D&D Styles of Play, a Beginners Guide

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Episode Transcript

Mark:
[0:00] Welcome to RPG Blokes, the podcast where we take the mystery out of role-playing games and show just how much fun they are and how rewarding they can be for players of all experience levels, but especially for middle-aged newcomers like us.

Mark:
[0:15] In this episode, we’re diving into the styles of game, the many ways you can approach role-playing games, each offering a unique flavour of adventure, and we’ll be breaking the most popular styles down and discussing what makes each one tick. Given some options, you might be able to then choose the right table for you, or at the very least, you’ll be prepared for anything and ready to roll.

Mark:
[0:53] okay introducing the rpg blokes and my name is mark and i ought to introduce myself often forget uh so we’ll start with steven the most versatile amongst us is a little like a chess player he has been known to dm and to more than one table at once as.

Stephen:
[1:09] In different games.

Mark:
[1:10] Yeah at the same time literally like a chess player would move between chess yeah.

Stephen:
[1:14] I’m not sure i’ve won any of the games but yeah.

Mark:
[1:16] Okay okay and john the the most narcoleptic amongst us who has been known to fall asleep during the occasional session i’m old it’s a bit awkward especially if he’s your dm not.

Jon:
[1:29] Done that yet.

Mark:
[1:29] But yeah uh barry who sometimes turns up to the table a little wound up after work and sees a good fight early on as quite therapeutic in game of course uh but dm beware hide those important npcs until after the bloodbath and many an important plot hook has been lost that way are.

Barry:
[1:49] You saying i kill indiscriminately.

Mark:
[1:51] Because it’s accurate yeah i think so yeah just Don’t put anybody important in your way within the first 20 minutes of a session.

Barry:
[1:59] And you’ve nailed it, especially if I’ve had a shit day at work. I just put someone in front of me, I’ll slit their throat in a heartbeat.

Stephen:
[2:05] But Peter Tankard was more your style.

Barry:
[2:08] Oh, I enjoyed that so much.

Mark:
[2:11] Today’s podcast is about talking about the different styles of game that you might, well, you’re almost certainly going to be playing one of these styles of game. If you’re given a choice between different tables or different games, then these are the kind of questions you should be asking what style is it amongst these five we’re going to run through these five styles and and discuss them each of these does warrant far more discussion don’t get me wrong but we’re trying to just give you a sort of a crash course in what you’re most likely to be experiencing and being confronted with initially as you come to play, and then if you’re given a choice you can make that or if you’re not you can kind of assess whether this group or this table is right for you. So what I’ll do is I’ll just run through them in turn. The first one is a sandbox and I’ll just run through them in turn.

Mark:
[2:57] And character-driven play players enjoy freedom in an open world shaping the story through their choices backstories and relationships this style emphasizes agency immersion and collaborative storytelling now we get quite a lot of games like this up at our community a lot of dms do prefer this style of play i think it’s they see it as as a slightly i don’t know slightly easier maybe to prep for or have little prep in in respect of otherwise reading a complex scenario so these games are very very common i’m going to ask john first because it’s the style of play that you like to dm yourself give us a little bit of insight into it and what kind of play you think might enjoy playing this style of game well.

Jon:
[3:42] People like exploration or not to be bound by a particular narrative uh the nature of the game is there is usually a storyline behind it i’ve been in a couple of games where we’ve had no reason to be there and we’ve just been wandering around doing random encounters that does not work you’ve got to have some backstory or an in-character reason to be in that part of the world you don’t need more as much direct prep if you’re reffing it you’ve got to be familiar with the material you’ve got it helps if you you love the thing yourself rather than just cold study.

Mark:
[4:21] So you would expect, and most players would expect, the DM has a pretty good, wide knowledge, as you’ve discussed in the past, Stephen, about sandbox and knowing your sandbox. This is crucial, isn’t it, to make that kind of game work?

Jon:
[4:33] Absolutely. And you end up like a Build-A-Bear campaign as you go along.

Mark:
[4:40] So from a player point of view, Barry, how attractive would you find that? These kind of games are very much more laid back when you play them. So the DM sits back and reacts to what the player does, and it drifts very slowly. It meanders. It makes its way in directions that are very difficult to predict. How would you find a game like that?

