To help contribute to this month's RPG Blog Carnival (hosted in July by 6d6fireball), I thought I'd resurrect an old rant I made on ENWorld about, simply, how awesome Dungeons and Dragons really is.
I suspect I'm preaching to the choir here, obviously, but I think there's some interesting ruminations in here that are still thoughtful.
The game simply kicks ass. Having gone through the last three editions now with a diverse group of gamers reflecting a panoply of interests, it has given me some insight as to why it's so much darned fun. So check this out:
D&D, as a hobby, is pretty unique in its appeal and in what exactly it appeals to in us. It's a surprisingly synergistic combination of both left-brain and right-brain activities that are the reasons why we keep coming back to play, week after week, and why it holds such a cherished place in our hearts. To many of you these may seem obvious, but I felt the need to recognize them and write them down.
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Facet One: The Rules
Fundamentally, the game is nothing more than a big set of mathematical "crunchy bits". Reading an RPG book is like catalog shopping for super powers ("Ooh, multishot! I'll take one of those!") And when it come to the actual gameplay, it's all about strategy and tactics, just spiced with a whole mess of flavor harkening to every cool action scene from every movie we've seen or wish we could see.Like the DMG says, only the uber gamer geeks have every single rule memorized, the rest of us kind of make do and resolve our moments of drama and suspense the best we can, on the fly. And that's okay! Sure, there's something to be said for figuring out all the sexy little exploits in the ruleset, or calculating your to-hit chances to the third decimal place. But even if you're twelve years old and cracking the core rulebooks for the first time and don't know what the heck you're doing, there's still an innate strategic appeal.
This game is a powerful little exercise in excitement and triumph - a well-researched and well-balanced ruleset with the perfect blend of matching wits with each other over a table of miniatures with a nice little dose of randomness determining each and every action. Lots of times you win and it feels damn good, and sometimes you lose, which can make you nervous and excited and all the more enthusiastic when you win again. Even though it's all just numbers on paper.
- Facet Two: The Roleplay
Is it dead, is it not dead? Does this edition push it, or limit it? Whatever. No matter how dry your DM is with the flavor text, who doesn't get a little thrill crawling up their spine when their characters are looking down the foreboding entrance of another Dungeon? Even if you're just trading hit point damages back and forth, aren't you still imagining how much your character is a bad-ass in combat? Don't tell me that "style points" weren't a factor when you were picking your favored weapon - sure the numbers are important, but in the back of your head there's a little character portrait waving that sucker around.My buddies and I definitely favor the beer-and-pretzels style of roleplay - we don't take things too seriously (Lord knows we all know what happens when we get too into our characters, don't we, BlackLeaf?) and the game can quickly devolve into jokes and anachronisms and people making light-hearted fun of each other. I think that that's just part of the role-playing too.
But the grins and anticipation are really visible when the DM's describing the dusky hush of a temple hall, or the snort and the scrape of a minotaur pawing at the ground in a deadly challenge. Or the chuckles at the crazy antics of a colorful NPC, or the cackle of the Big Bad Evil Guy as he invokes his dark Gods in the height of combat; these too are the moments that make the game. A game can really take a life of it's own if the players are encouraged to describe what happens when they makes a critical hit, or explain what their character looks like and acts whenever someone new comes to the table. It's all part of the ambience - it has nothing to do with the feelings of winning or losing, it's what makes the game seem richer.
So there it is. I think the real magic is the back and forth between the rules and the roleplay, hopefully neither dominating the other. I can't think of a single other past-time that integrates both sides of the brain like this so well and so seemlessly.
For those gamers who find themselves grumbling about the lack of realism in the system or whatever, I feel like that is where good roleplay comes in - the rules are purely an abstract of fantasy action. They're there for fun. Like playing chess or video games, that part of the game is just the thrill of succeeding within a set of defined paramenters. If you want "realism", don't look for it exclusively in the rules, roleplay it. Be creative. Describe exactly what your character's doing and why he's doing it. If he fails the check, come up with an explanation as to why it failed, instead of looking to the rules to explain it for you. Have fun. play around with ideas. Let other players explain what's going on. Do the mind-share thing.
And for those of you harping on people who don't roleplay enough, or aren't getting into the world you're all creating, remember that sometimes the combat and number-crunching can be a lot of fun by itself. Cut the guy some slack if he spends all his time figuring out exactly where to move his figure for maximum advantage, where to work the five-foot shift and strategize his full attack, or at what exact hit-point level to strategically withdraw. It may not seem "realistic", but the guy's probably totally enjoying himself.
Action, problem-solving, strategy, flavor, creativity, prose and poetry, all in a single evening and for the low low price of dice and a set of books. We, as gamers, are the blessed of the world. We get to have incredible amounts of fun with fairly little spent.
Share and Enjoy, baby!
