Community

This came up on another thread and I got some positive feedback about starting a thread so I decided to take the plunge.

Now before I start I realize that D&D can be many things to many people.  I am not saying that one group cannot play a skill game and another a different sort of game.   Roleplaying really is wide open.   What I am asking is your own take on the game.  Do you as DM or as player have expectations?  So then me explain a bit more and then give me your opinion.

A game of skill is one that challenges the mental and physical faculties of the players.   Basketball is a game of skill for example.   Typically it is really only a game of skill though if it is at least challenging if not hard.   Is hard fun you say?  Sure hard can be fun.  It is hard to beat a skilled tennis player at tennis but it would be fun to do so.  The process of stretching yourself to the limit to overcome the challenge could be fun.   But D&D is a cooperative game, and we all know any DM halfway competant will win everytime if it is a player vs DM showdown.   So in a skill game of D&D the enemy is not the DM.   Rather the DM is like the Soduku puzzle maker.   Solving Soduku puzzles can be challenging.   The puzzle maker makes easy, medium, and hard puzzles if he is writing a book.  But what if the puzzle maker knew he was making a puzzle for Emerikol.  Well perhaps he would watch me do other puzzles and he would learn my strengths and weaknesses and then he'd design a puzzle that was just at the edge of my ability to solve.   I'd have to work hard to beat it but I could do so.  That is the role of the DM in a skill game.   So if you had a table of completely new players who'd never cracked a book before, you would definitely start them off slow and easy.  That would still be very challenging for them.  If you have a bunch of grizzled grognards who know the rules inside out then of course you would start them off with a much harder scenario.   In a way this is the beauty of a DM.

On the flip side, you have people I believe who really don't want a challenge.  They are tired after work and they just want to imagine great deeds.   So the DM in this case might make the challenge level easier (not nonexistant mind you) so that the point is not to exercise skill but rather to just be heroic and to roleplay.  A good example provided by Kalnaur is - what level do you play your video games on?  Do you like to set them on easy and just wade through bad guys in a glorious slaughter or would you prefer something that tests your skill.

So here are some ways a simulationist/sandbox DM might challenge his group.   Keep in mind that I am NOT saying other types of playstyles can't be hard or easy.  There may be tendencies within those groups but I'd guess that you could find any level of hard within all the other camps.   There is correlation but not causation.

1.  Preparation - The right spells chosen, The right equipment purchased including food and water.  The right escape plan in some instances.
2.  Cascading difficulty with commensurate rewards.  Meaning you sprinkle the sandbox with a variety of monsters of varying levels and the treasure you hand out is for the monster difficulty not for the groups level.  This has to be tempered by common sense of course.
3.  Monsters play smart and react to what the characters do.  If you attack them and don't finish them off you can expect countermeasures.  

So anyway.  I know it's probably impossible but if you can just explain your playstyle without damning all the others that would be nice.   


EDIT:  Also please note this is not a question of do you or don't you roleplay.  I am assuming you are roleplaying either way.  If you are not roleplaying at all I suggest you try it sometime. 

It can be a game of skill on the part of the players and on the part of the DM.

The DM has to craft adventures and situations and an overall campaign that will challenge the players in the way the group likes to play. And then the players have to overcome the challenges the DM puts on the table. Success is achieved when everyone around the table finishes the session with, "Wow, that was great!" and are eager to come back for the next one

As a DM, I challenge myself to provide adventures that push my players, and their characters, to their limits.  As a player, I expect to be challenged by the DM.  This does not mean that a session is continuosly building pressure, instead there are ebbs and flows.  Everyone needs a break from the action every now and again.

My game world will also react to the players' actions should they become a threat, to the point where the NPCs plot against the players.  This is not to be confused with the DM plotting against the players; the DM should always be working with the players.  Instead, the NPCs have their own agendas, intelligence, relationships, and limits in resources.  All of these are taken into consideration.

To each their own, but I don't see the point in having such a complex and thorough rule set such as D&D provides if you are just going to make all of the adventures easy. The rewards you receive (sense of accomplishment and fun) are parallel to the risks you take.

I don't have a problem with there being rules (i.e., a method to quantify decision-making) about things other than combat. Non-weapon proficiencies, skills, etc., can all be quantified, but there's still the imagination of the people to create all kinds of interesting things.

Say a good cleric sees an evil altar with an avatar on it, and the avatar is holding a candle and a book. The cleric enlists help to get high enough to reach the candle and book to take power away from the altar. A dex check for the cleric and a strength check for the helper will help the DM moderate how well they managed it. No combat involved, it fully supports the roleplay, and the numbers on the character sheet directly influence the action the players thought up.

Sorry if I didn't make this clear.  I'm talking about skill in playing.  Of course DMs need all sorts of skills to make a good world and thats true even if the players want a less skill oriented game.   I'm also not talking about build skill.   That is another topic.  I'm talking about what you do in game as a character.  How much challenge or difficulty in that regard?

Ok sorry for not making this clearer.