D&D for non-Forge people
There's a cool thread called [D&D 3.5] Adjust my CA for this game! on the Forge, in which a newish poster lays it all down about his mostly-great D&D game and a bunch of regulars weigh in with opinions.
If you're a Forge regular, and you find yourself occasionally saying bad things about D&D, read it and see how not to jump to conclusions.
If you're not a Forge regular, and you find yourself believing that the Forge is anti-D&D, read it and see how Ron (host and moderator) puts the squelch on bullshit conclusions and drills into what the problems really are. Ron gets a bad rap by lots of folks on RPG.net but he's got a lot of wisdom to share and he's not full of shit most of the time.
Yeah, a few people jumped to some conclusions about D&D in that thread. And, no, I don't entirely think Ron was correct to jump down their throats in his first message there -- they're referring to 3.5E and they know it, and Ron doesn't seem to realize that. But what Ron says later is great. And he realizes that he has little to go on and disclaims it plenty with his "armchair nonsense" comment, so don't jump to too many conclusions yourself.
One thing he said resonated with me, as it's largely the way I had been playing D&D for years:
And both of you are very likely playing in a basic-Sim way which (perhaps) assumes that Narrativist stuff will "just emerge," eventually, as long as you keep the integrity of the SIS preserved every little step of the way. In effect, regardless of eventual or abstract goals, you guys play solid Sim, emphasis on mechanics (time, position, risk, Fortune-at-the-end), enjoyment of characters being mostly arty and internal. I'm perceiving, rightly or wrongly, that you guys have a lot of tactics in your fights and some hints of Premise/dilemmas in your situations, but that neither of these consistently emerges as the make-or-break, driving contexts for your play-experiences.
For the non-Forge people, Sim is Simulationism (generally used in a very specific and focused way) and SIS is "shared imaginary space" (the fiction within the game).
If you're a Forge regular, and you find yourself occasionally saying bad things about D&D, read it and see how not to jump to conclusions.
If you're not a Forge regular, and you find yourself believing that the Forge is anti-D&D, read it and see how Ron (host and moderator) puts the squelch on bullshit conclusions and drills into what the problems really are. Ron gets a bad rap by lots of folks on RPG.net but he's got a lot of wisdom to share and he's not full of shit most of the time.
Yeah, a few people jumped to some conclusions about D&D in that thread. And, no, I don't entirely think Ron was correct to jump down their throats in his first message there -- they're referring to 3.5E and they know it, and Ron doesn't seem to realize that. But what Ron says later is great. And he realizes that he has little to go on and disclaims it plenty with his "armchair nonsense" comment, so don't jump to too many conclusions yourself.
One thing he said resonated with me, as it's largely the way I had been playing D&D for years:
And both of you are very likely playing in a basic-Sim way which (perhaps) assumes that Narrativist stuff will "just emerge," eventually, as long as you keep the integrity of the SIS preserved every little step of the way. In effect, regardless of eventual or abstract goals, you guys play solid Sim, emphasis on mechanics (time, position, risk, Fortune-at-the-end), enjoyment of characters being mostly arty and internal. I'm perceiving, rightly or wrongly, that you guys have a lot of tactics in your fights and some hints of Premise/dilemmas in your situations, but that neither of these consistently emerges as the make-or-break, driving contexts for your play-experiences.
For the non-Forge people, Sim is Simulationism (generally used in a very specific and focused way) and SIS is "shared imaginary space" (the fiction within the game).