The Way You Pay for Games You Play
At one point Lister and I got into a discussion about the relative merits of Dungeons and Dragons (3.x, specifically) versus other systems. Now here’s the thing from my perspective: d20 is, from my experience, a remarkably average system. I don’t think it works as well as a universal system as people wish it did (Hero is better and now that I’m looking into GURPS it seems even superior to Hero, at least as a truly generic option) and I think a lot of the mechanics—like the absolute alignments and armor systems—are included too much for historical reasons and not adjusted for actual playability. Lister pointed out that when it comes to monsters and magic, it doesn’t get more complete than D&D and I agree with that.
But here’s my problem with D&D: I think that role-playing systems need to be designed to either be as universal as possible (GURPS, Hero, d20) or as specific to a particular setting as possible with the included rules designed specifically to create situations that match the aims of the setting. For example, Shadowrun’s system is in no way universal but it does implement its peculiarities for the reason of balancing the disparate aspects presented in the fictional world where magic and technology co-exist. Similar systems would be Warhammer FRP, Vampire: The Masquerade, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Call of Cthulu, Paranoia, etc. These games don’t need to have universally applicable rules because their setting is specific and if there are no directly applicable rules to incorporate laser cannons into a WFRP campaign, that’s cool because they don’t really belong there.
Where I think D&D fails is that it provides neither a compelling built-in setting to explain its rules quirks nor does it adequately apply its rules across the board to accomodate any and all possible scenarios. I often wondered why so many D&D adventures were standard dungeon-crawls until I realized that the ideal setting for the rules of Dungeons and Dragons is in a dungeon with the dragon/beholder/lich on the bottom level and pit traps that your rogue better catch if you want to make it back to town with your loot and HP intact.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dungeon crawls, mind you. They can certainly be a hoot and they’re a good way to go if you have a few players together now and you don’t want to spend forever getting everyone up to speed, especially if you don’t know when you can reconvene again. But I think D&D games end up being more board game than RPG because of this: Characters are often played to stereotypes because everyone is more worried about getting off that next fireball or performing the critical feat to kill the kobolds than wondering what their motivation is (and this is just my experience, I don’t mean to suggest that no one role-plays well in D&D). Maybe it has something to do with the alignment system since it’s fairly easy to fall into a static trap of Lawful Good characters being goody-two-shoes with no shades of grey and so on.
It was just an academic exercise until I started thinking about the merchandising tie-ins with Dungeons and Dragons, like the forthcoming D&D Online Multiplayer Online RPG and the Dungeons and Dragons movie. The problem with those is that I look at it and think, “So?” I mean, what is the tie-in with D&D? It’s not even like they’re doing Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms; it’s just run of the mill D&D. So the big twist is that it’s got… half-elves? I don’t play MMORPGs, but I’m guessing there is very little in DDO that hasn’t been available in Everquest since 1998, you know? They’re billing the game as having improved combat systems but when you have what is supposed to be this huge license and your big marketing point is no different than a wholly original game’s might be, I have to wonder what the “hook” for D&D actually is.
Back to the convention, I was a little disappointed in how little they had in the way of actual RPG materials available in the dealer’s room; I couldn’t even find volume 2 of the GURPS 4th edition books in there. Most of what was available was a wash of d20 supplements, one booth for Hero and a few assorted milk crates full of random discounted games. I had to stop at the comic and games store on the way home to find the book. Dumb.
So the whole thing was quite the success I think; even Nik said she had fun which I was a little worried she wouldn’t. I spent some time on Saturday checking out the armies in the WH40K RTT (which Lister and I decided back in November we weren’t going to do at this con) and decided that while I was pretty sure if this was how other people painted I wasn’t ever going to win any best in show awards, I still want to give the tourney thing a try. I’m planning on making a big push for miniatures for May’s KublaCon. Hopefully I’ll have plenty of time to paint up the rest of my Chaos army plus get the Warmaster guys done enough (I’ve actually made some decent progress on them so far) to try out and finish my other Blood Bowl team for the tournament that hopefully Strahd will resume after a DunDraCon absence. At some point I still have a Necromunda gang to buy, assemble and paint plus there’s a stack of Napoleonic Brits to get set up (maybe for next year’s Shield Con which I took a pass on this year) and I still need to get my Shadowrun adventure series (I’ve dropped the scale back from a full campaign) finished so I can run it. Oh, did I mention I have a new idea for a GURPS-based horror adventure? Plus Nik just got me Gang of Four and Mystery of the Abbey for Valentine’s Day so I’m going to be gamer-a-go-go here.
Except all I do is work and then collapse on the couch to watch stupid TV until I fall asleep. I need to get to work on that independently wealthy thing…
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