Waxing Philosophique of Dungeons & Dragons

Historically, I have long been a table top gamer. I cut my teeth on Advanced Dungeon's and Dragons back in the late 80's, and have always been something of a storyteller even before I found tabletop gaming.

I at one time would regularly regale other children in an interactive style fantasy world of my own making, encouraging adventurous participation and interaction with the world. This was at the tender age of six.

So it was something of a blow a couple weeks ago when Gary Gygax, the original "GM" and auteur of Dungeon's & Dragons met his untimely end. It's taken me this long to write about it because, for me, I was quite bruised by the loss.

In my eyes, Gary Gygax was not just The Irrepressible Dungeon Master, the game he helped give birth to has inspired thousands upon thousands of geeks, philosophers, thinkers, and scientists to attend their respective fields. The mysteries abound at what the world would have been like without Mr. Gygax's ineffable charms. His death affected me quite deeply, and perhaps more profoundly than many Geeks touched by his musings and hobbies.

Imagine if you would how many people would not have proceeded to their respectively geeky trades, and where the state of science might be today without Mr. Gygax fueling the subcutaneous nerdiness of those that fell in love with the game, or were able to find employment through old gaming buddies.

Some I've spoken of this to take a callous approach, feeling nothing significant for the man in question.

Of course, the reason I bring Mr. Gygax up is largely because of the direction which current owner of his landmark game system (That being Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast) is taking things.

To be clear, I am the kind of gamer for which Combat is merely a component of the game in which I play. For one such as I, the richness of the setting and the dynamic characters and NPC's are what make the game as great as it is.

Everyone developing 4th edition like to use the cavalier mentality that everyone in the game deserves to be perfectly equal, so that nobody gets to feel left out. So they are "Balancing" (A term I am unconvinced does not mean "Merchandising" as a synonymn) the game such that every class (Be it Fighter, Mage, Rogue, or Cleric) are equally as effective.

Thusly diminishing the uniqueness of playing the frail caster who can wield the power of the cosmos at his whim, or the rugged warrior whose grim façade tells of the indomitable force of strength his sword arm has represented against foes where magic or divine retribution failed.

Some people, apparently, chafe that the Rogue is less useful in all out combat than the shambling wall of muscle that is the enraged barbarian. While others continually spout atrocities about the uselessness of Bard's and Paladins.

For myself, I see no difference between what class you play... it's all in HOW you play your chosen character. Thusly, I see the efforts at squaring the board for everyone as being blasphemous and, ultimately, ruinous for the genre of game that I myself seek and enjoy.

I am not looking for a loot fest, nor am I looking for a fun way to waste a weekend. When I join a game, or when I run a game, I want adventure. I want romance, intrigue, tragedy, and wonder. I could give a nut less whether there is a combat every game, or if there are masses of loot because I am looking for stories and storytellers, not the juvenile half-wits who master their 60th level Prot-specced tank in WoW and think that somehow that qualifies them to be ROLE PLAYERS. Do not get me started on terms like "Tank" and whatnot.

The immovable barrier that separates those kinds of players from mine are what the difference is between ROLL playing and ROLE playing and, from what I gather from the brevity that has been 4ed coverage, all that they ever talk about is COMBAT balance. It is as if the entire purpose of assuming a character is lost on the development team.

Not that this is surprising. They've been trying to even the odds between classes since acquiring the rights to publish D&D from Tactical Systems Rules (TSR).

3rd edition, and intravenously 3.5, became a little less about the character and a little more about min/maxing your class and/or subclasses/prestige classes. Essentially, players asked themselves what posed the most horrible abuses that you could get away with in a game?

In some ways, the 3rd edition abandoned some aspects of epic storytelling to focus more on making a rules system out of the game. Not to say that there weren't many books of rules prior to 3rd edition, but many of them were far easier to remember and understand (Aside from the multitude of tables which the Game Master or Dungeon Master had to remember for various reasons).

This served to reduce the amount of time that respective storyteller's had to tell their stories by spreading the rules out to the players now as well. It created far more problems with rules lawyering, and having to keep track of what feats, skills, etc. your players were taking (Which was a dramatic increase from keeping track of what few proficiencies characters got in 2nd edition).

4th edition, respectively, seems even more of the same. An associate of mine has often commented on his loathing of the Authoritative GM, who pits himself against the players. The pendulum appears to be swinging in the opposite direction, to a very unhealthy degree.

Allow me to explain; Let us say that it is correct, that older editions of D&D contributed to a sort of Dictatorship on the storyteller's part. While some players may despise or dislike this manner of game, games still ran and functioned based upon the will of the GM. If you didn't like your respective Dictator, you were always welcomed to find another group or form one yourself. In many cases, tight knit gaming groups traded off the responsibilities of GMing a game, which served to provide some amount of flavor in the group by allowing different people to practice their storytelling chops (And provided a goodly variety of game for the other gamers in the group).

However, if the pendulum swings the other way, you suddenly have every player trying to lawyer it over each other as to who is mightier. A single dictatorship can work, six separate and inwardly selfish dictatorships make a game non-functional and everything quickly falls apart.

The more power and responsibility you remove from the seat of the DM, the less the storyteller has to do with the game and subsequently, the less gets done overall. By enabling the players to always succeed, but never outshine the other party members you are enabling a deeper problem to a once-dynamic game; being that players still want to compete and outshine their party members, but now they aren't capable of it.

There have been many people equating the changes coming to trying to turn D&D into an MMORPG like WoW. I think this is an apt metaphor, largely because they want everyone to be equally capable yet reliant upon the party. Nobody powerful enough to hack it on their own if need be. As a storyteller, nothing chafes me more than artificially generate situations; Such as six perfect strangers meeting in a pub and deciding (Perhaps based off of unreasonable levels of inebration) that it'll be a good idea to journey together for no subsequent reason. And beyond that, that they should set out to solve the world's problems because that's what the game entails.

Perhaps I am being a bit heated, but I feel my own player base is being largely ignored by Wizards in their development of 4e. I don't LIKE playing the game in such a fashion. If I was interested in mindless lootfests I'd play Diablo. If I was interested in uninspiring chain-quests, I'd play WoW. When I sit down at a table with six other people, I don't want to emulate the video games we COULD be playing. I don't want to come CLOSE to emulating those games, because that isn't why I get together with six people.

I get together to experience a world, tell a story, and portray heroes. When I say I want a Dynamic world, I also mean that I want Dynamic Player Character's; people who will far outshine their compatriots in their natural environments. Who will overshadow their comrades as mountainous titans of legend and history shaping entities. I want every player to have his moment in the sun... or if they choose, to play the unsung heroes of an adventuring troupe.

In the end, the only focus I have heard of in 4e has to do with combat. I feel that the game has abandoned me as a player, who never felt that killing a PC was a bad thing per say. I never believed Bard's or Paladin's were worthless Irritants because of their RP-centric focus. Would that every game could focus less on winning fights with monsters and getting treasure and more on enriching the fantasy world with personal exploits and experiences...

But perhaps I want to much from the game itself.