Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Lina_Inverse 10-09-06, 05:01 AM	Warning : This post contains subjects and game theory that are blunt and truthful ignoreing what people want and percieve. It focuses solely on the underlying concepts of the game and not the game itself. If game theory offends you this post is not for you. Part 1 - D&D is ment to be won. D&D is a game, and games can be won, games are MENT to be won. "BUT LINA! D&D cant be won, it doesnt end." Wrong i say, each game of D&D is ment to be won. The diffrence between an rpg and a board game is not that it cant be won, its that the game state of the previous game effects the initial game state of the next game. Whats this mean? It means each session is to be looked at as a game unto itself, with its own unique goals. All goals are the accumulation of points, in the standard setup points are experience and treasures looted by going to intresting places and killing the inhabitents. However points might also be ale drunk, political capital gained, and wenches(or doods for you lady types) snogged. Basically, whatever you came to the session attempting to do can be broken down into wether you won or lost. So the point of D&D is to win, just as in all games. Part 2 - Monty haul dont just mean treasure Not all games that are monty haul are loot fests. infact, doods and doodettes my suspisions are that most monty haul games ARENT high treasure. Whats monty haul is the question, its any game where there is little risk or price of failure and high rewards. Let me mortify a friends dming style here for a moment, ill call him bob cause its utterly generic and i want to mortify his style not him. Bobs a nice guy, hes a REALLY nice guy. Bob wants you to win, you dont exactly have alot of treasure or whatnot, infact your pretty darn poor. But it doesnt matter, you always win. Bob fudges the dice, he makes encounters to be won, his villians are ment to be beteen the players win, fame, wenches, free ale, levels, and save the world. Every game. Your not going to die unless its climatic, and even if you die, the party will avenge your death and emerge victorious. Would i say Bob is running a monty haul game? Yes i would. There is in all honesty no risk, you know your going to win because in Bobs mind winning is fun. But its not fun, theres no challenge, theres no depth or costs associated to your actions. You can suicidally charge into an army and you know Bob will save your charecter. So thats just my thoughts, i had a part 3, but i forgot it..... Peace out doods..........
ZeronHitaro 10-09-06, 05:08 AM	Not much commentation on #1. Sounds fairly accurate but just to has semantics I would call it "Having fun" as opposed to "Winning. As for #2 I have no idea what Monty Haul means but it sounds like Bob and I have a temporary similar DMing style for the moment. All my players are new to the game. So for the first 3 levels or so if they die, some how a very pieous Cleric will walk by and take pity on them with a Ressurection spell. However I have made it clear to them that once I feel they know how to play their characters I will pull out the dreaded Pink Dice with Gold Numbers. ;) Then they will learn to fear the pink.
a_psh 10-09-06, 06:49 AM	D&D is a game, and games can be won, games are MENT to be won."Meant". "Meant" is a sticky, sticky word here. Not to be used lightly. To say that D&D is meant to be won is to make a lot of assumptions about the game. Assumptions that may be true, but that I question because of the implication that your statement is a definition of "RPG" and not just "D&D". On this larger scale, it is patently false. For starters, not all games are meant to be won... Short of storming off in frustration, sitting down and assembling a puzzle with a friend isn't a game you can really lose. Madlibs isn't a game you can really win (I also think Madlibs is dumb, but that's beside the point). A bunch of 20-year-old board game geeks getting together to play "Careers for Girls" (which the Internet calls "Most. Condescending. Game. Ever.") are doing it to laugh at the game and each other, not to win. If you actually want to go for theory here, your whole approach can be described as a (warning: long theory article in link) "Gamist (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/21/)" creative agenda. This means that the focus is on challenge or competition. Solving problems. Being effective. Doing something well, in short. Gamism's awesome. Gamism's fun. Bring on the challenge! But that's not every RPG. One can identify at least two other distinct styles: "Simulationism (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/articles/15/)", which revolves around a commitment to whatever is most realistic in the context of the game's imagined setting, and "Narrativism (http://www.indie-rpgs.com/_articles/narr_essay.html)", which has a strong focus on dramatic story and theme. D&D is closest to Gamism, but you have to step carefully here. There's a strong Simulationist undercurrent in D&D as well. A lot of the play issues that come up on the boards have to do with a disconnect between these two (often expressed as "tactics" vs. "what my character would do", or as "game balance" vs. "a realistic interpretation based on physics" or, most annoying, as "powergaming" vs. "immersive roleplaying"). Having a specific creative agenda is great, but ignoring the fact that other goals exist can really ruin your game, since it limits your ability to recognize what everyone else is trying to accomplish and whether or not they share your goals. D&D has a lot of Sim aspects, for example, and you and a Sim player aren't going to get along if you just blindly assume that you're playing the game for the same reasons. All goals are the accumulation of points, in the standard setup points are experience and treasures looted by going to intresting places and killing the inhabitents.Untrue. Exploration of setting, character, or theme is a potential goal, but there are no "points" to be earned in that. You don't get any kind of game token to take away from that. Heck, even playing the game in a hardcore wargaming mindset, having the other folks at the table compliment you on a particularly awesome strategy is worth as much, if not more, than the in-game tokens (XP, loot, whatever) that it earns. And that's a fleeting thing, not a resource that gets carried over into the next session -- or a resource at all. Basically, whatever you came to the session attempting to do can be broken down into wether you won or lost.From a purely Gamist perspective, that is correct. The fundamental assumption that you're making here is that goals that preclude some kind of win/loss breakdown aren't really goals worth caring about, essentially. As such, your post is a personal manifesto rather than theory at work.
HerbalTea 10-09-06, 07:01 AM	mmmhhmmmm heard it all before :bored:
Stev Beren 10-09-06, 07:12 AM	I would disagree with the "Primarily Gamist" thought.
Nom 10-09-06, 08:17 AM	Strictly speaking, D&D isn't a "game" but a "game toolkit" or "game system". You can't "win" D&D any more than you can "win" the rules of Monopoly. It is possible to "win" an implementation of a game of D&D (an "adventure") if it is set up with goals to be achieved. Note that "winning" doesn't actually require the possibility of failure, though it can impact on the emotional or objective value of the achievement. I used to win a lot of races in my age group in little athletics, primarily because I was the only male in my age group. I satisfied the winning goal - I crossed the line before any other competitor - but it didn't prove much.
Futuredevguy 10-09-06, 08:49 AM	Warning : This post contains subjects and game theory that are blunt and truthful ignoreing what people want and percieve. It focuses solely on the underlying concepts of the game and not the game itself. If game theory offends you this post is not for you. Part 1 - D&D is ment to be won. D&D is a game, and games can be won, games are MENT to be won. "BUT LINA! D&D cant be won, it doesnt end." Wrong i say, each game of D&D is ment to be won. The diffrence between an rpg and a board game is not that it cant be won, its that the game state of the previous game effects the initial game state of the next game. Whats this mean? It means each session is to be looked at as a game unto itself, with its own unique goals. All goals are the accumulation of points, in the standard setup points are experience and treasures looted by going to intresting places and killing the inhabitents. However points might also be ale drunk, political capital gained, and wenches(or doods for you lady types) snogged. Basically, whatever you came to the session attempting to do can be broken down into wether you won or lost. So the point of D&D is to win, just as in all games. Part 2 - Monty haul dont just mean treasure Not all games that are monty haul are loot fests. infact, doods and doodettes my suspisions are that most monty haul games ARENT high treasure. Whats monty haul is the question, its any game where there is little risk or price of failure and high rewards. Let me mortify a friends dming style here for a moment, ill call him bob cause its utterly generic and i want to mortify his style not him. Bobs a nice guy, hes a REALLY nice guy. Bob wants you to win, you dont exactly have alot of treasure or whatnot, infact your pretty darn poor. But it doesnt matter, you always win. Bob fudges the dice, he makes encounters to be won, his villians are ment to be beteen the players win, fame, wenches, free ale, levels, and save the world. Every game. Your not going to die unless its climatic, and even if you die, the party will avenge your death and emerge victorious. Would i say Bob is running a monty haul game? Yes i would. There is in all honesty no risk, you know your going to win because in Bobs mind winning is fun. But its not fun, theres no challenge, theres no depth or costs associated to your actions. You can suicidally charge into an army and you know Bob will save your charecter. So thats just my thoughts, i had a part 3, but i forgot it..... Peace out doods.......... Heard it all before at least once a year for the last 27 years. What are you bringing up that is new and never before heard?
MasterBlaster 10-09-06, 08:54 AM	Parts of D&D can be one, such is the idea of adventures. You "win" an adventure total the GP, spend and life goes on. End of.
Seeker95 10-09-06, 09:01 AM	Heard it all before at least once a year for the last 27 years. What are you bringing up that is new and never before heard?Would not such a question be as useful to the thread as my asking why you had to quote a 32-line post in order to add two sentences?
Tyveil 10-09-06, 09:09 AM	Just a comment on your second point. If a DM is fudging the dice/twisting the rules on the players behalf to aid in their survival, he should not let it be known to the players that he is doing so. This is addressed specifically in the DMG. To do so kills off the players sense of danger (hey I need to think this through or my PC could die!). So if you are a player and you're aware of your DM that's doing this.. he's DM'ing poorly.
Tyveil 10-09-06, 09:11 AM	Would not such a question be as useful to the thread as my asking why you had to quote a 32-line post in order to add two sentences? No kidding you'd think in 27 years he'd have learned better by now. :P
Cincinnati 10-09-06, 10:45 AM	Heard it all before at least once a year for the last 27 years. What are you bringing up that is new and never before heard? Yes... but have you heard this argument before with this many spelling errors? I think he/she might be onto something here.
ArcTan 10-09-06, 12:01 PM	This whole post is a red herring. When people say "You can't win D&D", they don't mean you can't get any sense of accomplishment or goals achieved in D&D. What they mean is that it's meaningless to play D&D in order to outdo other players or the DM -- that the game doesn't have concrete enough rules for it to be possible to treat the game as a fair, balanced competition between individuals, and that it was not made for this purpose. Just look at the way D&D is set up -- the players form a single party that's all trying to accomplish the *same* goals in cooperation with each other, and much as people try to treat the DM as an opponent, doing so is a really bad idea -- he's defined, not as a player, but as a referee who has absolute control over the rules and their interpretation. As others have said, you can call plenty of things games that, nonetheless, if you actually try to *win* at them, you're being an ass.
a_psh 10-09-06, 12:12 PM	Just a comment on your second point. If a DM is fudging the dice/twisting the rules on the players behalf to aid in their survival, he should not let it be known to the players that he is doing so. This is addressed specifically in the DMG. To do so kills off the players sense of danger (hey I need to think this through or my PC could die!). So if you are a player and you're aware of your DM that's doing this.. he's DM'ing poorly.It's my opinion that this is not and never will be a sustainable form of gaming. Fudging only works if the players are at least complicit enough not to think very hard about it, and even then they're still expecting you to be fudging. The whole method is an abyssmal solution to the problem of PC death (don't want the PCs to die? give them some freakin' mechanics to support that already instead of continuously making an end run around mechanics just to make the game work out!) and its effectiveness is inversely proportional to player engagement and player intelligence. In other words, you're running a one-man show for a bunch of really bored guys. And, let's not fool ourselves, it is a one-man show because, to a great extent, player choice doesn't really matter, since you're fine-tuning everything behind the scenes. I used this style, too, back when I actually paid attention to what the DMG and "veteran roleplayers" told me. It's a dirty kludge and little else, and it's definitely part of the great big "slippery slope" that leads to the GM ruling everything by fiat. (Have a friend whose games are really defined by awesome narrations he does when you roll a 1 or 20? Guess what, that's a trick to ruling everything by fiat, too.) It can "work" if nobody tries to sneak a peak under the curtain, but, even then, how much are you interested in putting on a one-man show?
Bruunwald 10-09-06, 07:59 PM	Warning : This post contains subjects and game theory that are blunt and truthful ignoreing what people want and percieve... Which you followed with a bunch of opinions and perceptions set in the way you want them. Which makes about as much sense as saying that theory is fact.
boozerker 10-09-06, 08:21 PM	Nope. If you won, then *who* lost? Certainly not the DM. Only monsters and obstacles in the game. And if that's winning, then in a game of monopoly you win against the board pieces, not the opponent ;) And furthermore, when playing Cthulhu type games your PCs are expected to die, and supposedly that's more what's fun about it (strange, but hey). At least that's how it got explained to me.
a_psh 10-09-06, 10:04 PM	Here's an aside...And furthermore, when playing Cthulhu type games your PCs are expected to die, and supposedly that's more what's fun about it (strange, but hey). At least that's how it got explained to me.Why's it fun? Here's an somewhat theory-minded way to look at it: It helps if you think of Call of Cthulhu as a game where you explore the setting material, much like Star Wars. Playing Star Wars is about kicking butt, sure, but it's about kicking butt in ways that evoke the feeling of Star Wars. Part of the charm of the game is that you have this inviolable shared imaginative space and that you're all respecting it together. If you have a really good mechanical or story idea but it just doesn't "feel like Star Wars" to the group, then it's probably not gonna work. Killing Darth Vader by shoving a hand grenade in his pants is right out, for example. So, Call of Cthulhu is like that, too. Except there's no butt-kicking in Lovecraft's world. There's just lots of death and insanity. So staying true to the setting and respecting the source material means being killed and going insane. But you have fun doing that because you feel connected to the setting when you do. You like watching your characters die and go mad because that's part of what makes them Lovecraft characters, just like watching your Jedi kick stormtrooper butt is part of what makes him a Star Wars character. The descent into madness is the glorious climax for a CoC character, much like dueling with a Sith Master is the glorious climax for a Star Wars character. Getting it right means you get the setting and makes you feel like a part of it.
boozerker 10-09-06, 10:24 PM	Thanks for a lovely explanation a_psh. Gonna have to read some Lovecraft so I could better appreciate the game, by the sounds of it.
PsychicKid 10-09-06, 10:33 PM	We won D&D by killing the BBEG and ending the campaign. Granted half the planet is in ruins and millions are dead and dying, but we still won! (Kinda like that game DEFCON... Everybody dies, nobody wins, etc)
a_psh 10-09-06, 10:40 PM	Thanks for a lovely explanation a_psh. Gonna have to read some Lovecraft so I could better appreciate the game, by the sounds of it.Meh. It's not for everyone. Not for me, for example. ;)
J.Augustus Rose II 10-09-06, 10:57 PM	We won D&D by killing the BBEG and ending the campaign. This is kinda how I feel about it as well. I'd say you win D&D by surviving. If your character survives all the crazy nonsense he goes through in his "life" long enough to accomplish his goals or even *gasp* retire peacefully you've "won" D&D.
ArcTan 10-10-06, 12:36 AM	Nope. If you won, then *who* lost? Certainly not the DM. Only monsters and obstacles in the game. And if that's winning, then in a game of monopoly you win against the board pieces, not the opponent ;) And furthermore, when playing Cthulhu type games your PCs are expected to die, and supposedly that's more what's fun about it (strange, but hey). At least that's how it got explained to me. Would Shakespeare be more "fun" if the audience could alter the ending of the play by telling the Friar to "Run faster! Run faster!" and if they shouted enough he'd get there in time and warn Romeo that Juliet was just sleeping and she'd wake up and they'd kiss and get married and the families would be at peace and everything would be happy? Tragedy can be hella fun. Even -- *especially* -- when you're vicariously experiencing it.
boozerker 10-10-06, 12:51 AM	This is kinda how I feel about it as well. I'd say you win D&D by surviving. If your character survives all the crazy nonsense he goes through in his "life" long enough to accomplish his goals or even *gasp* retire peacefully you've "won" D&D. There's a slight flaw in that -- in order to win you'd have to be able to lose. And a short PC life isn't losing the game, it's just part of the whole process and enjoyment.
ArcTan 10-10-06, 01:31 AM	You win if you enjoy yourself and you lose if you're bored and frustrated. But by this definition calling it a "game" is meaningless, since any activity can become a game you win or lose, like having dinner with a friend or watching a movie or riding the bus.
J.Augustus Rose II 10-10-06, 01:32 AM	There's a slight flaw in that -- in order to win you'd have to be able to lose. And a short PC life isn't losing the game, it's just part of the whole process and enjoyment. Hmm...point. I guess that's part of the reason I put "won" in quotations. It's not really winning but it's as close as you'll get in this game. Same as dying. It's not really losing but it's close enough for jazz. At the very least, you know you lost the fight if you're dead! ;)
boozerker 10-10-06, 03:13 AM	You win if you enjoy yourself and you lose if you're bored and frustrated. Leave it to ArcTan to actually show a real example of winning and losing in D&D. At the very least, you know you lost the fight if you're dead! ;) :D :D Funny. (And true)