Stop Telling Me How to Play D&D
We Are All Doing It Right
I was looking at some of the reviews of Daggerheart the other day. It seems a lot of people are hoping it will be the next “D&D Killer!” I am not exactly sure why there is this obsession with slaying the D&D dragon. Humans seem to love it when the giants fall hard, and Wizards of the Coast has certainly not won themselves many advocates over the last couple of years, but there is nothing wrong with growing the pie rather than eliminating pieces from it.
I look at Daggerheart and I see a crunchy game with lots of different dice and a complex damage system and cards to track all the things your character can do. It looks complicated. And that is fine. Good for them. I hope it does well.
I might, in a future post, talk about how upset people got about the OGL a couple years ago, while there is currently very little press about the lengthy Daggerheart License. I guess some rules only apply to D&D.
Alright. What was I going to talk about today? It wasn’t Daggerheart. I have not played it and probably won’t. Not because I have any issues with it, but simply because OldeGreybeard is set in his ways. I have my TTRPG of choice and don’t have a lot of interest in breaking out of my bubble.
What I really want to talk about is something else that the Daggerheart release made me think of. I heard the same when Shadowdark came out and, of course, I hear it whenever a Pathfinder fan enters the conversation.
That is the whole, “no true Scotsman”, argument about what is and what is not D&D. Somehow all these other games out there capture the essence of D&D better than D&D itself.
These folks are the experts on what is and is not D&D and they decide whether you are truly playing Dungeons and Dragons.
Let’s take a look…
After this message…
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Depending on who you talk to, ‘real’ D&D died once AD&D was released. Or 2e. Or 3e. Or, with extra emphasis, 4e! And 5e is just a shell of what D&D was all about.
Instead, the true spirit of D&D has transitioned to games like those mentioned above, but also Dungeon Crawl Classics and Old School Essentials and Castles and Crusades and a host of other variants of the game. It seems the best way to play D&D is to play something other than D&D.
Can we just stop please!!
Dungeons and Dragons as a brand is whatever has been released under that brand. Every edition. Every magazine. Every article. Every Unearthed Arcana. Some of it is canon and some is not, but it is all D&D. You can certainly decide which parts you like and what you do not, but it is all still D&D.
I think the Star Wars prequels are terrible. Other people swear by them. No matter what anyone thinks, I will be the first to tell you that no matter what I think of them they are Star Wars. And I will also be the first to tell those that love them to keep right on loving them. Don’t let me yuck your yum.
Those that like AD&D enjoy the style of play that it brought to the game. Same as those that play 2e and 3e and 4e and 5e. The games are different. They attract different audiences. Some stick to one version. Some cross boundaries.
And you know what? Everyone single one of those people is exactly right. They are all playing D&D and they should keep on playing exactly the version and style they want to.
To all those out there that want to tell me that 4e is awful because it is too this or too that, then don’t play it. No one is forcing it on you. I am not on some sort of 4th edition crusade, spamming these posts to random people on the internet. If you are not a 4e fan and you found yourself here listening to me rant, first of all, bravo for making it this far into the post, and secondly, its not my fault you kept reading.
The bottom line is that whatever TTRPG you play, just enjoy it. There is no need to tell other people what they should or should not enjoy. There is no honor in making yourself feel better by diminishing what others enjoy.
Play the game you love the most and you are doing it right. Hard stop. End of story.
I know this was maybe a little more ‘in your face’ than my typical posts. I am not directing this at any individual or group. Just in general, let’s please support each other and make the hobby bigger not smaller.
Please keep comments constructive and respectful.
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100 percent agree with you Greybeard!
Go around the table. Ask, "Are you having fun? Are you challenged? Are you happy with the game?"
If the answers are 'yes,' UR DOON IT RITE.
Play the game you enjoy, dump the stuff that gets in your way preventing you having fun. Steal, use, invent what you want for your game.
That's the beauty of RPGs; there's no one way of getting it right.