Serious question. If you want strategy or complex mechanics, why not just play a video game? And in any case, why play DnD, which is sort of a middle ground?
There's two answers to this question From the GM perspective, it is much, much easier to come up with a DND or whatever other system's campaign than making a whole ass video gameFrom the player perspective, it gives you much more freedom to express your creativity that a video game can't give Obviously there are bad gms and bad players that don't take advantage of the medium's strengths but that's on them, not on ttrpgsAnd yes I'm aware this is bait but I'm an eternally optimistic dumbass
>>98702679Because I want an actual game with mechanics that can be interpreted or altered to suit situations not foreseen by the designers.
>>98702679i dont really want to just write a story. i like narrative and roleplay, but its not engaging if i can just choose how the story ends. if you accept that roleplay (at least for me) needs risk and concequence to be engaging, then it needs at minimum a resolution mechanic. that can be anything, but a trivial or solved resolution mechanic is manipulatable (the original problem with writing a book) and boring (the only reason im here in the first place) it follows that for roleplay to be fun (for me) it must have a mechanical framework complex enough to be intellectually stimulating, and strategic enough that there is a real risk of failure, which carries a real (narrative) consequence (usually character death). as a side note, most video games arent mechanically deep enough to be interesting, or narratively flexible enough to be worth roleplaying in. i love a good meme build in my parryslop, but a soulsborne will never scratch the itch a TTRPG is for
>>98702679You obviously don't know what roleplaying is in the context of ttrpgs so I am going to school you child.Any interaction your made up character has with your GMs made up world, and vice versa, is role-playing. And that includes combat or whatever else is covered by complex mechanics or not. Ttrpgs don't have a story, the medium doesn't allow for one. In ttrpgs story is an emergent component of role-playing.So one wouldn't want to play a video game because video games are not ttrpgs and vice versa.
>>98702679These spam threads even have the same unrelated pics, but people still answer. It makes no sense. Maybe those are canned replies...
>>98702851>its not engaging if i can just choose how the story ends.Preach. Tabletop games are in a completely unique position in that you don't have to have a set path in mind for where the story ends up before you start.Movies, books, radio plays, video games, it's always better to have a complete cohesive story in mind. Even video games, which can have multiple endings, have endings in mind.A roleplay can go anywhere, it has no budget constraints, no executives demanding that it end a specific way, nothing but where the story goes.Perfect example time, my recent Star Wars campaign started off as a pretty bitch-basic Post-Order 66 set up with a twist (One of the PCs ran a megacorp and was going to use his talents as a media influencer type to effectively create cover for the Jedi).This went completely off the rails when the PCs managed to get hold of evidence of Order 66 being a Sheevy Scheme within an hour or so if happening and curveballed it over to the CIS leadership through their contacts.I, as DM, had two choices at that point.I could go 'history is immutable, story has to happen as I planned it, you fail, get back on the rails', which is the bitch ass answer.Or I could roll with it.I rolled with it and now things have gone off in a completely unique direction, the setting is basically a full on AU version of Star Wars and the players are having a blast with it.That's a kind of freedom you can't get anywhere else, and all it takes is the GM choosing not to have a story in mind, taking their hands off the wheel and being a referee, rather than a storyteller.
>>98702876based, i've wanted to do a "break the cannon of an established franchise" type of game for ages but i havent had the time
>>98702679some simulationist aspects cannot be handled in video games except with LLMs which are too expensive and thus infeasible
>>98702679Second row, second from the left.
>>98702870The spam threads weren't spam threads when they were asking the leading questions that biased the answer towards what (You) already belie, funny how that works
>>98702679False dichotomy. Also, video games aren't infinitely adaptable on the fly, can't be patched by me or the people I'm playing with when an issue comes up, and aren't tailored directly to me.
>>98702679Why play tabletop games if not for the strategy and mechanics?
>>98702870What else are we going to reply to?
>>98702679>why not just play a video gameName 1 video game with>multiplayer 6 players>1 player can create infinite scenarios and situations in any setting imaginable>doesn't have an ending premade>reacts to how the players play>can handle completely improvised situations, even something as simple as "digging around a trap" to complex like "hiring a mercenary company to distract the BBEG while you infiltrate his lair"
>>98703404What are you talking about?
>>98702679It's one thing to ask a question in search of an answer, or as a seed for legitimate discussion, but if you're gonna keep spamming teenage whores with your threads, the least you could do is number them. Cause it's that close to a /b/ thread with that alone, might as well stop being a pussy and go all the fucking way.
>>98702679>why play DnDBecause I'm not a theatre kid faggot.
>>98703404Well?
It's more sad that this shitter's posting style is so aparent that you only need to check once a week to tell they have no life and spend all their hours doing this.
Nah
Yeah
>>98702862Wow. You really just sat down at your little desk and made a conscious decision to type this up with that tone, huh? Well, you certainly have made some interesting decisions in life to bring you down to this point. Not judging. We all have our trials, but it seems like, psychologically speaking, you ended up in a pretty... unique place.
>>98715134What tone? The post is completely neutral.
>>98709628>>98711194I don't know.Can you repeat the question?
>>98702679Puzzle games are fun.Some times the puzzle is solving the problem of getting to the center of a maze of magical bullshit.Sometimes it's how to tactically align your team's respective talents to strike down a foe.Poker-night vibe games are every bit as valid as story-arc coasting narrative ones. D&D started in Chainmail and was still pretty much that for a long while into 2nd edition for a lot of folks. I played with a 3.x group that, while they had something of a story to it, was very much more interested in the mechanics of the game beyond that story.God bless the Cleric's original player. That dude had kept immaculate notes on every coin spent, spell cast, and translation detail from their original 2nd edition start of that campaign. Crunch can inspire Nostalgia OP, when it's good and played with among good friends.
>>98715239You mean seek professional help for the Cleric's original player?
>>98715245It's the same measure of dedication modern folks apply to their sports, fantasy or just major league fandoms (and gambling). Some people just want to keep things Tidy Anon, nothing crazy about it.
>>98715266Yeah, that's just making my post look more justified. lol
>>98715272I hope you find something that makes you happy enough to make a spread-sheet about it Anon.
>>98715297lmao the irony
