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2017-06-24, 12:59 PM (ISO 8601)
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#5
Re: Is it time to cut the war game roots of role-playing?
D&D is a game about adventurers going out and fighting potential dragons that may or may not be in dungeons or dungeon-like areas.
Different tools, or systems in this case, for telling different stories.
When I sit down to play a game, sometimes I just want lighthearted and dumb fun:
-The party is yukking it up at a tavern
-Some old man bursts in yelling "Da boggarts are baggin' muh babies!"
-Party grabs their weapons, tosses a few gold at the bartender and pay for a round then go stop the boggarts from putting infants in burlap sacs
-Return to tavern successful with a new story to tell
Is my character Sol Fightman called that because he's the sole fighter in the group? Yes. Yes he is. Does he need a deeper characterization? For the theoretical game here? No. Sol is a guy with a sword who does things that are vaguely "right" because we're just here to have dumb fun and kick in goblin heads.
Not every TTRPG follows that trend. Ryuutama is Oregon Trail, if it was told by Miyazaki. You're a group of people going from A to B and you're not Badass adventurers, you're like... a farmer, a merchant, a bright-eyed youth looking for adventure and a country girl who's going to join a convent and the game is basically the stuff that happens between A and B.
Does that make Ryuutama the superior game because it lacks the wargaming roots? Well, it's a poor game if you're looking to tell a story about adventurers dungeon delving and kicking in faces, but that's not what the game is about. I'm sure you can make it work with some tinkering, but that's largely missing the point in my opinion. D&D is way better at telling that story out of the box.
But the point is: use the system that best fits the story you want to tell.
I like D&D because I like the stories it tells and the wargaming roots help tell them.
But to focus on your points:
Soldiers March to War: look three sentences up "use the system that best fits the story you want to tell". You have a square peg, you looked around, bought a board with a round hole and now you're complaining it's not fitting. Yes D&D is bad at telling stories about non-adventurers. That's because it's not supposed to be a game about a wandering crafter unless that crafter is also called Tony Stark/Iron Man.
The Never-Ending Battle: D&D tries to emulate the legends of knights and heroes that go out to kill monsters that threaten people: Hercules and his Hydra, Beowulf and Grendel, etc... Combat is kinda important to some of these stories. Where you say "I'm talking about how when you calculate a modifier you are not thinking about the character's character" I would say you're simply missing the big picture and trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. You're looking at the fight on a round by round basis, but in truth you should be looking at 2 things: "what does how my character fight say about him?" and "how does my character feel about this engagement?"
Do you focus on non-lethal takedowns? Do you use magic that incapacitates rather then hurt? Do you focus on ending the fight as soon as possible? Do you care about collateral damage?
When a fight starts or you see a fight incoming (either because you're hidden or the enemy is clearly in the open) do you try to avoid a fight if possible? Do you feel the fight is pointless and both parties should stop? Are you willing to fight to the death in this engagement, is it worth it?
This is the questions you should be asking: the context around the combat (or avoiding it or whatever), not the round-by-round.
Downtime: that's one part "what kind of story do you want to tell" and one part "is this really the right game for you?". D&D can do non-combat, it just depends on what kind of non-combat you're looking for and the depth of those mechanics. If you're looking to play the wandering craftsman, assume basic competence where the character has the training to succeed at tasks around his trade barring times of duress and use the existing systems to work around those times, basically turning the act of crafting into an adventure. If you want to make a fancy sword+shield or a tapestry to present to a local lord...
-History or Religion can be used to accurately convey a scene.
-Thievery if you're looking to add very fine details.
-Endurance if you're going to be burning the midnight oil or spending prolonged time by the forge.
-You may need to help someone with a task or try to persuade them so you can get first dibs high quality materials which can potentially require the full use of the social skills: Diplomacy, Intimidation, Insight & Streetwise.
-Worst case scenario, you may need to rough up a few punks.
"Downtime" doesn't necessarily mean "nothing happens", you can frame downtime as you would an adventure, it just requires the GM and other players to buy into it.
Front line & Special Units If you're going to play a class-based game, the classes should have something special about them. D&D is about a small squad of people who are good a thing and generally rely on each other cover the areas they're not good at. In D&D you're not just RandomFighter213547, You're Sol Fightman. You have cool things you can do that's different from 'ol Pious Pete because you're a fighter and not a cleric. If you want to a game with a more homogenous cast, many point-based games like GURPS can do this, but even then you'll likely end up with characters that have specialized roles within the team.
D&D is just really bad at defining what it wants casters/noncasters to be good at. that's less a problem with the "derived from wargames" and more "cruddy design".
Balance for the War God Yes, if your game has a high focus on "theme or trope X", all characters being able to contribute to "Theme or trope X" is a good thing. I... I don't see how that's a bad thing. I mean, if you want to go out of your way to be cruddy at X, that's your perogative, but the standard should be some amount of competence in the areas the game will focus on.
In D&D that's adventuring, thus the characters have a certain amount of basic competence in combat and the skillset required to go in a cave, find a special mushroom so you can use it to lure out the Fanged Claw-Beast and kill it for it's pineal gland and mix up a potion to cure the disease threatening the princess.
Missed Who for the What Ranger/Barbarian describes how your character will be working within the party. It tells you the skill set they bring that will help with the tasks the party will be facing within the context of "we're adventurers going on adventures". It doesn't tell me about their personality, sure, but "A strong warrior who hunts to feed the members of her extended family" doesn't tell my character why I should bring you along to go fight that Fanged Claw-Beast. Everyone has a story and they'll share it when and if they're ready. But until then, what do you bring to this adventuring party?
Because if I'm throwing myself into danger, I'm much more willing to do so with confidence knowing I've got skilled tracker, hunter and outdoorsman who can swing a battle axe like nobody's business then "guy with a starving family".
Characterization is fine and good, but a dead PC rarely tells anymore tales. Unless you do that whole "break into hades and drag them back to the living thing". Then you have an awesome story to tell.