D&D 5E Only three pillars?

[Lanefan]

That's like saying that setting up a board game is playing the game. It's not. It's setting it up so that you can play the game.

Playing D&D starts when the DM starts narrating the first scene(for lack of a better term) of the session and players start responding with what their characters do. Play is not leveling up the PC. Play is not the DM preparing for the game. That stuff is set-up for playing the game.

Levelling up a character is about equivalent to dealing the cards in poker - it's an essential part of playing the game.

 

[Maxperson]

Levelling up a character is about equivalent to dealing the cards in poker - it's an essential part of playing the game.

No. Leveling up is like opening up the pack of cards. Dealing the cards would be the DM narrating the opening scene and the players responding would be them betting and folding.

 

[Maxperson]

Because an improv scene isn’t a game. Games have mechanics, goals, restrictions, and challenge.

And one of the goals of the game of D&D is roleplaying, which an improv scene fulfills nicely. You seem to be trying to look at the individual scenes discreetly and that's a mistake. The game of D&D is the entire thing from beginning to end, so even if the improv scene doesn't have all of those aspects, so long as it has one, and it will always have at LEAST one, it qualifies as playing the game of D&D.

 

[Maxperson]

we didn't have pillars in the old days. It was too new to be that structured. Thus the constant fights with old guys over why or why not we need rules to lock it down. Have fun, was the only pillar back then.

Sure we had the pillars in the old days. We just didn't call them that. "Have fun" still consisted of all the things we attribute to the pillars of play, we just didn't bother to sit down and think about what things went into "have fun."

 

[Maxperson]

I think it's the stealth solo mode of D&D play. It's not quite playing, but it's also not quite not playing either.

So it's unplaying(undead) D&D?

Leveling up is done almost completely outside of game play. I say almost because in 1e there was the odd "pay to train" or "defeat the monk above you" involved. These days(3e-5e) there's none of that and it's all done outside of game play. Heck, my players generally level up their PCs before the next game. They aren't unplaying a solo game from their house 2 days later.

 

[overgeeked]

So it's unplaying(undead) D&D?

Leveling up is done almost completely outside of game play. I say almost because in 1e there was the odd "pay to train" or "defeat the monk above you" involved. These days(3e-5e) there's none of that and it's all done outside of game play. Heck, my players generally level up their PCs before the next game. They aren't unplaying a solo game from their house 2 days later.

I agree with Lanefan. You cannot play without it, like the referee's prep. It's part of the game. How much it's considered "playing the game" is largely a matter of opinion...but completely irrelevant to just about everything.

 

[Lanefan]

No. Leveling up is like opening up the pack of cards. Dealing the cards would be the DM narrating the opening scene and the players responding would be them betting and folding.

You open a new pack of cards before each hand?

Unlikely.

It also depends how a group handles levelling up. Here, it's all done at the table while other things (usually treasury division) are going on side-along, and is integrated into the rest of the at-table activity.

 

[Lanefan]

So it's unplaying(undead) D&D?

Leveling up is done almost completely outside of game play. I say almost because in 1e there was the odd "pay to train" or "defeat the monk above you" involved. These days(3e-5e) there's none of that and it's all done outside of game play. Heck, my players generally level up their PCs before the next game. They aren't unplaying a solo game from their house 2 days later.

Training is another thing - it forces the PCs to take some downtime and also keeps levelling-up at the table where it belongs (though the 3-4-5e model where levelling-up has become an overly-complex process is free to go the way of the dodo any time it likes).

 

[ECMO3]

That 1:1 correlation between player and character downtime was something that, I suspect, existed only in Gary Gygax's mind.

I don't know of anyone else who ever used that.

It really sucked when you quit in the middle of a combat with one Kobold left and the DM decided he got 947 rounds of attacks before you played again and you returned to a TPK.

 

[Lanefan]

It really sucked when you quit in the middle of a combat with one Kobold left and the DM decided he got 947 rounds of attacks before you played again and you returned to a TPK.

Last I checked the DM is supposed to stop play at about the same time as the players.

When (not if) we stop mid-combat* we take careful note of everyone's status, condition, and position; and start the next session at exactly that point.

* - almost always at the end of a round.