Players: it's your responsibility to carry a story.

[Hussar]

Yeah, while as a DM I certainly derive a great deal of my enjoyment in seeing the players have a good time, there does come a point where I don't want to have to lead the players around by the nose all the time. A table full of passive players would be boring as hell. I want the players to be engaged and somewhat pro-active. I don't feel that they need to find their own adventures, that's a bit more that what I want or need. But, I also don't want them sitting there like frogs on a log waiting for me to wheel up the plot wagon.

 

[pemerton]

It sets goals, doesn't it, through the level up and magic item acquisition systems. PCs are 'supposed' to go to dangerous places, fight monsters and acquire treasure. And, in old school D&D, become a military commander. That's what one could call the genre of D&D.

<snip>

The text of D&D just doesn't cover that, it's all about going down holes, fighting monsters and finding treasure, not seduction, relationships and child rearing.

I can see where this is coming from, but I don't fully agree, for two sorts of reasons: the history of the published game, and the history of what people have tried to do with it (as revealed via Dragon magazine before it became a mere house organ, via internet posts, etc).

If we look at AD&D 1st ed, we have books like Oriental Adventures which take the focus away from going into holes in the ground and finding treasure on monsters. The rules in that book - the skills, the class features (including rules for XP gain), the event charts in the GM's section, etc - all suggest a game where the players are engaged with a political and social world, and make their fortune in that world, rather than via classic dungeon delving. (I'm speaking here both from theory and from experience - I started GMing an OA game as soon as the book came out, and have never GMed a dungeon-crawl game since then. I was also influenced by what I was reading in Dragon at the time, especially the anti-alignment article in Dragon 101(?) - "For King and Country".)

Of course aspects of OA don't make complete sense - eg the XP rules aren't changed radically enough - but 3rd ed OA caught up with this to some extent, for example by suggesting that treasure be given as rewards rather than as loot. And 4e makes this a core possibility, by linking treasure to level and encounter-based parcels rather than to monsters. Although some people have criticised the parcel system as MMO loot-dropping, to me it represents the end of "kill things and take their stuff" as core to D&D play. That sort of play is of course possible in 4e, but the rulebooks support other sorts of play from the ground up.

In Dragon from the same (mid-80s) era we also had an article in Dragon 95 by Katharine Kerr adapting the monster XP reward system to give XPs for non-combat encounters.

2nd ed AD&D only increased these factors pushing D&D players away from traditional play. To the extent that the XP rules didn't keep up, it's a well-known fact that many GMs just abandoned them, adopting the "level up every few session" approach instead.

People say you can do anything with it, but it seems to push very strongly in a particular direction, a tiny subset of all the activities that could be taking place in the game world.

I agree with this - ie, that D&D doesn't do everything, or even an especially wide subset of everything - but, especially given its history and the range of expectations and possiblities to which this has given rise, I don't think it specifies a genre with any great specificity. If you're turning up to a D&D game, and find yourself in a tavern, are you meant to look for maps/clues to the nearest dungeon? Listen for rumours of slaves or princesses who need rescuing (as suggested in the notorious editorial heralding 2nd ed)? Look for stray cats who need houses?

Historically, all these things and more have been done with the game. Until players know which one they're meant to be doing, it can be hard to make the game work. Hence (in my view) the benefits of getting everyone on the same page.

I agree with Doug McCrae on this: D&D sets very clear expectations for what the game is about through its character creation and rewards systems, with the caveat that these differ between editions.

For the reasons just given, I agree with caveat but think it tends to swallow up the point, especially when the known range of actual D&D play is taken into account.

I think later editions of D&D represent playing catch-up to what people were attempting to do with the game in actual play, often as encouraged by media such as Dragon articles, but my personal feeling is that this effort missed the train because the execution focused on maintaining the same character memes while tacking on additional rewards systems.

<snip>

I think D&D has a very strong set of core memes; for a variety of reasons, gamers have been encouraged for years to keep expanding those memes, encouraged with great exuberance but perhaps with less-than-thorough consideration of how that expansion is reflected in the system.

