What do you like about D&D?

[howandwhy99]

Ranger,
D&D is pretty low tech and low skill oriented. That means I don't have to worry about events coming up that I as a player cannot comprehend by default because it's "magic" or "supertech" or something else. The skill of the character is what I choose to allow it when roleplaying and further limited by what I can bring as a person. The better person I am, the better player I'll be in D&D. The stats are just there for representing the expertise of the character in action, not thought, choice, or knowledge. I like that. It challenges me and not just some stats on a page.

 

[T. Foster]

There are many great things about D&D. Among my favorites:

1. D&D doesn't require players to know more or less than their characters. By keeping player and character knowledge equivalent the players get to share in all the surprises and fun the characters have while exploring new things. A player doesn't need a mechanic to fake knowing how brain surgery works (for when they play a brain surgeon in another game), instead the player's own abilities and skills are represented through his or her character.

2. The secrets of D&D are underwraps and gleam through the early publications. Details of a world untold hint at greater truths in the OAD&D DMG and many of the 1E adventures. The details of these mysteries were never fully answered by any product even the original Greyhawk setting (many were admittedly just made up by Gary Gygax and were not from his game). By including inticing secrets of magic and wonder in those old books D&D opened the imagination instead of shutting it with complete answers published for any and all to read.

3. When my fellow players and I storm a castle, slay the overlord, and yet decide to keep on the goblinguard to run the dungeons below we know this playground world is ours. The game is not bordered or boarded; it allows fun to bubble up from all our giggling minds.

QFT. Very nice post, particularly the phrase "it allows fun to bubble up from all our giggling minds."