D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[Reynard]

Indeed. People like the illusion the game creates more so than the actual game itself. Many people like the game itself too, but the game is almost pointless without its narrative dressings. Riding the line between just enough narrative elements and an engaging enough game is difficult. 5E almost had it, but lost the thread when Mearls was removed IMO. The golden ratio changes depending on game genre, complexity, and stated purpose too, making it more an art than a science.

I agree that the most successful method of getting folks hooked is by asking them what they want to do in the fiction, then guiding them through the mechanics that do that in the game. Certainly moreso than giving them a big list of options and expecting them to pick one.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

“Telling of the action happening in play” doesn’t quite parse, to me.

It sounds like you are defining story different from how I would, but it’s hard to say.

To be clear, story here means “the fictional events, character moments, situations, etc, that could be described after the fact with or without direct reference to game mechanics”.

Well, yes, that's one definition, and there's nothing wrong with it. I think, however, if you are discussing fiction in an interactive sense it might be inadequate? I mean, it doesn't really let you talk about the interactive part! At the very least you STILL need to discuss 'how the story came to be', and as soon as you do that you need to talk about the agendas of the people participating in that activity. Not all of them may be very concerned about story in your sense.

I don’t know anyone who wants to play Icon 1A, making Attack A1, against Icon 2z. They want to be Gerald The Elfling Paladin, slaying Gurne the duplicitous advisor to the Ogre King, with his inherited sword Heart-Light, which gives off sunlight in the hands of a true hearted champion. Or murder old Gurne as Thornhollow the Halfling Assassin with a dagger coated in a poison of her own design. All of that is storytelling. A conversation in character is storytelling. Describing your attacks at all is storytelling. Giving any background at all, any aesthetic, attitude, or description in the world.

I know people who are quite gamist and who seem to constantly refer to game elements by their names as game elements and only invoke the fiction in more limited ways. I know people who virtually never talk about the fiction as fiction and who seem to show no interest in 'story' in any larger sense. I think its fair to say that 'fiction matters' (and I mean by fiction the circumstances and situation during any given instant of play as a 'state of game') and players pay attention to it. I think most players rarely think about anything beyond that, and given how few even write down or really try to remember the story, I don't think that's actually very important.

Every game element has story elements attached, and/or creates them in play.

Sure, that's a core conceit of RPGs, were that not true there would be no roleplay at all.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Well, yes, that's one definition, and there's nothing wrong with it. I think, however, if you are discussing fiction in an interactive sense it might be inadequate? I mean, it doesn't really let you talk about the interactive part! At the very least you STILL need to discuss 'how the story came to be', and as soon as you do that you need to talk about the agendas of the people participating in that activity. Not all of them may be very concerned about story in your sense.

It doesn’t actually matter if they are consciously, actively, thinking about Story. They are playing D&D or WoD or whatever instead of pandemic Cthulhu because they get to create story, rather than just experience it. Whether they are here to immerse or to eat pretzels and kill goblins with their Human Champion Fighter with a greatsword named Jeff, is irrelevant to the question. Making story with the group is what makes TTRPGs even be a different experience from other types of games. The fact that some groups have a guy who is only there because all their friends play and they want to be at game night and participate doesn’t impact the point of the game in any way.

I know people who are quite gamist and who seem to constantly refer to game elements by their names as game elements and only invoke the fiction in more limited ways. I know people who virtually never talk about the fiction as fiction and who seem to show no interest in 'story' in any larger sense. I think its fair to say that 'fiction matters' (and I mean by fiction the circumstances and situation during any given instant of play as a 'state of game') and players pay attention to it. I think most players rarely think about anything beyond that, and given how few even write down or really try to remember the story, I don't think that's actually very important.

I’m not talking about “story” as limited to The Story of the adventure or campaign. They care about the story of killing 100 goblins and becoming more powerful, or some other element of story that drives play regardless of agenda.

Sure, that's a core conceit of RPGs, were that not true there would be no roleplay at all.

That is exactly my point. Story is why anyone plays these games rather than some other game. It’s the only real defining difference. .

 

[pemerton]

I really appreciate conceptually that 4e did this. I think 5e would be improved if it would be more explicit about the tiers of play and what they mean, and I feel it would be the way to solve the eternal "is the fighter just a normal bloke from the real world with a sharp stick or a mythic champion with superhuman skills?" The low tier fighter is the former, the high tier one is the latter.

Paradoxically however I feel that mechanically 4e fails at representing the concept of evolving tiers. In my experience it is the edition of D&D where the feel the mechanics provide for playing your character changes the least as you level. First level 4e character already feels like highly competent experienced hero. Now this is not necessarily a flaw, but I feel it is in contrast with the big talk about the tiers. (And personally I feel that "from zero to hero" is big part of D&D, so I want to start from the ratcatcher tier to truly experience it.)



I mean sure. It is the desire for simulation. Now no one imagines any edition of D&D to be any sort of exact or accurate simulation, at best only rather impressionistic broad strokes one. But the desire to have the mechanics to actually tell us about the fictional world is pretty common. I definitely share it and I feel that it is one of the main purposes of having rules.

