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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 4883095" data-attributes="member: 2067">John Wick Gets It! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />But they still have one over-riding theme. LotR, despite all the digressions into horse flanks and ents and poetry, is about destroying evil. The Illiad is about rage. Paradise Lost is about human weakness. Blah blah blah. Even longer works have a cohesive theme that threads through them, if they're good. I mean, you can probably get away without it in D&amp;D, but the over-arching thing that your game is ABOUT makes a stronger narrative experience, IMO. If you're going for a more sandboxy world-simulation or pure &quot;kill the bad guys&quot; game play, it's not that important, but it makes the story you tell very strong.Ultimately, I think that's where TTRPG's are at their strongest.I also like that he tied it directly into mechanics like that. The theme of the game is reinforced in the elements you play with, so if your mechanics don't represent your game's meaning, the message gets diluted. That's why rations, weight, and hp were important to the first few editions of D&amp;D characters: the game was about survival. That element has changed...I'm no longer sure what the game as a whole is about (maybe &quot;Action?&quot;), but D&amp;D's modular nature means you should be able to add stuff that reinforces your game.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 4883095, member: 2067"] John Wick Gets It! :) But they still have one over-riding theme. LotR, despite all the digressions into horse flanks and ents and poetry, is about destroying evil. The Illiad is about rage. Paradise Lost is about human weakness. Blah blah blah. Even longer works have a cohesive theme that threads through them, if they're good. I mean, you can probably get away without it in D&D, but the over-arching thing that your game is ABOUT makes a stronger narrative experience, IMO. If you're going for a more sandboxy world-simulation or pure "kill the bad guys" game play, it's not that important, but it makes the story you tell very strong. Ultimately, I think that's where TTRPG's are at their strongest. I also like that he tied it directly into mechanics like that. The theme of the game is reinforced in the elements you play with, so if your mechanics don't represent your game's meaning, the message gets diluted. That's why rations, weight, and hp were important to the first few editions of D&D characters: the game was about [I]survival[/I]. That element has changed...I'm no longer sure what the game as a whole is about (maybe "Action?"), but D&D's modular nature means you should be able to add stuff that reinforces your game. [/QUOTE]

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