Barry:
[4:59] I would find a game that was exclusively like that quite challenging. I think a good DM will have elements of sandbox in parts of their games. I think you go through stages where you are, I don’t know if this is the right way to put it, where you are sandboxing for a little while, but then when you reach location, it changes and becomes much more linear. One of the ones that really struck me as working really well was the Tomb of Annihilation. So that’s pretty much sandbox until you get to specific locations and then it literally turns into a dungeon crawler. And I really enjoyed that change every time as well. It’s like it was one of the things that kept… I think that’s one of the things that keeps you engaged with a campaign is if it does… you know fulfill different styles of game obviously some systems lend themselves to certain things better if the game has points where it kind of changes up into something else that certainly is something that helps keep me engaged so.

Mark:
[5:55] The variety then.

Barry:
[5:56] That certainly crosses over yeah the.

Mark:
[5:59] Sandbox i agree i like as a dm when you hit a little moment where a sandbox occurs it might.

Barry:
[6:05] Be within.

Mark:
[6:05] A room or an inn or it might be like you say they’re in the jungle but too much of a good thing would you say.

Barry:
[6:12] Now now i’ve been playing for long enough and i know enough to people at our society if i were to play a sandbox game i would be very particular about the players that i chose to play that with yeah because i wouldn’t be interested in having 45 minute conversations about a decision you know that’s that’s i listen i’ve got no problem with other people wanting to play like that but that’s not the kind of game that i want to be in you know especially if you’re only playing for three hours.

Mark:
[6:37] And that does happen, doesn’t it, Stephen, you find within pure sandbox environments?

Stephen:
[6:42] Yeah, I suppose if you give everyone that sort of absolute freedom of choice and potentially if you as a DM, if you’ve gone to the sort of extremes of not being a very open sandbox, as you’ve prepared nothing, you’ve just given them a general idea and you’re waiting for them. So you would have to wait 45 minutes for their idea because you have nothing to give them to push them along. So my idea of a sandbox more is… There is a box. There are walls to it and there are toys that are being put into the sandbox and it’s your job as a DM to get over the sandbox to the players so they then can make quicker decisions. So if they’re having to invent things in their heads to say, okay, I want to go to this area and then you’re having to think about it on the fly, it can take 45 minutes for things to resolve.

Mark:
[7:24] And so for what Barry said about he’d want to be with a certain type of player or group of players that would suit those kind of games, he’s absolutely right, isn’t it? Because if you have players that don’t get that, that don’t want to push a narrative, that are quite happy to do very mundane things within that sandbox environment, and we’ve had that, haven’t we? And we’ve seen it.

Stephen:
[7:43] We have, yeah. Yeah, someone I think was a gem crafter, wasn’t he? And the rest of us wanted to do sort of like dungeon bashing stuff in the sandbox and he wanted to craft gems.

Mark:
[7:52] Yeah. What about the Aftermath game?

Stephen:
[7:54] Oh, the Aftermath, yeah. That was the DM. I think he just had an idea of a location and then was just letting us open doors for about 10 weeks.

Mark:
[8:04] And it was an end of the world. Well, not just open and dismantle doors.

Stephen:
[8:08] Yeah, what happens when the players decided to collect metal by dismantling all the boxes and doors and stuff. So, yeah, it was fairly tedious. Yeah, that was a sandbox with nothing in it. So you need to fill your sandbox with toys, so we say, for the players to interact with.

Mark:
[8:21] And that reminds me, John, about something you described in a previous podcast episode, about just placing things in the environment to help players engage. throwing things in like little fish and you’re waiting for which one that they they kind of choose and pull out of the water and.

Jon:
[8:35] You just go with that you’ve got to have the familiarity with the world um in my warhammer one fairly recently they went from null to olddorf it wasn’t a wrong decision by any stretch of the imagination i was not expecting it delay session traveling counters little bits of random stuff to fill that out so i had the you weren’t a master.

Mark:
[8:58] Of your Sandbox then.

Jon:
[9:01] I hadn’t read up on Altdorf anywhere near as much as I’d like, so I’d only encountered it as a player. I’m fairly familiar with Noam, Marienburg.

Mark:
[9:10] It’s difficult, right? So that happened, that’s a major kind of fail in a way as a DM that you had to call a session to an end because they went so far off the sandbox.

