The Soul of and Drama in D&D

[xechnao]

None of what you mention invokes the soul of the game, nor does it create drama. The rules may offer inspiration for a dramamtic encounter, but without the DM's (and Players') imagination there is no soul (or heart, or whatever you want to call it - sorry MarkAHart, "soul" is an intangible that I find difficult to define).

You are repeating what you said in the OP allready. I allready replied that I disagree. I tried to give you examples of D&D, perhaps they could not be the most clear ones for the case. Have you for example ever tried DMing a CoC or WoD -any setting of it? Rules actively enforce drama in these games.

 

[Wolfspider]

3e was a number crunch munchkinfest without a soul. We did not see heroes, not even characters, just optimized builds.

OK.

 

[Shazman]

I think that mainly depended on who you played with and how many spaltbooks you used.

 

[Remathilis]

I think that mainly depended on who you played with and how many spaltbooks you used.

Really? Cool. I had (between two groups) 10 of the best players I've seen and well over 30 splatbooks to chose options from!

10x30 = 300!

Looks like I win!

 

[Craw Hammerfist]

Surfers, carpenters, writers, martial artists, factory line workers and even lawyers (like me) can achieve Flow while doing what they do.

I imagine that lawyers achieve Flow hydrodynamically, like certain cartiliginous fish.

Soul is certainly not tied to a rules system. The best soulful adventuring is determined by the interaction between the players and the DM. Some of the best games I've ever played were 3.5. The two most memorable scenes involved extended dialogue from the party's fighter and fortuitous criticals in melee by the party wizard in several consecutive battles. When I DMed, it was actually the relative ease of most of the rules that enhanced play. Everyone really got into character.

The egotistical gung-ho fighter just had to try and outdo the ranger in scouting a wet ledge and a dramatic skill check resulted in a very wet fighter spluttering about monsters in the underground lake. (Actually blind cave trout.) The whip-fetish wizard (also a lawyer, hmmm) tried to trip a monstrous centipede. He later tried to snag a comrade out of a gelatinous cube with his whip. That didn't work either, but it was a much better idea. This is not to say that all of these players didn't usually use their characters in tactically appropriate ways the rest of the time. It just shows that good players, not good rules, make for good times.

 

[FireLance]

Soul / Drama are absent from games where Balance / Number Crunch rules the game unless the GM viciously battles the rules and the rules lawyers.

I think the opposite is true, actually. The amount of soul and drama is proportional to how well-balanced the game is. When the most optimized character is no more than 10% better than the average, most players will find that crunching the numbers isn't worth the time they spend on it, and at least some of them will put more effort into creating interesting and well-rounded characters.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Too bad the booster packs are still random. Worst idea ever, IMO. I'm a D&D player, not a minis collector, and in my game I need 6 orcs, 2 hill giants, a purple worm, 8 gnoll archers, etc. etc. - not whatever WotC feels like selling me.

WotC would get quite a few sales out of me (as opposed to zero) if packs were non-random. I don't like blaming WotC's trading card heritage for poor corporate decision-making, but I think this is a pretty good example of that very thing.

And now, to post to topic ( ):

Continuing a brief tangent, I would note that the random boosters are not solely there to get you to buy more or to emulate its trading card heritage. This is actually an interesting solution to getting their product out to more than just hobby stores. From a retail perspective, it's easier to buy and stock boosters than to guess about what you need to get of individual blisters of different types of monsters. This model works great for booksellers and toy stores and still works just fine for hobby stores afraid of sitting on excess merchandise, too. I suspect this had a lot to do with them selling random packs.

 

[The Little Raven]

Worlds and Monsters has more soul and drama than anything I've read out of D&D in almost a decade. I don't see how anyone can come away from that book and not get tons of inspiration for one's own campaign as well as dozens of ideas for plot hooks for adventure. If 4e is anything like this, then the soul of Dungeons and Dragons is just fine, thank you.

Word!

4th Edition has me more excited about playing D&D again than 3rd Edition did (which was really exciting, too). And this time, I'm actually interested in using the core assumed setting (beyond my first game to put the system through it's paces) and even the Forgotten Realms, which has never happened before.

 

[Wolfspider]

Word!

4th Edition has me more excited about playing D&D again than 3rd Edition did (which was really exciting, too). And this time, I'm actually interested in using the core assumed setting (beyond my first game to put the system through it's paces) and even the Forgotten Realms, which has never happened before.

What interests you about the Forgotten Realms this time around?

I have never found the Realms to be very interesting personally, but I'm obviously a minority in that regard.

 

[AZRogue]

The game has soul when you have fun.