Hacking 3.5 – The Philosophy of D&D

I had planned on the next post on Hacking 3.5 to be about various feats and skill changes our group could make as we look to fresh up 3.5 for continued play.  However, on Friday something came up during our session that made me stop and look at the bigger picture of the game.  It occurred to me as we were discussing making possible house rules that we were approaching the game from totally different viewpoints BUT all felt that everyone was viewing the game the same as we did.  Confused?  Let me explain. 

Our knight player, Kevin, in his never-ending quest to improve the playability of his character was campaigning to use more feats in the game.  Essentially, he wanted to open up the door to just about any feat published by WotC and give everyone a feat per level while the fighter would keep his bonus feats.  He argued that this would allow for more variety because people would stop remaking the same character over and over because they HAD to have certain feats in order to maximize effectiveness.  He argued people would be encouraged to try different stuff because they could cover the necessary stuff and then add things for flavour.

It was at this point that I started to see the player motivations coming through that I hadn’t really considered as a factor in house rule designing.  As a seasoned DM I have tried to consider my player types when designing and running adventures.  For an excellent primer on character types all DM’s should read Robin’s Laws of Good Gamemastering from Steve Jackson Games.  It’s out of print but the pdf is available for a decent price.  For a good series of posts examining these Laws check out the ChattyDM’s 5-Part series on Robin’s Laws.

Once we realized that we were arguing from different perspectives but assuming the others were in basic agreement with us we shelved the talk of specific house rules and began looking at what is what that we enjoyed most about gaming.  I started asking questions like, "Do you enjoy levelling up?  Why do you enjoy it?  What do you want most out of a session?" 

What I found out was that Kevin, the knight player, wanted to see progression in his character to a point of mastery.  He also wanted to be a hero and do heroic cool things.  He said that he is an ordinary guy everyday so he doesn’t want to be one in his gaming. 

Denis, who plays a myraid of characters, likes the core rules because he knows them well and doesn’t want to have to learn anything else because it takes him out of the game.  He likes to focus on his character first and foremost but likes the story as well. Having to think about how to do a mechanic takes his away from the story and his character’s place in it.

Darren, our elder statesman and resident rogue ‘negotiator’, doesn’t see the need for much alteration and approaches the game from a computer programmer viewpoint.  Try a rule and see if you can push it until it breaks.  He seems to play fast and loose with the rules when he DMs but always to service the story.  Usually the story will help him flesh out his character from its initial concept.

Our other usual player, Todd, who plays the wizard, was not able to make it to the session so we didn’t have his input on the subject. 

 If you aren’t sure what type of player you can take a quiz on it HERE.  Several of our group took it and felt that the results were pretty accurate but your mileage may vary.

What does all this boil down to?  I think for our group it was a reminder that although we share a passion for gaming and enjoy getting together, we all look for slightly different things when we finally sit at the table.  As the DM, I need to put those motivations first and foremost in my mind not only when designing adventures but also when choosing the setting, house rules, gaming times, etc. One’s philosophy is the lens through which we view the world and as a DM you have to know how each player is going to view your gaming world through their lens.