Thanks to the forge for helping me Enjoy D&D

[Ace]

I just wanted to post a Thank you to the forge for helping me to enjoy the D&D game I am in.

Over the years I have gamed I was never able to understand the appeal of D&D and its clones, not Fantasy games which I love, but the peculiar D&D subtype

Thanks to folks at the Forge I finally figured out that

Not every session is a "Roleplaying" game needs to be about roleplaying or character simulation or anything else.

By going Zen and admitting "Hey this game is simply about Kill-Loot-Power Up- Rinse- Repeat" and respecting it on that level I am really enjoying the very silly D&D Pyrates game I am in.

This is  the first time I have ever been able to appreciate D&D

It is nice to finally "get it"

Thanks to you all

[Valamir]

Thanks for posting this Ace.  Because that's exactly what all of these discussions (GNS in particular) is supposed to do.

[Mike Holmes]

Hey, this is actual play; do you have any observations about the game play that you could post here? I'm assuming that if you're enjoying it that it's well executed Gamist play. What makes it good for you? Let us in on it!

Mike

[Ace]

Thats a fair request Mike

Basically the game is very simple, we are Pyrates in psuedo Earth 1680--- We are fighting drow and evil spaniard, the innquistion and anyone else who bothers us

. Each of the DM's (two folks alternate) comes up with a challenge. We fight--


What makes it work? I think it works  is that there is very little pretext to being anything else but hack and slash.

 My character Phillip is basically an AH64 Attack Chopper-- Protection from Missles+ Fireball+ Magic Missle+ Fly Spell+Invisiblity+detection and so on.

 we all seem to implicty understand the game is supposed to be silly --- Its like we were all 14 and 15 year old players again with the same expectations of fun.

When I do tactically effective things that storywise are down right wrong in other games where Exploration of setting and character are the goals I am praised.

One of the players said "Hey man keep up with that flying platform o' death thing you were doing" And I was pleased becuase I could contribute to everyones fun.

When my character dodged a lightning bolt than quickly dispatched a 10th level Wizard I was thrilled, not because it advanced the story because it was fun in a video game kind of way.

I got to be the Butt Kicker and be the center of the stage (I am the only Full time pC spellcaster in the party) without taking away from anyone else or feeling constrained by story limits.

In RP oriented games I have a self imposed obligation to stay in charcter and in Story oriented ones I have an obligation to Stay in The Story. Here I put the old habits aside and indulge in pure play and pure conflict

Its a nice diversion from the regular games.

[Jeremy Cole]

This I think is the big appeal to the AD&D campaigns I have been in compared to Vampire or CoC or whatever else.  No-one wants to do anything but kill, level up and accumulate 1,796,647,125,236 gps.  I get that, Jimbo next to me gets that, and so does Rovert and Puxput the GM, we all know what we're getting.

The big criticism of AD&D is when you stop laughing and want to try something else.  AD&D cannot function other than (very silly) gamism.  Vampire wants to function as other things, so no-one knows what they're getting.

NB
Can anyone beat that much gold?  It was to do with these doubling chests (put an item in and you can two of it back, very stupid...)  We had two of these chests, so we put one in the other, and made lots more chests.  They could only hold 25 gold, but if you put a chest in a chest... in a chest with 25 gold in it, money.

So my character hired this halfling band to keep putting doubling chests in the other doubling chests, we did the maths, the above figure was after expenses.

If that happened in a CoC campaign players would not be happy.

[Clay]

f that happened in a CoC campaign players would not be happy.

If that happened in a CoC campaign something nasty from between the worlds would probably make you its personal chew toy. CoC's premise is really good at keeping people from getting too ballsey. As you've discussed, CoC is about something very different than ADD.