[aspenmayer]

> And that's... not D&D?

Some people are there because their life is not their own, and they want to live freely in the game; some people are there because their life is an exercise in control, and they want to play with the win conditions.

Every table and game is unique. It’s a microcosm of society that is simultaneously everything to anyone and yet no one thing to everyone. It’s a way to directly engage with the Other via metaphor and indirection.

This is D&D.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zng5kRle4FA

[PhasmaFelis]

Finding fun and unexpected rules interactions is certainly D&D. Finding obviously broken and unintended interactions that make no sense in-universe, purely as intellectual sport, is also D&D.

Seriously expecting the DM to behave like a buggy video game and give you ultimate power because you found an exploitable glitch in the game mechanics is...well, that has also always happened in D&D, but it's hardly praiseworthy or in the spirit of things.

[pavel_lishin]

It's actually a well-known (at least in my blog circles) problem with D&D. Everyone house-rules things to such an extent that the only thing that most tables have in common is how leveling up works, and which spells they use.

[aspenmayer]

Rules lawyering as a concept wasn’t invented at a D&D table, but the creation of the phrase almost certainly involved sitting at one.

That’s what separates good games and groups from each other: the collective suspension of disbelief as a shared goal. When everyone is in it for themselves, it rapidly devolves into Mary Sue wish fulfillment and power gaming, and as another deleted commenter mentioned, Calvinball. When everyone is in it together, it builds on itself and each other, and you get something like Dragonlance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonlance

> Dragonlance is a shared universe created by the American fantasy writers Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job interview. Tracy Hickman met his future writing partner Margaret Weis at TSR, and they gathered a group of associates to play the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The adventures during that game inspired a series of gaming modules, a series of novels, licensed products such as board games, and lead miniature figures.

[_carbyau_]

Problem?

RPGs facilitate group story telling, a shared experience.

Friendliness comes from shared experience - whether it is the classic "first date" of "dinner and a movie" attempting to kickstart a lifelong relationship or a simple nod between bikers as they zip past each other in opposite directions.

D&D provides a structure, making it a shared experience that everyone present can contribute to. And if the people of the group want to house rule a thing, that is a social thread right there.

To apply external pressure to try to get rid of these house rules would be to try to undo an element of the social fabric of the group.

It's not a problem. It's a strength.

The only time it's a problem, is if the social group can't decide and accept/discard a house rule. That is a social issue for the group though, not a problem with D&D.

And it kind of mirrors the many issues we as a society have with law-as-written and laws-as-intended.

[citizenkeen]

Nah, it’s a problem. Most other RPGs don’t have this effect because their rules are internally consistent.

D&D 5th Edition is a hodge-podge of sacred cows, marketing-based nostalgia, design cowardliness, and compromise.

Other games don’t get house ruled as much because they’re better games.

D&D 5th is the JavaScript of role playing: it’s the most widespread and in a perfect world everybody would use something else.

[Kostchei]

I disagree. I have played since red box, played all the versions including 4th, I play 5th ed a lot.

For 5e.. 1st campaign, no houserules, 3 years run time including transition to online during covid 2nd campaign, no houserules, just a bit of re-skin warforged are necrons, right? etc in person 3rd campaign, added legacy items inperson, different group concurrent with campaign 4th campaign, some house rules on spellcasting (provokes attacks of opportunity etc), accelerated progression till 9th level, expand legacies to things other than items

Play Pirateborg, Starwars or Dark Heresy etc, don't play a 2nd campaign, no house rules. You just live with the short comings of the system, you won't be there for long.

That said, I ran a 10 year rolemaster campaign, so maybe I'm an outlier. But people who read the books and don't play a heap, seem to have a lot of strong opinions. "City X is a terrible place to live- says some tourist who has transited in airport".

[_carbyau_]

I would have thought that if the rules were the issue the "house rule" fixes would be similar if not the same. But the comment I replied to suggested everyone was doing different things to the point where only some of the rules were the same.

Admittedly, I haven't done D&D5th. Too busy to do anything for a while, but even then, last I did were other RPGs.

[bluefirebrand]

There are two problems

Problem 1 is that D&D is the most popular and well known TTRPG, so people who are otherwise not curious about roleplaying games might still wind up playing D&D. They might not even realize there are other similar but different roleplaying games to even play!

Problem 2 follows from problem 1. Because D&D is seen as the 'default', many people try to make it be the one-size-fits-all game. It is actually really bad at this, because it has it's roots in a very specific type of tabletop wargame that is still visible in its DNA even today

So very often you find people who would probably prefer a more roleplaying focused game, playing D&D instead. And despite Wizards of the Coasts best efforts, D&D still plays better as a dungeon crawling wargame style game than a pure roleplaying game

My evidence of this is the insane popularity of Baldur's Gate 3, mostly because it had a lot of deep dialogue trees, not so much because it's a good tactical combat game (even though it is pretty good at that)

[fenomas]

You've missed my point - D&D has many forms, but they all involve a DM, who takes part in the game by making decisions and interpreting rules.

TFA isn't that - it's somebody DMing for their own characters, and then calling the (fairly bizarre) decisions they made "RAW".