D&D General What is D&D?

[SothFan]

Vague but smug comments like this are pretty unlikely to convince anyone of the rightness of your position

Pot meet kettle.

 

[Whisper-Kitten]

Pot meet kettle.

It‘s better in meme form.

 

[Charlaquin]

Vague but smug comments like this are pretty unlikely to convince anyone of the rightness of your position. And I think most people here would agree that Role-Playing Games are games, but they probably lost interest in this thread loooong ago.

Pal, I’m making fairly vague comments because I lost interest in the debate a while ago. I’m just saying “they’re called games” is a very poor argument against my position. We all recognize that something about roleplaying games is meaningfully different than other games. My position is that the thing that makes them different is that they’re much, much broader. They are not mere games but entire game engines capable of producing an unlimited number and variety of different games, and every group sitting down to “play D&D” is playing an entirely different game than every other group sitting down to “play D&D,” they just happen to all have been created using the same engine. You may have a different opinion of what sets RPGs apart from other games, and that’s fine, but “they’re called games, therefore they’re games” is not a very compelling argument in favor of whatever your interpretation is.

 

[Remathilis]

Every table I’ve ever played Uno at seems to play it differently too but I don’t see people rushing to say it’s not a game.

I’m not sure why trying to pigeonhole things into unique, non-overlapping categories is in any way revelatory or helpful.

The existence of house rules does not change the fundamental nature of a game. Monopoly stops when one player has accumulated all the land and other players are bankrupt. That is regardless of if free parking gets you all the fine money. D&D is still incomplete if the DM doesn't tell you what exists in the game world, regardless of if he has changed the rest mechanics.

 

[VashVet]

The existence of house rules does not change the fundamental nature of a game. Monopoly stops when one player has accumulated all the land and other players are bankrupt. That is regardless of if free parking gets you all the fine money. D&D is still incomplete if the DM doesn't tell you what exists in the game world, regardless of if he has changed the rest mechanics.

And yet…it’s still a game.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

Pal, I’m making fairly vague comments because I lost interest in the debate a while ago.

So you have enough interest to vaguely insinuate some unclear stuff, but not enough interest to clearly state your position? If you're uninterested you could just... not post anything instead of vaguely insinuating a position.

I’m just saying “they’re called games” is a very poor argument against my position. We all recognize that something about roleplaying games is meaningfully different than other games. My position is that the thing that makes them different is that they’re much, much broader. They are not mere games but entire game engines capable of producing an unlimited number and variety of different games, and every group sitting down to “play D&D” is playing an entirely different game than every other group sitting down to “play D&D,” they just happen to all have been created using the same engine. You may have a different opinion of what sets RPGs apart from other games, and that’s fine, but “they’re called games, therefore they’re games” is not a very compelling argument in favor of whatever your interpretation is.

They're called Role-Playing Games, they fit the dictionary definition of games, they fit the common use of the word games, people call them games. They are games by any meaningful measure of whether something qualifies as a game. I think that's a much more compelling argument than yours, which as far as I can tell amounts to "I have a private definition of 'game' and some other terms like 'game engine' that I won't disclose but that I insist means D&D is not a game even though other people and dictionaries don't use the definitions that I do."

You and the other 'they are not games' people aren't even capable of discussing them without referring to them as games, which is pretty telling! Even within this post you say that people playing D&D are playing a game, you just say that for vague and unclear reasons it's incorrect to call the game they're playing D&D. The reasons seem to involve something like "if there's variation in the rules used between individual session, then it's not a game" but (as I already pointed out) that disqualifies pretty much everything from being a game - Poker, Risk, Monopoly, and Go Fish are all played differently at different tables by different people, and computer games vary from installation to installation and person to person (games use mods and optional rules programatically and players set personal limits on what behavior is OK like savescumming or using save editors). I'm not sure that anything actually qualifies as a game by the standards people are using to say that Role Playing Games are not games.

 

[Umbran]

But surely this cuts both ways.

To quote the Vorlon, "Understanding is a three-edged sword."

Hence why I say that when I play a "roleplaying game", I want to game by roleplaying, and I want to roleplay by gaming.

If you say that when you play a "roleplaying game", you want to snort spaghetti, I'd not give a hoot. It's your game, and your nasal passages. Knock yourself out.

But do note that the statement I was responding to said, "any time a group of people are engaged in 'playing D&D,' ....the activity they’re doing together is absolutely a game, not an improv performance."

Please note the utter and complete lack of personalization on that statement. Not "..any time my group of people...

The two should be inseparable. Far too many designs ignore this and treat the game portion as a nasty problem to be minimized as much as humanly possible.

When someone plays Dance Dance Revolution, they are playing a dancing game. They are dancing, and playing a game, and playing a game though dancing. If you wanna say they are dancing by playing a game, I might note that there's a remarkable lack of enacting mechanics without rhythmic bodily movement, but whatever. I am fine with it, so long as you don't preclude the other paths of emphasis in the process.

There is a game. There is roleplaying. The fact that both are there should not mean the roleplaying/game interface is somehow limited to only how you like to do it. In a hobby that supposedly prides itself on house rules and individual table approaches, such a preclusion would be incongruously self-centered.

Or, shall we go into the RPG that came from theater, and not through the wargame root, to embarrass you all saying that improv performance is absolutely not part of any of this?

 

[Charlaquin]

So you have enough interest to vaguely insinuate some unclear stuff, but not enough interest to clearly state your position? If you're uninterested you could just... not post anything instead of vaguely insinuating a position.

Bro, you’re the one who brought the argument back up. I responded to you. If you want me to stop talking about it, stop talking to me about it.

They're called Role-Playing Games, they fit the dictionary definition of games, they fit the common use of the word games, people call them games.

This is, again, not a compelling argument. Things get mislabeled sometimes. Being gay used to be called a disorder, that doesn’t mean it ever actually was.

They are games by any meaningful measure of whether something qualifies as a game. I think that's a much more compelling argument than yours, which as far as I can tell amounts to "I have a private definition of 'game' and some other terms like 'game engine' that I won't disclose but that I insist means D&D is not a game even though other people and dictionaries don't use the definitions that I do."

I’ve been quite clear about the definition of game that I’m operating under, and it’s consistent with most definitions used in discussing game design and theory. Games are voluntary activities involving clear goals, restrictions surrounding the pursuit of those goals that create uncertainty in the outcome, and measurable feedback regarding progress towards those goals (which often includes a state of failure).

You and the other 'they are not games' people aren't even capable of discussing them without referring to them as games, which is pretty telling! Even within this post you say that people playing D&D are playing a game, you just say that for vague and unclear reasons it's incorrect to call the game they're playing D&D.

Language is for communication. I am using the language that I think is most likely to make my point understood by those who read it.

The reasons seem to involve something like "if there's variation in the rules used between individual session, then it's not a game"

What?? Where on earth did you get that idea? No, D&D isn’t a game because it does not inherently have goals or victory/loss conditions. Those must be set by the individual game (i.e. the adventure or the campaign) that the engine is being used to run.

but (as I already pointed out) that disqualifies pretty much everything from being a game - Poker, Risk, Monopoly, and Go Fish are all played differently at different tables by different people,

All of those games have goals and victory/loss conditions. That you can agree as players to change those parameters doesn’t mean the parameters didn’t initially exist as part of the game. And one could argue that changing those parameters results in a different game.

and computer games vary from installation to installation and person to person (games use mods and optional rules programatically and players set personal limits on what behavior is OK like savescumming or using save editors).

Again, computer games have goals and victory/loss conditions (or at least measurable feedback, if you don’t want to count a “game over” as a loss for some reason). That the parameters can be edited doesn’t change the fact that the initial parameters existed as an inherent part of the game. By changing them, you’re basically creating a new, similar but slightly different, game. You cannot play D&D without setting those parameters, because they aren’t an inherent part of the system, therefore I do not think the system can be considered a game. The system is a set of resolution mechanics that can be applied to a set of goals and feedback/win loss conditions of the group’s choosing, to create a pretty awesome game. It’s pretty neat that this sort of system was devised, that can allow people with no game design experience of their own to create a basically unlimited number of unique games of their own, and they’ll pretty much always be a lot of fun, due to the power and clever design of the engine.

I'm not sure that anything actually qualifies as a game by the standards people are using to say that Role Playing Games are not games.

Most things people call games qualify as games by this definition. I mean, the definition was created with the intent of describing the common features of games, after all. The fact that roleplaying “games” don’t fit the description is potentially very illuminating regarding what it is that sets them apart from other things that are also called “games,” which fans of RPGs pretty universally recognize does exist but often struggle to articulate. This is my framing of how to articulate that palpable difference.

 

[Umbran]

This is, again, not a compelling argument.

I agree.

Things get mislabeled sometimes.

But not for that reason.

It isn't a compelling argument because making a cherry-picked word bold doesn't change what the thing is.

It is a role playing game.

It is also a role playing game, a role playing game, and a role playing game...

These are all true. No lies in any of them.

The problem is not that folks are calling it the wrong thing, or misunderstand what it "actually is".

The problem in this discussion is that some of us are deeply disturbed by ambiguity, and cannot suffer it being different things to different people.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I agree.



But not for that reason.

It isn't a compelling argument because making a cherry-picked word bold doesn't change what the thing is.

It is a role playing game.

It is also a role playing game, a role playing game, and a role playing game...

These are all true. No lies in any of them.

The problem is not that folks are calling it the wrong thing, or misunderstand what it "actually is".

The problem in this discussion is that some of us are deeply disturbed by ambiguity, and cannot suffer it being different things to different people.

I don't mind ambiguity. The world has lots of it. That's how things go.

What I mind is that I have seen a sustained push, from many different people, toward the idea that designing (and viewing) D&D as being at all a game, and thus one that should be fun to play as a game, is horrible, just the absolute worst, and needs to be destroyed with fire ASAP. I have seen this many, many times. Anything that looks like actual game design, like actually constructing rules so that those rules reliably produce the designers' intended play-experiences, is considered a waste of precious resources at best, and much more commonly seen as actively corrosive to the very heart of D&D. That anything which views D&D as, in any part, a designed game that humans will play because game-playing is a fun thing to do, is badwrongfun destroying "true" D&D.

And yes, I have had people, on this very forum, tell me that viewing D&D as a game, and thus something that should be designed to be fun to play as a game, can and should be excised from D&D as soon as possible.