Jon:
[9:19] No, I didn’t call it to an end. No, it’s just it changed it to stuff for them to do on the way, but it was kind of outside the plot.

Mark:
[9:30] So Barry, from a player’s point of view, that kind of insight into the fact that a DM kind of almost then is having to wing it, does that appeal to you as a player? I just want to round this off, I think, from a player’s perspective and what kind of person might enjoy that experience compared to some of the others we’re going to put on offer here.

Barry:
[9:49] I think if it’s obvious that your DM is winging it, that might somehow detract from it. I think, again, your DM needs to be confident. If they’re winging it, I’d rather not know they were winging it. I want them to keep that anxiety to themselves, thank you very much, because they’re presenting me with a story. They’re the governor.

Stephen:
[10:05] Yeah, I think it is one of the hardest games to play and also to DM, but I think it can also sandbox. You can have sandbox mystery games. You can have sandbox any game. So sandbox kind of fits to any other genre as well.

Barry:
[10:17] Yeah, I mean, sandbox is more of a mechanism than a genre.

Stephen:
[10:20] Right?

Barry:
[10:20] You can have a gothic horror sandbox. You can have a Star Wars sandbox.

Barry:
[10:23] So it can be applied. Yeah, it can be, absolutely.

Stephen:
[10:25] Hack and slash.

Mark:
[10:26] When it works, it’s wonderful. It’s massively immersive. if you feel as if you’re creating the narrative and like no other game can give you that feeling if you get it right it’s great it is really great and like those little moments where sandbox, dynamically occur i i don’t rush through those i like i like to draw those parts out and nobody objects to that ever i just think maybe too much of a good thing it’s it’s kind of difficult to maintain but you know if you can if you can find a dm that can do that, and again it’s the genre you like to play fantastic i suggest you go for it so the second option you may have is the dungeon crawl hack and slash so action-packed gameplay focused on battling enemies solving traps and hoarding treasures dungeon crawls offer a more structural challenge while hack and slash emphasizes fast-paced combat and simplicity i think actually i’ll go to barry on this one because you’ve already stated that this is probably your most favorite style of role playing this is the part of the the game that you enjoy the most it.

Barry:
[11:23] Was certainly the part of the game that i was able to engage with the quickest easiest most readily when i started there was less kind of character role play and it was more about your skills and attributes i think it’s a great place to start i know some systems lend themselves more to being you know role play heavy or combat heavy and stuff like that but a well-rounded campaign should have a bit of everything in it.

Mark:
[11:47] Yeah um but there would be some scenarios that are very heavily in this direction well.

Stephen:
[11:51] I think dungeon dragons has a bit of everything but certainly its um core audience is the hack and slash dungeon crawl clues in the name exactly and with dragons in it as well yeah hack and slash dungeon crawls i think are great i mean i love them personally when i first started playing i would argue that the ultimate sandbox because you have this wide area that you can do anything and go anywhere in and um and it’s good for a dm it’s like throwing a ball against a wall you’ll get something back with a hack and slash.

Mark:
[12:15] But it’s not a character-driven sandbox well.

Stephen:
[12:17] It is because everyone has their motivations i want treasure i want i’m going to scout ahead there are motivations in there that’s not as broad i think people didn’t would enjoy that.

Mark:
[12:25] Sure it’s a massively enjoyable um way of playing the game but i just think people that are kind of buying into the sandbox and character-driven players we’ve described which is quite often how it is would find this to be completely opposite and welcome relief in some respects.

Barry:
[12:39] Yeah and it’s it’s also the time that you’ll have your like most weirdly obsessive interest in the door, oh yeah there is a door and you’re like everyone’s straight right looking for you and you’re like has anyone tried opening it.

Mark:
[12:54] And the one time you don’t check for traps is the time you get blown up as well there’s the other.

Jon:
[12:58] Times you check you get a success and there’s nothing.

Mark:
[13:01] Yeah but the door and dungeon calls are brilliant for that i i fell out of love with dnd for a while and i came back to play it with the fifth edition and it was a dungeon call that attracted me back to it because it just took me back to basics and I enjoyed thinking, now, which direction do I want to go? Yeah, there’s a door, so I’ll go through it, let’s fight the creature on the other side, let’s take the treasure and I kind of reconnected with D&D that way and it’s pretty old school play, but it’s still…

Stephen:
[13:26] It’s easier for newcomers, definitely, to get involved in that kind of game because it’s not a lot of thinking about your character’s motivations as such as we were saying, but it’s more of just instinctive kind of play that kind of, there’s always something in front of you to conquer or to get over to an end goal. It’s very, it’s very it’s simplified the game and it’s enjoyable yeah yeah.

