Is D&D/D20 Childish and Immature?

[Aaron L]

I really love the mish-mash-warped-Earth that is D&D.

 

[mmadsen]

Argument 1: D&D is more abstract, and therefore less realistic, than other games, like Harn

I think it's a common mistake to confuse D&D's simplicity and abstraction with its lack of realism or its epic non-grittiness. We can make the game both more realistic and less heroic -- two related, but different, things -- by flattening the Hit Point progression -- all without adding any complexity or detail.

(I'm not saying here that we should do that, just that an abstract game can be quite a bit more realistic than D&D.)

We can also do many things that improve the "realism" (have to put that in quotes around here) without decreasing the heroism, like fixing the healing rules so a wounded Commoner doesn't heal right up faster than a supposedly barely-scratched Barbarian, etc.

Argument 2: D&D enables greater power scaling (as in, a character gets a lot more power, to the point where they can shrug off things that would have killed them early-on) than other games, like Harn

Argument 3: Games with greater power scaling are more prone to idiot munchkins who like to talk about what level their character is, how many things he has killed, and how many weapons he has -- which gives a bad name to the system they use, regardless of other people who use it responsibly...

Very true. I find it amusing that many people on this board full of fairly mature D&D players won't admit that the game is basically an adolescent power fantasy. It is a game of make-believe where you get to be powerful, you don't have to take any "guff" from anyone, you get to blow up monsters, you get the girl (in her chainmail bikini), etc. That's the core ethos of the game.

Now, just like an action sci-fi movie, this can be done well, or it can be done poorly. Your game can be D&D equivalent of Alien, Aliens, or Terminator, or it can be Plan 9 from Outer Space.

 

[sword-dancer]

-Tacky

As for GURPS, it's definitely flexible, but I'd debate its speed. I might lose the debate, and there'd be long arguments over certain sections, but I'd argue that a big bad boss fight in GURPS can take longer to work through than a similar fight in D&D, with people on both sides doing the same types of things (ie, attacks, spells, etc). Like I said, I could be wrong, and perhaps I'm just so ingrained in the D&D system that I had my head screwed on wrong, but the GURPS stuff I've done seemed realistic and flexible, but not faster.

No in my experiences it might not be faster than d6d but not slower in combat, but it is definitely faster than AD&D, but i did use my own variety of combat, the standar basic rules normally and the advanced rules for called shots and criticals.
And in GURPS Combat people do also the same stuff as in D&D with the addition of trying not to get hit, wounds have a meaning in GURPS.

And the flexibility of GURPS modules makes it harder to learn -- swashbuckling rules, martial arts rules, etc. It's fantastic for getting just the right campaign flavor, but it means more stuff to learn. Again, please, correct me if I'm wrong -- I am so very very very very far from an expert.

Yes, but `hadn`t you to learn these things in a D&D swashbuckler, asian, Martial arts game also?
These are not ingredients of GURPS Basic.
OTOH i mustn`t calculate if someone had hit or not it`s clear, and then the other must defend.

Does the flat 5% increment of the D20 system make it less realistic, and therefore, more childish?

Yes it is less realistic, if more if even childish depends on you.
You have in GURPS rules for an silly campaign style. I´ve onced played an adventure on a con in an silly style, and it was silly but it rocked with funny fun

 

[barsoomcore]

I find it amusing that many people on this board full of fairly mature D&D players won't admit that the game is basically an adolescent power fantasy. It is a game of make-believe where you get to be powerful, you don't have to take any "guff" from anyone, you get to blow up monsters, you get the girl (in her chainmail bikini), etc. That's the core ethos of the game.

I won't argue that that's how the game is mostly presented and used, and of course there's nothing wrong with that.

But there's a difference between "role-playing" and "fantasy fulfillment". Just because the one is usually (almost always) used to accomplish the other doesn't mean that they're necessarily linked. Role-playing is also a means of telling stories, stories that don't have to be about power fantasies.

Stephen King once said, "Good stories about people wielding power. Great stories are about people gaining or losing power." There's no reason a D&D campaign can't be the latter. Or any role-playing game, for that matter. The difference has nothing to do with the ruleset.

I agree that D&D is certainly presented as a way to fulfill power fantasies. That's not what makes a game "immature" -- only the way in which it's played does that, and that's different for every group.

 

[bardolph]

Why NOT be childish and immature??

