What is your playstyle?

[Mengu]

Style can mean several things. For pacing, my favorite example is that the system needs to be able to handle 24-style, you wake up, smell what hit the fan, you put on your boots, and go, go, go. The system also needs to be able to handle the group who does a ton of investigation, interaction, exploring, and other non-combat action, and maybe one combat per week.

For campaign style, I like campaigns where there is stuff happening all the time, whether you're involved in it or not, and you pick up a thread or two, and start working those threads, as more plots intertwine with your path. On that journey, there will be action in multiple forms, chase scenes through city streets, exploring haunted crypts, traversing barren deserts, defending/attacking forts, being involved in wars lasting weeks or months, while dealing with political fall out, capricious guild masters, revolting mercenaries, and religious zealots. I like multi-linear, multi-faceted, diverse campaigns. This is not to say, Star Wars or LotR type linear expectations are out of the question, but like those two examples, details should liven up the environment and choices.

When it comes to combat, I like a combination of detailed tactical 4e style and completely abstract 4e skill-challenge style combat, depending on the requirements of the scene. But for me, for conflict resolution, most important aspect is resolving the scene in the most engaging method within the appropriate time frame of the scene. Trying to resolve a 10 minute scene in 6 second rounds is just not a good idea, even if some fighting is involved. While 4e didn't quite go as far as I would have liked, it gave me the tools to do that in various levels of granularity. I can run pure combat, combat with an ongoing skill challenge, skill challenge where some combat abilities can be used, or pure skill challenge. If a conflict resolution system can allow me to compress or stretch the "ticks" for each segment of the scene, seamlessly while maintaining some verisimilitude, I'd be ecstatic.

 

[Jester David]

I default to lower magic grittiness.
I like my Everyman heroes with little magical stuff in a world where spellcasters are feared. Worlds where if you went to a small town or rural farm the world wouldn't be that much different from ours in an earlier time.

But sometimes things get shaken up. I just finished running the original Dragonlance adventures, which starts at level 5 and goes to level 14, and was lots of magic an high powered heroes saving the world.

 

[Lanefan]

Hard to pin down, but a few general trends:

- I demand entertainment, from the DM and the other players/characters; and I insist on being able to be entertaining in return
- I prefer gritty over wahoo, but either way I prefer it be done with a sense of humour
- the spectacular has to be possible, but rare; if it happens all the time it's not spectacular any more
- there's always a bigger fish; the PCs are not special snowflakes
- the rules are there to frame the game, not dictate it
- evil characters, in-party plots, arguments, even occasional murder - just entertaining parts of the game (even when I'm on the losing end, as has often happened)
- the party is like a hockey team - players come and go each season but the team goes on year after year, but substitute "characters" for "players" and "party" for "team"
- level advancement is slow, and seen as an occasional side effect of ongoing play rather than a goal in itself
- if I have to refer to my character sheet twice in one session that's too often; too many powers and abilities just mean I'll forget them anyway
- there has to be some sense of mystery, be it in the rules, the DM's plots, whatever - it's no fun just playing out the string when you know how it's going to end
- there have to be Norse, and there have to be Giants. Somewhere.

Lanefan

 

[Tony Vargas]

I would like to know the answer to this, too. We hear 'play style,' and particularly 'support for a playstyle' a lot, in explanations of why this game or that edition is good or bad, but it's a fuzzy term. I find myself needing to use it in those contexts, and I'm not sure it's helping. 5e has made catering to multiple play styles a goal, but I haven't heard a definition from WotC, either. So, it's a very important question.

 

[Manbearcat]

Collective Goal: To create interesting, dynamic, tension-inducing, genre-relevant fiction where my player's favored archetypes are more than adequately expressed both mechanically and narratively. If this aim or process simulation must give way, the latter will take a backseat.

Genre Emulation: A Grim + High Fantasy equivalent of a menage e trois (+ 1) of Indiana Jones, The Empire Strikes Back, Sherlock Holmes, and Aliens. I abhor muddled themes so I will stick to a particular theme for a full session or a full "arc".

Table Feel: Hopefully either Bladerunner or Game of Thrones (depending on the content of the moment).