Mark:
[13:44] It is yeah uh john.

Jon:
[13:45] Some that have doubled down on that so that there’s a essentially a board game hero quest i have many hours playing that that is literally all it is though it’s a nice little dungeon call it’s no role play there’s nothing like that you just go in it does introduce cooperative play same as a zombie side similar thing you’ve got nice interesting characters it almost boils down to that doesn’t yeah and the thing stuff like zombie you actually want a bit of role play to creep in, but it’s not needed you can just enjoy that game for what it is, But eventually, as a player, you’re going to want to experience other things, and that’s where the role-playing comes in. What was the big mega dungeon in D&D?

Mark:
[14:31] Undermounting.

Jon:
[14:32] Undermounting.

Mark:
[14:32] A campaign like that is fantastic for taking you out of that environment and placing you back into a sandbox city, for instance. You’d have the Yawning Portal.

Stephen:
[14:39] Yeah, I would certainly say if you’re trying to cross over sandbox city with dungeons, sometimes dungeons can take a long time to get through, and by the time you’ve come out of it, you’ve kind of forgotten the plot of the city.

Mark:
[14:48] Oh, you found that?

Stephen:
[14:50] Yeah, I found that because I’d mixed the Waterdeep City with the Dungeon Crawl, but the Dungeon Crawl sometimes can take months to get through and people have forgotten the plot while they’re in the city in the first place because you can get stuck in a dungeon for a long time looking at doors.

Mark:
[15:03] So the city is just a place to spend your money.

Stephen:
[15:06] Yeah, exactly. So the city has to, at that point, has to be like a background area. That kind of just maybe you do a plot, but you can’t mix and match too quickly.

Jon:
[15:12] So you at least want a target, a reason for doing these dungeon things. Once you’ve got that, then you’ve got a reason for why Dungeons are in the first place. So Undermounting came with a backstory.

Mark:
[15:23] So, yeah, Barry, so we’ve talked about Zombicide and you came from Zombicide into Dungeons & Dragons and Zombicide being a cooperative board game. What differences did you find between the two? They can be very similar, right, on a basic Dungeon Crawl level.

Barry:
[15:38] So, yeah, I think they are very similar in that regard. You’re using miniatures, you’re rolling dice. I think the parallels are absolutely obvious. With Zombicide, even though you’re playing like a character, You don’t have to give any thought to motivations, traits, allegiances, you know, none of that stuff’s there.

Mark:
[15:57] For people listening to this that are coming from a tabletop gaming point of view from playing games like Zombicide and other tabletop games, maybe the more collaborative types. And looking at other people playing Dungeons and Dragons, like you did, that gap is not as big as what you might imagine, would you say?

Barry:
[16:14] No, I mean, like I say, when I started playing Dungeons and Dragons, there was some self-conscious stuff, some anxiety stuff, which I didn’t have any of that with Zombicide. Because you’re not really, with, you know, like an exclusively combat-based game, you’re not kind of putting yourself out there in any way. How I felt about it and my anxiety levels and self-consciousness there was quite a big jump. But in terms of the actual mechanics and stuff like that, not that big a jump.

Mark:
[16:41] And that jump, that distance between being on that side of the hobby to this, the English channel of the jump is going into a dungeon crawl or into a hack and slash.

Barry:
[16:50] I mean, I agree completely. I think my first campaign was out of the abyss. Yeah, the jump isn’t that big. Take it.

Stephen:
[16:56] Yeah, I think it’s definitely a good hop across, especially games like Zombicide. and there’s lots of those sort of types of games out now that are kind of very, very similar or adjacent. There used to be kind of Hero Quest, like we were saying, that sort of game that you would hop across the D&D.

Mark:
[17:09] But it’s still the mechanics, the resource management, the advanced levels.

Stephen:
[17:13] Yeah, yeah.

Mark:
[17:14] You’re likely to play a dungeon crawler with a map with figures on them, with miniatures.

