D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[slobo777]

Speaking of connotations, I get the sense that 'railroad' is pretty negative compared to 'sandbox,' yet there are circumstances in which a tightly scripted or directive 'railroad' style is a very good approach.

I've definitely experienced negative styles of "sandbox" play, where the game world was uninteresting so players start to instigate petty crimes, often escalating to full on conflict with the alleged "good guys".

I'm not sure if DMs that touted this kind of laissez-faire "so boring, we burninated everything" style ever got a suitable derogatory term? Edit: I am pretty certain the term would apply to me on every aborted attempt I made to run Traveller . . .

 

[Sadras]

I've definitely experienced negative styles of "sandbox" play, where the game world was uninteresting so players start to instigate petty crimes, often escalating to full on conflict with the alleged "good guys".

That reminds me of my very early days of D&D, except most of the crimes done by the characters were not petty. A mix of bad dming, poor roleplaying and frustrated teenagers.

 

[pemerton]

I'm not sure if DMs that touted this kind of laissez-faire "so boring, we burninated everything" style ever got a suitable derogatory term? Edit: I am pretty certain the term would apply to me on every aborted attempt I made to run Traveller . . .

Agreed that Traveller is hard to run.

 

[Bluenose]

I've definitely experienced negative styles of "sandbox" play, where the game world was uninteresting so players start to instigate petty crimes, often escalating to full on conflict with the alleged "good guys".

I'm not sure if DMs that touted this kind of laissez-faire "so boring, we burninated everything" style ever got a suitable derogatory term? Edit: I am pretty certain the term would apply to me on every aborted attempt I made to run Traveller . . .

Sandbore was used locally to describe one particular GMs games, by at least some of his players.

Traveller's problem is that it's very, very, very broad in scope. You've really got to pick a campaign type before you start, and run with that, else you find you've got a bunch of people with wildly disparate skills and a bunch of worlds where anything might happen. And since no GM can really cope with everything that might happen on a single world let alone a subsector, it's very easy to wait for the players to take the initiative. Which since some are likely to have guns and little skill with anything else, can quite easily turn into shooting things, blowing things up, and running away. Pick a focus - Zhodani counter-intelligence tracking down the Vargr who was charismatic enough to get followers to raid the Consulate, and making an example of him - and your PCs suddenly have a goal which isn't make enough money to pay their mortgage.

 

[slobo777]

Sandbore was used locally to describe one particular GMs games, by at least some of his players.

Sandbore sums it up nicely. Consider it nicked as a term.

I think it could apply equally to "nothing really there or prepped" and "nice stable little self-contained worlds" full of nothing but happy villagers who have come to trade arrangements with the orcs living in the mountains. The latter reminds me of an xkcd: xkcd: Borders

 

[Neonchameleon]

I'm okay with that.

I also learned physics that Newton wouldn't understand, watch Batman movies that Bob Kane probably wouldn't like, and am currently watching sports that Babe Ruth wouldn't believe. I'm sure this Gygax guy was intelligent, a pioneer even (though not on the level of those above), but I'm not looking at his will as dogma (and I seriously doubt that you've captured it anyway).

I'm not taking his will as dogma. I'm taking his will as something that needs to be included in the bounds of RPGs.

And I seriously doubt your claim about the majority of players are doing things.

As for your illustrations, I've seen in my lifetime the power of Tour de France athletes first rise by 10% then fall by 10% again. I've seen Teller and Paul Daniels perform stunts I didn't believe.

You know what was happening in all those cases? Something I wasn't being told about. Teller and Daniels are both incredibly skilled illusionists. And their art is not telling me about things. And the Tour De France riders were cheating like . And it's back down again because much better methods of catching the drug cheats.

You claim not to have gamism. And I'm going to post the challenge to you I always do. If your life and possibly the fate of the world is on the why are you not trying the hardest you can to win? In what way are you in character when you won't even take what edges you can to protect your life and those of your loved ones (unless one of certain character concepts). In what sense are you roleplaying in character by not taking in character threats seriously?