<snip>

my suggestion is, return to first princicples first.

I generally agree with your diagnosis, although as a 4e fan I naturally tend to think that its consideration of the issues has been a bit more thorough (eg treasure parcels, the pretty radical change to alignment as a mechanic).

I'm not sure I fully understand your prescription, though, of returning to first principles first. If the suggestion here is "play a game that sets things up the way you want it to", then that's good advice, but for all sorts of reasons - practical and emotional - people tend to stick with D&D even when they might be better off without it.

If the suggestion is instead "when playing D&D play it as it was written to be played back in the early 70s" then I'm not sure this will work either. For better or worse, people are trying to do other sorts of stuff with D&D, and I think will continue to do so.

I agree; D&D does have a distinct genre; D&D PCs are adventurers or adventurer-type-characters in a fantasy world. The GM had better treat them as such, or he's breaching the social contract.

As far as genres go, this is too broad to specify much about the actual content of play.

The Shaman contrasted his musketeers Flashing Blade game with a potential "Huguenot agonistes" game. Both might fit the description of "PCs are middle class or gentlefolk trying to make their fortunes in early modern France", but as The Shaman rightly pointed out, they'd be pretty different games. By choosing Flashing Blades, the GM and players have already agreed which one they're going to engage in. But by choosing D&D, for most people it is still an open question whether the game will be Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance (= something like LoTR with less history and more gods and magic), Conan, The Dying Earth (= something like Conan with fewer thews and more wit), Lo5R (which the original OA hints at by implication, and which the 3rd ed OA makes an express attempt at) or any of the rest of the games that people try and play with a semi-generic (maybe it would be better to say "would-be generic") fantasy RPG.

 

[Orius]

You're running a Solve the Soup Cans game there. (Warning: TVTropes link).

You're not supposed to warm people about TVTropes links, they're supposed to be Schmuck Bait.

 

[pemerton]

Sometimes I want to play a game where the PCs determine in-play whether, where, and to what extent, they become embedded in any particular part of the game-world.

In OD&D-AD&D, embedding is a reward for successful play. I like that. YMMV (and apparently does).

No, it could be anything.

<snip>

Any connections to the setting gained in play are rewards of play.

I'm not sure how much my mileage varies.

I certainly enjoy seeing some types of embedding result from play - relationships (romantic or otherwise), alliances, betrayals etc. But I feel that these sorts of things are most easily achieved from a base of prior embedding, which gives the player some sort of foundation on which to build.

My own feeling is that the traditional AD&D approach - in which the PC has virtually no connections that aren't formed in the course of play - can (not must, but can) lead to an approach to the gameworld that is overly instrumental, even as embedding develops over time - particularly given some of the other factors of traditional AD&D that push towards a mercenary approach on the part of players.

To that extent AD&D does have a genre, I guess - it suggests play that will emulate certain aspects of Conan and The Dying Earth - but as I said before, I don't think it's practical these days to see D&D play as genre-limited, or even genre-focused, in that way.

I have to admit, I lean far more towards Nameless1's ideas. Mostly because of pacing. I play fairly short sessions. Spending significant amounts of time researching an adventure, rather than adventuring itself, means that I'm going to take forever to actually get to the adventure.

I prefer to cut to the chase.

Obviously I agree with this!

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, while as a DM I certainly derive a great deal of my enjoyment in seeing the players have a good time, there does come a point where I don't want to have to lead the players around by the nose all the time. A table full of passive players would be boring as hell. I want the players to be engaged and somewhat pro-active. I don't feel that they need to find their own adventures, that's a bit more that what I want or need. But, I also don't want them sitting there like frogs on a log waiting for me to wheel up the plot wagon.

I don't really mind wheeling up the plot wagon. If my players wish to be led by the nose--heck, I like storytelling, I'll write up a script for the whole campaign and walk them through it. But if they want to break from the script and go do stuff on their own initiative, that's cool too.

When I get unhappy is when the players neither follow my plot hooks nor seek out their own.

 

[S'mon]

As far as genres go, this is too broad to specify much about the actual content of play.

