When I started playing in the late 70's people used to ask me about D&D. The classic first two questions were; Where is the board? and How do you win?
In answer to the second question I would answer that you dont 'win' you enjoy playing and you play characters who develop as they progress through life in a fantasy world. Each mission or 'dungeon' has a possibility for success but you keep coming back for more.
In those days 10th level was high level and 15th level absurd and achieved only after years of gaming dedication or by the odd munchkinesque frenzy.
With the advent of 3rd edition (which breathed life back into the game) I feel more like the game is a bit of a race to 20th level, then you start again. This is exacerbated by the adventure path concept (again, as a rule, I love them) The characters have less time to develop. Now it feels like you 'win' by getting to 20th level, I am not sure if I like this feeling, just wondering if anyone else feels the same?
just wondering if anyone else feels the same?
Nope.
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just wondering if anyone else feels the same?Nope.
Another no here. I actually like the progression better now. You can try different class and race combinations more often and experience more of the game. I started with the purplish box set that had the badly drawn dragon on the front.
Unless you have several games going you didn't get play very many character concepts back then (unless you had a high mortality rate). I like being able to retire a character after 1-1/2 years and starting a new, different one. I think it helps to keep the game fresh.My 2 Silver (coppers are for the cheap thoughts)
FH
I don't believe the game ever does have an ending. I feel that there is a chance to win. (Like when you beat the evil priest of Zuggmund and rid the village of the fungoid presence. The campaign I am in right now, Science Teachers what can you expect :) ).
It is about having fun that is what is most important.
I feel that you "win" when everybody enjoys a session and the group works together with as much synergy and cooperation as possible. When everyone goes home smiling and excited even if a PC or two died, I feel like it was a successful session. I don't believe there is a win in the more traditional sense because it is not a competitive game.
I was surprised when a recent visitor to the game room, who was all excited about finally seeing "a real live D&D game" uttered these words upon seeing us around the battlemat:
"OH, it's just a board game"
After she had left, one of my players turned to me and said:
"Now that she's gone, get out the fake helmets and nerf swords and we can LARP again!"
Where is the board? and How do you win?
There is none; your imagination creates the world around you.
You don't; the object of the game is to develope your character's personality, capabilities and finances.
I always get that first question when I try to explain D&D...
But as for winning. You win by enjoying yourself, by getting together with good friends, by owning that BBEG and his mother-in-law's cousin's vast army of undead, or just by looking forward to playing...
Heck, just in my planning for my upcoming game, my friends have grown eager to play, and two of them have never even played before.
-Kurocyn
I was surprised when a recent visitor to the game room, who was all excited about finally seeing "a real live D&D game" uttered these words upon seeing us around the battlemat:"OH, it's just a board game"
Maybe she was expecting to see real live spell effects and evil rituals, like the Chick tracts promised.
How do you win?
1) Did you have fun?
Players win if you're welcome at the next session.
DMs win if there IS a next session.
Fun has been a measure of success in RPGs for me for a long time, and I have never forgotten what happened many years ago (school days) when our DM decided to put some variation into our D&D campaign by taking a break and letting someone else take the hot seat. I went from good player to bad DM and 3 weeks later my badly-plotted adventure had been dumped in favour of Cyberpunk. What makes it particualrly painful was that we were most of the way through the Master level modules and on course for the big finale - whatever that was going to be.
2) Do you care about your characters, or how much cool kit they've got?
The other big factor (for me) is how involved you are. I used to play in an excellent Mage:The Ascension campaign that flowed entirely out of the head of a highly creative GM. He didn't just develop well-characterised opponents and devious plotlines but pushed & helped us to flesh out our character's life stories. He would then use that information to enhance the game world. To be suddenly confronted by the ghosts of your character's past is an exhilarating feeling.
When the game suddlenly beomes about WHO your character is (and what is ROLE playing about if not character?) and not how much damage he can do with his magic sword or a wave of his hand then I feel you've achieved something.
