Is D&D all about murder and pillaging?

[Scribble]

Can we just come to the conclusion that D&D is not all about murder and pillaging except for the times when it is?

Aren't they the same conclusion?

Way to ruin the funny!

 

[Truth Seeker]

Ah...let's remember what the true grit is...about D&D.



[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJhNPBT7nss]WBIL[/ame]

 

[ProfessorCirno]

N Let's take two hypothetical adventurers. Guy 1 explores for ten years. He never kills anything nor does he steal anything. He just makes maps, finds the source of rivers, and meets interesting people.

At the end of ten years, the character is still a 1st level character. Nothing has changed.

Guy B slaughters and pillages for ten years. Cuts a swath across the land.

At the end of ten years, he's a Lord, has a castle, great power, and is a huge hero of the land (or villain I suppose).

Player C explores the dungeons, avoids combat (though undoubtedly gets into a few scrapes), solves puzzles, gets past traps, sneaks through lairs, and gets more treasure and experience then B with less risk of death - and that latter is important, because PCs were weak as hell against monsters in the earlier editions.

The best thing about making your own examples is how easily you can avoid the ones that prove you wrong.

 

[Neonchameleon]

PS: AFAICT, no one is arguing that D&D has not always had a strong component of looting and violence. The argument, AFAICT, is that looting and violence is not "all" D&D is about.

Um... The argument's going past each other so far as I can tell. On one side there's the people arguing that D&D isn't quite all about all looting and pillaging. Just mostly. On the other side there's the people arguing against the proposition that it's got more about looting and pillaging over time because the thread drifted.

The metagame may have been different in previous editions. I have a group of friends that plays Settlers of Catan in such a way that no one is allowed to make an aggressive move (and they always put the robber on the desert) or the rest will dogpile them. But the game itself is quite accessible. (One way the metagame has changed is that when D&D was the only game in town, people were playing D&D whereas now they would be playing Indie games).

And, ProfessorCirno, invalid counter-example. There's a difference between being an explorer and a looter.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

And, ProfessorCirno, invalid counter-example. There's a difference between being an explorer and a looter.

No, not really.

Early D&D was based around exploring and looting. It was not based around murderan dudes.

Hussar gave two examples - one where the explorer never actually did anything, and one where the murderan dudes person did do things. That's why his example fails - it's not between exploration and killing, it's because he purposefully scewed his example to be "This guy that you represent does nothing, but look, the one I represent went out, did things, and got experience and gold - I must be right!'

 

[Quantum]

Yes, but D&D only gave you experience points for looting and killing. That's it. There were no rewards for accomplishing the goal of getting a specific item or defeating a specific villain as a goal award as opposed to a defeat award.

The difference between a defeat award and goal award is that the goal award is for completing an entire mission, not just for monsters you destroy along the way. So, the main villain might be worth a few thousand xp just for defeating him alone, but the goal xp is worth a few thousand more.

Many early rpgs didn't really give that goal award, just a defeat award.

Marvel Superheroes however was one of the few early systems that did reward you for things other than defeating your opponent. For example, you got rewarded for preventing the destruction of property and saving lives, but also penalized you for doing the opposite.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Um... Are you really saying that Edmund Hillary or Scott of the Antarctic didn't do anything? In order to count as having done something, do explorers have to have behaved like Pizzaro, Cortes or even Drake?

Because under the reward system in older editions of D&D, only Drake, Cortes, and Pizzaro would have gained any experience points. You gain experience points by finding treasure or monsters - and the exploration is only a means to this end. It's about looting, not exploring.

 

[Quantum]

Don't confuse a game system mechanics with real life.

But for a direct answer, it all depends on the game. Some games don't reward you for doing what they did. They would've just rewarded you killing the baby seals for their fur.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Um... Are you really saying that Edmund Hillary or Scott of the Antarctic didn't do anything? In order to count as having done something, do explorers have to have behaved like Pizzaro, Cortes or even Drake?

Because under the reward system in older editions of D&D, only Drake, Cortes, and Pizzaro would have gained any experience points. You gain experience points by finding treasure or monsters - and the exploration is only a means to this end. It's about looting, not exploring.

On the contrary - in D&D, both Edmund and Scott would've gotten experience, because it's D&D, not real life, which means they would've found a secret ancient treasure at the end of their exploration

Yes, but D&D only gave you experience points for looting and killing. That's it. There were no rewards for accomplishing the goal of getting a specific item or defeating a specific villain as a goal award as opposed to a defeat award.

The difference between a defeat award and goal award is that the goal award is for completing an entire mission, not just for monsters you destroy along the way. So, the main villain might be worth a few thousand xp just for defeating him alone, but the goal xp is worth a few thousand more.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the experience gain from killing was hilariously tiny to the point where trying to level off of slaughter was fruitless.

Early editions weren't about killing. Explore, find treasure, loot treasure. Sometimes you killed. Sometimes you didn't.

As editions went on, the experience gained for killing went up, and experience gained for looting faded away. Now, gold is nothing more then a second, point based form of character progression. That's one of the reasons people are so iffy on spending it on rituals or potions or other temporary or charged items - treasure, funny enough, doesn't represent currency anymore, it represents character progression.

 

[Derren]

To answer the question "is D&D only murder an pillaging" you first have to define what D&D is.

Is D&D everything which can happen during a game session, or is D&D only those things in a game session which are addressed by the D&D rules?