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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aberzanzorax" data-source="post: 4733035" data-attributes="member: 64209">Since the OP is asking specific questions, I (unusual for me) didn't read past the OPAfter I type my responses, I'll go back and read others and perhaps add a new post if it strikes me to do so. (so please forgive any redundancy). First, a metacomment. I think that your line of questioning presumes something that I am personally not in agreement with. It seems you are placing a heavier emphasis on authorship and creation of a product than I personally view D&D (or any RPG to be). I'll cover this comment in more detail in my specific answers to your questions.I usually play d&d (3rd edition) but I've also played 2nd edition, 4th, Cthulhu, WoD-Vampire, Werewolf and Mage (the older edition), several D&D/OGL variants, and a few others. Hopefully that will give some context for my answers. Why I DM: As a DM I enjoy creating a story for friends and players. I like to create interesting challenges. This includes both story challenges (e.g. what is the moral thing to do?, or is it worth taking this risk?) and mechanical challenges (new traps, interesting critters, battles within terrain, etc). I enjoy both the "prep-work" where I can look through literally hundreds or thousands of ideas, including the rules for implementing them, and the play experience in which players interact with my creations, but also create things themselves. Why I play: It's a far less "creative" experience for me than when I DM. I enjoy creating a beliveable character with goals and motivations beyond "Getz fat loots". Beyond that, I like to problem solve in battles/challenges. It is an opportunity to "have a box" so that I can then "think outside the box". For instance, a heavily trapped door might be the challenge. My solution might be to use magic to go through the wall next to the door.  Well, both. Mostly it is an outlet for my creativity. I've always felt a drive to create. In high school my friend and I wrote a book of short stories because we were bored during classes. It circulated around the school, but wasn't published. We did it simply for the enjoyment of the task (and never intended to show it to other people or publish it, but others noticed we were up to something and so it got passed around).  If I didn't have D&D/rpgs I would be creating something else. That said, I am also creative for the sake of playing. There are times that I need to problem solve. There are also things that I like more and like less in D&D. For instance, I like creating the larger concepts of the story and the interaction between, say different magic spells to create a surprising challenge. I'm not a huge fan of pounding out/adding up all the numbers to create a finalized NPC. But I do that for the sake of the game, and a sense of completion as well. So there are some creative "chores" that I do specifically for the game, but mostly I use the game as a means to focus and direct my creativity that I'd use in other ways if I didn't have the game. (This would be akin to a storywriter enjoying writing a story, but not enjoying going back and editing/proofreading the story on, say the third or fourth pass). For me, creation in D&D is not just creation. It is not like writing a story in every way. I think that many people (as do I) use this as a very general description of D&D. It's more than that. It is a game. This addresses the "metathought" I brought up earlier.  I make the toy so I can play with it. A story is written to express ideas and share them with others. This is fundamentally different than expressing ideas that interact with others ideas and create a shared experience. But that isn't d&d either. That would be a group story/brainstorm. D&D is also a game that includes ideas and rules for their implementation. It is an opportunity for pretend along a number of themes, but also a set of rules for resolving the conflicts in those themes. This is the real difference for me. It is a story that can't just be written any which way. It has limits that promote creativity. (Imagine telling an art class: "Make art." I'm sure you'd get a ton of products of varying qualities. I'd also bet many or most people would fall back on what they felt comfortable in creating. Now imagine telling an art class: "Make art. You must use only paperclips and glue." This would push the students to break the boundaries of what they had become accustomed to in the past and express art in new ways. So it is with having rules within which to tell a story. Sometimes limits promote, rather than stifle, creativity.) Additionally, much of the creativity in D&D is not "story" but rather "social" or even "analytical". It is the blend of a variety of types of creativity that I so enjoy. Yes, there is a skeletal story, but also there are the interactions of players. If a dm is not "railroading", the story will not go in the direction he intends...indeed there will be no "intended" story at all...it will be a set of ideas and challenges and hints at a world that the players interact with. These interactions bring out the "actor" in many players (hence the social challenge/creativity). The analytical creativity comes when players use their statistics to battle monsters and NPCs with their statistics. Though manipulation of statistics in an analytical fashion is not often the first thing people think of when they speak of creativity, here think of engineering and architecture, both of which have created many new and inspiring things / structures.Here again, the "metacomment." No one owns it. Also, I own it. Also the publisher owns it. The experience is the heart of the game. That is not owned. If I write an adventure, I own it. If a publisher prints an adventure, they own it (though I own my copy, but not the IP). Do my players have a shared ownership? I'd argue yes, but that it is a small percentage. If I intended to publish something I ran for them, I'd work out an agreement with everyone ahead of time to set clear boundaries on ownership and payments.  