I figured it out!
And dammit, I'm proud of myself.
I finally realized that it's not quite fair of me to be unhappy with the way most people play D&D. After all, its initial editions didn't have numbers or anything else to indicate in the least how play outside of combat should go. And for the longest time, I thought that the mechanical framework of the game made sense, that it was a way to structure the skills of your character and realistically determine what capabilities they had, in a waythat would help drive the story...
..poppycock.
The mechanics as written can only exist in a number of permutations infinitely smaller than the actual number of possible character ideas. And the mechanics aren't even *good* at defining the capabilities of a character unless you know them really, really well; a poorly-designed character has far less power, even given the same resources. And there's always combinations of capabilities that are really hard to get together under the rules, because the rulebooks have them driven by different attributes or conferred to different classes.
What I really want is to take the dice out of D&D. I still want a structured story, but without the random element of dice that either
a) let's me continue with the story I had planned, making the players feel good because they're 1337 and so forth, or
b) screws everything up royally by rolling a 20 or a 1 at the worst possible time.
More and more, I find myself fudging the dice behind the screen to make the story better.
This guy knows what he's talking about, and while I don't agree with everything he says, he's a very smart guy and a fantastic storyteller. The quote that summed it up for me:
"There are two key cores of drama. One is choice - people making decisions, and living with the consequences. The other is fate - that past events have inescapable future consequences. Death of a Salesman is an example of choice based drama - "He dreamt the wrong dreams; all, all wrong." Oedipus Rex is an example of the second - Oedipus' fate is the inescapable consequence of being the man who he is in the circumstances in which he finds himself.
Chance has very little place in drama. There's a rule of writing that says you should only ask your audience to swallow one coincidence per story. Likewise, truly random events tend to occur rarely, and usually only as the instigating event of the story rather than as a key subsequent plot point."
Now, I just have to find a good system. I like the idea of Fate points/Plot points, to give players a limited amount of control over the crucial moments. SotC is a little bit too goofy for me. I like the kinds of stories I can tell in world like Eberron and generic D&D, but I don't know of many game system outside of actual Dungeons and Dragons. That, and the type of players I want are significantly harder to find.
In other news, I finished the second study of my Distinguished Major thesis Project, and it worked! I need to do one more, which I think I can knock out in a week or two, which will leaves me a few weeks to write. Despite having to restart a year-long-sized project in late February...I think I'm gonna make it. Woot.
Oh yes, and I think I'm going to try to live in Arlington. I'm starting my search in the Ballston-Clarendon-Courthose area, looking for a two-bedroom apt for under $2k/month. I decided that
a) living close to play is more important than living close to work.
b) It's a counter-commute out to Herndon, and they have promised that I will have no control over when I work there vs. at a client site downtown
I'm contacting two different realty services, as well as playing with craigslist. We'll see what I find - planning to move in late July.
I finally realized that it's not quite fair of me to be unhappy with the way most people play D&D. After all, its initial editions didn't have numbers or anything else to indicate in the least how play outside of combat should go. And for the longest time, I thought that the mechanical framework of the game made sense, that it was a way to structure the skills of your character and realistically determine what capabilities they had, in a waythat would help drive the story...
..poppycock.
The mechanics as written can only exist in a number of permutations infinitely smaller than the actual number of possible character ideas. And the mechanics aren't even *good* at defining the capabilities of a character unless you know them really, really well; a poorly-designed character has far less power, even given the same resources. And there's always combinations of capabilities that are really hard to get together under the rules, because the rulebooks have them driven by different attributes or conferred to different classes.
What I really want is to take the dice out of D&D. I still want a structured story, but without the random element of dice that either
a) let's me continue with the story I had planned, making the players feel good because they're 1337 and so forth, or
b) screws everything up royally by rolling a 20 or a 1 at the worst possible time.
More and more, I find myself fudging the dice behind the screen to make the story better.
This guy knows what he's talking about, and while I don't agree with everything he says, he's a very smart guy and a fantastic storyteller. The quote that summed it up for me:
"There are two key cores of drama. One is choice - people making decisions, and living with the consequences. The other is fate - that past events have inescapable future consequences. Death of a Salesman is an example of choice based drama - "He dreamt the wrong dreams; all, all wrong." Oedipus Rex is an example of the second - Oedipus' fate is the inescapable consequence of being the man who he is in the circumstances in which he finds himself.
Chance has very little place in drama. There's a rule of writing that says you should only ask your audience to swallow one coincidence per story. Likewise, truly random events tend to occur rarely, and usually only as the instigating event of the story rather than as a key subsequent plot point."
Now, I just have to find a good system. I like the idea of Fate points/Plot points, to give players a limited amount of control over the crucial moments. SotC is a little bit too goofy for me. I like the kinds of stories I can tell in world like Eberron and generic D&D, but I don't know of many game system outside of actual Dungeons and Dragons. That, and the type of players I want are significantly harder to find.
In other news, I finished the second study of my Distinguished Major thesis Project, and it worked! I need to do one more, which I think I can knock out in a week or two, which will leaves me a few weeks to write. Despite having to restart a year-long-sized project in late February...I think I'm gonna make it. Woot.
Oh yes, and I think I'm going to try to live in Arlington. I'm starting my search in the Ballston-Clarendon-Courthose area, looking for a two-bedroom apt for under $2k/month. I decided that
a) living close to play is more important than living close to work.
b) It's a counter-commute out to Herndon, and they have promised that I will have no control over when I work there vs. at a client site downtown
I'm contacting two different realty services, as well as playing with craigslist. We'll see what I find - planning to move in late July.