Is D&D all about murder and pillaging?

[Ariosto]

I am (to understate the case) not a big fan of the 4E "skill challenge". However, I can appreciate that it is an attempt to make things other than combat appealing to a certain sort of player in much the same game-mechanical ways. If the fundamental abstraction is interesting enough, people may get over their hangups concerning the superficial specifics.

A My Little Pony or Hello Kitty game might not stand a chance with adolescent males regardless of how engaging the tactical play was -- but a significant segment of that demographic does occasionally take to strategy without 'macho' imagery laid on.

Some 'gamers' are just into games, rich intellectual challenges, and may not otherwise have much interest at all in the warfare tropes of 'geek culture'.

 

[Scribble]

Some 'gamers' are just into games, rich intellectual challenges, and may not otherwise have much interest at all in the warfare tropes of 'geek culture'.

Those people are nerds, not geeks. I think they like math... usually.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

I have wanted to play a character who does not kill unless he as to. So, he would use things like Necromancy spells that drain the target's strength to make them too weak to fight. Or if he was a melee fighter, deal subdual damage instead of lethal damage.

 

[On Puget Sound]

Stop looting! There's no looting in football!

Whaddya mean? I tackled him, I'm taking his helmet and shoes.

 

[billd91]

D&D is what it's always been - whatever you decide you want to get out of it - with plenty of fantasy trappings.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

D&D is what it's always been - whatever you decide you want to get out of it - with plenty of fantasy trappings.

This right here.

I've found that my D&D changes, depending upon the group, the campaign, even my mood.

Infinite diversity in infinite combinations. With orcs.

 

[CorditeJimmy]

Power Kill

Power Kill seems relevant to this thread. It's a meta-RPG construct that highlights the sometimes horrific violence and anti-social behaviour casually indulged in by some characters.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

It is also a certain jaded cynicism that has taken over many of the games and gamers that I have played with. To show that I think we have all had that "new" gamer join the group. You know the one where they have never played an RPG before and they started interacting like a "real" person in the situations presented by the DM. As opposed to the jaded cynic who wants to cut to the chase all the time in the game. Usually it means, "Its evil, I attack".

I guess I've been lucky in my groups. Just about every gamer I've played with has understood that D&D is basically about killing things and then taking their stuff -- but I don't remember anyone being jaded by that idea. For example my current group is composed of myself and a friend, who are 25ish, two gamer vets who've been playing a long time and a teenager who we introduced to role playing within the past year. The teen is only interested in killing things and taking their stuff (really, he's flat-out told us so); one of the vets would rather be playing a scifi rpg called Blue Planet that is not about killing things and taking its stuff; but we all get on well and have fun. Why? I think it's because none of us take it too seriously in either direction. We make metagame jokes while we're killing things and taking its stuff, and we don't think too hard about why our characters are doing it.

Conflict makes for a good story and cosmic good vs. cosmic evil is a great fantasy theme. So how do you separate in your own mind what you do in game?

I don't understand what you're asking; I don't kill people in real life and then take their stuff because doing that tends to upset people, but I do it in D&D because it's just entertainment and I like it.

 

[Hussar]

I don't understand what you're asking; I don't kill people in real life and then take their stuff because doing that tends to upset people, but I do it in D&D because it's just entertainment and I like it.

Never mind that the dry cleaning bills are absolute murder.

Is D&D the game about killing and pillaging? Yes. IMO absolutely.

Do you have to play it that way? Nope. You don't.

But, if you were to boil down D&D to what is this game about - I'd have to say it's about the aquisition of power through swashbuckling adventure ((aka Killing stuff and taking its treasure.))

 

[Orius]

"Is D&D all about murder and pillaging?"

Not all about it, just the good parts.

Yeah, I mean how else are you going to get your experience points? There are points for killing and older games had points for treasure. That's murder and pillage.

And grand theft.

And grave robbing.

And diverse other crimes that don't come to mind at the moment.

And sometimes wenching.

And thus we get some sex to go with the violence.

The vast majority of RPGs are inherently geared towards violent imaginary combat. Even in, say, a World of Darkness rulebook there are a lot of pages devoted to combat resolution. D&D has always been among the most violence-centric RPGs: if you look at all of the core books from every edition/permutation then and take out all the pages describing what to kill, how to kill it and what you get for killing it then you would have a very small book.

I say it's because combat resolution needs more detailed rules than yakking and schmoozing. How many pages do you need to detail how to talk with NPCs?

I'll probably be lynched for this...

Why? You made some good points.