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July 01, 2004
Old habits die hardly
I've been both a supporter and a publisher of independent games for two to three years now. I have no regrets, and I'll continue to support and publish those games.
This week, I got my hands on Eberron. If ever there was an antithesis to indie gaming, this is it. It's a campaign setting purchased by the biggest publisher in the business from one individual, Kevin Baker. This is the result of all that setting search hoopla a couple years ago. I hope Mr. Baker enjoys his hundred grand! Hoopla aside, I like the hell out of Eberron.
Due to a confluence of events, my current gaming group has, at least temporarily, dissolved amiably. This puts me in the position to run D&D, but with only one or two close friends.
Which brings me back to indie gaming. Given that I want to find additional players, I'm not likely to have a hard time with a slick new setting and the most ubiquitous game in existence. However, finding eager players, even among my currently known network of gamers, for a group that experiments with indie games has had limited success, overall. Here I am, after a two-year D&D dryspell, gearing up to run a D&D game again.
Two years ago, I was greatly frustrated with D&D. I viewed it as a burden to GM, and it didn't let me do things I was really interested in -- creating stories collectively. But, I didn't then recognize that it was letting my players do what they wanted, which was enjoy the thrill of challenges and leveling up and so on. Sure, they wanted a story, but they later informed me I had provided an excellent one. They lamented that game's end.
For the last two years or so (and with a different group of players), I did get to scratch the itch that D&D wouldn't get at. The Riddle of Steel, play of some of my own games (Dust Devils, Avatar-13, and Nine Worlds playtests), and a handful of other games was great fun. I got to experience other kinds of gaming. I'm sure I will get to do so again.
About a year ago, my best friend and I started playing Legend of the Five Rings CCG. We are now hooked, along with my brother. It's a great, if somewhat complicated, game. My love for the intricacies of that game helped me recognize the value and rewards of the intricacies of another complicated game -- D&D. It took me a long time to recognize this aspect of 3E D&D as a valuable one.
Looking back, I think I now see why it took all this jumping about to come full circle. I played D&D for years and years. I also played a handful of other games (Call of Cthulhu, Warhammer FRP, some others), but D&D was the default. Over time, regardless of what we actually wanted to do in play, we did it using D&D. Want challenge laden, level-up play? Use D&D. Want story? Get it shoved down your throat via D&D. Want everyone to make a great story? Use D&D. Not sure what everyone really wants? Use D&D. Editions and setting came and went, but D&D remained the lingua franca.
For my own experience and among my fellow gamers, I can identify no analog, no common understanding that would allow us to try so many games I'd love to play. But, there's always time . . . . Until then, here's to the old school!
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Comments
Funny you should say all this Matt.
For years me and my closest buddies played virtually nothing but D&D, in all of its guises. Then we (mainly me) went off it big time and played all sorts of other games, many of my own design and other indie, rules-lite, diceless & storytelling games. For a while we would do nothing other than Amber.
More recently we played some D&D and I have started to enjoy it again, like you. I liked everything about it that I professed to dislike all those years ago! I have also been considering picking up a copy of Eberron. The reviews have mainly been good. I also looked at Arcana Unearthed too (Monte Cooke). I can tell I am going to end up buying them both. I just hope they live up to it and, more importantly that at least one of my groups wants to play, because if they don't I suspect I will end up going off D&D all over again.
Posted by: Simon W at Jul 1, 2004 5:20:39 PM
D&D, especially 3rd ed., has taken a real beating over the last few years. for some reason, WotC reviving the corner-stone of role-playing games was a subject on which many people felt a great deal of ire. i think it's the same thing when a movie is made about a book or a superhero that we all know and love: we *want* it to satisfy all our expectations, but we're afraid that it'll suck so bad we'll feel lighter when we leave the theatre.
the fact is that the emergence of 3rd edition and of the D20 system has had a huge impact on gaming, not the least of which is the vast number of people and publishers who've taken advantage of the OGL. a few years ago, launching your own game meant fighting through the learning curve of a new gaming system. this is just not the case for a lot of people, now. even Mutants and Masterminds used D20 as a jumping-off point for what is a very good game and gaming system.
and let's face it, D&D is fun. we all grew up on it. we all enjoyed it. dismissing it now is like mistreating the lover you've had for years precisely because he or she has been there for so long.
Posted by: orion at Jul 2, 2004 4:44:14 PM
I like a great deal of what 3.x did for D&D-- enough that I lobbied to get the new campaign (started about two years ago) playing under 3.x. (Initially 3.0, but with the full expectation that we'd begin actually investing in more books, etc., once it hit 3.5).
For me, it's the bookkeeping that's the hassle. Leveling and getting familiar with new spells, etc., takes a lot of time. So, while I enjoy roleplaying with the D&D group, there's always a bit of weariness by the time I actually get to play my character... particularly if game start's held up by people still struggling to level their characters. I don't think it's the game for Trish (due to bookkeeping-- she hates keeping track of all the combat modifiers), but for others in our group, I doubt there's anything finer. I anticipate the "thin veneer over freeform" WOT game much more-- but there's cycles of popularity to everything.
Posted by: ScottM at Jul 2, 2004 6:50:25 PM
Superb post -- this mirrors a lot of my thinking. Lingua franca indeed. Complexity is a double-edged sword. It makes some things more difficult, but it also makes some things easier. In particular, the simple clear formulas for running a D&D game are immensely useful to novice GMs who avail themselves of them.
Posted by: Bryant at Jul 2, 2004 7:04:00 PM
Thanks for the comments, folks. In the interest of respect and accuracy, it's KEITH Baker, not Kevin Baker. Whoops! Sorry Keith, wherever you are.
Posted by: Matt Snyder at Jul 2, 2004 10:17:17 PM
I have a hard time relating to this kind of post on a 1:1 level because I never played D&D growing up and I've never really found a 3rd Edition group that was attractive enough (or, really, not off-putting) to make me want to play with them. Maybe I'll get Matt or Shreyas to run it for me someday, but until then, D&D will probably continue to be a stranger.
However, I did grow up playing a bunch of Palladium games, which are very close descendents of D&D and that kind of play style. However, try as I might, there are still aspects of Palladium & D&D play (and play in related systems) that I continue having trouble stomaching, for one reason or another:
1) Experience & level systems. Who wants to keep track of that stuff?
2) Turn & modifier-based combat systems. Again, who wants to keep track of all that?
Even now, on the occasion that I run or play a game in that style, experience gets ignored and combat either gets glossed over or reworked from the ground up. The good memories I have from my early roleplaying days, after all, aren't of the details of combat or experience.
Posted by: Jonathan Walton at Jul 3, 2004 2:23:31 PM
Hi Matt,
I feel the desire for the old school, it just happens that I've tried 3.0 a few times, and it never seemed to fit right for me. I think several things didn't fly well for me, first being the amount of time the GM has to put into making those challenges and trying to balance them, second being the general complexity of the rules("Ok, time to look up grappling...again..."). Let me know if you find or come up with any good tips from your campaign.
Posted by: Chris at Jul 8, 2004 8:03:19 PM
