D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Charlaquin]

Well, I would say that if two participants are merely co-narrating a story, taking turn to interject details, they aren't really playing a game. It's when their narration diverges, and participant 1 wants result A to happen and participant wants (not A) to happen, then it becomes a contest with stakes, and they formalize it as a "game" when they agree to let the coin-flip decide.

Ok, but you see how this leaves the game incomplete by your definition, right? It requires the judgment of the participants to decide when a game mechanic needs to be employed.

 

[Charlaquin]

No one has EVER compared an RPG to a boardgame and meant it in a positive sense. Nor any video game comparison.

Umm… I have. Board games and video games are good, and I think RPGs do well to employ some of the successful design techniques from both.

Unfortunately, people think that comparing 4e to a board game or a video game does anything more than simply say, "I don't like this game but, simply saying I don't like it isn't good enough, so I need to 'prove' that the game is an inferior game to a 'true' role playing game so I'll compare it to stuff that I know will piss people off".

It's basic edition war rhetoric at its finest.

I mean, that definitely did happen. But also, I do like 4e, a lot, and I recognize that it does have some points of commonality with some board games and some video games. And those points of commonality are strong points of 4e’s design, in my opinion.

 

[Charlaquin]

IT shouldn't.

No D&D should because it's a cheap appeal to D&D's weird one-sided beef with videogames. It's like how all those fake reddit 'nightmare players' posts always go out of their way to say the guy likes anime.

I dunno, I think video games are good.

 

[Malmuria]

If you bounce off of it, then it's no big deal. I don't think it's as evocative as the games you listed. I do like the substantially flatter power curve of the game, as well as elements like loot progression, hearts, effort, table-facing DCs, etc.

Index Card RPG 2E is classless and has a loot-based progression system, so characters can lose all of their abilities if they lose their items. ICRPG Master Edition, however, provides characters with non-loot based abilities and moves closer to soft classes. I think that my ICRPG project may go for an alternative middle ground. It takes some small nods from games like Ryuutama, Worlds Without Number, and the upcoming Dragonbane RPG.

btw, someone made a Zelda-themed Knave hack. It looks good! It's free

Octave by level2janitor

A zeldalike Knave hack

level2janitor.itch.io

there's also this, but I'm more skeptical, as it seems more nostalgia-centered

HEROES OF CERULEA – Pixelated Dungeon Crawl Tabletop RPG

Explore dungeons, solve puzzles, fight monsters, gather keys, find items, and defeat bosses. Lo-fi art and rules; high playability.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[Shiroiken]

This is really fascinating to me. Would you mind giving me some pointers as to where to look to learn more, or maybe expand on it a bit?

I wish I could. Back then, the primary source of information was those forums, plus a few rather unpleasant moments during convention Q&As. Some of the common themes that set off flame wars were: damage on a miss, martial healing, and HP as "meat points." There were others, but I don't really remember the details. It was mostly 3E/Pathfinder fans vs 4E fans, each demanding their view was the correct one that WotC must use, but their were a few other squabbles.

Unfortunately (well, really fortunately for everyone's sanity), these forums have long since been deleted. More information might be found on internet archive sites, but I don't have knowledge of such things.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I dunno, I think video games are good.

But the people who use this rhetorical device as an argument against things they don't like do not. And they expect you not to either.

 

[Malmuria]

The incompleteness of ttrpgs happens between the game as written and what actually happens at the table. Of course the text of the game has a strong influence over what happens at the table but is not wholly determinative of it. This is true even if you are going to run a pre-written adventure; that might be where you start, but where you finish is open and unpredictable. This is something TTRPGs do differently than board games or video games (both of which I also enjoy); in fact, the latter advertise their open worlds and multiple endings (especially in crpgs) as a way of indicating they they've gotten incrementally closer at doing what ttrpgs always did. This video articulates this difference well

 

[Aldarc]

btw, someone made a Zelda-themed Knave hack. It looks good! It's free

Octave by level2janitor

A zeldalike Knave hack

level2janitor.itch.io

there's also this, but I'm more skeptical, as it seems more nostalgia-centered

HEROES OF CERULEA – Pixelated Dungeon Crawl Tabletop RPG

Explore dungeons, solve puzzles, fight monsters, gather keys, find items, and defeat bosses. Lo-fi art and rules; high playability.

www.kickstarter.com

Thanks. I was already a backer of Heroes of Cerulea, but I was not aware of the first one. You may be skeptical, but I see nothing wrong with it being nostalgia-centered as it embraces the themes and "video game logic" of the source material.

I prefer my own hacks to be "inspired by" rather than direct ports or adaptations so I can take more liberties with the source material.

 

[Campbell]

@Malmuria

That's not even close to what completeness means in the scope of tabletop RPG discussions (which is oriented around designing/describing the process of play). Making an argument based on a comparison to the linear narrative experiences you see in most single player video games is misleading to the extreme.

 

[Malmuria]

@Malmuria

That's not even close to what completeness means in the scope of tabletop RPG discussions (which is oriented around designing/describing the process of play). Making an argument based on a comparison to the linear narrative experiences you see in most single player video games is misleading to the extreme.

Wasn't trying to be misleading, though I'll admit to not understanding what people are meaning by complete/incomplete. Rather, I was trying to get at what the original video in the OP was getting at, which is the difference between a rule ("monster's don't crit") and/or a set of rules (a new edition) and the unpredictable nature of what happens at the table. When it comes to video games or board games, I think it is worth asking what a ttrpg might do differently and better, and direct design and play toward that. This might be a controversial link, but it also discusses what a dnd module can do differently from a board game