Do they play D&D in D&D?

[EggKookoo]

Well, not D&D. But do you think people (probably the affluent or leisure class) play adventure games, or tactical wargames, or similar things within the fiction of the game you play in or run?

I mean, aside from P&P (https://tinyurl.com/yy696nnl)...

[Cicciograna]

I would assume that the military leaders engage in some kind of tabletop wargame. As magic could be more or less readily available for the affluent, I envision heavy use of illusion to simulate battlefields and units moving on a grid: you could have a realistic wargame similar to the dejarik board that Chewie and D3BO use to play in "A New Hope" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0T5tyJlo8), with the pieces scratching their butts and moving around.

[calam]

In all my games someone will inevitably make a joke about there being a tabletop RPG game in the setting with a alliterative name similar to dungeons and dragons, usually its still pen and paper though.

[Anonymouswizard]

Children, when they get away from their work/chores or education, tend to roleplay like modern kids do, just with different professions/archetypes. Some adults also enjoy playing the mighty dragon and the virginal princess, but generally for different reasons.

To be more serious, the most commonly played games tend to be some variety of card or dice games. Board games exist, but In a prototype form not much like the Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Rides of today.

Wargames range from chess equivalents to more detailed simulations used to teach strategy, but likely aren't at the drive and point values level yet. The first simple modern hobby wargames might have appeared, but they're curiosities and toys for noble children.

RPGs in their modern form likely don't exist, bit that doesn't mean that people don't roleplay for fun. It's just probably more along the lines of freeform or improv acting.

[Pex]

They call it Houses & Humans

[DarkSoul]

I don't know about roleplaying games but the people of Myth Drannor played what is essentially Magic: the Gathering. There's a description of a card game with "thousands of different cards" and intricate rules, in Cormanthyr: Empire of the Elves.

[RedMage125]

In Xcrawl, a 3.0 (and converted to PF) setting -which is like the modern world if D&D things had always been real- they have a game like that. It's called "Dungeon Battle", and it's immensely popular in-world. In fact, it was some people LARPing Dungeon Battle that led to the creation of the XCrawl games. This is like Pay-Per-View Bloodsport. Teams (who often have corporate sponsors) progress through a dungeon full of monsters and traps for fame, glory, and fabulous prizes (for defeating the golem, you get a year's supply of Car Wax!).

But Dungeon battle is still played, too.

[Imbalance]

There's stuff like Dragonchess and Three Dragon Ante, and Acquisitions Inc. refers to something called Papers & Paychecks. I used figure that someone who lives in a magical fairy tale world would have something like sorting mail or fantasy stickball as their leisurely escapist pastime until I played a certain side quest in Fable III.

[Jay R]

A D&D world includes anything the DM wants to include.

There is no such thing as a role-playing game in my world, because I try to keep as close to the feel of a medieval feudal society as possible, given the presence of magic. But many DMs prefer to run a game with a much more modern feel -- and that's fine, too.

[Fable Wright]

I would assume that the military leaders engage in some kind of tabletop wargame. As magic could be more or less readily available for the affluent, I envision heavy use of illusion to simulate battlefields and units moving on a grid: you could have a realistic wargame similar to the dejarik board that Chewie and D3BO use to play in "A New Hope" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rN0T5tyJlo8), with the pieces scratching their butts and moving around.

This.

I imagine that, if we are following a semi-medieval structure, chess is going to be popular. I imagine that traditional, literal wargames are also going to be in practice for the purposes of educating young rulers or gaming out scenarios, but no two wargames in different places are likely to have similar rules. That's not to say that they will not—Chess was, after all, brought to Europe through the Crusades. I find it very plausible that strategic wargaming could develop within the ranks of something like the Knights Templar or the Knights of Malta, if they were given theater authority over crusading forces. They'd have need to commonize understanding of all sorts of foreign and local units so everyone understood the quality of the troops in play, and a strong incentive to game through possibilities.

The game would be brought back by returning princes and Crusaders, and from there, it's plausible that it could become a noble pasttime like chess or hunting, and that's the only way roleplaying elements might be formally added. I wouldn't expect as such with your stereotypical regressive attitudes, the needs of maintaining image for public station, and the relative lack of venues for individuals from different families to meet at regularly for campaigns. But if you did have a telecommunication element, I see no reason why campaign-based wargames couldn't become a very popular pasttime, commanded by people playing roles.

[Shpadoinkle]

Wargames have probably been around since war was a thing. Hell, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is a fictionalized account of actual historical events, the general Guan Yu is said to have calmly played Go while having an arrow he had been shot with removed, and that (supposedly) happened around 1,800 years ago. Chess is also pretty damn old, and I'll bet there were any number of other wargames that have been lost to time because nobody ever wrote down the rules or how to play.

