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I got fed up with DnD (and roleplaying games in general) for the following reasons: * The Emperor has no clothes. Dungeons and Dragons suffers from the very th
by mnky9800n 3y ago
I got fed up with DnD (and roleplaying games in general) for the following reasons:
* The Emperor has no clothes. Dungeons and Dragons suffers from the very thing that makes it great, all you actually need is imagination. Any rule set and you simply can know in your mind and explain to players. There are many open rule sets if you want a rule book. Thus, there is literally no reason to buy any of the books, figures, etc. unless of course you want them. But then, this is exactly why Wizards of the Coast tried to kill the open source gaming license retroactively. Because they sell a product that is simply a shiny veneer over a person's imagination. I would say games like shadowrun and vampire: the masquerade do a much better job at this because they have created a rather interesting world for characters to participate in. While dnd has scenarios, i never found them all that engaging compared to whatever it is the DM or myself would create.
* I started traveling and doing fun things in the world we live in and I stopped having fun in the imaginary world of dungeons and dragons. Simply put, it takes a lot of time to play dnd and I could be doing something else. I have had a lot of fun playing dnd throughout my life but it takes a special group of friends to play with and that only comes along when it comes along. Simply playing for the sake of playing is not fun.
* all of the online tools, apps, and all of the various technology that people want to bring into the game destroys the game for me. Why? Because every single piece of technology, even the technology of pen and paper and books takes away from the improvisational collective imagination that occurs in the game. Of course character sheets give players artifacts that represent their players and helps them feel connected to the game. But most other things, other than dice always seem to rip people out of the game and suddenly you are searching a book, app, etc. to find the rule to figure out how to do the thing instead of simply relying on the DM to decide how it should be done.
Maybe I have become overly opinionated about this having played an enormous amount of dungeons and dragons, shadowrun, vampire, starwars saga, and every other system that someone wanted to try sometime because it either was attached to some kind of show/movie (although i never played a star trek rpg) or it was a new system that promised to engage the imagination more. But I dunno, I kind of gave up. Also, I DM'ed every game I've played for the 15 years. Maybe I just became jaded. Anyways, essay over.
- rookderby 3y agoI would suggest experimenting with a rules-light system like Fate (if you havent) if you ever find yourself interested and have the time to role-playing. Personally, I find myself reading RPG books for the setting (Eclipse Phase, Star Trek, Tunnels&Trolls, Traveller ...) and for their mechanics. I agree that the technology mostly gets in the way of the improv. Also, find a group that lets you play! Stop DMing everything. Maybe check out the Mythic Game Emulator which can take on a lot of the directing part of being a DM. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422929/Mythic-Game-Master-Emulator-Second-Edition https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422929/Mythic-Game-Mast...
- mnky9800n 3y agoyeah i think my favorite books, besides vampire the masquerade, were those old star wars magazines that would have campaigns and short stories and other things in them. What I think a lot of people think I am saying is that I dislike the rules and that isn't really true. I quite enjoy doing things within the rules to push them to their limit. Minmaxing is probably the reason I became so interested in machine learning at some point (see this jupyter notebook I made for 3.5e to max out your critical hit probabilities: https://github.com/mnky9800n/data-analysis-tools/blob/master/ipython-notebooks/dnd%20critical%20threat%20probabilities.ipynb https://github.com/mnky9800n/data-analysis-tools/blob/master...). I dunno. I just feel sometimes like I have done all there is to do in dungeons and dragons and other roleplaying games.
- bsenftner 3y agoRole playing games existed before DnD, they were story narrative games where people took turns extending the narrative. My elementary school set were very into these oral improv narrative games, with our favorite being "dungeon" - a game apparently played by one of our set's grandparents when he was a kid, that was very much like DnD, but without the purchased items like dice, characters, or scenario books, purely oral, pure imagination.
- Capricorn2481 3y agoI understand a lot of your points, but in general, I have found there's a big spectrum between rules heavy and rules light and a lot of players do not want to be on the "light" side of things for any of these few reasons. - They don't know what they can do - They feel doing something cool but cringey (trying to dodge bullets like Neo) is more acceptable when there's explicit rules letting them do that. Otherwise they're embarrassed to do it. - Rules actually make creative actions feel more creative. - The decisions of the DM can feel arbitrary and, at times, ill-informed by their world views. I think what makes TTRPGs work for a lot of people is finding a good balance between feeling restricted and feeling free. Otherwise we're kids on a playground, making up imaginary shields to block each others lasers. And I never liked that game.