Player Empowerment: I encourage player pro-activity in the composition of the narrative as much as possible, sometimes demanding it. I want my players to sculpt their favored archetypes and bring them alive both mechanically and through roleplaying.

Story Focus: I run something of a hybrid of a sandbox (the players are moving parts in an organic system) and a scene-framed, action movie (the world falls away and only the players exist). The sandbox is the larger framework/backdrop but the "camera will be panning in" on the players (through the vehicle of closed system Skill Challenges) during relevant, tension-inducing, pace-required moments of our running, communal narrative.

Combat Resolution: Mixture of Combat as War and Combat as Sport (1 of my 3 favorite all time threads on this board. Brilliant, illuminating stuff.). My players will always seek an advantage and look to wage any potential combat on their terms (Combat as War). I love the option of bringing tactical, resource-deployment decision-points to bear (both from my players and myself). I expect to go "all-out" so if I do not have proper encounter balancing tools, I am not happy. I want to know, with absolute precision, if I'm composing a TPK or a walkthrough (to let the characters flex their muscles or to pace) so I can worry about the parts that provide a combat depth.

Other: My game is not run under the auspices of tight, attrition minutiae based accounting. This will come into play only when a very focused, closed system scene calls for it and it will be resolved via an extended Skill Challenge. I do, however, love leveraging hazards, environmental exposure, diseases, etc (Non-sentient threats in my DM Expectations thread) as their use is a wonderful, dynamic, tension/paranoia-inducing convention. Many portions of my game are investigation (whodunnit mystery solving and the like) and exploration intensive (thus my angst toward unconstrained spells that circumvent these tropes).

 

[steenan]

I play a lot of different styles. I use different games for them. So, while I have no single preferred playstyle, there is a style I hope D&D can support.

The basic characteristics of this style are:

1. Strong system
I want rules, not guidelines. They may (and should) be abstract and reasonably simple - I don't want hundreds of pages of detailed rules. But I want to be able to resolve each significant conflict or challenge using mechanics, without modifying the rules on the fly.
I also want each roll to matter. If the result is obvious, or it is unimportant, don't waste my time with rolling for it. Optimally, there should be only one roll per significant decision point.

2. Tactics during, not before the game
I want player tactical choices to matter during the game. Optimal choices should depend on circumstances, with no single tactics dominating majority of situations. This applies to combat, but also to social interactions and travel/exploration. There should be big difference in efficiency between a character played well and a character played poorly.
On the other hand, I don't want "tactics" in character creation. I don't want "builds". No character should be better or worse in play just because of how it was created. If it requires restricting character creation process and limiting the amount of customization, let it be so.

3. Fantastic world with strong themes
I don't need tons of races, classes and monsters. A few is enough, as long as each one is distinctive and colorful. Give me a world of wonder, not a kitchen sink.
This includes something I call "mythical ecology". I don't care how it is biologically possible for dragons to fly and breathe fire, or how much they need to eat - but I need to know how they fit in the game world and the story.

4. Exploration through action
I want to focus on exploring an in-game situation. This includes interesting cultures and NPCs, interesting terrain features, weather conditions and wilderness dangers, interesting dungeons and traps. I need cultural hooks that will make negotiating with a goblin tribe funny and disturbing at the same time. I need rules that make encountering a tornado a fun challenge. I need a clear idea of how alerts propagate in a big lair or fortress and how inhabitants react.
It would be nice if the game gave me tools like these.

5. Varied pace
In my games, the pace changes significantly during game - and it would change more, if game mechanics was more flexible in this aspect. I'd like to have a three-week journey with one combat, one natural disaster and two or three difficult terrain features to overcome - followed by a single day with some investigation, some negotiations, two chases, one infiltration and three or four combats.
Very few games support that without heavy houseruling.

 

[Mercule]

I think my style, in terms of gritty or epic, varies based on what story ideas I have. I lean towards gritty, but not in the meatgrinder sense.

I have a more definite table style, though. Common themes are:
DM owns the table -- his first obligation is to make the game fun, but he has all the power he needs to do that. Killer DMs don't deserve to run a game. Antagonistic players (as in, "we're going to hide our plan from the DM because he might screw us") are broken, probably by a bad DM. The players should trust the DM, even to the point of him blatantly throwing out the rule book. The DM should be worthy of that trust.

