Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
You want a set of generic fantasy rpg rules? There are those...but it's definitely not D&D.
D&D 5E (2014) Wandering Monsters: You Got Science in My Fantasy!
- Thread starter Plaguescarred
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You want a set of generic fantasy rpg rules? There are those...but it's definitely not D&D.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I don't know where you read that, but no.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
Removing any trope/storytelling elements from the game (which is all the fluff, all the color) makes it a generic fantasy RPG. That's where I got that. What did you mean by "Just quit storytelling" if you didn't mean "remove all color/fluff from the game"?
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I mean, just engage with the elements of the game as a game. Story telling is an act similar to art or science or game play. I wouldn't call art storytelling, but I see how some art might be engaged to do so. D&D is a role playing game. Drop the storytelling aspect and keep the role playing and game play.
Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
I am not understanding the distinction you're making, could you give me an example of a storytelling element, role playing element, and game play element in D&D? For example, would you remove a stated relationship between githziri and githyanki? Would you remove unique characters like Tiamat and Orcus? Those are all story elements in my opinion, and I also think they're a crucial part of the D&D brand.
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Remathilis
Legend
That should be easy to do. Just play Fourth edition!
Ok, not really, but it was too good an opening to pass up.
howandwhy99
Adventurer
I think these are addressals. Wrestling can be done as a game with set objectives and rules or as a narrative like WWE or for furthering science or performed with artistic sensibilities and so on. I wouldn't try and claim wrestling as something you could point at and say "game", though I think it's a game first and foremost. The rules support game play as the primary purpose and not so much the others.
Role playing is playing a role. In D&D that's your class. They are also addressals of the world. Gamer, Story teller, Scientist, Artist, etc. And in a game they are defined by the limited environment of the game. But D&D is about game play first unless we quit treating it as a game and address it otherwise.
The label of the role you play is less important than the game in which you play it. You could play a King, Queen, Rook, or Bishop, but that isn't the role you perform in D&D. D&D has multiple game systems (i.e. combat system, magic system, deity/cleric system) for each class to be played. As I mentioned in a thread a week or so ago, D&D Classes are not power suites like bishop or knight. As a role playing game a D&D class is chess player. As you play your role you the player can gain greater mastery and performance of it.
The brand elements are not really the rules, just like Greyhawk is not The Setting of D&D. A game is its rules. I wouldn't say your list configured into D&D rules couldn't be in the game, but I think your list treated as story is more like trying to brand Chess with the particular board and pieces you are using. I think D&D enabes players to both play and create within the game rules and those sessions build over time into a campaign setting. Unofficial homebrew settings are every bit as much defining of D&D if not more so than brand-owner published ones.
Actually, I think 4e is more about treating D&D as a story telling game than any previous version. And its rules and years of DM and Player advice were geared towards storytelling more too. Simple ignore the packeted encounter combat game and it's all about turn taking narration.Remathilis said:
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Mistwell
Crusty Old Meatwad
That word, 'addressal', is not a word I have ever heard of, nor one I can find in any dictionary. And as you use it multiple times, it must be intentional. And I cannot think of what it might be a typo for..."address" doesn't work in that sentence, and that's the closest I can come to that word. So, am I just ignorant, or is this not a word?
The brand elements are what makes the game so successful because it makes it recognizable to people as D&D.
It's commonly referred to as the implied setting, as elements of Greyhawk show up on a regular basis throughout the rules, often as things like recognizable spell names.
It's really not. I guess this is the major issue I have with what you're saying. The game is not the rules. The rules aid the game, but the game is the role playing, which isn't the rules. This is the difference between a role playing game, and a board game or card game or similar rules-focused game. The role playing game is not about the rules, the rules are supposed to fade into the background so they don't get in the way of the role playing. Heck, the game could be played with no players knowing the overwhelming majority of the rules, successfully (only the DM really needs to know most rules). This is related to why D&D can never have a rule for every situation, as the quantity of situations is nearly infinite. It's a game that cannot primarily be about it's rules, because the game would fail the moment it didn't have a rule for a new situation.
I am back to asking could you please give me an example of a storytelling element, role playing element, and game play element in D&D?
howandwhy99
Adventurer
It's antiquated. Think "address" in terms of focusing one's skill and attention upon, but in reference to the activity as the whole process.
I would say the rules make it recognizable to people as D&D otherwise people might confuse the D&D movies as the actual game.
Yeah, the code behind the screen used by Gygax was tied to Greyhawk's design (however loosely) and how those rules determined play resulted over time in an indelibly D&D campaign setting. One of many.
If you know the rules to Chess you can spot people playing it without them needing to tell you so. Games aren't labels. They are their definitions, their particular diversity. And character performance isn't necessary to play D&D (which is the definition I assume you're using for RP).
I went into length about distinguishing the three for D&D in my last post. I guess you could say the rules and the performance of the rules are game elements. The Class roles as defined within those rules and their performance within the game are role playing. And the story element isn't important at all. It's trying to treat a game as theater, which is actually kind of insulting to any gamer in the way claiming actual wrestling is fake like WWE. To further claim all wrestling (role playing) is fake and about the narrative result is not about being pro-narrative or celebrating storytelling. It's anti-game play.
Jeff Carlsen
Adventurer
The only real fault I have with the description in the article is the take on good versus evil, and even then I get where he's coming from.
Generally, I have a hard time playing a game without a lot of moral quandaries. I mean, Shadowrun is my one true love. But I always kind of liked the idea that Good and Evil were tangible forces in D&D. I don't accept that any humanoid race is always evil or always good. But I can see how one or the other force might have a stronger grip on a race. And I can imaging that some creatures are, in fact, made from evil and can be nothing else.
Generally, I have a hard time playing a game without a lot of moral quandaries. I mean, Shadowrun is my one true love. But I always kind of liked the idea that Good and Evil were tangible forces in D&D. I don't accept that any humanoid race is always evil or always good. But I can see how one or the other force might have a stronger grip on a race. And I can imaging that some creatures are, in fact, made from evil and can be nothing else.
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