Albedo
(Bit long for a first post, but I get carried away sometimes)
Winning comes in small doses - defeat a bandit ambush here, protect the caravan there. Occasionally, you'll get larger doses of save the princess and find the evil mastermind, but there's no definitive end to the game. It lasts for as long as you, The Player, and The Dungeon Master (Mistress) wants it to last.
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I dont know about everyone else but one thing I love to do is to revisit my high level characters. I love to get my players up to 20th level and then have them run through an epic adventure later on. I dont think the game ever does end, your charaters of whatever level are still effecting the world that they live in. The beautiful part of Dungeons and Dragons is that we are playing in a world that we as a group can change. That is the magic and the draw of this game.
Maybe she was expecting to see real live spell effects and evil rituals, like the Chick tracts promised.
I was surprised when a recent visitor to the game room, who was all excited about finally seeing "a real live D&D game" uttered these words upon seeing us around the battlemat:"OH, it's just a board game"
I am sure you are correct. Perhaps she was unable to cloak her disappointment that none of us had hanged ourselves because our character died. *g*
Having encountered these questions previously:
(Skeptic) Where's the board?
*** Moik bangs on the table
(Skeptic) How do you win?
(Moik) Piece by piece.
(Skeptic) No, like, when do you win?
(Moik) Intermittently.
(Skeptic) Screw off. You know what I mean. When is the game done?
(Moik) When you die or retire.
(Skeptic) So how long does the game end up lasting?
(Moik) Until you get bored and move on to something else. That's this game's point.
I don't see a change in that mentality from anyone I know in the transition from 2.0 to 3.0. We still never play as far as Level 20 anyways. We've won when we're satisfied with what we've "accomplished."
Maybe she was expecting to see real live spell effects and evil rituals...
In the last game I was in, one of the other players had a new girlfriend. When he invited her to come and watch a game, she replied, "D&D? Is that where you sacrifice animals and stuff?" ( <--she was completely serious... )
-Kurocyn
Maybe she was expecting to see real live spell effects and evil rituals...In the last game I was in, one of the other players had a new girlfriend. When he invited her to come and watch a game, she replied, "D&D? Is that where you sacrifice animals and stuff?" ( <--she was completely serious... )
-Kurocyn
Maybe that's how you win... I never thought of that. OK, off to try some animal sacrifices. I will let you all know how it goes *g*
Maybe that's how you win... I never thought of that. OK, off to try some animal sacrifices. I will let you all know how it goes *g*
Yeah, maybe we have been playing wrong all the time...I have only sacrificed animals and occasionally people ingame, maybe I should rethink my storytelling props...(yes, some games I have been in are Jack Chick wet dreams...let's not even start about one where we were literally fighting against Jesus)
But seriously: You win when you have fun. The point of the game is to play.
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With the advent of 3rd edition (which breathed life back into the game) I feel more like the game is a bit of a race to 20th level, then you start again. This is exacerbated by the adventure path concept (again, as a rule, I love them) The characters have less time to develop. Now it feels like you 'win' by getting to 20th level, I am not sure if I like this feeling, just wondering if anyone else feels the same?
Mmmmhhh... no.
In my experience as a DM, a 3rd Edition campaign takes about two years to develop a character from the first level to about level 15. And I play quite regularly every week, so you can calculate 104 sessions for 15 levels... about seven session for a level.
Which is a lot of time to develop a character and adventure/roleplay/fight/explore/sleep/eat/whatever.
I know that the first levels (from the 1° to about the 6°) are really quick, but the progression slows down aftewards, grinding to a very slow pace from the 14° to the 20°.
I feel no particular urge to get to the maximum (non-epic) level, nor thet the progression is unbalanced in such a way that it disrupts a game.
Maybe that's how you win... I never thought of that. OK, off to try some animal sacrifices. I will let you all know how it goes *g*Yeah, maybe we have been playing wrong all the time...I have only sacrificed animals and occasionally people ingame, maybe I should rethink my storytelling props...(yes, some games I have been in are Jack Chick wet dreams...let's not even start about one where we were literally fighting against Jesus)
But seriously: You win when you have fun. The point of the game is to play.
