D&D General Un-Fun D&D: A Thought Experiment

[TwoSix]

I started playing in the 90s. I read Dragon from that era, and hung around game shops and college gaming clubs up to the early aughts. I also was active on this board then, and I recall the types of conversations that were had between players and DMs. And while differences in play did exist, homebrewed systems existed, and people refusing to move to the next edition all existed, the lines were no so clear and the camps divided as they are now. In that way, I feel the internet and a lot of game-theory websites polarized D&D players into the camps we have now.

Honestly, I just wish that people would recognize that these divisions can just be styles and not camps, and you don't have to align with just one. Just play lots of games!

I've played and enjoyed games very close to the OP style, and I've played and enjoyed games that are almost the complete inverse. Why can't both be fun, or something else that's a hybrid?

I recently saw both Obsession and the Sheep Detectives at the movies. Those are very different movies, but I enjoyed them both!

 

[Tigris]

Honestly, I think the entire list could suddenly become fun for you, for me, for anyone, if the other people at the table are awesome to play with - especially the DM.

But you dont have to play bad games with good people.

I play something around 100 different new boardgames every year. And there is a huge difference between bad game with good people vs good game with good people.

And with enough experience you can tell if you like a game or not. Not always, and I also give games a chance where I think it might suck but cannot tell before because its too different, but for some games one can just tell directly.


There are just too many games to play bad games (more than once). I convinved some people last year to try Arcs with me, and I still feel bad about it because the game sucked so much. And we were laughing, because the people were nice, but the game was still horrible.


Also there is a difference between "not particularily liking" something and really not liking it as in OPs description.


I also take one for the team and play Daggerheart which in my oppinion is just not really a good game. (we made some changes that helps). But Daggerheart not being good imho is far away from it being awfull like OSR games.

It's the old girlfriend/boyfriend syndrome. Man hates romantic comedies. Man falls in love. His partner loves romantic comedies. Man starts to like romantic comedies. Or woman hates camping. Woman falls in love. Partner loves camping. Woman begins to like camping.

People reacting to peer pressure and adapting to surroundings is not necessary a good thing. It can be good but it can also lead to people having no distinct personality anymore.

So to answer OPs question:​

The worst D&D for me would be

• GM who loves to play god and does put their enjoyment over the players because "thats normal as a GM"
• Only low level/low power play (levels 1-2 in 5e) or worse OSR play
• High deadlyness because GM thinks its fun to kill players
• Only boring options allowed. Like only human fighters or similar things.
• Huge randomness impact, like rolling stats.
• Really really dark, everything is miserable.
  • Even worse if we need to also be bad people.
• Highly complex world with 100s of characters GM expect us to know by name
  • So like every detail of the world is given and we are expected to know.
  • Even worse if its a for me completly unlogical world like many OSRs are
• Random deathtraps (including cursed magic items), because "rewarding player skill"
• Tracking boring things like arrows rations weight etc.
• Lots of mother may I / sweet talk the GM/ "guess what the GM thinks" in order to "solve situations".
  • If I want party game mechanics, then I play a party game (in which the person to sweet talk at least switches).
• Only completely unbalanced combats. Either being impossible (playing the party game mechanic mentioned above) or a walk in the park just wasting our time.
• No/extremly slow character progression (including gear).
• Everyone needs to come up with 10 pages backstories and people are expected to know them and behave according to them and GM forces their integration into the campaign.
• Combat mostly is just illusion of choice (like PF2/Dragonbane), and includes tracking of many mini modifiers (PF2) and the tactics is mostly getting up to 3 times +1 to an attack (PF2).
• No grid, movement is just abstract does not matter to remove another layer of tactic
• Lots of "sexual/romantic" roleplay involved. (No GM I dont care how hot that NPC is...)

Honestly, I just wish that people would recognize that these divisions can just be styles and not camps, and you don't have to align with just one. Just play lots of games!

I've played and enjoyed games very close to the OP style, and I've played and enjoyed games that are almost the complete inverse. Why can't both be fun, or something else that's a hybrid?

I recently saw both Obsession and the Sheep Detectives at the movies. Those are very different movies, but I enjoyed them both!

Sure more than 1 thing can be fun, but there are also a lot of things out there which are not fun. And a lot of "fun" for people is just doing what they know/what they are used to.


Like many people with not much boardgame experience will play Monopoly because they just dont know better.

