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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gradine" data-source="post: 7079254" data-attributes="member: 57112">You're absolutely right, as [MENTION=17343]Tony_V[/MENTION]argas provided the primary example above:Yeah, it's perfectly possible to achieve "player cooperation" through developing a story involving a lack of "character cooperation". Still, I would argue that D&D, as a system, encourages teamwork at both levels. If characters aren't cooperating they're not solving problems as a team. In addition, as was mentioned a little bit up-thread, trying to insert narrative causality into D&D can be difficult. I wouldn't go so far as to say impossible, but the system is isn't built to provide players those kinds of narrative tools the way, say, FATE is. Which brings me to my final point:First off, I've never said what D&D or any other game "requires", simply what it intends and what it supports (and how well it supports it). I feel like I've made it pretty clear that D&D can handle a pretty wide range of playstyles, just that it supports some quite well and struggles to support others.And that's just it. Personal playstyles and anecdotes aside, you simply cannot declare that D&D, or any other system, is completely neutral in terms of facilitating specific styles of play. I mean, you can declare it, but you'd be demonstrably wrong. D&D, just like any other system, makes core assumptions about how it's meant to be played, which support certain styles of play better than others. In well-designed RPG it's built into every mechanic. Paranoia does PVP better than D&D. FATE does shared narrative-building better than D&D. Of course, every system has different tones, genres, mechanics, etc. that apply better to certain playstyles over others. I would argue D&D's appeal is that is that it is broad enough in its design that it can handle a wider range of playstyles than most, but because of its core design intentions it still facilitates some playstyles better than it does others.This is not broad sweeping generalizations based on my own personal preferences (which I've also already said don't always line up with D&D's assumptions that great either). This is pretty much objective fact. And it is true of every game system. That doesn't de-legitimize anyone's personal playstyle, nor does it mean that if you're playing D&D contrary to its fairly clearly defined core assumptions you're doing something wrong, or that you'd be better off playing with a different RPG system (which might actually be true, but is immaterial to this conversation). All it means is that you're doing something different with the system than might have been intended. But if that's what you and table like, that's all the more awesome for you.</blockquote>

Verification