D&D and other games are basically outgrowths of wargames, though the kind of wargame that D&D budded from was basically invented in the late 19th to early 20th centuries - look up the book "Little Wars," which was written by H. G. Wells (yes, the science fiction writer,) who also helped develop the game.

Conceptually, any society with a decently-sized middle- and/or or upper-class population could basically go down the same route, but whether they DO is another issue. A surprising number of things have been around for a lot longer than many people think (the ancient Romans had invented steam engines, for instance,) and no doubt there are any number of brilliant or revolutionary ideas we could be implementing today that will only be obvious in retrospect.

[Mutazoia]

https://fierydragon.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/088_1.jpg

Possibly, but Dragons are definitely into "minature" games.

[Shirow]

Jay R
Re: Do they play D&D in D&D?

A D&D world includes anything the DM wants to include.

There is no such thing as a role-playing game in my world, because I try to keep as close to the feel of a medieval feudal society as possible, given the presence of magic. But many DMs prefer to run a game with a much more modern feel -- and that's fine, too.

Agreed.

That said I remember the DarkSun books had a casino game that was basically D&D with bets. Having to play risking your livelihood for the amusement of a bunch of distant, probably inebriated strangers... sounds like a precursor to them roleplaying youtube channels.

[Duff]

The "Wargames as training tools" assumes a professional officer/leader training system such as a "War Collage" which an empire might have. If your setting has this, a simulation system is almost inevitable, though they might do like the Romans did and really just teach theory and have students study past battles.
Storytelling games are common across different times of history, so you'd expect them to exist in some cultures.

But Having a consistent "game" for an RPG requires easy communication so a set of rules can spread. Either a simple game could spread by word of mouth (maybe spread by bards who GM games in pubs?) or a more complex ones which would need a publishing industry.
Given it's generally a bit of an unusual hobby, It'd also need fairly wide and changing social circles

[Saintheart]

They call it Houses & Humans

"The game designers thought a Waged Employee 20 build was more than enough to meet most of the challenges in the game, but they totally did not think through how the game rules were meant to deal with a Sociopath 1/Banker 6/Company Director 10 with the Leadership feat hiring on a bunch of Lawyer 10 cohorts. My DM quit running his whole campaign in disgust after I played one of those for three months or so."

[Zhorn]

As always there's an XKCD for every occasion
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tabletop_roleplaying.png

[Mastikator]

My character got a proficiency in a game of my choice, I asked my DM if the game could be Dungeons and Dragons. He said no :smalltongue:

[EggKookoo]

As always there's an XKCD for every occasion
https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/tabletop_roleplaying.png

If you play a TTRPG within which the PCs play some form of TTRPG, it follows that the PCs in that second TTRPG do the same.

Question #1: Why would it ever stop?

Question #2: What makes you so confident you're at the beginning?

[noob]

Obviously the study of physics would result in the periodic publication of up to date "player manuals" and "planar manuals", the study of economy and sociology would result in the periodic publication of "game master manuals" , the study of the fauna and flora would result in the periodic publication of "monster manuals" and the study of civilisation would result in periodical publication of "setting manuals" then due to dragons owning the scientific journals and storing the printing facilities in dungeons the publisher would then call itself "dungeons and dragons" and the published books that compiles the current knowledge would be called "dungeon and dragons manuals"
Of course physicians would frequently experiment corner cases that arise from theoretical models (when they get their sheets and play dnd) like infinite club crafting and many other exotic phenomenons to try to see the limitations of their models.
Those who actively try to find incoherent things in the models are called Raw physicians due to their usual bluntness and lack of refinement.
Engineers that find cool stuff through practice are called optimisers and engineers that do so by reading the theory and then trying to find the coolest things to do are called theoretical optimisers.

Testing physical theories is an extremely dangerous job: when you test a corner case of reality the following things often happens
1: lightning smites you.(half of the damage is lightning the other half is divine)
2: rocks falls and you die.(heaps of blunt damage + a death effect).
3: you simply stop existing.(unnaming which is more common if you are a normal person: some odd people are less affected by that and usually those people also rapidly progress to absurd strength)
So physicians usually want to give their assistants equipment such as deathwarding items, an item that gives the troll blooded feat and are ready to get someone to cast the ritual of renaming and resurrection(so a wizard and a cleric or two scrolls).
Sometimes all the group involved in the experience suffers from the effect and people might forget the group existed.
The risks of the study of the corner cases of the physics are considered worth it by many people due to the potential promises of a greater understanding of reality itself.

