[D&D] Defining the kind of game I would want to run
mearls writes “A core story is the stereotypical game experience contained within an RPG,” and that it’s important to have a well-defined core story (it provides focus, among other things). You can read a discussion of core stories in his journal here and here.
The core story of Dungeons & Dragons has been described (by Ryan Delancey) as “A party of adventurers assemble to seek fame and fortune. They leave civilization for a location of extreme danger. They fight monsters and overcome obstacles and acquire new abilities and items of power. Afterwards they return to civilization and sell the phat loot. Next week, they do it all over again.”
This probably isn’t news to anyone. It can be summarised even more to “Kill monsters and take their stuff.” And it obviously works - Dungeons & Dragons is the most popular and successful RPG for a reason. It has a strong core story and has rules and supplements that support it. But is it the core story that I want in a game that I run? Not particularly.
There are some aspects of stereotypical D&D play that I’d like to discard, either because my imagined play group is jaded with them or because they don’t work stylistically with what I have in mind. So to do that successfully, without players defaulting to the core story above, I’ll need to define a new cire story (that is supportable by D&D’s rules!) and emphasise or de-emphasise some things within the rules or gameplay to suit.
Consider the following:
The PCs are people of exceptional talent and specialised abilities who belong to an altruistic, fraternal society. They uncover threats to society or to their way of life and venture into highly dangerous places to find the cause. Using cunning, martial ability, and magic, they defeat their adversaries or undermine their schemes. Afterwards they return to the safety of their grateful allies and patrons.
Something that should be immediately apparent is a change from the mercenary or thrill-seeking motivations of “adventurers” to characters who are motivated by altruism or duty (implied by belonging to a fellowship like the Freemasons). The fantasy that I enjoy has more altruistic characters than self-serving characters, but the typical D&D game encourages very self-serving play in the character rewards mechanism.
D&D has a very strong system of Rewards. In typical play, you overcome a Challenge (kill the monster) and are Rewarded for doing so (get XP and treasure). You can’t just gloss over this mechanism - if you try (and I have tried! Foolish me) the players seek it out anyway. I think it’s better to create a different mechanism.
So let’s change how treasure and XP are earned...
Not all monsters have ”treasure” that the PCs will want. If the PCs overcome a high priest of the serpent god, odds are that he has blasphemous magical accoutrements and a bit of serpent god jewellery. The PCs shouldn’t want to even touvh this stuff, let alone sell it or use it themselves. Instead, the PCs can receive various tangible rewards as gifts or patronage from NPCs and friendly organisations. If this is the understood norm, then players can look at other ways of dealing with the possessions of defeated enemies. Destroying a magic item (or even ransoming it in exchange for a captured ally) seems less insane if the PCs were never going to use it themselves.
Then there’s experience points. A typical D&D game provides experience rewards whenever the PCs overcome a challenge... which can lead to a “kill them all for XP!” mentality (sure, you can overcome a challenge using non-combat means, but it’s often simpler to simply attack). However, compare the typical D&D core story to the new one that I’ve defined above. rather than overcoming challenges, the PCs should be defeating adversaries and undermining their schemes. It’s objective-based, not task-based, experience.
Fighting the ogre bodyguards won’t necessarily help the PCs to earn XP - they’re there to make it harder for the PCs to defeat the evil mastermind. If the PCs spend their strength against the ogres then the mastermind will get away, and then it doesn’t matter how many ogres they killed - they failed in their objective.
It will be necessary to figure out the exact mechanisms for awarding experience in this way (is there are reduced award in the case of failure, or no reward at all? How much XP should be awarded? and so on) but intent is to make the game less of a sweep and exterminate dungeon-bash and something that encourages prudence and intelligent decision-making on more than the immediate tactical level.
More later.
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