D&D 5E Merwin said it better than Schwalb

[Jeremy E Grenemyer]

From Merwin's blog post "D&D: Breaking (is) Bad" on Critical-Hits.com:

The game has to be about the story if the hobby as a whole is going to flourish. This means that the ultra-optimizing, breaking the game with its own rules because they are there, intentionally ignoring the spirit of the rules to mangle the game into something it isn’t, has to stop.

and

But I will say this. Remember TSR’s old slogan? It was “Products of Your Imagination.” It wasn’t “Products of Your Obsession with Rules.” If D&D is going to grow again, establish a large base of younger players, it is not going to be on the back of convoluted and intricate rules. It will be on the wings of imagination. All our imaginations.

Amen, brother. Amen.

For those interested in reading secondary commentary to Merwin's bog post, Ryan Dancey has some interesting things to say on his Facebook page (scroll down a bit), and includes a handy link to a segmentation study of D&D players conducted by WotC back at the turn of the century that's still found on Sean K. Reynolds website.

That last one is a great read if you haven't seen it yet.

 

[mips42]

I remember

I remember the amazement and wonder I felt at being able, even in such a limited way, to become a hero. To be able to participate in potentially world-changing events.
I remember feeling slightly worried that my shiny, new 1st level whatever might not live long enough to be a 2nd level whatever.
I remember the sadness I felt when one of these fictional people would die is some horrible way and then the excitement of coming up with the next idea for a person.
I remember 'graduating' from the (original) red box to Advanced.
I remember being excited about 3rd edition coming out, loving the consistency of the rules and irritated by the board-game-ness of it.
I remember being excited about 4e and then being irritated about the MMO-ness of it.
Now we have 5e and, again, I'm excited about it. I want to play it and see if it can bring back those feelings I remember.

 

[YRUSirius]

First hit on YouTube, with these search terms: "It will be on the wings of imagination. All our imaginations."

*Laughing out Loud*

[video=youtube;SHoHIL2ABVQ]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHoHIL2ABVQ[/video]

-YRUSirius

 

[GnomeWorks]

Oh joy.

Yet more drivel from old people who have apparently decided that game design is hard work and they don't want to do it anymore.

 

[AstroCat]

[MENTION=12388]sanishiver[/MENTION] I'm really glad to see the trend going in this direction, it's a lot of why I was so fascinated with D&D when I first tried it out. Also pretty much why 4e was a pain for me to play and often felt tedious and disconnected.

 

[Morrus]

Yet more drivel from old people

Please try to disagree without insulting people.

 

[Morrus]

I personally don't share Shawn's opinion. For me, the away-from-table and rules-crunchiness is fun in itself. I get that it might not be for others, but I find pleasure in that process, and always have. And, as a side-effect, for many who aren't fortunate to have access to a gaming group, it's also a type of fun you can have with RPGs which doesn't require other people.

I love a rules light game I can dive straight into. I also love a rules-heavy game I can tinker and tweak to my hearts' content, enjoying the technical way things interact. Horses for, as they say, courses. Whether TSR came up with advertising which included the word "imagination" or not doesn't come into it - both things have been part of RPGs for decades, and both have their place.

 

[BryonD]

I also find the rules-crunchiness to be a lot of fun. I don't think an RPG could be made today that would be good enough for my tastes without a lot of rules crunch.

I want 10 different fighters to each be mechanically realized so that they feel different and interact with the world differently, and not just be different descriptions on the same mechanics.

That said, I don't think a game can be made detailed enough for me without also being completely open to abuse and self-destruction. A rules heavy game can absolutely destroy the spirit of storytelling. The trick is that you have to make certain to not let it. I love 1E for the pioneering effort and the awesome nostalgia. But it will never be as a good a game for me, today, as a range of other games that followed it and built upon the ideas it created. But none of these newer games are good unless they are played "in the spirit" of 1E. That storytelling foundation has become mechanically optional, but it is not in any way optional to the experience.

I've been seeing lots of comments about how 5E returns to storytelling in a way that 3E and 4E had moved away from. My gut reaction is always puzzlement because 3E was never slightly less about storytelling, for me, than older editions. But on further reflection, I agree that for some people it is easy to imagine that it could have very much been a move away from storytelling.

 

[Lwaxy]

Yes! Rules are just guidelines... 90% of my games work that way, no optimization, no munchkins, no brokeness... in some cases we do not evne dice much in battle.

But also... no! I have 2 groups I GM since... oh forgot when. All they do is optimize and try to break it. I don't limit them because this is part of the fun. It's the challenge for them to break it, and for me to do something to fix their breaking.

That's the FUN of D&D. You can do both as long as the group agrees.

Problem is that it is hard to get a group together for me now, not only because of the many options of different versions and games, but also because I hardly ever find people who follow the same philosophy.

 

[dd.stevenson]

Merwin added this comment below his post.

... Just to be clear, I am not talking about min-maxing or choosing the optimal selection for a character. What I am referring to is very clear: when a person insists on doing something at the table that makes the game less fun for everyone else there. There are other ways a player could do that (swearing, smoking, etc.), but most of the time when that has happened in my experiences, it has been when a player uses game-breaking elements to eliminate the chance for others at the table to contribute. This does not help a game grow. It is ultimately antisocial behavior in a social game because it shows no regard for what others want. That is what I am talking about. ...