D&D 5E Playstyle- Storytelling verse Game

[GameOgre]

I see a lot of arguments on the boards as really just a difference in play styles. From tracking experience to magic item shops and on into what to do if your character dies.

Play style has a huge impact on what each of those things means to the game. I think it's important to say right off the bat that whatever play style your group uses is good. None of them are any better than another.

For a story telling game the story is the thing. Characters are also important but are really secondary to the story. If your 9th level warrior knight dies while questing for the Holy Grail then just create another character to further the story and move on. Adventure Paths promote this style of play the most(in my book). From 1st to 20th level your game is telling a overarching story and while characters are important in that telling of the story, they are not more important than the story. Tracking experience? If you want to go ahead but mostly the DM could just tell you when to level up based on story needs. Your character dies? Well the next story section requires 12th level characters so just create a level 12 character that fits the story and jump right in! Point buy character creation please! The story is balanced around four characters on this amount of point buy. My story telling games are a lot of fun and often end in some of the most Epic encounters I have ever had. My players normally have one character and while some character background growth does accrue it is mostly very secondary in nature.

For a Game style group, the game is the thing. Now you might be telling a story or hundreds of them, but the characters and the game itself comes first. There isn't a overarching story that drives all gameplay. Sure your group might be trying to stop Vecna from achieving godhood but that isn't going to link all the stories and if you all die at 12th level guess what? Vecna is a god. Your next character starts at first level and the world changes to fit past play experiences. In this style of play experience tracking is important because the DM might not have a clue when you are going to level up. After all your entire group fled from the Underdark instead of trying to fight Loths Avatar and then there was that entire Ghost Tower mess you got involved in. In my game style games players tend to have 3-5 characters but only play one at a time. We normally have our "Main character" game that we play weekly and then every three sessions or so we alternate to one of the other level ranges. this provides me with a nice break from main game while at the same time hopefully leveling up one of the players secondary characters. This is important because a player having his main character die (and be unrecoverable or whatever) means they will be falling back to one of there secondary characters. Single adventure modules(homemade or store bought) are the backbone of our play with this play style.


Almost every aspect of the game hangs on one of these two play styles.

Magic item shops? For story driven games it just makes sense to have them(as long as the story supports them) so your new character replacement is quickly brought up to par. Heck I even like them for our game style ones as well as a more complex mini-game within the game. Though in that arena it is a much more volatile and unpredictable affair.

Level based encounters? In a story driven game this is very important as real defeat is often very counter productive to the story. Encounters need to be evaluated and measured so that those hard story driven fights are hard but manageable and so the easy story encounters are easy. In the game style however level based encounters are not as important. Some attention needs to be paid to level ranges by the DM but mostly in a give the characters a clue type way. If the 3rd level party hears about the dragon that just burned a major city to the ground and wants to get frogy and hunt him down(or not hide in the woods as he flies overhead) then it's game on! Granted not a smart bet to make on their part but I have seen some crazy lucky adventurers that should have stood no chance against much higher foes just strait up annihilate them. More often it doesn't fall that way but...it happens!


I really think this play style difference (and many others I'm sure) is behind a lot of the debates on this board. After all when viewed through the play style lens almost every aspect of the game changes to be better or worse depending on play style. At the same time though I often see people posting as if their personal play style was the default.

I really don't think there is a default.

What do you guys think? What kind of style(or styles) do you use at your table?

 

[iserith]

I don't put much stock in the notion of "playstyles" anymore. Having played with hundreds of people from all over the world, my experience is that we all want the same basic things: to have a good time and to tell some exciting, memorable stories as a result of play. So whether you choose to do that in a sandbox filled with metaplots the players can choose to follow or leave behind as they please or whether the group buys in on an overarching plotline that they'll follow to the end, it all boils down to having fun and creating good stories. I can have a good game experience and achieve the goals of play either way.

What's cool is that D&D 5e recognizes this right on page 2 of the Basic Rules:

"The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery."

"There’s no winning and losing in the Dungeons & Dragons game—at least, not the way those terms are usually understood. Together, the DM and the players create an exciting story of bold adventurers who confront deadly perils. Sometimes an adventurer might come to a grisly end, torn apart by ferocious monsters or done in by a nefarious villain. Even so, the other adventurers can search for powerful magic to revive their fallen comrade, or the player might choose to create a new character to carry on. The group might fail to complete an adventure successfully, but if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, they all win."

I think that's very well said.

 

[Paraxis]

I think your two categories are not well named as story invokes thoughts of narrative story first game play and that has little to do with magic item shops and balanced encounters. There are many different factors to play styles not a binary this or that.

But yes if your overall observation is people should realize that tons of groups play different than they do and have fun doing so, and so should stop trying to impose there preferred methods onto others I agree 100%.

 

[BryonD]

I think you put far too much emphasis on the idea of two distinct play styles.

I think there are multiple dimensions to play style and vast ranges and shades amongst them.

What I see is that there are zones of common popularity within those ranges, and some of those zones don't touch each other much, or at all.
In some cases people really don't like another zone, and problems can arise when they mix with the "wrong" group ("wrong" meaning nothing more than poor game taste compatibility)
In some cases, people are very open to a variety of styles, but problems arise when there is poor up-front communication and the expectations of the group are not the same.

As to online talk, I have seen plenty of productive conversation amongst people who don't share a taste. But far, far more often it turns into just shouting past each other NOT because people don't share a taste, but because people start bring overwhelming need to reject that other play styles exist into the conversation. Then you start piling confirmation bias on that weak human tendency to reject other people's opinions as being "factually wrong" and it goes to hell pretty fast.

 

[ninjayeti]

I agree with your point that many arguments among gamers ultimately rest on unspoken assumptions that their personal play style is the only right way to do things. Often people talk past one another because they don't recognize or acknowledge the fundamental assumptions.

