D&D General Why the resistance to D&D being a game?

[Smackpixi]

D&D is a game. So why do people object to it being treated like a game?

I would argue that it’s more of a pastime than a game. True “games” have built in objectives, like checkmating a king, that you deploy the rules and materials to achieve. I find playing playing Civilization against others or on the hardest difficulties just ruins it for me because all my reasources and abilities must be marshaled toward ultimate victory that I don’t have anything available for the best part, making cool looking cities full of wonders. But others, who hame more mastered the ”game” aspects of it, who are skilled doing what the victory oblective forces you to do, have a blast. I enjoy Civilization as a pastime and like an apropriate level of competitiveness to Keep it from becoming FarmVille pointlessness.

Much the same with D&D. It requires some winning along the way of cooperatively telling stories and fleshing out cool worlds. Making it more of a ”game” means making it more about rules and ability utilization and optimization to “win”. 30 minutes of deploying dice, tactics and rules mastery to cross a raging River is one kind of fun. “I lasso a tree and surf across on my shield” “ok, roll 14 or higher and you make it” is another.

 

[overgeeked]

I think that there is a cohort that thinks of an RPG as a world simulator and there is a cohort that thinks of an RPG as a character simulator and a cohort that thinks of an RPG as a story simulator and all three will forever be at odds. I'm not sure that we can pin "anti-gamism" on any one of them. Rather, people have their preferences and broadly speaking they bristle when the mechanics of a game run counter to those preferences.

Sure, but that results in a badly designed game. And in games like 5E, where it's a big tent that everyone wants to work in a dozen different ways, the result is a game that can't do any of the dozen things it's "designed to do" well. So focus the design. Make a better game that serves one of those goals well. Make a different game, or even a branch of the same game, that serves a different one of those goals well. A well-designed game with a tight focus is going to be more fun than one that's trying to be all things to all gamers while doing it all badly.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't think anyone treats it as something else, they just have different preferences as to what kind of game it should be

Most people seem to. Instead of it being a game it's "collaborative storytelling" or it's an "immersive world simulator" or some such.

Those different preferences are partially the problem. As my post above, one game cannot be all things to all gamers. It doesn't serve any of its dozen or so "goals" very well at all. A more focused game with a tighter design could serve one or two of those goals better.

In my experience, players who want D&D to be something other than a game desperately want it to be art — and specifically storytelling or performance art. Games are low-class; art is high-class. It's a metanarrative born from pretentiousness.

I'm sort of with you, sort of not. I definitely think games can be art. But yeah, there's a lot of pretentiousness going around.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I feel like it's less resisting the fact that D&D is a game and more of a cudgel to use against part of the game one doesn't like -- particularly when it comes to abstraction.

Because it's hard to argue you don't like abstraction--no one is going to suggest the game go all Toady from Dwarf Fortress and make you calculate the resistance of each layer of skin tissue as you stab them.

But you can attack this kind of abstraction by calling it 'gamey', especially when combining it with the 1-2 classic D&D nerd maneuver of implying that 'game' that it's like is the supposedly hated 'video' kind of game, which some people still think are direct competition to D&D (when in reality it's the same way your local Pop Warner (Tabletop gaming as a whole) team is in competition with a line-up of XFL players driving steamrollers with mounted miniguns (videogaming as aa whole).

 

[overgeeked]

I would argue that it’s more of a pastime than a game. True “games” have built in objectives, like checkmating a king, that you deploy the rules and materials to achieve.

Some games do, some games don't. Catch doesn't have a built-in objective beyond "catch the ball and throw it back," but it's still a game. D&D is still a game despite having no definite end goal or objective. As the Dungeon Bastard used to say, "If you've played D&D for more than one session,* you've won D&D."

* It was some time period, I honestly don't remember how long.

Much the same with D&D. It requires some winning along the way of cooperatively telling stories and fleshing out cool worlds. Making it more of a ”game” means making it more about rules and ability utilization and optimization to “win”. 30 minutes of deploying dice, tactics and rules mastery to cross a raging River is one kind of fun. “I lasso a tree and surf across on my shield” “ok, roll 14 or higher and you make it” is another.

It's already a game in that sense. Have a look at all the optimization forums and the prevalence of "builds" in the game. But that's not what I'm talking about. It's a game. So why is something a trivial as "that's not realistic" an actual argument that people make? Beyond people just being difficult to be difficult.

