D&D General What is D&D?

[Remathilis]

So if I win by running out my opponent's clock in any form of timed chess I failed at the goal of chess, even though people will say that I've won and I'll get the points for winning if I'm in a scoring system? If I'm playing Armageddon chess and force a draw as black, I've failed to achieve the goal even though I've won? Note that the FIDE, the internationally recognized body governing chess, uses a round of armageddon chess as the tiebreaker round in it's World Cup, so they clearly believe that it's chess even if you come up with a definition that doesn't include it. And then there are variants of chess where there is no check mechanic at all (so no checkmate).

No, I don't think "Chess" actually has a single goal, so is not a game by your definition.

Magic: The Gathering has defined win-cons, the most common being "Reduce your opponent to zero life before running out of cards to draw in your deck." The vast majority of MTG games use this wincon, either by doing enough damage to knock your opponent to zero life or making them draw their deck while you stall the game. However, there are probably dozens if not hundreds of alternative wincons as well. Poison counters. Commander damage. Cards like Approach the Second Sun or The Cheese Stands Alone with create new wincons while in play. You can also remove losscons like lich no longer allowing you to lose at zero life. However, if someone was to ask you to explain how you win or lose MTG, you wouldn't shrug and say "it depends" or "well, Magic's wincons very with deck and format so it's not really a game..." You'd probably state the most common wincon described above.

The presence of variants of a games rules, including alternative win loss conditions, does not somehow invalidate the most common method of playing. Speed chess running adds running out the clock to the strategy of chess, but does not invalidate getting a checkmate. It's fair to say "the goal of chess is to obtain a checkmate, though other Wincons can exist.

Unless you know variants of chess where checkmate cannot end a game and a different alternative wincon is needed. That being lumped in with Chess might start making a case that chess is not a game but an engine for a variety of similar board games...

 

[Umbran]

Being able to change the board is largely irrelevant.

Not to the point I was addressing, it isn't. I was addressing how D&D was "not a game" because games don't require scenarios. I am giving a way to look at that which shows this to be untrue - all games require scenarios, just some come with them, and others don't.

You don't have to change the board to play in Monopoly. You aren't expected to change the board. It's not a requirement of play.

But in an RPG, you have to build the board every single time you want to play because an RPG does not give you a play space.

Um...

Loads of rpgs come with a starter scenario included in the rulebook. Even AD&D came with a sample dungeon. Shadowrun came with the Stuffer Shack, and so on.

D&D has starter sets that come with... a scenario.

I am running Deadlands: Lost Colony, and it comes with a plot point campaign and a bunch of individual adventure scenarios as well. And entire campaign is in the book.

You could, technically, make your RPG play only by going through that one scenario, over and over. We just don't care to.

The play space that you play the game in is idiosyncratic to every table.

That is not a definitional thing, or a matter of rules. That's a matter of product design and packaging.

 

[Remathilis]

You could, technically, make your RPG play only by going through that one scenario, over and over. We just don't care to.

That said, how many people have replayed Keep on the Borderlands or Ravenloft multiple times? I get your point, but there is a little precedent for replaying RPG scenarios...

 

[Umbran]

That said, how many people have replayed Keep on the Borderlands or Ravenloft multiple times? I get your point, but there is a little precedent for replaying RPG scenarios...

Given that this only strengthens my point, I am good with this note.

 

[Charlaquin]

Both you and Toe Knee Nose have argued that the statements "D&D is a game" and "I play D&D" are false.

You’re ignoring the context of the discussion, which was someone asking “what is D&D?” I proposed the thesis that D&D is a game engine, and people don’t really “play D&D,” they play adventures/campaigns, which are games made for the D&D engine. I never said people can’t or shouldn’t colloquially refer to D&D as a game, or playing a session of an adventure or campaign “playing D&D.” Indeed, when directly asked about this, I specifically said language is for communication, and people understand what you are expressing when you say you want to “play D&D,” making it an effective use of language. Nobody’s trying to police how people talk about their hobbies here, we’re having an academic discussion about what makes D&D what it is.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Both you and Toe Knee Nose have argued that the statements "D&D is a game" and "I play D&D" are false.

No, we haven't.

I'll try this one more time. I am defining what an RPG is. An RPG is a game creation engine. The game that you play when you play D&D (an example of an RPG) is the combination of that game creation engine and the scenario that must be created by the participants before play starts. Scenario can be defined as a single event within the game or it could be a multi-year campaign. The scale of the scenario doesn't really matter, only that the scenario must be created before play can occur.

You absolutely play D&D. I play D&D every week. But, what I mean, specifically, when I say, "I play D&D" is that I play an instance of an RPG that requires me (the DM) to create the game that we play (the scenario) before play can begin. In the exact same way you can say, "I played poker" when you specifically mean, "I played this variation of poker for these stakes".