I would argue that the differences in play style are much greater that "story vs. game." For example many people look at the "sandbox" style as the holy grail of gaming. In sandbox games player choice - rather than story or game - is the ultimate concern. To a sandbox player adventure paths are terrible because they assume players will follow a set path; "special snowflake" settings (e.g. Forgotten Realms) are terrible because they have immutable lore. Those are totally valid concerns if you think sandboxes are the 'right' way to play. However I would argue many players enjoy the story arcs of adventure paths or playing in settings with deep lore.

The bottom line is that I think we can all make greater efforts to our disclose our underlying assumptions and biases when criticizing something - instead of saying "x is bad" we should say "from a story perspective x is bad."

 

[aramis erak]

I don't put much stock in the notion of "playstyles" anymore. Having played with hundreds of people from all over the world, my experience is that we all want the same basic things: to have a good time and to tell some exciting, memorable stories as a result of play. So whether you choose to do that in a sandbox filled with metaplots the players can choose to follow or leave behind as they please or whether the group buys in on an overarching plotline that they'll follow to the end, it all boils down to having fun and creating good stories. I can have a good game experience and achieve the goals of play either way.

What's cool is that D&D 5e recognizes this right on page 2 of the Basic Rules:

"The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery."

"There’s no winning and losing in the Dungeons & Dragons game—at least, not the way those terms are usually understood. Together, the DM and the players create an exciting story of bold adventurers who confront deadly perils. Sometimes an adventurer might come to a grisly end, torn apart by ferocious monsters or done in by a nefarious villain. Even so, the other adventurers can search for powerful magic to revive their fallen comrade, or the player might choose to create a new character to carry on. The group might fail to complete an adventure successfully, but if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, they all win."

I think that's very well said.

I've played with hundreds as well, and noted several very clear different sets of expectations.

Some have fun by playing RPG's as conflict simulations — wargames, if you will — and especially tactical simulations. They generally don't care much about the story. They don't have fun when the story doesn't involve conflicts they can win.

Some have fun by being in-character. Not, per se, acting, but by picking actions that the character would/should, even if it leads to defeats. A few of my players over the years are VERY much into this; one even tho' he's a very competent tactician. He will NOT play tactics if the character isn't of that ilk, and gets really annoyed by tactics-first players. He wants story to emerge from character interactions. He often resents modules as being incompatible with the character he's currently playing.

Some have fun by progressing a story - they're very happy playing a module, provided the module implies strongly enough how to progress to the next part. They are also happy causing a story to emerge from play. But they want that story.

Others are Emergent story only - they don't particularly get into character, but also want a story emergent from play choices. They're as happy playing Fiasco and Aye Dark Overlord as with open ended hex-crawls.

And I've met a few for whom it's all an excuse for improv acting. They get incredibly frustrated in my games, because they tend to be the only ones in character voice most of the time. I can't stand them, either.

 

[DaveDash]

Personally for me a "good story" is when the Bard finally breaks out of the mind flayers stun, uses cutting words to save his Paladin buddy. Then with the Bards inspiring words, the Paladin finally breaks out of the stun and chops the mind flayers head off.
I still remember from high school a player of mine rolling 5% on his robe of archmagi to save himself from dying due to a finger of death.

For me its all about the rolls and tactical problem solving. No improv, no DM fudging, just cold hard dice and a bit of luck. Combat is a wargame and it's about doing the best you can within the rules, and hoping the dice gods are on your side.

I don't remember or care for improv actions that do "cool things" or DMs who reward that style of play.
My enjoyment is definitely different to the "do whatever is cool and creative and roll with it" mentality many other gamers (and even the designers) have.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You could simplify it into story vs game, but that model might be too simplistic to be helpful for a lot of discussion. I think most people want a good story to happen, but there's a lot of disagreement over which stories are good or bad.

Personally, I think the best story is whichever one happens naturally, from everyone acting in-character and the rest of the world behaving consistently to maintain the illusion of a real world. Any other story, particularly one which is biased by what anyone wants to happen, lacks the necessary integrity to keep me interested in any way.

 

[Sunseeker]

First and foremost, everyone wants to have fun.

Fun, problematically, is subjective. Fortunately, most types of fun are compatible.

Which is I think, why the architecture within D&D is still one of the most robust for tabletop gaming, because it leaves room for all types of fun, without specifically emphasizing one type of fun as more important than the other types of fun. The architecture allows for a wide variety of types of games for DMs and players to emphasize a specific type of fun they enjoy more over others. And I think, allows enough room even in those situations for the players to modify the expected type of fun to include others.

I think 5th is probably the best balance of the various types of fun people like to engage in at the table. There's room for gamists and actors and RPers and story-ers without explicitly excluding any type of player.

 

[Psikerlord#]

First and foremost, everyone wants to have fun.

Fun, problematically, is subjective. Fortunately, most types of fun are compatible.

Which is I think, why the architecture within D&D is still one of the most robust for tabletop gaming, because it leaves room for all types of fun, without specifically emphasizing one type of fun as more important than the other types of fun. The architecture allows for a wide variety of types of games for DMs and players to emphasize a specific type of fun they enjoy more over others. And I think, allows enough room even in those situations for the players to modify the expected type of fun to include others.

I think 5th is probably the best balance of the various types of fun people like to engage in at the table. There's room for gamists and actors and RPers and story-ers without explicitly excluding any type of player.

I agree. We all want to have fun, and 5e is pretty good at accommodating a wide range of playstyles. Playstyle preferences are important, and in my experience you ideally want similar style folks at the same table. But if not, I find folks are usually happy to be a bit flexible about their approach. If you're one of those players who isnt flexible.... then I suggest being the DM, because they have the most influence over the game, including the dominant playstyle.