Stephen:
[17:18] Absolutely, yeah, of course. Yeah, you wouldn’t be doing it correctly otherwise. But, you know, especially large-scale dungeons. If the whole point of the game is to play the dungeon, then certainly on Battle Balls is definitely the way to go. If you just want to breeze through the dungeon as part of a narrative, not maybe necessary but yeah as if your focus like undermounting game would is just about the dungeon then go for.

Mark:
[17:36] It john so if you were playing a dungeon crawl hack and slash and it only had those elements to it would you be happy.

Jon:
[17:43] Yeah i’m kind of doing that on tuesday at the moment again it it went from sandbox while the dm took the time to read up he started to read up and that’s great and we’ve now got a bit of a focus and a reason for being there and, We all prefer it. The wandering around doing random encounters, it kind of blows really hard when you, once you’ve discovered the role play side of things, you want to identify with your character. You want to experience things. You don’t just want to turn up, beat the snot out of stuff, wait for healing.

Mark:
[18:18] So if you want that side of the game, be careful and ask, what type of game is this? It’s a dungeon crawl. This is what we’re doing. It’s not much else. Then bear in mind that you won’t get some of the other experiences and things that we’ve been talking about but i know when.

Jon:
[18:31] I started off i loved a dungeon crawl that’s what i was all about uh but and role-playing actually scared me i wasn’t happy in me or experiencing things through a character is a nice little safety filter if you’re you know.

Mark:
[18:45] Yeah we.

Jon:
[18:46] Didn’t have social anxiety when i was a kid i was just shy.

Mark:
[18:50] Right so moving on to the next one uh it’s survival and horror as a player’s face constant danger limited resources and supernatural or psychological threats this style thrives on tension tough choices and the struggle to overcome both external dangers and inner fears and i i like this myself i like the grim and perilous which is trademark gains workshop perhaps but it’s become a term that’s very synonymous with this survival horror where you’re sort of underpowered both socially and physically and the battle is there to choose your fights and to figure out the best way through you’ve already spoken about call of cthulhu barry would you like to talk about your experience playing that game because you really enjoyed it.

Barry:
[19:33] And i was surprised by how much i really enjoyed it because it’s it’s like like combat is fucking deadly like pretty much to be avoided whenever you can it’s one of the weaknesses isn’t quite the right word but it’s one of the things about dnd it’s like you recover from combat in a heartbeat and actually that isn’t particularly realistic and if you are going to be going for something that’s horror survival based then yes there absolutely has to be jeopardy at every turn and and you know just getting just getting punched in the face can you know actually be pretty serious for your character like it can in real life you know so yeah I really enjoyed it I also really I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the like research element we were we you know we were going to libraries and and and you know trying to build relationships with people so that we could get information and and you know it’s not the sort of game that I would choose to be playing constantly, but as something different to what I’m used to doing I thoroughly thoroughly enjoyed it and was kind of taken aback by how much I enjoyed it.

Mark:
[20:35] Yeah, character death is a real possibility here right, in fact if you play a proper game of Call of Cthulhu or any of these real survival horror games then.

Stephen:
[20:43] Yeah, Cthulhu is a cross definitely between survival horror and the next one we’re going to talk about, Mystery and Investigation, is a cross. Because there are survival horror games that don’t have the mystery in it. Like, you don’t necessarily have to be underpowered. You can be incredibly high-powered, but still be in a horror and survival game. As in, I was just quite, the alien game that we played, everyone played quite a high-powered creep.

Mark:
[21:04] But we’re high-powered, but we were still…

Stephen:
[21:05] But you’re against things that are more high-powered than you. And that’s the thing. That’s what kind of gives you the creeps when it comes down to it. That, yeah, you can die at any moment.

Mark:
[21:13] When i played it i actually strange reason wanted to be killed by an alien because i’d seen it on tv so much and on the film something oh let’s just come on just come and bite my head off and take me off into the air and yeah i’ve got my kicks that way but you shouldn’t really you should you really to immerse yourself in this genre yeah it’s all about wanting to survive i’ve.

Stephen:
[21:31] Got love hate relationship with the horror games really something i love dm them while i do playing them because i end up sort of.

Mark:
[21:36] Being killed especially.

Stephen:
[21:37] When you dm i just die in the first kind of half hour My character seems to be some sort of vessel for the evil person trying to infiltrate the party, but yeah.

