D&D General What is D&D?

[Toe Knee Nose]

However, if people make up weird, nonsensical definitions that don't fit actual usage and lead to weird results when applied, that doesn't mean that things are misnamed, that means that people are, in fact playing definitional games. When things like Poker, Monopoly, Axis and Allies, Scrabble, Uno, Go Fish, Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Computer Games and a host of other things that people normally call 'games' don't appear to qualify as games by a definition, I'm going to say the weird definition is the problem, not the people using the word in a rather ordinary manner.

Wait, what?

The definition of an RPG as Game Design Engine can be stated:

An RPG should be properly labeled as a Game Design Engine. The rules of RPG's differ from other kinds of games in that you cannot actually sit down and play an RPG without first designing some sort of game (typically called a campaign) that the participants can then play. Non-RPG's do not require this. You are not required to create a new Monopoly board every time you play Monopoly. In games, the rules of the game will dictate the initial starting state of the game before play begins. RPG's differ from games in that RPG's do not, in any way, define the starting state and initial moves of play. In fact, that definition is actually counter to how RPG's work. If the RPG stipulated the initial setup and initial moves of play, that RPG would be rejected as too restrictive.​

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So, I'm frankly rather baffled why you think there's ambiguity here. Games don't qualify as RPG's for the simple fact that games ALWAYS stipulate the initial set up and moves. RPG's don't qualify as games because RPG's outright reject that setup. Now, the GAME comes in once you have created your campaign. Thus, when we talk about "playing the game of D&D", it ALWAYS includes the campaign (whether that campaign is a simple one shot session, or a multi-year epic, it still needs to exist before play begins). And that campaign is NOT defined by the rules. Unlike a game where you are told by the game how to set up play, an RPG simply gives you tools for creating your game.

And your game will be different from my game and Bob's game. None of our campaigns, unless we are using published material, will begin in the same way.

And example in play:

In a board game, you set up the board according to the rules, and then the first player takes his/her turn. Play progresses.
In an RPG, you create your character (a rules dictated/controlled option) and then... what? You have a character in your hand. You and your five friends have created first levels characters. What do you do? What can you do? How do you play? What is the first thing your character does?

The answer is simple. Your character cannot do anything because the game hasn't been created yet. Until such time as someone builds the game using the tools provided by that RPG (whichever RPG you care to name) you CANNOT play that RPG.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

To be clear, while I do see D&D as a game engine rather than a game in and of itself, I do think that the gameplay experience should be the highest priority in its design. It is used to run games, and those games should feel good to play.

 

[MichaelSomething]

D&D is a game in the same sense that Mario Maker is a game...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To be clear, while I do see D&D as a game engine rather than a game in and of itself, I do think that the gameplay experience should be the highest priority in its design. It is used to run games, and those games should feel good to play.

This is one of those areas where terms do become slippery, yeah. The problem with D&D is that in many ways it is both things: an engine for creating games, and also a game itself.

With the vast majority of (for example) video games, there cannot be any such ambiguity--and @MichaelSomething points out precisely one of the games that also blurs that line, by being both construction tool and gameplay platform simultaneously.

Those parts of D&D that are a game engine, e.g. tools for developing your own campaign worlds, have no need for being "fun to play". Using them is not, in and of itself, "play", or at least not at all in the same sense as someone playing in that campaign world through their player character.

However, most if not all of the rules that face the players are not a game engine. Those are an actual, specific game.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Sorry, no. It’s not experimental and it’s not pedantry. I believe the difference to be categorical and meaningful, and this is an opinion I have held for a long time.

I'll take the blame for using a negatively loaded term starting this off on the wrong foot. However, we're taking a multi-page tangent on the definition of the term game (in a discussion where it being a game vs. a game engine or some other slightly different term isn't going to change the distinction from it being 'improv theater gaming' or 'co-operative storytelling'). If you would prefer the term hair-splitting or something, that's reasonable. I would still call it an into the weeds tangent, although if it is important to you, it is important to you.

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.

It's going to be different things to different people. Just within the posted definition list, there's the 1a1 definition ("a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules with the participants in direct opposition to each other") most of this is spooling off of, and the more open 2a1 definition ("activity engaged in for diversion or amusement") that D&D most certainly is (but so is so many things it might rightly be considered just a different extreme tangent).

Even beyond that, people will have different criteria for disqualifying something from a category (like clear goals and the game definition). Is an X that is missing thing Y (considered a component of X) not X or an X deficient in Y? I know I when I was a kid I parroted the whole 'rap isn't music because it omits harmony and melody' line of reasoning until someone else pointed out 'why can't it just be music that keeps those two things constant?'

This happened for another example of one of these threads, not this one, but I tend to imagine my wife walking up behind me, reading over my shoulder, and stating a reasonable counter. In this case, something like 'any definition of game that excludes kids playing tag or what you do on your Saturday afternoons isn't very useful to me, and certainly isn't in service of communication.' If I can imagine my wife (or choose your own reference point for reasonable adult) making a competent, plain-stated counterpoint to where we've landed in a thread discussion, I generally consider it fair to say that there's plenty of room for differences of opinions and things meaning different things to different people.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

However, most if not all of the rules that face the players are not a game engine. Those are an actual, specific game.

