Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="WayneLigon" data-source="post: 3614491" data-attributes="member: 3649">I guess it's what you mean by 'fun and games'. While few of my characters would have ever said that wading in ankle-deep blood was 'fun' or that they 'enjoyed' it quite a few of them would have said it was 'satisfying'. Weeding out a bandit cave? Something that needs to be done but hardly enjoyable. Taking out an orc village? Yeah, there is something enjoyable in that. It depends on the campaign world, but even more about how the group actually plays the game.The game world.Especially in earlier editions, orcs are like fungus. Nothing good comes of them, and leaving even a bit behind just means there's more orcs later. And you can't even use them to flavor cheese. Killing them is like mowing grass, and I've been known to whistle while mowing grass. In 3E (and in some instances beforehand, depending on the setting), orcs ain't nessesarily evil but that's the smart way to bet. You can't stop every orc in the onrushing hoarde and say 'I say, chap, are you evil?'. No, you cut the neutral orc down with the CE orc and hope for the best for the ones you know were not evil in their hearts. You find the occassional tribe of neutral orcs, then you know you can deal with them. Carefully, and probably never really trusting any but the odd exceptional individual, but you can deal with them.How people play the game.I think the idea some people have that D&D is a game of killing, and one where killing is all 'fun and games' is that so many D&D games are run in a simplistic nature where no real thought goes in to the characters or the world they inhabit. It's done as a somewhat more complex boardgame, leaving the monsters not as inhabitants but as game peices to be gotten rid of. Now, while that's a good way to play to blow off some steam or just as an adjunct to getting together to party with your buddies, it seems to me that a significant number of people never go beyond this style or 'level' of play. NPCs always fight to the death. NPCs will always try to screw with the party. NPCs will always do any number of things because that's the nature of a board game peice. It always reacts in much the same way regardless of what you try or what you do. Is it any wonder that after several sessions of such play that PC's react the same way? They know they can expect no mercy from the enemy, so they'll give none. And a lot of people walk away from that experience thinking for the rest of their life 'well, that's just how D&D is played'. Let's go back to the bandit cave. There will certainly be some - even most - who will fight to the death. These are desperate hard men who can expect little mercy from the local justice. Like as not they all have a price on their heads. Some though should beg for mercy, or throw down their weapons when five guys in armor burst in, throwing spells and sending in wolves to harry the group. The other side exists as well. The orc raiding party doesn't kill the party it defeats but captures them for ransom or to be taken to the iron mines. The party sees the enemy will not nessesarily kill them out of hand, then they can be made to understand that they don't need to do the same.</blockquote>

Verification