Jon:
[21:46] It’s unrelenting if the cap fits.

Stephen:
[21:50] I can’t survive. As a player, I survive a horror. I’m poor at them.

Mark:
[21:54] It’s slow character development. It’s high risk of death. If you feel it’s an us versus them thing with the DM, then certainly this is going to bring out that paranoia far more than any other system you’ve ever played.

Stephen:
[22:06] Yeah, I think the DM has to be on top of you with that respect to give the survival horror vibe to it.

Barry:
[22:12] So this is interesting, isn’t it? So all of these style of games, systems live and die by their mechanics, not just their mood. You know, you can have the most amazing mood and settings, and if the mechanics are clunky and stuff like that, for me, that can spoil it. I really enjoyed the mechanics of the Warhammer Fantasy roleplay that we played. I just thought they absolutely nailed it. In terms of the character development, how you spend your XP, I thought that was absolutely brilliant. And again, for me, that’s one of the things that’s missing from D&D.

Mark:
[22:44] I’d describe Warhammer Fantasy roleplay as a survival horror game.

Barry:
[22:47] I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair.

Mark:
[22:50] But.

Barry:
[22:50] I really love the way that you spent your XP every week and there were a lot of ways to spend it it was much less linear.

Mark:
[23:00] And i think.

Barry:
[23:00] As a result your character felt more fleshed out because you were making more conscious choices every week about what direction is this guy going in.

Mark:
[23:08] Yeah and if you’re playing this genre you’re you’re less likely to be playing dungeons and dragons there are some we’ve got ravenloft as the setting but it’s it lacks that survival horror real feel because you don’t have a great chance of dying and when we played that.

Barry:
[23:22] It was you know it was less gothic horror more rocky horror picture.

Mark:
[23:25] Show i think that’s what you’re talking about.

Jon:
[23:27] Fifth edition yeah yeah that was it was originally a second edition.

Mark:
[23:31] Yeah i.

Stephen:
[23:31] Mean it was very much a survivor horror and second edition.

Mark:
[23:33] Yeah okay different.

Jon:
[23:35] Character every session.

Mark:
[23:36] We want people to know what they might not like about these different genres as well so then they can home in on the one that suits them better like.

Barry:
[23:44] Dying’s good fun, You know, and from a role, don’t get so attached to a character that, like, you are going to compromise the fun and the roleplay just to make sure that they survive. Be prepared to kill that guy if that’s the end of his or her story.

Stephen:
[23:58] Yeah, if he gets a nice heroic death.

Barry:
[23:59] I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Stephen:
[24:00] Because sometimes dying to a random encounter, there’s nothing worse. This was just random.

Barry:
[24:03] So, yeah, I quite like, I mean, obviously everyone likes going out in a blaze of glory, but I also quite like going out in a blaze of stupidity.

Stephen:
[24:10] Yeah, that’s cool, but that’s a blaze of something.

Barry:
[24:12] Yeah. at least.

Mark:
[24:13] There is a risk that you have that feeling in survival horror that you might just think, you know, everything I’ve gone through, and this thing has just done me and, you know, I don’t really…

Stephen:
[24:22] I think good survival horror games kind of make your death fun. They do. And they make it make sense.

Mark:
[24:27] Okay.

Stephen:
[24:28] Yeah, I think so. Some of the more modern ones that you do, I like to die into an alien. It’s fun, isn’t it? You can get dragged up into the pipe and dragged away. But sometimes dying in survival horror, that’s just nothing. Didn’t mean anything then. Yeah, that could be an issue for people.

Jon:
[24:40] You’ve got to choose to die or set yourself up to fail to to have that as an enjoyable uh part of the narrative.

Mark:
[24:49] And i think more than any other game type you have to really you have to really trust your dm and give yourself over to his judgment and and you know if you don’t get on with your dm do not play survival and it.

Barry:
[25:02] Was i know we’re not playing survival horror at the moment but it was something that was said to me you know last week my dm just tipped me the wink like just so you know if you do this it’s probably the end of your character is that where you want to go with this and actually on this occasion and many times i said yep that’s his natural story arc but on this occasion i was like no actually it’s not where i want you know so like you say a good dm will give you a little bit of a wink.

Mark:
[25:25] