Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 3751418" data-attributes="member: 3192">It's the system, though it has been misinterpreted as the setting.Think of Monte Cooke's new World of Darkness D20 game.  Are you playing the World of Darkness or d20?  Both, right?  The catch is, the game is not the same as it was under White Wolf.  The System makes the Setting a different experience.  The same setting could be placed under GURPS, Unisystem, even FATE's Spirit of the Century (which embodies the D&D experience quite well), and each time it would feel different.  Various play styles would be helped and hindered by each.D&D may have become considered a de facto setting, while the inherent setting is actually no campaign world at all (not even Greyhawk).  It is a toolkit, play box, idea engine, not meant to be sensical to itself, everything and the kitchen sink Setting Resource.  The rules made it what it was and the groups made the setting from the pieces they liked.  Even the system itself wasn't immune to change.  It had dozens of house rules and alterations at practically every table.  It may not have been designed to be tinkered with, but that element is part of what made it such a great game.  DMs and Players felt they were competent enough to design rules without being professionals.  It helped that the core rules didn't break the first time you tried to tinker with them either.And you needed to make rules.  In no way can the rules cover every eventuality.  Imagination demands freshness.  It dies in stale traditions.  No amount of monsters, spells, or magic items can satisfy an imaginative mind from desiring that cool new idea.  There's no rule for speeding up biodegradation? Possessing another's eyes? Breaking another's sword with your hum?  So what?  Make it up.  Make it exactly what you want it to be.  The rule execution, the parameters, the feel, the description.  Whatever matters to you.  I'm not sure what is and isn't D&D anymore.  But I do know, ever since Advanced D&D started, 1-4, every one of them looks like mandatory house rules have been added without thought of how easily they could be removed, altered, represented, tinkered with, polished up, ... etc.  Of course, that's the nature of complex systems.  But I don't believe the D&D system requires complexity to play.  That's for everyone else to decide.</blockquote>

Verification