11/17/2008 - Morning Meditation

So Jason is bringin this age old debate to dndorks!  Ok, bring it on Jason! ;)

I also posted this post to the forums, located here, if you want to get in on the discussion.  Help me convince Jason that D&D is fun.  Or smash down my ideas, either way is good.

Jason is trying to trick people into turning your back on D&D and playing "abstract" story games.  Down that way madness lies!

j/k  uh...kinda.

The goal of playing a roleplaying game for most people is to have fun, not to follow rules, not to make things up, not to have a truly memorable story, or anything else.   Many people, particularly DMs, have different goals than the players.  They want to make a memorable story, or they want to see how the rules interact to create a unique experience that they don't trust themselves to make on their own, or they want to have the rules create an interactive fantastical creative experience that they lack the imagination to create on their own without something pushing them, or any number of different reasons.

But most players in my experience play roleplaying games to have fun.

So D&D apparently does its job pretty well, which can be evidenced by the fact that many players feel satisfied with D&D or other simulationist games like it, and often don't seem as satisfied (if not outright angry) about more gamist games that cover all the basis, or more abstract games that simply avoid creating rules for simulating reality at all.

So which game accomplishes its task better? Obviously D&D (or Shadowrun, or Mutants and Masterminds, or any other game that is "traditional")...at least when you consider which accomplishes their goal for the most people  most of the time.

But if the task were something else, like say telling a dramatic story good enough to be filmed and shown on tv...well D&D probably doesn't do that job so well.  Sure there will be excitement, but dialogue? No, probably not on average.  Nor will there likely be dramatic love triangles between the paladin, rogue elf, and tiefling...or if there are, it most likely results in the group disbanding. ;) 

But who wants that for their afternoon meetup?   Usually the observers, which is often the DM, but occasionally the silent player.  They want to be part of a story, or want to be part of this or that, because its like being in the middle of a story, and the combat or the bargaining for more wealth, or choosing magic items and feats and performing rituals to become a different race, well all of that are just the necessary boringness to get to where that player really wants to be, which is an immersive creative story.

So if you're playing D&D, and sometimes its not so much fun because the rules say Jimmy has to die, its nice to get a developer confessing that yes, in the interests of the goal (D&D's goal being to have fun), go ahead and break the rule, do whatever you need to do to for the group to have more fun.

Because it isn't the DM's job to provide challenges for the PCs in a reasonably consistent fantasy setting, its really the DM (or GM, or whatever game referree title)'s job to make sure everyone has a good time, a fun time. 

Unless the players get together and decide that it isn't enough to play with a toy, they want to do something "more", at which point, any number of other games (Jason can provide a list!) can probably satisfy those other different goals better. 

Recently, Wizards produced a "Save My Game" article called "Do the Right Thing" by Stephen Radney-MacFarland.  (You need to have an active subscription to view it.)  It basically says that you shouldn't be a slave to the rules and that you should feel free to break the rules to "untie knots" when the game hits a snag.  Stephen very responsibly goes on to offer advice how to do this without being a jerk and even offers up an example from play.  So let me say first that I think that the article is a good one and makes some important and useful points.  All that said, I felt the need to comment.

"If you're driving your friends around in your car and turning left causes the car to shut down, you don't have to just sit there, you can get out and push!"  That's hardly a shining endorsement of your vehicle.  And that's what the article suggests about D&D.  "If it doesn't do what it's supposed to, you can just make stuff up yourself".  Yes, "pushing the car" is better than just sitting there, but why not make a car that doesn't stop working for no good reason in the first place?

The article points out that the DM is not a computer, and shouldn't try to be, because the DM is better than a computer.  He's able to adapt and improvise and overcome.  And this is true.  However, that's still not an excuse for a system that doesn't do what it's supposed to do.  Again, it doesn't matter if there's a person or a computer behind the wheel, the car shouldn't shut down when you turn left.

But let's assume some "operator error" here.  "I was driving along, I turned left and the car shut down".  "Well, the car wasn't designed to drive in lakes."  Or off of cliffs, or through walls, or whatever.  I think it's important to know what the rules are expected to handle, and the manual should say as much.  And then you and your friends should discuss it as well, so that when they encounter that lake, they know that they're going to have to go around, or get out of the car and push it across.  That is to say, when the players encounter a situation that the rules don't handle, they'll know that they're going to have to avoid the situation, or use some other system (DM fiat or player agreement or a coin flip) to resolve it.

So once again, the advice in the article is good, but it bothers me that it implies that system failure is not only expected, but acceptable.

So, what's YOUR opinion?

1. Realtime Dice Generation
2. Character Storage

1. Easier, Expanded Dice Generation
2. Upgraded Character Storage
3. The ability to store a selection of images, or access a wealth of public images, combined with the ability to pick your avatar easily with each post to an online game.
4. The ability for DMs to edit all game posts.
5. The ability to see character names, character status, and links to characters from anywhere in a game thread
6. The ability to be looking at a game thread and see an indicator that shows there has been a reply to the game.  In this way, its closer to "realtime"
7. The ability to set the status of a game so people can easily see games that are looking for new players, as opposed to games that are in progress or completed.

Hey everyone, this comic can be pretty confusing due to the huge amount of time between the comic its related to and today's comic, so here you go http://dndorks.com/comics/11%2f27%2f2007.aspx

Now that you've read the comic, it probably still doesn't make any sense. ;)  But thats ok, I"m out there sometimes. :)