Well, kinda sorta.

The player facing rules are all (or mostly) rules for resolving events in the game. How do you do X? Well, look at the rule on page XX and that's how you do it. But, those rules only come into play during ... well... actual play. You cannot use the combat rules without having some sort of scenario created. Again, it's just like something like the Unreal engine. You can't play with just the engine. You need to build the game and the Unreal Engine gives you the tools to do that.

In the same way you can't use any of the game rules of an RPG without creating a some sort of scenario first. And that scenario isn't really dependent upon the system. After all, I can play a module from a completely different system and still run it using D&D rules. Or, I can bolt on rules from a completely different system into my D&D campaign. Some people's D&D games are so Frankensteined with house rules as to be largely unrecognizable to anyone outside of that table.

Is someone playing RAW Mine of Phandelver playing the same game as someone who has bolted on fifteen different homebrew systems onto their completely bespoke setting? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think?

Many tables have the same books at the table but are not really playing the same game.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

In this case, something like 'any definition of game that excludes kids playing tag or what you do on your Saturday afternoons isn't very useful to me, and certainly isn't in service of communication

But, no one is doing that. Absolutely no one has posited a definition of a game that excludes kids playing tag or any other game for that matter. The only definition that has been posited REMOVES RPG's from the common definition of games. It in no way changes the commonly understood definition of games.

We've very often tried to define how RPG's are different from, say Monopoly. Or board games or sports or whatever. No one is changing the definition of games at all. What's being done is pointing out why D&D is not really covered by the definition of games. An RPG PLUS the campaign created for that RPG = a game.

Can you play an RPG without anyone creating a scenario? How would you do that? And since the scenario is not actually defined by the game in the way that scenarios are universally defined by the agreed upon rules of games (either by having a board that you play on, or a defined play space like a basketball court - even a game of tag almost always has a defined play space) then it's fair to say that an RPG on its own isn't actually a game.

Which begs the question of what is it? And, to me, the idea of RPG's being game creation engines just makes perfect sense.

 

[Remathilis]

Is someone playing RAW Mine of Phandelver playing the same game as someone who has bolted on fifteen different homebrew systems onto their completely bespoke setting? That's a bit of a stretch don't you think?

This is close, but not exactly what is being discussed.

Imagine a room with 100 tables and every one of them is playing chess. You could sit down at any table and immediately know what experience you are about to have. It doesn't matter per se if you are playing under RAW or house rules, the fundamental play loop will be experienced at every table, with only the skill of the players being different.

Now, imagine 100 tables all playing D&D. Even if all are running the same edition RAW, you cannot expect the same experience or play loop. Table 1 might be running Tyranny of Dragons, Table 2 Curse of Strahd, Table 3 Lost Mines, etc. There is no uniform D&D play loop. That's it's strength. Every game is different in ways that go beyond player skill.

 

[jmartkdr2]

But, no one is doing that. Absolutely no one has posited a definition of a game that excludes kids playing tag or any other game for that matter. The only definition that has been posited REMOVES RPG's from the common definition of games. It in no way changes the commonly understood definition of games.

We've very often tried to define how RPG's are different from, say Monopoly. Or board games or sports or whatever. No one is changing the definition of games at all. What's being done is pointing out why D&D is not really covered by the definition of games. An RPG PLUS the campaign created for that RPG = a game.

Can you play an RPG without anyone creating a scenario? How would you do that? And since the scenario is not actually defined by the game in the way that scenarios are universally defined by the agreed upon rules of games (either by having a board that you play on, or a defined play space like a basketball court - even a game of tag almost always has a defined play space) then it's fair to say that an RPG on its own isn't actually a game.

Which begs the question of what is it? And, to me, the idea of RPG's being game creation engines just makes perfect sense.

How do you win at tag? What is the defined endpoint?

Both of these have been proposed in this thread as definitional to a game.

(FWIW I prefer a loose definition here; it isn’t wrong to call DnD a game at least)

 

[Umbran]

It's going to be different things to different people.

You know that. And I know that.

But folks constantly phrase their discussion points as if this were not the case.

Even beyond that, people will have different criteria for disqualifying something from a category

Yes, they do. But I find that kind of bogus.

I have made the argument many times that genre defintions (which is really what underlies all this - but it is genre of activities rather than fictional genre) ought to be inclusive rather than exclusive. The definition ought to be structured to tell you what is in the set, rather than to exclude things from the set.

This, of course, leads to some ambiguity, and a difficulty clearly setting something into an Out-group, but I'm okay with that.

Then you can get to: The thing has role playing (of any form) and a game (of any form - satisfying your wife's definition is fine for me, here), then it is a "role playing game".

If it has other things too, that doesn't exclude it.

We can then talk about what forms of role playing exist, and what form of game is present in the system.