For my part, I see the main purpose of RPG rules being to establish who gets to say what next, under what parameters. And the difference in tiers is about the content of the fiction, not the mechanics used to establish who gets to say what next, under what parameters.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Seriously, man, the poster you were responding to was not wrong, he's just focused on only one subset of people who resist gamish elements. There are a bunch of different people who, to one degree or another, resent the more gamey elements of many RPG, and they do so for pretty varied reasons.

I disagree that the group describe exists to any meaningful degree, and I've played a lot of different RPGs with a lot of different people, not just D&D, dude. I've probably played as many or more different RPGs than you, at least if we compare just the last 34 years (I'm guessing you're a little older than me).

I've seen consistently that there is exactly one major group who consistently and reliably objects to game-ish elements - people who think of RPGs as simulations.

Now, there may be individuals in other groups who also object - but there's no bunch of sneering aesthetes in RPGs who object to the G part of RPG - that's just absolute made-up nonsense. That's the classic internet "inventing a guy to get mad at".


That's what's going on there. Because there are sneering aesthetes who do that about TV, for example, you guys are making an entirely imaginary specific group of sneering aesthetes for RPGs who are against the G.

Now, to be clear - there are sneering aesthetes in RPGs - there's no shortage of them - it's just that this particular subset is fictional. You'd have a much easier time say, finding people who won't play RPGs with ANY anthropomorphic animals in them at all because Furries. No matter if the RPG is not Furry. Those people are genuinely rare (most anti-Furry types just won't themselves play certain anthropomorphic animals), but they do exist. Unlike this imaginary group, which is at most a few scattered individuals.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

For my part, I see the main purpose of RPG rules being to establish who gets to say what next, under what parameters.

Right. And that is an important purpose. But establishing parameters of the fictional world is important function for a lot of people. I know you don't care about it, but still.

And the difference in tiers is about the content of the fiction, not the mechanics used to establish who gets to say what next, under what parameters.

Mechanics are not detached from the feel of the fiction. That's why games who try to evoke different feel have different mechanics.

 

[Reynard]

That is exactly my point. Story is why anyone plays these games rather than some other game. It’s the only real defining difference. .

I don't think that is true. The defining difference is freedom of action. Story (as a narrative of play events after the fact) is a byproduct of agency.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I disagree that the group describe exists to any meaningful degree, and I've played a lot of different RPGs with a lot of different people, not just D&D, dude. I've probably played as many or more different RPGs than you, at least if we compare just the last 34 years (I'm guessing you're a little older than me).

I'm not just going by who I've played with, though (in fact, the whole idea doesn't apply to people I've primarily played with because most of the ones I have are pretty gamist to a relative degree). But I've been seeing that "game bad" business for about the same length of time as you from people on the Net and in other media, and a pretty big part of them were in the burst of White Wolf players when that first became a thing. I'm not going to deny that simulationist tend to pooh-pooh game balance, but that's just one part of anti-game sentiment, and I'm really not seeing why I would have seen quite so much of it at various times if it was only amongst that group (which I haven't seen all that much of after the 80's--I'm not sure I'd actually run into anyone who was focused on it other than maybe on a societal level for decades until I got on this board).

I've seen consistently that there is exactly one major group who consistently and reliably objects to game-ish elements - people who think of RPGs as simulations.

Now, there may be individuals in other groups who also object - but there's no bunch of sneering aesthetes in RPGs who object to the G part of RPG - that's just absolute made-up nonsense. That's the classic internet "inventing a guy to get mad at".

There may not be a lot any more, but I'll flat out say if you didn't hit many in the 90's, you just weren't in the right places.

That's what's going on there. Because there are sneering aesthetes who do that about TV, for example, you guys are making an entirely imaginary specific group of sneering aesthetes for RPGs who are against the G.

Sorry, but no. The people I'm talking about were anything but imaginary, and I'm frankly startled if you never hit any of them. I'm not sure I'd describe them as "sneering aesthetes", but they were a real and extensive subgroup at least at one time back when I was on USEnet.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't think that is true. The defining difference is freedom of action. Story (as a narrative of play events after the fact) is a byproduct of agency.

That isn’t what interactive storytelling is. It happens during play, not after the fact. Story is also just fictional events, characters, situations, etc. in the moment, not necessarily after the fact.

Freedom of action is meaningless without story elements. Like literally it doesn’t mean anything. Taking actions within the fiction in any sense is storytelling. Without those elements, you’re just moving game pieces, which no TTRPG actually does. Even the most tactical TTRPGs have characters with names and aesthetics and other various story elements, and even the mechanics are stand ins for in-character action description. “I attack the troll with my [name of ability] move” Is storytelling.

 

[Scribe]

Keeping track of your comics? Or your characters? Or both?
(I mean, there's a whole inventory website for MtG cards, that makes it super adult, right?)

I built out a spreadsheet to determine if there was anything I could improve upon in my rotation in WoW, for a specific boss fight with a given duration of the encounter...

Serious business.