Why do you Play?
- Thread starter Bass Puppet
- Start date
Derulbaskul
Adventurer
It's a creative outlet.
I'm heavily involved with "real life stuff". I run a couple of successful companies, I negotiate large deals etc... and then I need to run away from reality to recharge my batteries so that I can charge back into real life.
I quit D&D for several years ('coz "I grew up") and my stress levels increased markedly without it as my creative outlet.
I'm heavily involved with "real life stuff". I run a couple of successful companies, I negotiate large deals etc... and then I need to run away from reality to recharge my batteries so that I can charge back into real life.
I quit D&D for several years ('coz "I grew up") and my stress levels increased markedly without it as my creative outlet.
I think it will be a very long time. Every CRPG with a reasonably good plot is essentially nothing more than a glorified choose-your-own-adventure book [something I hope most folks table top games are not]. And the more free-form CRPG's like Morrowind are essentially glorified versions of Hack.JoeGKushner said:
Wouldn't you need a true AI to respond to players and change the world on the fly the way a human DM can?
Ulik Mibut
First Post
I played a one-off game with my cousin when I was 12 years old (too many years ago now). I had never heard of it nor had I any particular interest in it when he mentioned it. I gave it a try anyway. Something almost magical happened during that game, and a hobby was born. Ive been playing ever since that cold night when I cracked open the D&D Basic Red Box so many years ago.
Inconsequenti-AL
Breaks Games
Mallus said:
Neverwinter Nights was hyped as a kind of halfway houst to that... human DM + players and a dice rolling computer?
Course hype (rarely) = reality. Fun game, but it'd never take the place of RPGs for me.
Besides, I play pen and paper RPGs to get the power ups and win the game. Then I'll get the respect, fat cash prizes and exotic ladies.
KB9JMQ
First Post
Teflon Billy said:
Ditto
I like the game for the game itself. Sometimes that includes in depth immersion as a character and sometimes its "Lets wipe out some orcs"
The game has always been a centerpiece of which my friends and social aquaintences have been built around. Basically the friends I have are because of D&D and I play D&D because of the friends I have.
Woas
First Post
I don't play. I'm what they call the Master of the Dungeons...
I think I've actually played a Player Character twice. Otherwise I DM. Which technically is playing.
Theres many reason why I DM/play. I love history and culture. Something video game RPGs never can give. I like the idea that anything and everything can happen, and that the world never ends after the boss is destroyed and the three shards of the triforce gathered. I play because I love geography and politics. DnD is a creative outlet for my huge maps of continents I create. I draw up maps on paper that range from 16x22, all the way up to 4 ft x 6ft large, and filling in each little realm with my own quirks and ideas. Then to see how the players react and respond and change my world. Thats why I play.
I think I've actually played a Player Character twice. Otherwise I DM. Which technically is playing.
Theres many reason why I DM/play. I love history and culture. Something video game RPGs never can give. I like the idea that anything and everything can happen, and that the world never ends after the boss is destroyed and the three shards of the triforce gathered. I play because I love geography and politics. DnD is a creative outlet for my huge maps of continents I create. I draw up maps on paper that range from 16x22, all the way up to 4 ft x 6ft large, and filling in each little realm with my own quirks and ideas. Then to see how the players react and respond and change my world. Thats why I play.
Bass Puppet
First Post
You all have simular, but different reasons which is great. The reason I started this thread is because I think we forget why we play. Yes, it's fun, yes it's creative, yes it's social. I guess what I'm asking is, besides all the other games that qualifies as creative, social, and fun, what makes D&D unique? What drives you to sit around a group of people you know or don't know? Why do you like DMing as aposed to Playing a Character? Why do you like about playing a Character over DMing? Do some of you enjoy the tactical aspect of it more than the role-playing or is it reversed? Why?
I love to play D&D because I enjoy the process of creating. I enjoy the spontaneous creativeness that captures a moment of storytelling and the uniqueness of that process, if that makes any sense. I enjoy gathering around a table of old friend and family for the nostalgic effect it creates aswell (well, atleast in my case). I couldn't think of anything more imaginatively fun.
Cheers and Good Gaming
I love to play D&D because I enjoy the process of creating. I enjoy the spontaneous creativeness that captures a moment of storytelling and the uniqueness of that process, if that makes any sense. I enjoy gathering around a table of old friend and family for the nostalgic effect it creates aswell (well, atleast in my case). I couldn't think of anything more imaginatively fun.
Cheers and Good Gaming
Slomoot
First Post
Wombat said:
Is it safe to assume your talking about Cambria CA? Thats the same store that sparked my intrest in Minis. I currently live about 35 min. away from Cambria, and just recently found out that my grandma used to paint minis for that place.... seems I'm not the first mini painter in the family
-=- Miles
edit: Removed gross amounts of the word "actually"
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Templetroll
Explorer
I play face to face games because I can make the GM and other players laugh and thereby they can enjoy my company and this usually leads them to risk their characters to save mine. My characters usually return the favor but even a few that wouldn't still have gotten saved. The characters felt something for my character and the players felt something for the character also. Can't get that on a computer game.
Also, in a face to face game I can try to do anything I can think of even if it is outlandish and stupid. Computers can't keep up, they're not smart enough to handle a player with a good imagination.
I've always been interested in archaeology and playing D&D helped fill part of that interest in a wonderfully odd way. I love exploring the dungeons, the old tombs in the modules! It is great if there is enough there for the characters to learn something about the lost civilization and that knowledge helps later on in the module.
When I play a character in a game I often start out with some extreme in the background. My ultimate goal is usually to have something that can change for the character, so they become a 'better' person, instead of just more powerful. I like to have them think of goals they have, and deal with things as the life they lead changes the aptness of those goals.
My current dwarf wizard started as an outcast, for studying magic. He took it so far that he even refused to acknowledge that he was a dwarf! Now, at 12th level he is thinking about going home, to show his father that he was not a failure as a dwarf for having studied magic. He also is mature enough to realize that that may never occur and has other options; one of them is to teach at the University so that other dwarfs will know it is okay and they have a place they can come to and someone who will understand.
Also, in a face to face game I can try to do anything I can think of even if it is outlandish and stupid. Computers can't keep up, they're not smart enough to handle a player with a good imagination.
I've always been interested in archaeology and playing D&D helped fill part of that interest in a wonderfully odd way. I love exploring the dungeons, the old tombs in the modules! It is great if there is enough there for the characters to learn something about the lost civilization and that knowledge helps later on in the module.
When I play a character in a game I often start out with some extreme in the background. My ultimate goal is usually to have something that can change for the character, so they become a 'better' person, instead of just more powerful. I like to have them think of goals they have, and deal with things as the life they lead changes the aptness of those goals.
My current dwarf wizard started as an outcast, for studying magic. He took it so far that he even refused to acknowledge that he was a dwarf! Now, at 12th level he is thinking about going home, to show his father that he was not a failure as a dwarf for having studied magic. He also is mature enough to realize that that may never occur and has other options; one of them is to teach at the University so that other dwarfs will know it is okay and they have a place they can come to and someone who will understand.
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