I don't know about the rest of y'all, but I play D&D (or any other roleplaying game) because it's immature! It's a game. Aren't games immature by nature? If I wanted to be "mature," I'd be balancing my checkbook and examining my stock portfolio (if I had them...), or I'd be doing community service for some Church somewhere, or I'd be painting my house or changing my nephew's diapers or gardening or... whatever.

But instead, I'm playing a bleeding game of make-believe!! Now THAT's immature. But hell, I wouldn't have it any other way! A buddy of mine lives about four hundred miles away but flies in about once a month to play, just so he can brag about how he spent the weekend "killing goblins" (actually, in my campaign, it's "the monkey-people," but who's keeping score?).

Which brings me to the concept of "mature" roleplaying. Who are we kidding? We spend the evening or weekend pretending to be elves or gnomes, living in a world infested with dragons and trolls, and I'm supposed to think that my "maturity" is measured by how "deep" my characterization is of said elf, gnome, dragon, or troll?

Let's take another scenario: say I spend a weekend with my buddies dressing up as confederate soldiers, and re-enact getting shot on a bloody Civil War battlefield with two hundred other like-minded men. This is certainly more "realistic" and less "fanciful," but is it any more or less "mature"?!? I don't think so. Does adding dice and miniatures change my "maturity"? How about magic and jewels? Is that what puts me over the edge?

It's a game. It's an escape. It's a fantasy. It's an opportunity to ignore real life responsibilities and spend a little R&R time in some other, distant place. It's childish, certainly, but it keeps us young, folks...

 

[takyris]

sword-dancer,

Not to be obtuse, but doesn't your point help prove my point?

GURPS, in that respect, is like D&D.

You can do GURPS basic, and have things go reasonably quickly. Or you can add in the additional rules, and have things get complicated.

D&D doesn't have swashbuckling rules or martial arts rules -- there are third-party options there, but those are, effectively, published house rules. GURPS Swashbuckling or GURPS Martial Arts are official GURPS material, at least as official as the splatbooks are to D&D, and far more so than any third-party supplement.

So if you say, "I want to run a campaign about a bunch of European-style ocean traders and merchants and pirates who have just started to come into contact with an Asian-style empire to the East," you need GURPS basic, GURPS Swashbuckling, and GURPS martial arts. Or at least, if you want that fully customized and configured game, you do. Yes? No? Those additional books add new rules, change the combat engine (?), and do other things that raise the learning curve for someone who wants to join your game. With D&D, the core engine is always going to be the same, and it's just an issue of the DM telling you that this feat or that feat is or isn't allowed in the world, or that all monks have to come from the eastern lands, or such. There aren't any changes to the core engine, the core mechanics. You don't have to learn a new style of combat to play a monk.

What you DO have to do in D&D is figure out a lot of Feats -- but these feats were, many of them, taken from GURPS to begin with. So comparing them unfavorably to GURPS as too complex doesn't make sense to me.

(Again, I welcome disagreement. I don't know GURPS well enough to say all that with any authority, and I should be smacked upside the head wherever appropriate.)

What tends to make combat more complicated in D&D is feats -- which are easily added or substracted, and which rarely if ever change the core functioning of the rules engine. Closest I can think of is Weapon Finesse, which changes melee combat from BAB+Strength+(bonuses) to BAB+Dex+(bonuses). Nothing changes the way you calculate your armor class, the way you overcome spell resistance, or the way you roll a saving throw.

So saying that GURPS basic is easier than D&D is like saying that D&D without feats or skills is easier than GURPS basic -- it's true, but it's a comparison between a stripped-down version of the rules and a full-featured system. Which hurts flexibility.

-Tacky

 

[Speaker]

Which game is more childish and immature: Chess or Risk?
Which game is more childish and immature: Clue or Battleship?
Which game is more childish and immature: Harn or D&D?

Cheers.

 

[Darkness]

Never mind...

 

[DDK]

I think this all depends on one very particular matter that everyone seems to have overlooked and that is:

WHO STARTED IT?

 

[Cullain]

childish

All it really comes down to, IMO, is that the pro-Harn posters are making a leap in logic that isn't really called for. As in,

"I am a mature role player. Harn does a better job of meeting my needs than D&D. Therefore, Harn is more mature than D&D"

where in reality, the last statment does not necessarily flow from the previous ones.

Cullain