doesn't interest me because there's no bounds or challenges involved. Likewise "theatre of the mind" does not interest me. That's why D&D to me is always more game than story.

Even way back in the days of AD&D we'd use miniatures and grids to add that consistent bounded layer to D&D, to make it less story and more game.

 

[cbwjm]

I consider DnD to be a game first with story elements that may or may not be important to the gaming group. You can easily do a one shot adventure where the players are just having fun clearing a dungeon without any care for how they got there or what will happen once they're done. In other games you have an overarching story where the players are striving to stop a great catastrophe and save the world. It's really however people want to play it.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I could create a number of stories to tell from playing Monopoly, or Scrabble, or any other game. They may not be as interesting or dynamic or unpredictable, and I may need to stretch my imagination quite a bit, but it can be done. You do not need rules in a game in order to create stories. Only imagination and the willingness to do so.

On the other hand, there are games with real mechanics that support the goal of telling a story. Joking Hazard, for example, gives you cards with cartoon panels which you place in an order to create a short story with a punchline. Most board games have a theme with a story behind it. In particular, Mice & Mystics is set as an actual storybook tale where the players take on the roles of the various characters to tell the story. So some games are designed to specifically to help you tell a particular story.

And then there are the Roleplaying Games, like Dungeons & Dragons. There are actually several attributes which can define most RPGs in general, including the capacity for storytelling. You can tell your own stories with your own characters in your own way. You can also ignore any stories, spending your time kicking in doors, finding loot, powering up, and going straight to the next dungeon with bigger doors and bigger loot. With so many systems out there, you will find different levels of mechanics that actually support a more narrative style of play. Historically, D&D has always been on the lighter side of the storytelling with rules more closely tied to the tactical/combat side of the game. That doesn't make it any more or less suitable for storytelling. It just depends on your personal style of play, and your group. Its a game. But just like Monopoly, you can make a story out of it if you like. I'm willing to bet it'll even be more interesting than that one time when the dog ate the shoe on Boardwalk.

 

[Jester David]

D&D exist in the overlapping circles of a Venn diagram, with one circle labelled "story" and the other labelled "game". Both are required. D&D without story is a board game (which exist) while without the rules it's just shared storytelling.

 

[Sunseeker]

D&D is a game.

Why do I say it's a game? Because the story unfolds from the game. The ups and downs of the dice direct the flow of the story. You could write a story first, but D&D isn't necessary to that, you can play LOTR in multiple systems, and heck, you don't even need a system to just read it and imagine yourself as Bilbo or Frodo or whomever you want. A game is not necessarily created from a story. You may even write a campaign, linear, sandbox whatever, but without playing the game the story is never told. (unless you write it as a book later).

But a story always unfolds from the game of D&D. It is not necessary to have a story to play D&D, but you will always wind up with a story after having played it. It may be a take of 4 drunkards murderhoboing their way through the countryside, but that's still a story, and you wouldn't have that story without the game. Moreover, someone always goes home with a story to tell. It may not be every member and every session, but at least one person at that table is going to go home and talk about their heroic adventures or their terrible blunders, even if everyone else doesn't think it's worth talking about.

So, D&D is a game, a game that makes a story. Game first, story second.

 

[Ramza]

I am of the opinion that one's opinion on this question is more indicative of the individual stating the opinion than of Dungeons and Dragons.

It is something of a specialized rorschach test. If only we could find a suitably trained sage that could apply the analysis and tell us about ourselves.

*commences a ritual to summon forth such a suitably trained individual*

 

[Celebrim]

Embrace the healing power of "and".

 

[Ratskinner]

My thinking is that its a game, period.

It happens to be a game which is imminently suitable for generating story-worthy chains of events. But even so, it is not a story game, or story, or story and game.

Consider: D&D could very well be played in a sterile X's and O's fashion, starting at the entrance to the dungeon (many old adventures presume this) with no story-like "wrapper" at all. I'm not saying this would be a good, fun or my preferred version of the game, but it would work.

This is not the case with many other "story games" that have come out. Some of them look like rpgs and some look like card games. The key thing is that the mechanics require the participants to tell a story. As in, if you aren't generating narrative as part of play, this game just doesn't function.

D&D isn't like that. Its more like football. A game about which stories are often told. Unlike football it recognizes this as a big part of the fun, and colors its rules in that direction.

That's just my cynical oldtimer's opinion on this topic for which the answer isn't very important.

Sent from my LG-TP450 using EN World mobile app

 

[Jester David]

There we go.
Right in the middle.

 

[Wiseblood]

D&D is a ruleset. People use bits and pieces of the ruleset.
People say they are playing D&D. They are not and yet they are. You understand what they mean when they say they are playing D&D.
They tell stories before, during and after playing that influences the direction of play.