I disagree strongly; adventure fiction (including film etc) is a tiny subset of all fiction, even though it covers a broad range of adventurous activities. There is just so much D&D can't do and shouldn't do, IME. You can do a "Maltese Falcon" type plot in D&D, but you can't do "Sliding Doors" or "Love, Actually"; at any rate the rules would actively push against it.

 

[S'mon]

IBut by choosing D&D, for most people it is still an open question whether the game will be Lord of the Rings, Dragonlance (= something like LoTR with less history and more gods and magic), Conan, The Dying Earth (= something like Conan with fewer thews and more wit), Lo5R ...

I'm not seeing a vast range here! 95% of the population would classify these as all one genre (fantasy/S&S), or more likely, at least until recently, as a mere sub genre of science fiction! I dunno much about Lo5R, but Dragonlance is the exact same quest-fantasy sub-genre as its grand-daddy Lord of the Rings, while Conan and Dying Earth are both episodic swords & sorcery with slightly different tones. At most you can say that players of modern D&D aren't sure whether they'll be playing a swords & sorcery game (traditional sandbox, or you could do an literary-episodic game a la Sorcerer & Sword but that's unusual in D&D) or, post Dragonlance, a lengthy-quest-based game. Which of these two sub-sub-genres it is can be established by the GM with a single sentence, if it's not already clear from context.

 

[S'mon]

My own feeling is that the traditional AD&D approach - in which the PC has virtually no connections that aren't formed in the course of play - can (not must, but can) lead to an approach to the gameworld that is overly instrumental, even as embedding develops over time - particularly given some of the other factors of traditional AD&D that push towards a mercenary approach on the part of players.

To that extent AD&D does have a genre, I guess - it suggests play that will emulate certain aspects of Conan and The Dying Earth - but as I said before, I don't think it's practical these days to see D&D play as genre-limited, or even genre-focused, in that way.

Hmm, I think you've actually established that OD&D, at least, was originally writtten as a tightly focused game, with rules supporting exploration and self-aggrandisement in a Hyborea/Dying Earth/Nehwon type Swords & Sorcery world.
1e AD&D rules & advice emphasised medievalism over weird fantasy, but didn't change much.
2e advice & adventres saw drift into a more Tolkieny/Questy direction but kept almost exactly the same rules.
3e aimed to go "back to the dungeon", was flexible enough to allow quite a wide range of adventurous play in character creation, but the XP system emphasised killing things.
4e is quite a big departure, the rules do support a more questy approach though all the 4e WotC adventures I've bought seem to be little more than linear-series-of-fights (bought Orcs of Stonefang Pass yesterday, v disapointed).

 

[S'mon]

I don't really mind wheeling up the plot wagon. If my players wish to be led by the nose--heck, I like storytelling, I'll write up a script for the whole campaign and walk them through it.

I get really bored by that. As GM, I need regular surprises. As a player I need influence over the direction of what's going to happen, beyond my performance in combat.

 

[pemerton]

S'mon, thanks for a series of very thoughtful replies!

I disagree strongly; adventure fiction (including film etc) is a tiny subset of all fiction, even though it covers a broad range of adventurous activities. There is just so much D&D can't do and shouldn't do, IME. You can do a "Maltese Falcon" type plot in D&D, but you can't do "Sliding Doors" or "Love, Actually"; at any rate the rules would actively push against it.

I'm not seeing a vast range here!

<snip>

At most you can say that players of modern D&D aren't sure whether they'll be playing a swords & sorcery game (traditional sandbox, or you could do an literary-episodic game a la Sorcerer & Sword but that's unusual in D&D) or, post Dragonlance, a lengthy-quest-based game. Which of these two sub-sub-genres it is can be established by the GM with a single sentence, if it's not already clear from context.

I see your point, but still want to hold out a little bit longer - I have some lingering intuition that I can't quite let go of!

I agree that by mainstream literary/theatric/cinematic standards D&D has a clear genre focus, and while can pehaps do The Maltese Falcon clearly can't do Love Actually (for all sorts of reasons, including the centrality to D&D of party play).

