This Prokopetz post https://prokopetz.tumblr.com/post/812478905796657152 has been on my mind, it's about how the play culture of D&D by and large treat D&D like less of a game and more like a form of guided freeform rollplaying pretending like it is a game with rules as a conceit, and how that causes a lot of communication issues when game designers try to make their games with, like, actual game mechanics you're intended to use.

This is a topic I've seen discussed by TTRPG designers from a lot of different angles, how weird it can be to be devoted to this artistic discipline a lot of people don't really think exist. I've seen it compared to being an animation fan in a world where most people only know about Family Guy and half the people into Family Guy listen to it like an audio book because they find the visuals distracting.

Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro get a lot of flack for this, as it's in their best interest to promote D&D as the universal TTRPG and that involves setting the precedent that if the rules don't agree with the sort of story you're trying to run, it's the GMs responsibility to essentially design a whole new game on the fly to satisfy their players.

But I do wonder if there isn't a deeper issue at play too. I think that a lot of teenagers and adults just want to play make-believe, but they need permission to do it. D&D becomes the perfect pretext as it has just enough mechanics to qualify as a game and therefore a cultured pastime. They don't really care about the rules, the rules are only there so they feel less silly than if they just went into the forest and pretended to be elves for a bit. And Hasbro is capitalizing on that mental hangup, but they didn't actually create it.

And like, I do think rules-mediated roleplaying is really fun in its own way, otherwise I wouldn't be trying to design a TTRPG, but it's fun in a way that's different from freeform roleplaying and it's not a substitute for freeform roleplaying.

Having perfunctory rules just to give social permission for roleplaying doesn't really make anyone happy. Rules fans don't like it cus when they actually try to follow the rules the game ostensibly has, they get called a rules lawyer and seen as disruptive for their trouble and freeform roleplaying fans don't like it cus they feel gatekept when someone suggests maybe they should actually read the rules of the game they ostensibly want to play.

I definitely feel like Prokopetz is right on the money when he talks about how a lot of people treat roleplaying game rules as a form of elaborate keyfabe, and they are unwilling to even admit to themselves that they are doing it, because then they'd have to admit to themselves they are playing make-believe.

@Owlor this is really interesting to think about. I always resented the rules in D&D because it felt like they trying to put limits on my self-expression in the story. and I love FATE instead because it basically lets you do whatever you want (with the usual caveat of “don’t ruin others’ fun”, of course)

and I’ve thought a lot about “do I actually need FATE’s rules? do they add anything? which rules can be removed without negatively impacting the play experience?”

and I think what it comes down to is that I have the type of autism where I need some kind of structure to my creativity or I’ll go crazy - but D&D provides too much structure and that triggers my problems with authority instead. and FATE is the perfect middle ground of “you can do anything you want, but here are some hints about what might be especially good to do”

and I wonder if this is part of what’s going on with D&D: people want to roleplay, but they don’t really know how. if you give them the infinite possibilities of non-TTRPG roleplay they will be completely overwhelmed. so they need a system like D&D to limit them so that they can learn to roleplay in a controlled environment and know what to expect in terms of genre, tone, etc.

@Owlor also it’s very strange to me how D&D’s solution to basically everything is “the DM will figure it out”. like I feel so bad for D&D DMs. they are expected to carry the entire world on their shoulders and the culture of D&D players seems to be to take this for granted and barely realize it’s happening