At no point is "D&D a game" or "I play D&D" false statements. They are vague statements that lack specificity, but, at no point am I claiming that they are untrue.

Being vague =/= false.

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Not to the point I was addressing, it isn't. I was addressing how D&D was "not a game" because games don't require scenarios. I am giving a way to look at that which shows this to be untrue - all games require scenarios, just some come with them, and others don't.

/snip

But, games don't require you to create the scenario. They come with a scenario pre-packaged with the very strong expectation that you will play that scenario. I'm not going to play Twilight Empire on a Monopoly board. I'm not going to play Chess with Final Fantasy 7. Games come with a built in scenario and every time you play that game, there is a very strong expectation (to the point where it's pretty unthinkable to not do so) that the participants in that game will follow that scenario.

Yes, D&D books come with sample scenarios. However, those are for pedagogical reasons. Again, it's the game engine teaching users how to use the game engine. That's the point of those starter sets - to teach you how to create your own games. ((Or to help you because of time constraints, or a variety of other reasons.) At no point is there an expectation that every player of D&D will use the scenarios in the DMG.

I mean, sure, Keep on the Borderlands was the go to for a long time. But, that was back in the early 80's when no one really had any idea how to play this new thing that had come out. Think about it - you're handed the AD&D books in 1981. You've never even heard of this thing called an RPG. Now, go make an adventure. Most of us had no idea how to do that. So, the books came with examples and examples of play. There's a reason that "What is a role playing game" is included in the introduction of nearly every single RPG out there. Board games never have to tell players "what is a board game".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Why would you think that game design engines don't have rules? Of course they do. They're chock full of rules.

They absolutely are not. Does Unity already have game rules written into its fundamental code? Does Unreal Engine 5? Clausewitz? Creation Kit? None. Just like how, I dunno, C++ isn't a program, it's a programming language. Or how CAD is a design suite, but is not itself the design. The map is not the territory.

But, until such time as you bolt on the actual game onto an RPG - ie a scenario - you cannot actually access or use any of those rules. Just like you have to build some sort of game before you can use the Unreal Engine.

And I've explained how that is true about literally all games. Anything that is a game, anything at all, requires some input from its players in order to function. You still haven't actually rebutted that point.

Actually I disagree. After all, what are the rules of Poker? How do you play Poker? I suppose the order of the different hands is a base rule

Yes, that's precisely what I'm talking about. Especially because that's literally what the victory condition is. Have the strongest hand of the remaining players at the end. In fact, the hand-scoring is just about the only thing in poker that is universal. Change those rules more than a very very small amount and you actually do have a different game!

"Poker" isn't a game. It's simply an easy short hand that we use to describe all of the various variations. It's no different than saying "Chess" or "Euchre". These are all just families of games that are grouped under a single umbrella.

Families of games can also just be games.

But, again, as soon as you choose a which variant you are playing, then the initial terms of the game are all defined by the rules. The number of cards dealt, win/lose conditions, the placement of the playing pieces, all of these are defined by a game.

Sure, I agree that individual variations tweak those things. But poker is still a game. Hell, just look up the definition in any dictionary you like.
"any of several card games in which a player bets that the value of their own hand is greater than that of the hands held by others, in which each subsequent player must either equal or raise the bet or drop out, and in which the player holding the highest hand at the end of the betting wins the pot"
"A game played with cards where people try to win money from each other"
"a card game played by two or more persons, in which the players bet on the value of their hands, the winner taking the pool."
"a card game in which players bet money on the value of their cards"
"Poker is a card game that people usually play in order to win money."
"A card game in which the players bet on the value of their hands (of five cards), the bets forming a pool to be taken by the player who remains after all others have dropped out of the betting or who holds the highest hand: there are several varieties."

Of the major dictionaries, all of them agree there's a family of games involved here, yes. But the vast majority explicitly call "poker" itself a game. People speak of "poker" as a game. People use the word "poker" to refer to actually playing a game, not to running an engine that can subsequently output a game.

I get where you're coming from. But your argument simply is not supported by how people actually behave and the way people actually use this language.

I mean, heck, if RPG's were actually games, why on Earth do we spend an hour or more on a "Session 0"?

Because it's useful setup. Why do we spend time prior to playing Pandemic figuring out which role each player will play? Because it's useful setup. Your argument does not, in any way, mean that RPGs---roleplaying games--are not games. They require additional setup.

This would be like saying that because you have to set up goalposts for football, and "football" does not uniquely identify one and only one activity (could be gridiron, association, or rugby), it can't be a sport, it has to be a sport engine. Patently ridiculous, and not at all the way people actually USE the word "game".

Poker is a game. D&D is a game. Cribbage is a game.

What other game can you think of where that's the recommended way to play?