But we play for fun. We create for fun. Ownership is meaningless in this context, if there is no intent to publish or profit. This is even more "fuzzy." Each creator of a pc owns that pc. However, I believe there is a general assumption that sharing it with others shares the concept and thereby, ownership. This is a meaningless question in most gaming. If a player creates a pc, that pc may have numerous DM related occurances (magic items given to them, permanent effects, story events) that change the pc. Hence, they both own it (though if pressed, I'd say the player owns it more).  But pcs sometimes become NPCs (through death, curses, becoming evil, players retiring from the game, etc). Also PCs sometimes "jump games". I've run a game with players who used pcs from a prior game. Their old dm continued to use those characters as well, but as NPCs. There were TWO of each of their characters. Who owns which? Again, "fuzzy". Ownership is meaningless in this context. Ownership implies purpose, which in this case is variable. If I intend to sell the pc in some way (likely through publishing/freelancing), then I make that clear and "copywright it" by saying it's mine and I reserve the right to keep it as IP. Beyond that, ownership is about relationships and choices. In my case above, where the players brought old characters to my new game and their old dm kept the characters as NPCs, everyone was in agreement that this was fine. But what if it wasn't? Could they sue their old dm for "stealing" their characters? Could they get a court issued writ stopping him from using their charactes any more? Could he countersue them, stating that he owned the characters more (because they had "broken the rules of the game" and are now his NPCs) and prevent them from using them in my game? All of these questions are, of course silly. They're silly because characters only have creative value, but not monetary value (unless published, or the intent to publish, which is a different animal). I am most impressed with a blend of these two. Wild originality is of very little value to me, as it has no grounding. It fits with my "do art" issue. If my pc is a marshmallow person fighting evil graham crackers in a hot chocolate world where we slowly dissolve, I'm not impressed. Also, too much familiarity is a problem. I don't want to roleplay a story that has already happened. A part of roleplaying is discovery. So, my ideal is a clever and original blending of tropes, tales, mythology, culture, etc with a strong degree of consistency, but also intentional breaks in that consistency.You don't win. You play to have fun. This is a "metaassumption". Think of "Duck, duck, goose" or "hide and go seek" or "tag". There is no winner. There are ups and downs, but those are three "games without end." You stop playing when you are bored, not because someone has won. Doing a "good job" is when everyone continues to have fun. That brings in the social aspect as well. Some games that don't have an end are just played to have fun and pass time, not to win. RPGs fit that most of the time. Caveat: Sometimes people will play a "one off" session. This is usually a strategic game (like capture the flag/castle) but can be like a "horror survival" game in which you try to stay alive. Depending on the POINT, these games may or may not have "winners." For instance, a horror survival game might be more about evoking horror (perhaps even in having a laugh at the campy horror tropes) than about surival. The smart player won't go into the basement by himself, but the best player will, because that is what people do in horror movies. The point matters. If there is a point, meeting the objective is "winning". The point may be "have fun". It may be "don't let your character die". It may be anything, but a game needs to end to win, regardless. Otherwise, there is no point at which one can have "won".  To promote the ideals of that game system. Cthulhu creates fragile investiators who are afraid of encounters, and who lose sanity when they do. D&D creates heroes who charge into encounters and usually survive. The system should have an intended theme that it evokes. Rules then ideally promote that theme, and help redirect away from things that are contrary to the theme.Too broad a question to answer in a specific way. It depends on which system one is playing and why one is playing the game. In a horror rpg, broadly, it is when the players are most terrified/horrified/chilled. In a heroic rpg, it is when they act heroically (which can mean self sacrifice or overcoming a great evil). In a mystery rpg it can be discovering the mystery exists or solving it. A worthless, but accurate answer to this question is likely: "When everyone is having the most fun." My favorite memory as a player was with a character I had who was a priest of the goddess of lies. He was a wacky charicature (if you've seen "The Birdcage" he was modeled after "Agador Spartacus"), but this was because he was a liar. It was a put on persona for him. In essence, my player character was himself roleplaying. He had convinced the party that he was a thief, and during one adventure cast illusion spell after illusion spell (subtly) to completely change a moderately generic adventure battling giants into one that players and giants alike thought involved hauntings/ghosts. WHY? I enjoyed this on so many levels, and I think that is really key. It's that roleplaying games are such a blend of different experiences all coming together that makes them appealing to me. On the one hand, I got to act silly. I also roleplayed on two separate levels (a character playing a character. This guy was also my favorite pc). I also sort of DMed, in a sense, but without overshadowing the dm or taking away from the other players. It was a good story that was improved by everyone, not just me, but I felt integral to that. I was allowed to do more than "solve quest x" as I might be forced to do in a videogame. So elements I enjoyed were: roleplaying/acting, shared storytelling, resolution of challenges, creative thinking (outside the box), having secrets, being true to my character and also true to his character, and sharing laughs and good times with friends.  I hope my answers are helpful in your paper. If you could post the paper when it is all said and done, I'd love to read it.</blockquote>

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