D&D: An Alternate Viewpoint

[Fellfrosch]

Jam review the Players Handbook first: http://www.timewastersguide.com/view.php?id=1041

A lot of Jam's problems with the game stem from the old argument about gamist, narrativist, and simulationist gameplay--narrativists tend to dislike systems that use too many rules, yet gamists tend to dislike anything that doesn't. D&D 3.5 is decidedly gamist, though the system itself, as Jam pointed out, can be used to other ends (as proven in the d20 Call of Cthulu, which has virtually no combat focus at all). Overall I have to say this was an excellent review: quick to point out flaws, but just as quick to give credit for quality. He managed to avoid bias in either direction, which is nice.

(Oh, and Jam: in my last D&D game almost everybody in the group maxed their Charisma, because of the social bonuses and several class bonuses. So it's a lot more valuable in practice than it looks on paper.)

[JP Dogberry]

Thankyou. I felt everyone knew the general word on D&D by now, so I didn't even try to be objective about this, or present it as such.

The review does show my opinion though exactly. I love fiddling with experience and equipment and such, and I love rolling dice and dungeon crawl, but I hate the way it does everything. It has no right to annoy me this much.

See, to perfect D&D I'd change everything about it. But that would destroy everything I like about it. See the quandry?

[Fellfrosch]

That's because you hate what it represents, but you enjoy it in spite of yourself. Kind of like me and American Idol.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

which is why I hate BOTH of you!

wait.. no... that's not right.

Look! A monkey!

[Entsuropi]

Actually as you level up you tend to have skill totals stupidly high - 60+ - which means the dice is kinda wierdly useless.

And yes, D&D promotes stereotypes a lot. Far more, certainly, than White Wolf splat books, the traditional focus of RPG stereotype based hatred (RPGSBH in short).

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

/me tries to figure out how to get 60+ on a skill roll.

+7 for an attribute at 24 (not realistic), +4 for some class bonus, +2 for a feat, +23 for max ranks in a class skill at level 20, +4 for a racial ability... lessee... that makes 40. An unrealistic 40, at that. I don't think I've ever seen a legitimate bonus above +35, and that was extremely rare, and only showed up in one or two skills.

and maybe white wolf has changed, but when I played back in the day, those vampires were at least as stereotyped at any dwarf.

[Entsuropi]

White wolf books state, repeatedly, that each splat is not intended to be a homogenius 'one-man' group. The splat books generally spend a lot of effort on that point. D&D 3e, on the other hand, did not.

[42]

I think I have heard wells stated that D&D is both a role-playing game and a battle-tactics game.

I'm also finding that people play D&D differently and everyone has a slightly different understanding or interpretation of the rules. A lot of rules get ignored, no matter how clearly stated.

I think D&D strikes a nice balance between role-playing and war-tactics. It is annoying when it seems as though your players just want to bash stuff rather than role-play. Yet there are down sides to too much role-playing, particularly when people start to take it too seriously, or there are other issues in the group. At that point it is nice just being able to fall back on some standardized rules, even if the rules don't always make sense.

Plus, D&D has scores more players than any other RPG, so it's easier to get into D&D groups, even if it isn't one's first choice.

Oh, no matter what anyone says, I think think that White Wolf enforces stereotypes, even if they don't intend too. So their declarations that they don't mean for their books to enforce stereotypes is just frivilous tripe.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

Yeah but does it score more players because its better or because it has the advertising weight of the worlds largest toy company behind them.

I thought about this the other day, a lot of D&D's appeal is name cachet, people remember it from their youth and want to go back to that. But D&D has been good at getting new gamers pretty consistently and I think I know why now.

Advertising and distribution.

D&D is the only game I can find with any regularity in both RPG stores and bookstores. I'd say about 1/2 to 3/4 of all D&D sales have been in regular bookstores (although I dont have numbers) the only other company to do s well in the market is white wolf, who also ship to bookstores. Gurps has designed a comic book style distribution network and are only occasionally available outside of RPG and Hobby stores. Palladium is almost impossible to find. So when it comes to shelf space and visibility the one with the most money wins.

All this would matter more if D&D were a crappy game.

But it isnt. Its just mediocre and thats enough for the kid in Rural Minnesota to enjoy.  

But since I like Jam am firmly in the Narrativist camp I dont know hoow objective I am.

[JP Dogberry]

It's kinda a habit for wizards. Now, I'm biased, but even objectively, Shadowfist is far, far better than magic on a lot of levels.  I won't justify that, just take it as a given for now.

Now, Magic is the most popular game. Why? Because they did it first, and they did it well enough, as was pointed out on the shadowfist forum a little while ago. The game isn't good, but it is decent, and it has that huge market leader thing that causes everyone to pick it up.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

White wolf books state, repeatedly, that each splat is not intended to be a homogenius 'one-man' group. The splat books generally spend a lot of effort on that point. D&D 3e, on the other hand, did not.

making a statement that "this is not a one man group" and then proceding to act like it is doesn't change anything. That statement means nothing.

What I want to know is how else the books are supposed to tell you rules. It seems really stupid to include a statement on every other page saying "these rules are subject to DM discretion." what a pointless waste of space. No one on the planet ever plays a game without any variation at all, so why keep telling people to do what they already do? That the rule book makes a statement without qualifying it doesn't mean that they're trying to keep you from ever modifying the rules, it's jsut good writing. "If you want, here's one way you might want to think about using..." (grappling, skills, feats, money, damage, etc) would be lame. Use paragraphs, sentences, or words at your own discretion. That's the way everyone else does it.

And I have to make one more complaint about the review. I've put it off, but I can't hold back. Yes, the second shortest chapter is on fleshing out hte characters. That doesn't bother me remotely and seems like a poor complaint. I don't read any of that stuff in other books anyway. I know how to make a character (as in a personality). I don't need advice on that in every RPG book I ever read. I just need the crunchy bits. How do I do the mechanics for this system. That's it.

[Eagle Prince]

There is some stuff I would like to comment on, but after writing it out I guess I didn't care that much afterall.

[Fellfrosch]

True, SE, you don't need a lot of "how to flesh out a character" stuff, but you've been roleplaying forever. For a new kid just getting into RPGs, it helps to have a big section on that.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

There's still a problem with the complaint.
While there may not be a chapter devoted to it, there's TONS of material throughout the book about it. Each race and class has info about how they fit into society, typical personalities, etc. All that stuff people complain about as stereotypes? Yup, there for newbies so they can get an idea of how it works. and there are pages and pages of it throughout the whole manual. Every chapter has information on the setting. The weapon descriptions? Good for envisioning whether your character would use it. Much easier to do that when you have a paragrpah describing the khopesh sword than just a single price listing for "sword."

Look, D&D's not perfect, but I think 90% of the complaints about it dictating rules and not paying attention to role playing is based on reputation, not on what's actually in the book. You could make the same complaints about any other book. "It dictates the setting I have to use to me. I don't want that, so the game is poor." It's better to have the rules available and choose not to use some of them than it is to never have the option.

[Mad Dr Jeffe]

I think most of Jams comments are being overlooked because of a small part of his review about character background and development. What about miniatures? What about the flavorlessness of the text? He never stated that he hated it, I read this review as a "its just not my style" kind of review. He prefaces it well with his own gaming history and I think he makes a lot of valid points.