It’s no secret that 3rd Edition D&D made player characters more complex. With the goal of making them more customizable and individualized, characters became elaborate, with skills and feats, prestige classes, and more. For many players, this was fun and rewarding.
This was an awesome read. Very much agree. As you were writing about minor characters having dreams, desires, etc... off screen, all I could think about was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard play). In the play, the characters are, as you advocate, elevated from minor characters to main characters and additionally 'fleshed out' to make them into lead roles. Your spot-on with this article.
Thank you very much for another great post. I completely agree that 3rd Edition D&D made player characters more complex. With the goal of making them more customizable and individualized, characters became elaborate, with skills and feats, prestige classes, and more. In my opinion, this also led D&D characters to resemble more like action RPG builds, such as Diablo. Instead of the player thinking about what type of character their fighter or wizard is, there's a whole tech tree that offers you options. The campaign I GM is a 5th edition campaign, but secretly, I long for the clunkiness of AD&D characters, THAC0, and all. How do you see this?
This is something that's much more elegant in systems like PbTA where the players are the only ones who roll dice.
In D&D, when PCs try to do something involving an NPC, that often involves a contested roll where the player rolls for their character and the DM rolls for the NPC. There's an unstated assumption here of a degree of narrative agency for the NPC.
In contrast, in something like Stonetop, the question is not "Will the PC do better than the NPC?" but "Will the PC succeed? If so, what will be the cost, and how effective will their success be?" A GM in a PbtA system might write a custom move for an NPC to help add flavor and put the PCs in a spot, but the agency always remains with the players to a degree that D&D doesn't approach.
I feel this one so much. Last night, while running Dead Gods, one of the players walked into a demonic temple so infested with evil that it instantly killed him (after so much foreshadowing and GM warnings). After dispelling the illusions around the temple, the players spent a half hour trying to find the source of no-saving throw instant death ability so they could use it themselves!
Licensed characters like the ones in Marvel Super Heroes, where they are both, could be an exception, but in general I agree.
I especially liked that bit about non-canon abilities for NPCs. I use that all the time, and it never feels like "cheating" to me, though I've had that argument with people.
This was an awesome read. Very much agree. As you were writing about minor characters having dreams, desires, etc... off screen, all I could think about was Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard play). In the play, the characters are, as you advocate, elevated from minor characters to main characters and additionally 'fleshed out' to make them into lead roles. Your spot-on with this article.
This was a refreshing read. Thanks, Monte.
Thank you very much for another great post. I completely agree that 3rd Edition D&D made player characters more complex. With the goal of making them more customizable and individualized, characters became elaborate, with skills and feats, prestige classes, and more. In my opinion, this also led D&D characters to resemble more like action RPG builds, such as Diablo. Instead of the player thinking about what type of character their fighter or wizard is, there's a whole tech tree that offers you options. The campaign I GM is a 5th edition campaign, but secretly, I long for the clunkiness of AD&D characters, THAC0, and all. How do you see this?
Many OSR players would agree as well. Often have I seen a DM add high level Clerics to settlements from the book only to have a player ask:
"Why are you giving this NPC spells from the Player Character Creation Rules?"
The setting and the players place in it both become lessened by this behavior.
This is something that's much more elegant in systems like PbTA where the players are the only ones who roll dice.
In D&D, when PCs try to do something involving an NPC, that often involves a contested roll where the player rolls for their character and the DM rolls for the NPC. There's an unstated assumption here of a degree of narrative agency for the NPC.
In contrast, in something like Stonetop, the question is not "Will the PC do better than the NPC?" but "Will the PC succeed? If so, what will be the cost, and how effective will their success be?" A GM in a PbtA system might write a custom move for an NPC to help add flavor and put the PCs in a spot, but the agency always remains with the players to a degree that D&D doesn't approach.
I feel this one so much. Last night, while running Dead Gods, one of the players walked into a demonic temple so infested with evil that it instantly killed him (after so much foreshadowing and GM warnings). After dispelling the illusions around the temple, the players spent a half hour trying to find the source of no-saving throw instant death ability so they could use it themselves!
Licensed characters like the ones in Marvel Super Heroes, where they are both, could be an exception, but in general I agree.
I especially liked that bit about non-canon abilities for NPCs. I use that all the time, and it never feels like "cheating" to me, though I've had that argument with people.