D&D General What do you actually like about D&D?

[EzekielRaiden]

That it is a Game, and that it is Roleplay, and that it has some cool stuff in it for doing each of those things.

Pretty much the reason I like any game I play--tabletop or otherwise--though "roleplay" may be swapped out for other things in specific contexts.

Edit: One of the things I love best, in fact, is when the Game IS Roleplay, and that by Roleplaying, you ARE Gaming. When playing by the rules itself is roleplay, and when living purely in the roleplay is reasonably-effective gaming. That's where my joy lies. So a game that abandons having rules at all is just Roleplay with no Game. And a game that is simply endless pages of tiny edge cases is just Game with no Roleplay.

That's part of why I like "extensible framework rules" (my term.) They can cover a nigh-infinite variety of situations with quite compact text.

 

[Sacrosanct]

The players.

Oh, about the game itself? I grew up with D&D in the early 80s, so I really like how it was built for houserules and creating your own game worlds and adventures. You played with the rules you wanted, ignored those that you didn't, and were encouraged to create your own stuff. No other game was quite like that.

I enjoy it now because fantasy is my favorite genre, there's a playerbase for it, and a community to share ideas with about it.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Wild West, wuxia or sci fi

Fun fact, these 3, mixed together, are the reason I like D&D so much!

 

[Clint_L]

What's not to like? It's an excellent TTRPG, and I love playing TTRPGs. It has tremendous scope, and its intentionally unfinished design (in terms of story and setting) is, for me, a feature rather than a flaw, since I love creating my own stories. It has a deep reservoir of available resources, dwarfing any other game, and it is so well known that it is relatively easy to find other players.And it was the first. You never forget your first.

I find the title of this thread a bit off-putting; it probably isn't intended that way, but the use of the word "actually" reads to me like it would be hard to find things to like about D&D. I have the opposite perspective: it is hard for me to find things I don't like about D&D. I love it.I have seen so many kids who built a friend group around D&D, and that alone makes me love it. It fosters imagination, creative problem solving, socialization, and even basic math skills. It helps people learn to look at the world from different points of view. I think D&D has made the world a better place. I wish everyone played it.

 

[cbwjm]

It's something l like playing with friends. To be fair, the RPG wouldn't have to be DnD, but I do enjoy dnd as well, there's something about it that just works for me and that's largely regardless of the edition, maybe it's just the genre and settings, but it is definitely the friends.

 

[overgeeked]

Getting together with friends. Throwing dice. And playing make believe.

 

[Incenjucar]

Fantastic adventures that lean toward fun rather than vry srs with consistent enough rules that I can run mental simulations without bleeding from my ears.

 

[beta-ray]

I'm sure there are a lot more reasons but…

Some of it is nostalgia/familiarity. It is the first TTRPG I ever encountered. I remember opening up the books and being captivated by the heroes, monsters, and world.

I do like that it is kind of weird and silly. I'm not that much into grim and grit and I find a lot of the silliness in D&D charming.

Love the funny dice.

Like that it is well-supported.

It's just fun.

 

[Lanefan]

The genre. The luck of the dice, and randomness. The open-ended try-whatever-the-hell-you-want paradigm. The ability to both play someone different than me and to view a different world through their eyes. The whimsy. The gamble on my character becoming a superstar when most likely it'll die trying.

And the laughter around the table.

 

[delericho]

The people around the table.

But regarding D&D 5e itself, the core experience is really strong (that is, the combat pillar at levels 3-10 or so). Which is, to be honest, most of what I need support for in my gaming - I'm able to fill in the gaps for interaction and exploration rather more easily than for combat, and have almost never ventured into higher levels anyway.

But it shouldn't be any great surprise that most of the internet is filled with negative takes. Saying "I like it" generally doesn't require any great explanation beyond that, whereas if you're being critical there's an onus on you to explain why you don't like something. And if you have a million people each of whom have one or two specific peeves, that very quickly adds up.