Hello dear Hivers!
If you haven't seen my first (introduction) post yet, you can check it out from here to learn what the Gehenna I'm talking about here. So, the subject of this topic is Dungeons & Dragons.
First of all, I have to say that I do have respect of other thoughts, personal interests and how people entertain themselves and/or each other. Everything under this title is my very own perspective, and please feel free to share your own opinion with me. If we deal with that, we can continue.
My first steps into Dungeons & Dragons was my cousin's teachings about Baldur's Gate and_ Icewind Dale_ PC games. After that, he showed me his character sheets and some of his own drawings about his character. A couple of years after that meeting, I was invited to a friend of my mother's child's birthday party. There was a D&D board game there, and we tried to understand what we were trying to play. I didn't know the connection of Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale with D&D back then. But, after we tried to play that board game, I started to research about it and found a PHP-based roleplaying forum, and met people online, tried to run online games both on MSN Messenger and forum websites. And that journey brought me at this point. After 20 years passed, I still feel like I'm at the very beginning of my journey, and there are lots of things to achieve.
After all those years, I still run and play D&D, but, when people ask me about it, I say I don't recommend it. I will try to explain my opinion to you.
INDUSTRIAL APPROACH
D&D published its very first official edition in 1974. 47 years ago. And, in these 47 years, there are lots of stuff happened. And the most important thing happened is how the people's approach on the hobby has changed and how it affected the industry.
Since the beginning of D&D, there were some alternative games to it with different concepts, like Basic Roleplaying System, Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, Pendragon, Warhammer, Storytelling System, Alternity etc. But they were like staying behind D&D's shadow. Until Wizards of the Coast made a huge mistake. When they started to work on 4th edition of D&D, they closed the OGL (open game license) of 3rd edition and that caused lots of D&D workers to leave Wizards. After that, 3rd party contents, D&D alternatives, and more rules-light game systems started show themselves. It was early 2010s. And hugely after mid-2010s, the industry has evolved into more roleplay-oriented games. And D&D was having hard times to catch it. Finally they released 5th edition, the most simplified version of D&D, and tried to catch others. Their biggest achievement was having a huge-potential internet show on Geek & Sundry which we know as Critical Role. With the increasing usage of websites like 9gag, geek culture quickly became a mainstream thing, and with this acceleration, Critical Role got bigger, so did D&D.
But, in the passing years, D&D branch of Wizards of the Coast did weird decisions. Like they refused to create "good" and "evil" based content, they don't create useful player options with their new books. They don't truly introduce other planes (dimensions) and if you need details, you have to check previous versions' books. And that makes their official books less worthy to buy. 3rd party content creators have more useful content, but Wizards limits their freedom to sell their own contents at some point.
Planned in 2022, Wizards will release a revised version of their core books, which is a 3-books-set containing Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. Because 5th edition is ideologically good; their content and player options and mechanical calculations are sort of clunky. People cannot find proper answers in the books, when they want to use their creativity and ask questions to the system. Also, company's approach of "minority rights" while literally no-one ever offended on any of their content, is pushing them into some sort of changes. The weird thing is, they are trying to fight in a battle with no enemies. I really don't get it.
PLAYER'S APPROACH
Most people in the world, including people in my country, starts the hobby with Dungeons & Dragons. I know that D&D has a huge popularity, like we see it on TV shows, we know the RPG genre on video games and with a little research, every corner of internet points out on D&D. In my country, people with little knowledge about industry or what they're doing are introducing the hobby to people as_ "some sort of fantasy backgommon"_ which you can roll the dice and kill some enemies. Technically this is right, but practically, this is all WRONG! Because tabletop roleplaying game is basically a roleplaying game, which needs you to ROLEPLAY. It's a literature-based game, because players have to describe their characters and characters' way thinking, and emotions and speak from their mouth; while gamemasters have to describe the surrounding, outcomes of actions, and behaviours of non-playable characters. It's also theatrical, because you have to impersonate a fictional character on table. You have feel like it, act like it, speak like it. It's kinda like mixed-arts and when you play your game like this, this hobby will also improve you. It's not "just chatting with a couple of friends", or just "collaborative story-telling". It has more logical base (what we call game system) and artistical output (acting the character).
I saw gazillions of "quickstart to hobby" approach on lots of tables. And the result was disappointing. People just give some dice to new players, give them a ready-made character and say "roll your dice when I tell you" and try to accomplish something. People new to hobby do not understand what the hell they're doing, and they leave the table like that. This is just one scene. Another one is, people who are interested in fantasy have large borders in their imaginations. The borders beyond D&D's rules, mechanics, and options. And that causes some people to less satisfy with whatever you offer them. I really don't like to say "you cannot do that", "we don't have an option like that", "you can't do it at this level" etc to my players. But what happens when you do/say that?
When people play their game with limitations, they get use to it start to play their game like "i attack", "i cast spell", "i roll intimidation" etc. with less emotion, no roleplaying, no description of the action. Aaand, what's the point of playing a roleplaying game if you will not roleplay?