 

[VashVet]

What anti-fun D&D is for me:

1. People are distracted with some other activity, for instance their phone.
2. I read the DM’s campaign pitch idea, attend the session zero, spend 30+ minutes creating a character, and they die at first level to a random skeleton who rolled a crit.
3. One of the other players starts telling me what would’ve been a more optimal build for my character.
4. Any time I feel like I’m simply intoning the words “I check the floor and door for traps” because if I don’t do so, there may be a random spring or pit trap with arrows or spikes coated with save or die poison.
5. I take my turn in combat, and it’ll be 15+ minutes before I get my next turn.
6. I’m expected to “theater of the mind” a combat scene off of a vague description, but tactics, movement speed, attacks of opportunity, etc. are still a “thing.”

 

[Willie the Duck]

I started playing in the 90s. I read Dragon from that era, and hung around game shops and college gaming clubs up to the early aughts. I also was active on this board then, and I recall the types of conversations that were had between players and DMs. And while differences in play did exist, homebrewed systems existed, and people refusing to move to the next edition all existed, the lines were no so clear and the camps divided as they are now. In that way, I feel the internet and a lot of game-theory websites polarized D&D players into the camps we have now.

Honestly, I just wish that people would recognize that these divisions can just be styles and not camps, and you don't have to align with just one. Just play lots of games!

FWIW, I still see all this in the D&D game-o-sphere, just not in places like this. Here*, here we might obsess about differences, postures, what our gaming positions or edition choices say** about us as a whole***, or the like. In the wild (IRL gaming, again as I experience), people still play much as they did in the 90s.
*and other sites like this, Reddit, etc.
**or what we might feel like they do.
***such as responses in this thread which seem to use how we (or imagined straw people in opposition to us) choose to play a specific elfgame as forms of worth or virtue communication somehow.


This group over here plays older edition #123b; that group over there plays the modern edition but without supplements past publication 237x; that group over there (which has been long-running since who knows when) is playing some mashup with a binder (or pdf, if you brought a spare thumb drive) full of house rules. There might be some rules debates, strongly held opinions, and even some heated exchanges*; but generally they are dwarfed by normal, everyday interpersonal dynamics. For every two people that get hot over edition purity or inclusion of tabaxi or metacurrencies or the like; there are a dozen arguments over one player wanting to start barfights when the other wants to get. on. with. the. mission., or is the guy playing his character as a coke fiend hilarious or disruptive, or is Babylon 5 better than DS9, or stuff like that (and the arguments, as a whole, are still the exception rather than the rule).
* now perhaps with someone insisting that 'regardless of how we choose to do it, I think ______ is the "RAW" rules!' because yes internet parlance invades real life.

 

[Silam]

Not too long ago, I began a idle thought experiment on what D&D would look like if it was played in a way that is polar opposite to what my personal playstyle is. In a way An Anti-Remathilis D&D. What that game would look and play like.

I put two caveats: It had to still be D&D (That is, the rules would still use classes, species, spells, magic, etc). It would be too easy to design a game that doesn't even resemble D&D using this. Second, while it wasn't fun for me, it still had to be fun for someone. In theory, my trash would be another's treasure to avoid absolute torture. I'm sure some people will love this, but to me this is my own personal Hell.

This is what I came up with.

* The DM is Ruthlessly Neutral: The DM is expected to be an absolute neutral arbiter of the game. Dice rolls are expected to be adhered to regardless of outcome. There is no fudging, no reducing the monster's hit points, to targeting stronger allies to avoid kicking weak ones when down. The DM is fair, but plays to win.
* The Game is Procedurally Generated. That is, the game expects much of the DMs work to be done via table generation and after-the-fact justification. Random Encounters, Treasure, adventure design, etc is expected to be done via random generation to limit DM influencing outcomes for either themselves or the players.
* Characters are randomly generated: Every mechanical aspect of a character is randomly generated: Ability scores, race, class, gear, HP, etc. Good luck on these rolls will give you advantages over those who roll badly. There is no re-rolls, no "hopeless character" rules, no offsetting bad rolls.
* Characters are not balanced: Some options (races, classes, etc) are superior to others. If you roll and get lucky enough to have access to the superior option, you are just that much farther ahead. The Paladin is superior to the fighter, balanced stringent requirements to access and play that character. Quadratic Wizards and Linear Fighters are a feature, not bug. Trap options abound.
* The World is Not Fair: Racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and other cruelties exist, and the PCs are not immune to them. An orc going into a human village should expect a mob and not a warm welcome. Clerics of the wrong faith best leave quickly.
* Limits on meta-currency. Options like Heroic Inspiration, Action Points, Luck points, or even getting Advantage on a roll is ALWAYS in the hands of the DM and never automatically granted the player by class or feature.
* Life is Not Fair, Death Even Less So: One-Hit Kills, Save or Die, Energy Drain, and worse fates befall adventurers routinely. TPKs are a very real possibility.
* Crits: Critical Hits can lead to permanent injuries, amputations, or even death. Critical fumbles can lead to broken equipment, destroyed treasure, or errant swings at allies.
* Death is a Fail State: Resurrection magic is rare and difficult. Death means starting over. From level 1.
* The World is Dying: The world is not a fun or enjoyable place. Life is nasty, brutish, and short. People scramble to get what they can in a world overrun by deadly monsters, disease, famine, and disasters. Crime is an unfortunate reality, prejudice a common mindset. Hope is in short supply.
* Play Hard, Play Smart, Play to Survive: All of this leads to a game where the deck is stacked against the players and the DM is bound by neutrality to enforce that. Life is cheap, characters are disposable, and lucky rolls are as valuable as tactical play or creative thinking. No one is owed a happy ending. The only thing the world owes you is death from starvation, unless you can make something better with luck, skill and power.

