LogFAQs > #897011411

shadowsword87 posted...

Sure, but then you're still ignoring part of the fun of DnD: the mechanics and what you can do with it.

Fun for you, sure. But for me that part of play is more like getting teeth pulled.

Remember, there's a reason why I prefer freeform. For all that rules CAN serve a purpose, I don't consider them necessary, and I definitely don't consider them the part of the experience that actually makes me want to HAVE that experience. I mostly suffer through rules as a necessary evil used to mediate disputes between players, not because I find the rules inherently fun in and of themselves.

In a similar vein, it's why I played BioWare games and the Witcher on the lowest difficulty setting. I didn't want to be distracted by bullshit like combat tactics or practical stat builds or proper timed use of strategic abilities - I wanted to wade through combat so I could get to the next dialogue choice and further the story.

I could play a campaign with 40+ sessions and not a single combat and probably be perfectly happy.

To be honest, if I went back and reviewed most of my online Amber games, they might actually come close to meeting that bar. I know there were a LOT of scenes that basically boiled down to "two or three characters talk about stuff that might have happened somewhere else and gossip about people who aren't there". I don't actually remember all that many combat scenes, especially for certain characters.

(Granted, there were also characters who seemed to have nothing but conflict and combat every scene, but they were also portrayed as being pretty cursed by fate because of it, or just really unhappy about all the people and things constantly trying to kill them.)



shadowsword87 posted...

At the end of the day. it's fun to look through stuff, there's a reason why I just like looking at Magic cards even if I never will play them or see them ever again. It's fun to just learn.

With Magic I'm more inclined to pay attention to mechanics over flavor, but even then I've always had an interest in the metaplot (at least until it got stupid). So much so that I leapt at reading the comics when they were a thing, and preferred certain sets over others less because of the utility of the cards and more because of the set's narrative.

With L5R I used to follow the card game religiously while never having played a single game and understanding very few of the rules, because I was far more interested in the narrative of play and how it affected the setting and metaplot of the RPG.

I also have a TON of Magic and L5R novels.

But even beyond that, on at least a few occasions I worked out ways to completely alter the rules of Magic to make it more of a tool for pure RP, with players essentially playing Planeswalkers going through a D&D adventure, with their deck/cards representing their abilities and starting with a limited and defined mana pool (ie, not drawing and playing lands), and with most of the randomness removed (ie, not drawing a hand of playable spells, but having a set collection of spells available at all times akin to D&D Wizard spells and spell slots). And the setting/narrative of the game was built around existing setting details and metaplot from the flavor text.

In the opposite vein, I once had a Changeling character whose entire power set was basically casting Fae spells via Magic cards, which were sort of treated like an esoteric Tarot deck more than a collectible card game (because Changeling is weird like that).


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