GAMEMASTER APPROACH
Biggest issue with D&D is, D&D being D&D. It came from a tabletop miniature war game called [Chainmail](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chainmail_(game%29), and that causes every battle encounter of D&D being a huge time spender. Technically you spend more than 2 hours for what, a 30-seconds-long in-game big combat? That's frustrating, and with aging, it becomes less bearable. Players don't make themselves ready while others play and in their turns, they spend lots of time to think and make a decision. If you push them into taking action more quickly, it may turn into a negative effect on the player themself. And these combat stuff butchers all the narrative, and with being a combo with the last passage before this title, it becomes a total disaster. And I don't like to spend my time into a disaster.
The other disturbance is, players with power-hunger, also called power-players. Power-players are mostly try to gain biggest numerical benefits instead of a nice story, different approach for their acting style, or other artistic perspective. They mostly try to elect the descriptions, and try to get to the point, which is dice roll. These kind of players mostly know the stats of general creatures, or check them out after the game. They use their out-game knowledge to outcome in-game obstacles. I know this seems like a player-approach situation, but it's actually a gm-perspective situation, because when you release book written goblin stats in it, people expect GM to use that statistics. And when a GM changes the numerics, players start to complain about it. And if you have lack of creativity or imagination or experience to build your own things or revise creatures, you're becoming a predictible GM and it kills all the moods, all the story and narratives.
WHAT DO I DO?
So... If I don't like D&D this much, what caused me to write this long post to this point, what do I do? What do I do in my hobby and what do I do for my D&D games? Let me tell you.
First of all, I read lots of different game system rulebooks,_ instead of reading tens of books of one or two game systems people stick with._ That teaches me new perspectives both conceptually and mechanically.
I run official scenarios for people who wants to play casually. I study on that ready-made scenario, but if they don't put their effort, I don't care much. I apply my story and finish the session when they're tired.
I put hardcore homebrew stuff on my own homebrew setting, and create a PDF which has the game-specific rules on character creation, extra mechanics etc. For example; in my homebrew campaign, there are only 11 paladins in the whole world, and when one of them dies, the next paladin born. That means, paladin player has to be EXTREMELY careful about their decisions and acts. This concept is pre-decided, and I expect players to act for it.
And the last and most important thing, I recommend people to use calculation-light games. If you want to roleplay but also like how you roll, you can play Year Zero Engine games like Mutant: Year Zero (post-apocalyptic), Coriolis (space scifi), or ALIEN PRG; or if you don't care much about dice and want some creativity, you can use Apocalypse Engine (PbtA/Powered by the Apocalypse) games like Blades in the Dark (dark Victorian urban-fantasy), KULT: Divinity Lost (adult supernatual psychologic horror), upcoming Avatar RPG or Wicked Ones (fantasy) for example.
CONCLUSION
You don't have to start roleplaying games with Dungeons & Dragons. There are tons of different kind and better quality games out there. Still, if you want to try it, it's okay. You should try ANY game system at least 3 or 4 times to go deeper into it, learn its logic and combine it with your current game experience. But D&D is nothing more than a reputation, that's all.
On my next blog post, I will write about horror on roleplaying games and if horror is applicable on D&D.
Hope to see you again,
Shatargat || DRACONISM
I've never had a single session of D&D, though I played two campaigns of Pathfinder (which is based on an old version of D&D). But that was more due to the people in the group - I just don't like a system where you have to know how you want you char to be on level 20 when you start so you make the right choices. And let's not talk about "Oh sorry, I didn't memorise that spell today" ;)
There are so many different characters I've played in so many different games, from different cultures in different styles. Next year I want to jump into the new "The One Ring" (I loved the old one with its unique system of hope, how well that could explain things from the books) and "Lex Arcana", an Italian game about an alternative Ancient Rome.
I'm looking forward to reading more, have a !BEER
Thank you for your nice comment. I personally don't like much about Pathfinder either, but I know that Paizo is in a better state than Wizards of the Coast since they're more supportive and more creative conceptually. I actually like in-game drama, like the group's paladin and wizard arguing for leadership, while cleric trying to be a peacemaker between them and druid doesn't care about much while they focused on saving the world from an upcoming disaster.
I'm glad that you're also waiting for The One Ring 2nd edition. It will be published by Free League Publishing, which is one of my favorite publishers and they also support my content (in my native language) to introduce beautiful games to my native audience. And their games always win some awards. Like ALIEN RPG was 2020's best RPG. I belive that The One Ring will be really really good. Actually I have the PDFs but they're not in the final state and I'm also looking forward to it.
Lex Arcana is an interesting game, but sadly it's kinda unknown around here. Another one which has a similar name is LexOccultum, is getting my attention whenever I surf on DriveThruRPG, but never had a chance to run it. But luckily, I had a chance to run KULT: Divinity Lost for a while, and right now I'm recording a 1-on-1 actual play of it. I highly recommend it if you like story-driven supernatural horror. I will write about it and lots of stuff in the next posts :)
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