What's your favorite play style for your D&D games?

[avin]

Story is all that matters.

 

[harpy]

Simulationist overall, where real world descriptions of actions drive the language of the game. I want a smidge of gamist tactical combat. Something modern and elegant that goes beyond the options of AD&D, but not reaching the point of 3.x in terms of specialization and character building. Players should have to think tactically and not just say, "I attack" but it shouldn't explode into a lot of crunch. Lastly, I want some narrativst overlay with gentle meta-currency, something well camouflaged into the simulationist structure, but with enough leverage to be able to nudge story along when the simulation is turning into a grind.

 

[StarFyre]

I would say high action/tactical-simulationist-actor driven.

haha that may make no sense to some...but when it comes to setting/roleplaying, etc it is very simulationist. THink of it as a real world with fantasy layer on top. Regular people still exist in the Realms for example. If they jump off a cliff, they will still accelerate to gravity and smash into the ground, etc.

They still need to eat, sleep, etc. In that sense, the world is real. However, due to fantasy layer, there are special heroes, monsters, etc which are beyond normal people. The PCs fall into this category.

My players roleplay quite well; sometimes nearing to something i've seen in stage plays (several players have done Drama/stage stuff before). When it comes to combat; highly tactical and action. Action in the sense that, lots of stuff happening, even explosions, terrain deformation from spells, etc (ie. fireballs setting wooden buildings on fire, barbarians destroying columns in a temple bringing down the ceiling on a large hydra, etc). The tactical part comes from the general combat. If you've seen the start of Gladiator; that shield formation the roman's used (shields in front, then shields on top to make a roof). That tactic pretty much makes most ranged weapons useless unless you get a lucky shot (ie. a 20) or you hit with a siege weapon such as a trebuchet. That is how my players play. If they do that type of shield wall tactic, and orcs are firing arrows, then ya...i'll declare only a 20 will get through OR not even a 20 depending on the shield sizes/player sizes, etc. In combat, if one player trips an enemy, the others can jump on him to hold him down. if their str is just way too low for it to logically able to get up, he's down and can be beaten to a bloody pulp. If horses are charging, and the players + npcs raise a pike hedge (like in braveheart), ya, horses will have issues. So more like real world style tactics that make sense. Players found 4e 'tactical style' to be somewhat contrived and artificial. Hard to explain. Also if players can physically do something (considering that they are fantasy heroes) then forget the rules; go ahead and i'll find a simple 1 roll method to see if it works well or not (ie. a very strong player was rotating a metal block ona chain in a circle- i consider this like a 360 whirlwind attack that did half damage after the initial contact. Zombies that just walked into the radius were having their heads removed since the player is strong enough to do that. no reason to limit him to whirlwind attack or cleave; since this makes more sense. With his strength he could easily keep it going for 4 or 5 rounds; even more).

On top of this, we use armour as protecting the user as opposed to making it harder to make contact. If you get hit, the armour takes damage and some may get onto the being wearing the armour, etc. Weapons even cause various amounts of bleeding, etc. (our dark sun gladiator PC loves that!) hehe

I also generally DM darker, more brutal games
Of course, the most important thing is that players are having fun, so anything to allow them that is a go. I generally skip anything that takes more than 1 roll and turn it into 1 quick roll by me and let the players who what they did so they can continue happily

Sanjay

 

[Rechan]

Heroic High Action & High Fantasy with strong Story Elements and Tactical Combat.

That get everything?

In other words, strong Gamist/Narrativist games favoring larger than life characters who kick ass and take names.

 

[Quickleaf]

Monte actually offers both a multiple choice poll as well as an "if you could only pick one" poll. I chose Monte's latter version because, frankly, all of the options in the right balance are important to me but that wouldn't produce much insight in the poll results.

Well, all of those are important in our D&D games. I'd say having a balance of those traits is characteristic of D&D versus, say, boargames or other RPGs. That's one thing I like about D&D.

 

[Number48]

Ummm... all of the above? If I had to pick one, if I could only pick just one...then I'd play a different game.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Yeah, those play styles are not mutually exclusive. I prefer a mix of the options.

 

[Invisible Stalker]

I want all five to an extent, but this would be the order

1. heroic and high action
2. fast and simple
3. story based
4. tactical combat
5. simulationist

 

[howandwhy99]

1. reality puzzle
2. Player driven and paced
3. quick and simple to start
4. Player advancement to very high complexity
5. Low to medium-low statistical interface

Everyone knows there's no such thing as a story, but narrative qualities we use to describe stuff best come about organically IMO. Don't make basketball follow a narrative arc by plotting it. Set it up so players are driven to personally improve and demonstrate their prowess.

 

[kitsune9]

I guess I was one of the three so far to choose tactical combat. I like the other aspects, but when I run a Pathfinder game, I like laying out the environment, setting the encounter up, and going to town.