D&D 5E The D&D Advantage- The Campaign

[Snarf Zagyg]

Then...I mean, this is a historical fact, but it's not exactly saying much that "persistent characters and levelling up are well-liked because they're popular." Tad circular, even; it's used because it's popular, and it's popular because of how widely it's used.

Well, there's a little more than that I wrote, but sure. If it's that obvious to you, then there isn't much reason for you to comment, right?

Other than the #humblebrag Next time, just write, DUH. It's shorter.

 

[Oofta]

Well, there's a little more than that I wrote, but sure. If it's that obvious to you, then there isn't much reason for you to comment, right?

Other than the #humblebrag Next time, just write, DUH. It's shorter.

DUH.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

DUH.

I just finished the first part of Jon Peterson's new book last night. One of the things it really hammers home is both how dire the straits were for Gygax, and how unexpected the success of D&D was in the overall context of the hobby.

I think it is easy to see, now, especially with video games having aped the model, that the play model of D&D is crucial to the success. But I still think we often forget how crucial it is to the success of D&D vis-a-vis the TTRPG market. To put it in simple terms- one reason that D&D succeed, where branded TTRPGs (Dr. Who, Star Trek, etc.) do not do as well, is because of this leveling loop that is crucial to the long-term interest. As much fun as it is to be your Kirk (or Picard, or Sisko, etc.), you want that reward mechanism.

Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out.

(I have to admit that I feel like I can't win with certain commenters- either they pick apart a single sentence in a giant essay I write because I'm wrong wrong wrong, or they chime in to complain that I shouldn't bother writing about something so obvious. I guess they want a refund of the money they paid me? )

 

[Oofta]

...
(I have to admit that I feel like I can't win with certain commenters- either they pick apart a single sentence in a giant essay I write because I'm wrong wrong wrong, or they chime in to complain that I shouldn't bother writing about something so obvious. I guess they want a refund of the money they paid me? )

So ... umm ... DUH?

 

[payn]

I just finished the first part of Jon Peterson's new book last night. One of the things it really hammers home is both how dire the straits were for Gygax, and how unexpected the success of D&D was in the overall context of the hobby.

I think it is easy to see, now, especially with video games having aped the model, that the play model of D&D is crucial to the success. But I still think we often forget how crucial it is to the success of D&D vis-a-vis the TTRPG market. To put it in simple terms- one reason that D&D succeed, where branded TTRPGs (Dr. Who, Star Trek, etc.) do not do as well, is because of this leveling loop that is crucial to the long-term interest. As much fun as it is to be your Kirk (or Picard, or Sisko, etc.), you want that reward mechanism.

Sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out.

(I have to admit that I feel like I can't win with certain commenters- either they pick apart a single sentence in a giant essay I write because I'm wrong wrong wrong, or they chime in to complain that I shouldn't bother writing about something so obvious. I guess they want a refund of the money they paid me? )

Your essays dont really leave room for discussion, only agreement or nitpick arguments. Sorry...Duh.

 

[Oofta]

Slightly more serious response. Yes, it's the sense of accomplishment and growth that you get while playing that's a big part of D&D's success. It's funny, I remember people having conniptions in Living Forgotten Realms (LFR, the AL/public play for 4E) because people could create a new character at higher levels to play in mods if they didn't have a PC of the appropriate level. People were livid because they felt they were being "cheated", that people making these PCs hadn't "earned" that 8th level PC. Never mind that it was in large part targeted at DMs who ran most of the games instead of playing or new players who wanted to join in but just hadn't been around long enough. People felt they deserved a higher level PC because they had the opportunity to play the game when other had not.

So people feeling a sense of accomplishment for having (presumably) fun playing a game in their free time and managing to survive is definitely a big part of the secret sauce. But I think there's more to it than that.

Another aspect is the flexibility. You can go anywhere from Gothic horror theme to sword and sandals to throwing in sci-fi fantasy into the mix and it still all kind of works okay. Are other games that are focused on Gothic horror better at it than, say Ravenloft? Maybe, depending on personal preference. But D&D can go from Ravenloft to crashed alien spaceships to fighting a war against dragons without blinking an eye. Maybe multiple eye-stalks because how well those different genres work is in the eye of the beholder.

