*[caveat] (Destiny)

by Cody Miller , Music of the Spheres - Never Forgot, Monday, May 21, 2018, 09:50 (2177 days ago) @ Harmanimus
edited by Cody Miller, Monday, May 21, 2018, 09:57

The supposition that it is all in the storytelling is gutting DnD down to a 2-page PDF. Which is a fair way to play the game, but see my initial caveats that are required to separate DnD from what it is and what the rules emphasize it to be. Obviously, if no one is doing more than rolling dice at stat blocks your combat is going to hold no interest. But that’s a failure of the DM, not the mechanisms of the game detracting from the experience of combat.

I have the player's handbook obviously. There's a ton of stuff to learn and a ton of 'rules'. But those are just there to mediate the things that you can't role play. If I fire an arrow, it's just more streamlined to make a roll to see if I hit than to have the player actually fire an arrow at a target on the wall.

I play D&D precisely because our group minimizes that boring mechanical stuff. The very first time we ever played, we did a pre-made scenario called "Lost Mines of Phandelver" (We rotate DMs and each create our own now). Afterward, the DM told us that he basically had to improvise everything since we did nothing expected. We basically made a disguise and walked right into the first 'dungeon', and talked our way to the 'boss', then pushed him into a fire when he wasn't looking killing him. I don't think we entered a single round of combat.

None of the most memorable things we've done involve mechanical combat and dice rolls. It's the stories, the plans, and the misteps (SO many misteps!) that we laugh about. Actually I take it back. There was a memorable botch in a constitution roll during a drunken hookup between a party member and an Aristocrats's daughter.

Maybe that's not real D&D, but at least we can do that. Because we can make our own rules: we aren't bound by game code.