So there is dnd players in dnd and they are physicians. (if you make convoluted settings where people are not disallowed from studying the universe but most people just forbid the participants of a setting from studying the rules of physics)

[Ashtagon]

"The game designers thought a Waged Employee 20 build was more than enough to meet most of the challenges in the game, but they totally did not think through how the game rules were meant to deal with a Sociopath 1/Banker 6/Company Director 10 with the Leadership feat hiring on a bunch of Lawyer 10 cohorts. My DM quit running his whole campaign in disgust after I played one of those for three months or so."

I prefer Papers & Paychecks. They ironed out most of the balance issues in that variant.

[Lord Torath]

If you play a TTRPG within which the PCs play some form of TTRPG, it follows that the PCs in that second TTRPG do the same.

Question #1: Why would it ever stop?

Question #2: What makes you so confident you're at the beginning?Per Scientific American:
Do We Live in a Simulation? Chances Are about 50–50 (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-we-live-in-a-simulation-chances-are-about-50-50/)

[Martin Greywolf]

Here's a fun historical fact, early knightly tournaments (~1200-1350) were essentially LARPing. A bunch of nobles with retinue get together, cordon off a pretty big bit of land - think two or so villages - and assign roles. Arthurian myths were popular, so the king gets to be Arthur, his most trusted duke is now Lancelot (and he will hopefully not reenact that too much), someone gets assigned Mordred and persumably hams it up to high heaven, and theyn they proceed to reenact a war in that area for a day or two.

Captives are taken, and are ransomed for a modest sum - as opposed for a massive sum, if they were captured in an actual war - fights are had both on horseback and off and so on. Villagers aren't terribly happy because this can and will somewhat damage the crops, but they will get a lot of business selling ale and such to nobles.

And honestly, this medieval hardcore LARP is pretty close to an actual war, and a pretty good substitute for a wargame.

For a less expensive wargame, look at hunts. Hunting a bear or boar on horseback with melee weapons was a dangerous thing to do and required quite a bit of coordination.

[RedMage125]

If you play a TTRPG within which the PCs play some form of TTRPG, it follows that the PCs in that second TTRPG do the same.

Question #1: Why would it ever stop?

Question #2: What makes you so confident you're at the beginning?
I think there was a comedian who had a bit to this effect. The main thrust of the joke was that the player for his character was basically Gilligan. So many times when stuff goes wrong, he's just like "Well, Gilligan rolled a nat 1".

[Amon Winterfall]

The in world version I use is 'Contracts and Corporations', which of course takes on a fantastical version of giant businesses, heroic salesmen, lawyers, service techs and proficiency coaches taking on ever more difficult Karens in fantastical Manhattan.

There is a great deal of aping IG concepts into this setting, such as 'Improved Market Penetration', 'Improved Sales (Type of Transaction) and 'Liability Protection'. We'd probably find it highly similar to work, but IG it's different and strange enough that it has its own audience. Several NPCs have been playing C&C throughout the campaigns.

[Prime32]

Darksword Adventures is presented as a tabletop adaptation of an illusion-enhanced LARP that's popular among nobles in the Darksword Trilogy's setting.

[Duff]

Darksword Adventures is presented as a tabletop adaptation of an illusion-enhanced LARP that's popular among nobles in the Darksword Trilogy's setting.

And that it's partly used as a training tool as I recall

[FabulousFizban]

No recursion!

[Anonymouswizard]

So in the setting I recently started designing military training-style wargames do exist, and the rules have been adapted for hobbyist miniatures+cards games which are popularly played by the middle classes, but modern RPGs are pretty much non-existent. You get occasional Blackmoor style games popping up (i.e. you all get a hero figure, now let's dungeon crawl), but there's never enough interest for them to grow beyond a single club.

On the other hand the game is very much in the 1800s technology wise, barring firearms*, with organised clerical and wizardly magic making cities safer places to live than in they were in our world, so there are getting to be enough people not working 12 hour days to make such things begin to take off. There's no companies providing figures specifically for them yet, or even anything in the way of standardised rules, but give it a couple of decades and there probably will be.

* Which are currently on the edge of being added, I like characters carrying flintlock pistols and rifles instead of bows. Although nothing beyond that at the very least.

[Clistenes]

I can see them playing a version of our own world Great Chess...


The real original D&D is a battle game created by Alfonso X of Castile "The Wise" during the XIII century. His game was called "Great Chess", and it had a big ass checkered table with two armies that included archers, knights, elephants, griffins, dragons, unicorns, lions, bears and all kind of creatures, and when two creatures fought, they used a eight-sided dice to simulate combat.

He also wrote the first PHB, the Book of Games.