D&D is kind of like a potluck. Perhaps not the best meal you'll ever have but it can be satisfying and please a lot of people well enough. Not only do players grow from Grognard the street urchin to Grognard the Barbarian, Hero of the North, the DM and players also get to create unique visions of the world instead of playing in someone else's Star Trek sandbox if it's what they want. That growth from zero to hero has big appeal in myth and story, but so does having freedom to create your own world and never having to compete with Luke or Han for heroic arcs, storytelling or setting lore.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Your essays dont really leave room for discussion, only agreement or nitpick arguments. Sorry...Duh.

So what I understand from that is ... Snarf, you are so brilliant that people either have to agree with you, or they have to nitpick meaningless things to incorrectly disagree with you.


....I'LL TAKE THAT!

(It helps to read everything in the light most favorable ... TO ME!)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

D&D is kind of like a potluck. Perhaps not the best meal you'll ever have but it can be satisfying and please a lot of people well enough. Not only do players grow from Grognard the street urchin to Grognard the Barbarian, Hero of the North, the DM and players also get to create unique visions of the world instead of playing in someone else's Star Trek sandbox if it's what they want. That growth from zero to hero has big appeal in myth and story, but so does having freedom to create your own world and never having to compete with Luke or Han for heroic arcs, storytelling or setting lore.

I think that the flexibility and potluck nature of D&D also play a part- as I wrote, " I'm not saying that this is the sole, or only, or even necessarily the predominant reason that D&D is the big fish in the small pond of TTRPGs."

I just think it's fascinating that proto-D&D (Arneson) introduced the persistent character, and almost immediately had the XP/leveling come in to keep the player's interest. And that this aspect was one of major things that appealed to Gygax. Again, it's a historical aspect of the game that got aped, yet still differentiates it from some (not all, but some) games on the market.

I think that at this point it's so entrenched in D&D (and so well-documented in the field of video games) that we forget how revolutionary it is, and how important it was to the establishment of D&D's success. IMO, etc.

 

[TwoSix]

I think it is easy to see, now, especially with video games having aped the model, that the play model of D&D is crucial to the success. But I still think we often forget how crucial it is to the success of D&D vis-a-vis the TTRPG market. To put it in simple terms- one reason that D&D succeed, where branded TTRPGs (Dr. Who, Star Trek, etc.) do not do as well, is because of this leveling loop that is crucial to the long-term interest. As much fun as it is to be your Kirk (or Picard, or Sisko, etc.), you want that reward mechanism.

I'd probably reframe it slightly. Leveling up and long-term campaigns were a crucial innovation that gave D&D a major advantage over competitors during its early period. But it's hard to call it a current "advantage" when the design has been so fully plundered into gaming design over the past 45-50 years. I mean, most TTRPGs and video games have some sort of persistent avatar than can continually grow during play and gather rewards.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I'd probably reframe it slightly. Leveling up and long-term campaigns were a crucial innovation that gave D&D a major advantage over competitors during its early period. But it's hard to call it a current "advantage" when the design has been so fully plundered into gaming design over the past 45-50 years. I mean, most TTRPGs and video games have some sort of persistent avatar than can continually grow during play and gather rewards.

Well, I would say that it's both a crucial innovation that led to competitive advantage (path dependency), as well as a continuing advantage (Part 3 of the above).

It's not that other TTRPGs don't try to mimic the reward loop of D&D (and similar systems). It's that, for various reasons, other systems often aren't able to model the reward loop as well (for genre reasons, for rule reasons, for realism reasons, etc.).

So it both had the early advantage, and it continues to have that system in place, that is harder to put into a "new" TTRPG that isn't "D&D-like." IMO.

But that's where I thought the discussion might go- how easy is it to re-create that reward system in a new, modern TTRPG that doesn't have the benefit of "grandfathering in" XP, leveling, loot, etc.