But compared to The Shaman's musketeers game, I still think it's pretty broad. Musketeers specifies a whole range of tropes, and sets a whole lot of expectations. Whereas D&D, without further specification, leaves open such questions as (i) the significance of court intrigue, (ii) whether cardinals are allies or enemies (in Conan normally the latter, but in Forgotten Realms or published Greyhawk often the former), (iii) whether action is mostly urban, mostly wilderness or mostly underground, (iv) whether fame is desirable or not for PCs (ie will it bring them social power and rewards, or just attract pickpockets?), etc.

The range in literary terms is slight. The range in player expectations about the game is, in my view, still fairly broad. My own experience, as well as what I see on these boards and what I used to see in Dragon, tells me that signing up for a game of D&D leaves a lot of questions unanswered, which would be answered if I signed up for a game of musketeers.

Hmm, I think you've actually established that OD&D, at least, was originally writtten as a tightly focused game, with rules supporting exploration and self-aggrandisement in a Hyborea/Dying Earth/Nehwon type Swords & Sorcery world.
1e AD&D rules & advice emphasised medievalism over weird fantasy, but didn't change much.

Agreed. But have a look at Dragon and see what people were actually doing with the game. For whatever reason, D&D has been played in a variety of ways that extends well beyond what was written. Even the increasing medievalism in AD&D can be seen as an attempt to retain players who might otherwise drift to C&S.

2e advice & adventres saw drift into a more Tolkieny/Questy direction but kept almost exactly the same rules.

Agreed. The lack of fit between those rules and the apparently intended game (at least as bad as 1st ed OA, maybe worse) is one reason why 2nd ed AD&D is one of my least favourite RPGs of all time.

At least in my own experience, I can know what I'm getting into if I sign up for a 2nd ed game - namely, a game in which the GM tries to railroad me into and through a story, participation in which via my PC is barely supported by the rules (whether character build, action resolution, or reward).

I've got no doubt that some people had better experiences than me in 2nd ed games. But I think it might be the zenith (or nadir) of "playing D&D" giving me no handle, as a player, on how to get into the game until the GM starts railroading me along.

3e aimed to go "back to the dungeon", was flexible enough to allow quite a wide range of adventurous play in character creation, but the XP system emphasised killing things.

I don't have much 3E experience. I agree about the XP system. At least in the core books, treasure gained also seems to be pretty tightly linked to looting monsters and NPCs.

On the other hand, the character build rules have Professions, Performance etc. Which (unless I'm a performing Bard) don't have much link to killing things and looting them. Therefore suggesting (i) that exactly what the game is about can't be inferred just from the reward system, and (ii) that until my GM tells me how my Professional Performer is going to earn XP (and I imagine a lot of 3E play carried on various informal XP systems from 2nd ed days rather than using those in the books) I don't really know what the game is about.

My personal impression of 3E is that the character build rules want to be Rolemaster, but the reward system and the action resolution system (or at least its spells and hit point components) want to be 1st ed AD&D. An unstable combination, in my view.

4e is quite a big departure, the rules do support a more questy approach though all the 4e WotC adventures I've bought seem to be little more than linear-series-of-fights (bought Orcs of Stonefang Pass yesterday, v disapointed).

I agree that the modules seem to be disappointing (judging from what I've heard about them - I've only bought one, plus looked at the early Dungeon adventures and the encounters in the various worldbooks).

At a minimum, the game seems to allow both questy play and traditional D&D play (I run a questy-type game, but a lot of posters on these boards seem to run it in a more dungeon-bashing way, and the modules seemed designed to support the latter). But books like The Plane Above and Demonomicon, at least in part, support Glorantha-style HeroQuesting and similar play. And the potential for this is build into the game from the start (via Epic Destinies). Not to mention the flexibility in rewards created by quest XP, skill challenge XP and treasure parcels divorced from defeating monsters. At least in my view, merely knowing I was playing in a 4e game wouldn't necessarily answer all the questions that are answred when I sign up for a musketeers game.

Anyway, I'm not sure how persuasive all the above is . . . but I think I believe it!