It's a game. A fantasy game at that. With dungeons, dragons, liches, skeleton hordes, fireballs, wish, etc. So why are rogues hamstrung to aping the Grey Mouser? Where's the modern design and the modern influences? If it's a game, why are some options just crap compared to others? No one would play baseball if one team started with 9 runs and the other started with -9 runs.

 

[M_Natas]

I think a big complaint is not that D&D is to gamey but that it becomes to similar to computer games (or Player treat it like such), which are inherently limited.
Like... players who ask for skill checks instead of describing what their character is doing. That is computer gamey. Why? Because for players that ispress skill button y to achieve outcome x. It reduces the game's and the characters to the skills on the character sheet instead of the characters being "real people in a real world".
That is also I think one of the reasons 4e failed so strongly. Because they created it in the image of World of Warcraft.
But a TTRPG will always be worse if you play it like a computer game as in comparison to real computer games.
BG3 is a better computer game than D&D. But D&D is the better TTRPG. Because it is ot limited by programming. In BG3 I'm limited by the buttons that I can press and what they have programmed that I can interact with.
Which they did a lot. They have a lot of buttons and a lot of stuff tomjnteract with. But I already came across several occasions where I would have liked to do something that the game wouldn't let me do.
Like climbing a specific building to get in a better position. Or giving a grieving wife some money so that she and her unborn child can survive. Or with the Tieflings in the Hain. My plan would have actually been to stop the goblins, rescue the head druid, stop the ritual and than escort the tieflings myself to BG3. But that was not a programmed option.

In D&D I could have done all those things and more.

So I find things, that make D&D more computer gamey bad. Like when in the OneD&D playtest they published rules for a Social Influence action. That was a horrible gruesome thing that would make the game more computer gamey. Another button that the players would press instead of acting in character. Which is a bad thing, removing the thing that is unique about TTRPGs.

 

[M_Natas]

Some games do, some games don't. Catch doesn't have a built-in objective beyond "catch the ball and throw it back," but it's still a game. D&D is still a game despite having no definite end goal or objective. As the Dungeon Bastard used to say, "If you've played D&D for more than one session,* you've won D&D."

Actually, D&D by itself is not a game. D&D is a game construction kit. It allows game designers (and DMs) to create games and DMs to run them as a Game with players.

It is more akin to a programming language, computer game engin like unity or a Mapdesign-Programm of some games that include them for the players to create custom maps for the games (like Starcraft or Civilisation).

That's why the game experience of D&D can vastly differ, while the game experience of let's say Chess always very similar is.

 

[overgeeked]

I think a big complaint is not that D&D is to gamey but that it becomes to similar to computer games (or Player treat it like such), which are inherently limited.
Like... players who ask for skill checks instead of describing what their character is doing. That is computer gamey. Why? Because for players that ispress skill button y to achieve outcome x. It reduces the game's and the characters to the skills on the character sheet instead of the characters being "real people in a real world".

That is absolutely my experience with 5E. Most of the players I've run games for that are new to the hobby treat it like a limited video game (you can only select from a short menu of options, you can only go where the GM allows you to go, etc) instead of the open-ended wonder that is a tabletop RPG. This isn't helped by GMs who actively run their games as if it were a limited experience. "Nope, sorry. I want you to fight this ogre now, so no matter where you go, this ogre is there and will fight you." Etc.

So if that's the state of play now, what is lost by actually treating the game like a game, designing it well, and running it like a game?

In D&D I could have done all those things and more.

Depending on the edition and the GM, yes.

So I find things, that make D&D more computer gamey bad. Like when in the OneD&D playtest they published rules for a Social Influence action. That was a horrible gruesome thing that would make the game more computer gamey. Another button that the players would press instead of acting in character. Which is a bad thing, removing the thing that is unique about TTRPGs.

It's not about making it more computer gamey.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don’t get it.

Even if the game is about simulating a secondary fantasy world the PCs inhabit and they are on a hard-scrabble quest to survive from zeros to heroes, encumbrance and torchlight are of dire importance, etc…it’s still a game.

Even if the game is about sitting around with your friends, drinking some beers and eating some pretzels while killing some orcs…it’s still a game.

Even if the game is about epic quests and cosmic heroes tearing down gods…it’s still a game.

D&D is a game. So why do people object to it being treated like a game?

Because all that about the imaginary world and the PCs living in it is what the game is  about for some of us. As far as playing is concerned, that part comes before your interpretation of it being a game (not alone, mind you, just before).

 

[Micah Sweet]

You are welcome to re-make the game to your liking, or to play a game better suited to your preferences. I do both regularly. But if your argument is based on WotC 5e, all of us have to go from that place.