That being said...
Of course not. Those groups have enjoyed D&D for a while as a compromise between philosophies, and if I wrote a new edition, they'd probably enjoy it more. I don't believe in throwing them out, but I also don't believe in throwing out everyone else in a vain and futile effort to satisfy one particular minority.

And who's talking of throwing anyone out other than you?

 

[green slime]

Sure, DND fanbase is splintered, and has been, ever since year 1.

We can discuss the wherefores and whys about flavour, and nitpick over which set rules interprets reality best for the game flavour we are trying to create. All good and well.

I started playing in 1982. DMed since 1983. Definitely not the oldest grognard here. I moved / house ruled my way from 1e to 2e, and embraced 3e when it arrived. did the same shennanigans when 3.5 appeared: house ruled. But when 4 came along, I discovered I no longer had the time, energy, and interest to learn yet another whole new ruleset. It doesn't really matter whether the rules are better or worse, the game more or less balanced. I cannot motivate myself to read and understand (never mind memorise) a whole bunch of new details, for a game, when the previous rulesets, are, in all honesty, actually quite adequate for the purpose at hand. Role Playing, with friends.

And sadly, no matter how much I want DnD to succeed as a hobby, I'll not DM anything beyond 3.5, and why I believe, no matter how fantastic a product 5e is, it will ultimately fail to reignite DnD.

 

[Imaro]

You claim not to have gamism. And I'm going to post the challenge to you I always do. If your life and possibly the fate of the world is on the why are you not trying the hardest you can to win? In what way are you in character when you won't even take what edges you can to protect your life and those of your loved ones (unless one of certain character concepts). In what sense are you roleplaying in character by not taking in character threats seriously?

I'm not Ahnehnois... but isn't this sort of like asking why everyone in the world doesn't train and focus to become the top in their profession... their livelihood and the livelihood of their families depend on it so why isn't everyone trying to become the best at whatever they do all the time in real life?

EDIT: As a side note, I think there are a ton of character concepts that can be created in 3.5 but don't fall into the optimized category... in fact I would argue that a group could play for years and not have an optimized party if all they are doing is building the concepts they want to play as opposed to purposefully optimizing.

 

[Balesir]

I'm not Ahnehnois... but isn't this sort of like asking why everyone in the world doesn't train and focus to become the top in their profession... their livelihood and the livelihood of their families depend on it so why isn't everyone trying to become the best at whatever they do all the time in real life?

EDIT: As a side note, I think there are a ton of character concepts that can be created in 3.5 but don't fall into the optimized category... in fact I would argue that a group could play for years and not have an optimized party if all they are doing is building the concepts they want to play as opposed to purposefully optimizing.

People generally do make optimal choices (as far as they understand what they need to do to achieve this) in real life - the social sciences are largely based on this. The difficulty might be that what is "optimal" depends upon their goal, and very often we do not know clearly what their goals are (indeed, many people are apparently unable to clearly explain what their own goals are!).

In a roleplaying game, the goals for characters tend to be rather better defined, thus it becomes easier to say definitively what their optimal choices might be. The goals of the players, on the other hand, are often just as opaque as ever...

 

[Ahnehnois]

You claim not to have gamism.

Wait, what? Where? I have lots of gamism. My current houserules allow far more tactical depth and competitive play than any published version of D&D. Where would you get this idea? Open-ended and noncompetitive doesn't preclude gamism.

I don't really dig metagaming and don't think a game should be designed with that in mind; maybe that's what you're getting at?

If your life and possibly the fate of the world is on the why are you not trying the hardest you can to win

Exactly. Why would you want a system that restricts people's ability to do that in the name of "balance"?

And who's talking of throwing anyone out other than you?

Well, we've seen plenty of posts (and even a thread) to the effect that the entire 3.X and PF fan bases are irrelevent. There was also an entire game released under the D&D label that took the same approach, and lost a majority share of the market to weak competition. Pretty sure that's not just me.