more on my D&D experiences

[Clinton R. Nixon]

I think my ideal mode is a N/S mix. I like rules-light S like Fudge, but I want N stuff to drive play.

Hmm. Over the Edge?

Mike

I vote to go with The Riddle of Steel free web intro version. Much more rules-light, in a vein your players will get, and as soon as they realize they kill, cheat, steal, save the day, and anything else better with some SA's, they'll get it.

[greyorm]

After all that kicker stuff I told you about previously, they've reverted to this feral, eat-or-be-eaten state.

I have to admit, and I know this will sound perhaps a little smug, but I've been waiting for this post. Why? I guess, having been in a similar situation with my own 3E game, I could see it coming.

The addition of Kickers alone aren't going to do it.

OTOH, unlike my group at the same juncture, yours are involved in what is going on: they're playing instead of standing around waiting for stuff to happen and react to.

I, too, think this is simply a case of valid conflicting play-styles rather than dysfunctional play, and that in this case, you're the odd-man out.

[Clay]

This might be too obvious to need saying, but it almost sounded like you wanted a narrativist play style, but were still taking them through dungeons.  The players will react to what you present them, and if you continue to present them with dungeons, they'll continue to kill the monsters and loot the bodies.  

If you change what you present to them, they'll react to it in a different way. Don't present locations to explore with monsters to fight.  Give them problems that involve people, that involve themselves.  This takes a lot more planning and work on your part, but it will give you something closer to the style of play you're looking for.

This is one of the reasons for changing systems.  D&D is all about killing the monsters and looting the bodies.  Other games are about other things.  Find a concept that folks will be interested in, like westerns, horror or science fiction. Then find a system that lets you play with that concept and can be picked up quickly by the group.  My group has their own favorites: Dust Devils for westerns, Call of Cthulhu for horror and Traveller for science fiction.

Grab the system, then spend some time to create a scenario that promotes the things you want to see.  You'll also need to make sure that it incorporates the things they're interested in. So long as it has both, it's likely to be a hit.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

D&D is all about killing the monsters and looting the bodies.  

I'm only going to say this once, and I'm not going to respond to argument, because it's a derailment of Matt's fine thread, but this is untrue, and is further made into a fallacy by the fact that what "D&D" is exactly is nearly as hard to pin down as what an "RPG" is. The repetition of this falsehood over and over on the Forge is what I'm beginning to see as a problem.

I, for one, think Matt could run a fine narrativist experience using D&D (whatever that may be) with his players if that's what they want.

[greyorm]

I'll back up Clinton there and cite my own D&D game as an example of just that: a fine Narrativist D&D game.

[Matt Wilson]

FYI: the other players and I have been actively emailing about a solution to the problem. I'm getting responses like this:

If we are voting for a preferred playing style.  I vote for storytelling

which, while I'm not sure exactly what "storytelling" means, I'm happy to get, and responses like this:

I'm willing to adjust to whatever the GM has in mind.

which... no, I don't need to elaborate on why that's frustrating. I think the conversation is steering toward the former, though, and hoo-friggin-ray for that! I'll follow up when I manage to get more info from them.

[Piratecat]

Matt, is the delay-for-traps problem concentrated with one player who sets the mood for the whole group? I run a narravativist D&D game, and have for more than a decade, and I know from painful experience that one strong-willed and paranoid player can slow the entire group down to a crawl. I once had a three room quirky dungeon that was designed for four hours of play; it took them two and a half game sessions to finish. I think that's the point that I switched to primarily political adventures.  *grin*

I ended up chatting with the person on a metagame level, asking them to be less paranoid because it was slowing down play so much. It was clumsy, but turned out to be both fast and effective.

[jdagna]

FYI: the other players and I have been actively emailing about a solution to the problem. I'm getting responses like this:
::snip::

I've found conversations like this can be most useful when you try to stick to very concrete topics.  For example, instead of asking "What kind of scenarios do you want to play?" ask "Can you describe a scenario you really enjoyed?"

The second question will be more useful for several reasons.  First, it avoids misused terms, like "story" which usually means something different to each person.  Second, you've removed the question from being about you, so nobody will try to make their answers nice enough.  They can tell you about something they enjoyed without worrying whether you'll take it as a criticism (and, if the scenario is one you ran, it's a compliment)  Third, you'll usually see the elements of that scenario that made it enjoyable for the person whether the person explicitly identifies them or not.  

I had a revelation when I asked my best friend that question.  He tended to play the paranoid abused-animal role as well... but the scenario he really enjoyed was one where a jilted girlfriend blew up his character's house and nearly ruined the character's wedding later that day.  He played paranoid, perhaps partly because he was hoping to see his character barely survive hell.  He would never had said that outright and somehow I hadn't picked up on it in more than five years of running games for him, but it was obvious from the way he described the scenario.

[Mike Holmes]

I, for one, think Matt could run a fine narrativist experience using D&D (whatever that may be) with his players if that's what they want.

Uh, but not without drift, or simply working uphill.

To be quite clear, all versions and editions of D&D and AD&D, including the third edition primarily support play that involves killing monsters in a Gamist fashion. These games do not support other modes or sorts of play well. I'll be quite willing to argue this in detail on another thread if someone wants to debate it.

But that's the point that I and Clay have been making. Yes, it can be done, one can play Narrativist D&D. We've known that since the great Seckler debates. But that doesn't mean that it's easy, or even a particularly good idea. The reason usually given is that the players want to play some version of D&D. That seems to be a very problematic reason. It's like saying that you want to pound in a nail, but the group insists on using a scrwedriver because they are familiar with it.

Mike

[Clay]

My comment about "what d&d is about" seems to have derailed my point, for which I appologize.

My main point remains that the players are going to respond to what you present them. If you put dungeon crawling in front of them and they're rewarded for it, they'll stay in that mode.  D&D does dungeon crawls nicely, other systems excel at other things. Find one that excels at the things you and your group want to see, build the scenario to suit, and watch the magic happen.

I saw this happen in my own group, which had been dungeon crawling for years before the switch to Traveller and Call of Cthulhu.  Neither of those games encourage killing monsters and looting the bodies, and they encourage other things that we found we liked better.