Character actions determine the outcome more than their "build". It's possible for a creative PC to best a foe significantly better than them. Ditto for one that plans well. I threw a death knight at a 2nd level group in AD&D and they won because they made smart use of their resources and paid attention things. That isn't to say good stats/abilities aren't of value. But a power/spell/ability that locks you into a narrow range of semi-official uses is bad design.

Magic is wondrous. Anything common loses its wonder. Therefore, only important items exist. If the fighter only knew how to use swords and the party found a +3 axe, I'd expect the fighter to retrain. Note: I'd never do that to a player I knew was invested in the idea of wielding a sword.

The PCs are self-motivating. It's not the DM's job to pick which adventure the party goes on. PCs should come to the table with motives and desires. The DM is responsible to providing the opportunity for it to play out. I think this is were I started to get very jaded with the high prep time of 3e and why ease of play is so critical to me in 5e. I also get incredibly bored and frustrated when a group doesn't interact with the environment and/or doesn't have anything to do until the opening paragraph of a module bites them in the butt.

There's a lot going on. I tend to throw a lot of potential plot hooks at players. Some of them are weird ideas that are totally not fleshed out. Some of them have some locations I've fully stocked. Most are somewhere in between. It's a bit ADD, but that's life. Some hooks will be overtaken by events and replaced by other whims. The PCs should be able to find something that blows their skirt, though.

Contrary to the above, I'm patient. I can -- and have -- waited years for a minor event to come to fruition. Even small things can be important in both the immediate and long-term.

The PCs can (and should) impact history. The biggest reason I have a long-running, custom campaign setting is to allow the stories the players love to tell have a reason to be told to others. The next group to play in that world will hear what you did. Nations will rise and fall. Your name may end up on a city or country. That organization you founded will see other PCs as members.

 

[howandwhy99]

I like a lot of different playstyles. I like games that focus on narrative, games that focus on the artistry of play, games that are all about speed or great eye-hand coordination, games that focus on strong memory, games that reward ingenious strategies and tactics, games that reward reflection on the situation at hand. All kinds.

 

[Emerikol]

I lean simulationist..

1. Immersive detailed world.
2. A variety of NPCs that are dynamic and have their own unique agendas.
3. Intelligent NPCs when they have a high intelligence.
4. Rules that relate to things in the world and are not just game constructs.

My gamist side says...

1. A game that is "losable" for the group. Meaning tpk is possible theoretically.
2. Good player choices result in better results. Poor choices result in poor results.
3. Good choices related to how the world works see previous section.

 

[Stormonu]

Why is it so hard for me to put my style in words?

I like presenting a story, but it's up to the PCs to decide whether they will bite on the hook and success or failure is clearly in their hands. I don't do railroads, but I don't do sandbox either; I find my players want some direction, but they don't want be led by the nose.

Adventurers are the stars of the story, with some plot armor. They are capable, but not exceptional or invincible; there's always someone waiting in the wings to pick up their story. Sometimes, they can fail, but that doesn't always mean death.

I like a slightly realistic world with occasional fantastic elements. Everyday magic is not to my liking. NPCs/monsters don't have to be built like players, but an NPC shouldn't be able to do something that a PC couldn't eventually learn how to do themselves or replicate.

I like a mix of pure RP and combat. I'm not much for tactic-rich combat like 4E, as I tend to be a poor tactician, but I do like to put out minis to help illustrate positions and visualize exploration of the dungeon.

I prefer for players to track resources such as arrows, spells per day, magic item charges, encumbrance, etc. - but I've got so much going on in the game I, as DM, don't want to be responsible for tracking it.

I do track XP; it gives me a way to gauge how quickly or slowly the characters should be advancing according to RAW - especially since expected wealth is tied to level (advancement) in 3E/4E.

I don't like to have to spend a lot of time on prep any more; PCs can be complicated to build, so long as that complexity doesn't appear at the table - and I shouldn't have to go over the build myself to make sure it's right.