Amen, (no pun intended). I also ran a brief mini campaign arc which was a precursor to the alternate history of Atlantis Reborn and Merchants of Astephel in which the players were all monster PC's who had received word of an itinerant rabbi who was going to seal the fate of monsterkind with his new peacenik religion.
Their mission: to assassinate Yeshua of Nazareth. They failed, which set in motion the next campaign, 1600+ years later, during the violent inquisition of the church he started. Interestingly enough, the characters in AR met the ascended Jesus, they just never put two and two together. He tasked them with destroying the church (he had started), which had gotten out of control and become more violent and political than he had anticipated. Unfortunately they failed at that too. Flash forward 400 years, and the Earth is under water. They managed to tick off Al Gore and Jesus in one swell foop. *g*
Despite their failures, they had fun so, it can still be considered a victory by the terms discussed above. They are doing much better this time around. The world is only half in danger of being destroyed.
"D&D? Is that where you sacrifice animals and stuff?" ( <--she was completely serious... )
-Kurocyn
We had a gal who played in our group a few years back, and her husband was convinced that D&D was this evil, nasty game...In exasperation, she eventually told him, "Yes, we sacrifice goats every Friday night!" So from then on, whenever he called her during sessions, the rest of us would make goat noises in the background.
--Fang
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So from then on, whenever he called her during sessions, the rest of us would make goat noises in the background...
That's AWESOME. Sounds like something my friends and I would do if we discovered a naysayer in our midst.
It's become an unwritten rule in our circle: "Thou shalt not date non-gamers. If thou doest defy this law, thou shalt convert them into a gamer before the passage of three moons. Those who do not convert must be dumped."
I also ran a brief mini campaign arc which was a precursor to the alternate history of Atlantis Reborn and Merchants of Astephel in which the players were all monster PC's who had received word of an itinerant rabbi who was going to seal the fate of monsterkind with his new peacenik religion.
Ours was modern day World of Darkness adventure where templars had attempted to resurrect Jesus by relics they had got hold of (Holy Grail, Shroud of Turin, the usual). Unfortunately they botched the job and Jesus came back...wrong. Psychotic hellfire wrong. Well, he was causing havoc in our turf so we had to deal with it.
Fighting Jesus? Wow.... just, wow.
Well, I guess it makes a certain kind of since. I was raised atheist, so I didn't necessarily have that backlash against judeo-christian thought in my angry young man years. No need to kill Jesus in (in-game) effigy.
Btw I'm not trying to put down the games of those of you who did choose to insert Jesus.
As far as winning DnD, I played vampire before I played DnD, and the ST was awesome and explained the whole idea of collaborative storytelling to me (I think I was like 10). Fast forward 4 years and im putting together a DnD group.... and I have this ideaof what a roleplaying game is, but my players think it is more like Diablo. Took a while to work those kinks out.
At the risk of steering off topic further than already, I just wanted to clarify.
I hope nobody was offended by the Jesus thing, although I suspect from the general level of erudition around here, nobody was.
I just wanted to say, I am not an angry young man, and I only ever was for a brief period during my college years in Buffalo (A city which will make anyone angry, but rarely young). I was not raised Christian or Jewish and I sometimes feel a little left out, but mostly I am OK with it. I have more interesting targets for my splenetic rage on the occasions when it does surface than an itinerant rabbi from the levant who died nearly 2000 years ago. I did not include Jesus for the reasons you assumed, only as an historical personage. I took no offense, but I did want to clarify because assumption left uncorrected is a dangerous thing.
And off-topic we go...
While the DM who ran the adventure does have some angry-young-man tendencies I guess the bigger factors were interest to try out Mage (I played a mage character who sided with local vampires to oppose this strange threat) and the fact that we were looking for some quick game to play during _Easter_ holiday. Easter + WoD = "we must kill Jesus".
So there definitely is more than just "a historical character" factor but hey, especially in one-shots it is often fun to go to epic scale and try out things one wouldn't do in any normal game.