D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[TwoSix]

But you know they exist and are makng a choice not to engage or learn more... right?

If we're going to frame general disinterest and apathy around a subject as being the same as an active choice not to engage, then sure?

 

[Imaro]

Wait so these people play Dungeons & Dragons, know it's a ttrpg... but don't know any other ttrpg's in the world exist... can't even infer that since it falls into a category... there are other things in this category.

 

[niklinna]

If we're going to frame general disinterest and apathy around a subject as being the same as an active choice not to engage, then sure?

I make sure to spend at least 120 minutes each day actively choosing not to engage with or learn more about surfboard brands. It's exhausting lemme tell ya!

 

[Imaro]

If we're going to frame general disinterest and apathy around a subject as being the same as an active choice not to engage, then sure?

But they are activelly choosing to engage with one ttrpg... correct? So they aren't apathetic about all ttrpg's... correct?

 

[niklinna]

By the way that's longer than it takes me to drive to Santa Cruz, where I hear people do surfing. Oops! I failed to actively not engage with the topic.

 

[Lanefan]

I agree 100%. But I think that a lot of players from 2e (arguably, 1e in the form of Dragonlance) onwards have come in assuming it does support that Lord of the Rings experience, encouraged somewhat by the language and art used, and hence have experienced a dissonance that they solve with the methods I described.

I originally came in expecting something of a LotR experience as far as the background setting goes, but almost immediately dropped this expectation in terms of how actual play goes. Why? Because actual play involves actual players, who aren't always going to have their characters act as cohesively and-or wisely as those in LotR; and a great deal of the fun and entertainment in the game came from (and still comes from) this individuality and lack of cohesiveness.

I never really felt - or at least never noticed - any sense of dissonance.

 

[Stormonu]

My playstyle has changed dramatically over the years. Probably the biggest shift came into being when I was introduced to the Vampire game in the 90's.

I also ran into many issues in my earlier years when I would attempt other roleplaying games and carry my D&D mindset to them. Biggest problem came with trying Pendragon, or as my brother put it after a single session, "Never again will I play this game!" all because of the way I tried to treat it as a combat-centric (super)heroic game (this happened years before encountering Vampire - I think if I were to return to playing Pendragon, it would go a lot differently).

Also, in the last couple of years had an epiphany after sitting down with my son to play with Army Men. As we were playing, I started writing up a page of rules and my son asked me why we needed them. I paused and realized that he was right - making rules would have taken away from the fun we were having and imagination we were using and would have become about "maximizing" setting up and actually playing - i.e., more about the rules than the play itself. It made me go back and re-evaluate RPGs and realize that the minutia in D&D I was getting bogged down in (move, bonus action, action, dps, feat choice, etc.) was eating away at the fun of playing by putting in arbitrary restrictions that made me work for small doses of happiness through tightly measured success. I was losing out on having fun by letting myself be constrained to the bounds of the mechanics and gearing all my activity around "staying in bounds" over telling the story I and the other players wanted to tell.

So I've found myself backing away from the "menu-driven" aspect of D&D combat. I really want to just have each side at most roll a die or two and narrate what happens rather than have to animate each frame with D&D's approach to combat - and then move on to the story & exploration part of the game, which is far more what I am interested in. Its why I've been looking at the likes of OSE, older editions and other systems where less emphasis is put on the combat aspect of the game.

 

[Oofta]

Lots of people, I would personally think the majority of the player base, stick with 5e out of a combination of ignorance and the weight of the network effects.

That doesn't mean everyone, and not you personally.

I just disagree that it's the majority because most people I currently play with, and have played with over the decades, have tried other games. All of them at least know of the existence of other games, most enough to form an opinion. I don't have to drive a Cybertruck to know it's not a vehicle I would ever want to own even though I've never driven on. I happen to like smaller (preferably sporty) cars.

Again, this comes back to that hypothetical "better" game. Given infinite choices, infinite games, there will always be something better. It's also meaningless..

 

[Imaro]

I just disagree that it's the majority because most people I currently play with, and have played with over the decades, have tried other games. All of them at least know of the existence of other games, most enough to form an opinion. I don't have to drive a Cybertruck to know it's not a vehicle I would ever want to own even though I've never driven on. I happen to like smaller (preferably sporty) cars.

Again, this comes back to that hypothetical "better" game. Given infinite choices, infinite games, there will always be something better. It's also meaningless..

You didn't know... (sarcasm)that's why there were so many empty tables of D&D 5e at Gen Con this year (sarcasm)... it's clearly because the convention is populated with a majority of people who just don't know other ttrpg's exist (Or maybe a vast majority of people actually like playing D&D over the other games on offer). That's got to be it right?

 

[Stormonu]

Heh, I've only ever run into one individual who refused to play anything other than D&D. Conversely, I've seen a lot of wide eyes when I introduce people who've never seen a non-D&D to another game system, and how differently it can treat activities (especially Vampire. If you ever want to break a minmaxer, introduce them to a politics-heavy Vampire game).

As for this "D&D is everybody's second RPG choice," I treat it somewhat like the 3E "humans are everyone's second best friend". Everybody I know ends up homebrewing some portion of D&D, and doesn't run it RAW. That's where the second-best comes in, because YOUR tweaked version of the game is the best.