Any game that requires constructing something before you can start playing it. I believe the board game Mousetrap requires such setup. Requiring setup is irrelevant to whether or not something is a game.

You don't need a "Session 0" to play 5 Card Draw.

Many games require so little setup, it's easy to forget that setup is required. Chess is unequivocally a game--but it's also a game that has had variations over the years. Today, it is conventional to accept that the unmodified word "chess" refers to the variant once called "Mad Queens" chess. It was originally a variation of the previous conventional "chess", which had a queen piece that could only move one square diagonally, making it the weakest of the non-pawns. However, "Mad Queens" chess was riotously popular despite its scandalously feminist nature in the high Medieval period/early Renaissance, so it became the new default.

People ask, "Do you want to play chess?" Not, "Do you want to use chess to make a game we can play?"

Game design engines are tools you use to make a game that can be played. They are not games themselves.

The rules are defined and everyone knows (or should know) them. There's nothing to discuss really. You specify the game, set up according to the rules of that game, and start playing. That's what makes a game a game.

It is not what makes a game a game. Like genuinely, it's not. There are plenty of games which literally don't have all of their rules predetermined, the act of rule-creation IS one of the parts of play. Mao, for example.

Like...look at any of the dictionaries I linked above. We'll use the Brittanica one, that's widely-respected, I should hope? Game: "a physical or mental activity or contest that has rules and that people do for pleasure". Is D&D a physical or mental activity or contest? Yes. Does it have rules? By your own admission, yes. Do people do it for pleasure? Also yes. Hence, D&D is a game.

Also, notice how you mention "set up according to the rules". Yes. That's what Session 0 is for. D&D is usually a very LONG game. It thus requires greater setup. Some board games have proportionally-long setup time. Clue, for example, requires that you arrange the board at the start of play. Preparation for play is a perfectly valid thing for games to require. That D&D has a higher amount of preparation does not make it not a game!

 

[Toe Knee Nose]

Ok, @EzekielRaiden, that's way too much Fisking for me. I'm not going to respond point by point. It's too hard to read and it's too hard to follow your argument.

So, I'll ask you the same question I've asked others. Explain to me how to play Poker without referencing any specific poker game. You multi-quoted several dictionaries at me, but, no one will actually answer the basic question.

Because, frankly, you can't. Because Poker is a family of games, not a single game. Now, in casual conversation, sure, you might say, "I played poker last night" but, that's vague. It's not actually telling me what you did last night other than to say that you played some variation of one (or more) of the games that fall under the umbrella of "Poker". Which is fine, casual conversation is often vague.

But, the point is, setting up a board, where the set up is dictated by the rules of the game itself, is not the same as creating a scenario for an RPG. They are categorically different. RPG's do not tell you how to set up the game. They might suggest (through modules, and various other formats) how you might set up a game but they don't dictate anything.

If you want to play 5 card poker, you MUST deal 5 cards. The rules of the game literally tell you to do that and you cannot do anything other than that. Not and still play 5 card poker. The rules of an RPG in no way tell you what scenario (game) you have to create. That's why I say it's a game creation engine. You use the bits and bobs of an RPG to build a game. The same way you use the bits and bobs of Unreal Engine to build a game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok, @EzekielRaiden, that's way too much Fisking for me. I'm not going to respond point by point. It's too hard to read and it's too hard to follow your argument.

So, I'll ask you the same question I've asked others. Explain to me how to play Poker without referencing any specific poker game. You multi-quoted several dictionaries at me, but, no one will actually answer the basic question.

Because, frankly, you can't. Because Poker is a family of games, not a single game. Now, in casual conversation, sure, you might say, "I played poker last night" but, that's vague. It's not actually telling me what you did last night other than to say that you played some variation of one (or more) of the games that fall under the umbrella of "Poker". Which is fine, casual conversation is often vague.

But, the point is, setting up a board, where the set up is dictated by the rules of the game itself, is not the same as creating a scenario for an RPG. They are categorically different. RPG's do not tell you how to set up the game. They might suggest (through modules, and various other formats) how you might set up a game but they don't dictate anything.

If you want to play 5 card poker, you MUST deal 5 cards. The rules of the game literally tell you to do that and you cannot do anything other than that. Not and still play 5 card poker. The rules of an RPG in no way tell you what scenario (game) you have to create. That's why I say it's a game creation engine. You use the bits and bobs of an RPG to build a game. The same way you use the bits and bobs of Unreal Engine to build a game.

As you don't prefer my normal style, I will post it as a block. I apologize for antagonizing you.

If you reference no specific poker game, then (just like chess) there is a conventional meaning. The conventional application of "poker" is five-card draw. So, you would play that game.

Are conventions a problem? Like is that what the issue is here?

And you have yet to show anything about how they are "categorically different". You have declared it. You have not shown any evidence for it.