That is my Anti-Fun D&D. A game so antithetical to my play style I couldn't stand one minute of it.

Would anyone want to play this type of D&D? What your anti-fun D&D be?

A lot of this description reminds me of 2e… except for the World is Dying part, but that feature can easily be slapped on top of 2e by playing Dark Sun

While I don’t like all of it, I am still a bit nostalgic of 2e. There were a few good things mixed into the less good stuff, and we’ve lost some of that along the way.

Oh well. As I often say, "D&D is a different game with each DM", and I think that’s great. We can enjoy different playstyles out of the same core foundation.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

1. Pointlessly long "Shopping" trips with PCs trying to haggle for every little thing.
2. Forced "Playacting" roleplaying as mentioned above.
3. A world I am uninterested in playing in.
4. Inconsistent rules/rulings
5. Too much lethality
6. DMPCs

 

[payn]

6. DMPCs

Special place for those.

 

[Frozen_Heart]

Seems that my ideal DnD is pretty similar to Remathilis DnD, apart from the tone of the settings I prefer. Specifically the world is not fair and the world is dying parts.

I personally prefer to play in settings where the world is coming to an end, or at least harsh and post apocalyptic.

 

[Kannik]

An interesting exercise! Some things that have a D&D campaign be less fun for me are mostly various dials that have been turned up to 11:

Loot and Level: The campaign is solely focused on dungeons, puzzles, treasure, XP, and what my character can do to solve dungeons, puzzles, and get more treasure. There's no real rhyme or reason to going on adventures, there's no greater impact on the wider world. It's about the same loop and number goes up.

It's All About Work: Somewhat similar/tied into the above, PCs are primarily about their abilities, and not other things like relationships (even between them the party), ties to the wider world, or what might be considered in the literary sense of character like fears, foibles, interests, motivations, development, arcs, etc.

Player Primacy: PC abilities are minimal, the prime thing is the player's own knowledge and abilities (puzzle solving, etc). The PC is mostly a thin veneer.

Dice over Player: The dice play an even greater role than the player. At best, "smart" moves and tactics improve your chances from "crapshoot" to "still mostly a crapshoot."

Dice over Player 2: The opposite of Player Primacy, what you as a player, acting through the character, does is irrelevant. Don't tell me what they're doing, tell me what skill check they're using. Now roll it. Now roll me another one. And another one.

PCs are Incompetent: The PCs are incapable so that the dice often have a bigger role in determining the chance of success at anything than the PC skill/abilities. At best, "smart" moves and tactics by the player improves your chances from "nope" to "likely nope." It can make you wonder why the PCs are not staying at home instead.

Adversarial Everything: Everything you meet is hostile or secretly trying to take advantage of you. Even the other PCs. Even the DM, who pulls all their levers . (Obligatory note: please don't turn this into a false dichotomy where the only other option is a DM that only gives candy and pillows at every turn.)

Pixel B-ing: Did you check every 5' for a trap? Did you forget to say you were picking up your dagger from the ground after the combat? Did you say you were moving the curtain to the left so you could see the indentation in the wall that indicated the switch that unlocked the secret door in the next room over that you have to notice the indentation in the ground to find the thing that continues the adventure? No? Silly you.

Things Giveth, things Taketh Away: All you've built or gained is often scrubbed away, whether randomly and/or intentionally.


And there are also mitigating factors to all of these in isolation, depending on the campaign. For example, "PCs are Incompetent" could be very fun for me if it's tied to strong narrative reasons and strong characters that are part of the campaign, and therefore is not also paired with "Loot and Level" and/or "It's All About Work."

 

[Lakesidefantasy]

Has anyone mentioned Torchbearer yet?