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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sholari" data-source="post: 1535427" data-attributes="member: 6059">Loki,I definitely hear you in terms of more games being about roll playing than role playing these days.  Since my undergrad days I have yet to find a game where the story element is really that compelling.  When you talk to most DMs these days they think of themselves as fairly well-rounded.  However, when I've tried their game out they usually fall into two categories: 1) DMs where the plot is nothing than a bunch of linked combats to get to some generic objective or 2) a by the book DM who can not handle anything outside of the module they are using. (This does not mean that all DMs out there are that way, just the majority that I have run into).I do not think it is the game system that is the cause, although I have noticed a rise in this predisposition with the popularity of D&D 3.x. I think it really boils down to the most recent generation of roleplayers.  Raised on Playstation and CCGs they have had a ton of exposure to action and mechanics, but very little exposure to story elements.  I think the current iteration of D&D reflects really reflects their values.  So as players they are more concerned with what their next prestige class is going to be rather than what is going on behind the scenes in the campaign.  As DMs they tend to be good at orchestrating involved combats, but not very good at coming up with an interesting plot structure.  Their purchasing patterns also reflect this.  There are a lot of people buying mechanics and prestige class books and far fewer people buying modules.For quite awhile I was bothered by this trend, but I realized it is just the natural process as one generation replaces the next.  While the current game I am playing in does not have much of a story element behind it, I think my current DM is excellent in his rules knowledge and at orchestrating combat.  I've definitely improved my own grasp of this in 3.5 because of him and plan to apply it to my own game if I find the time to start running a campaign again.</blockquote>

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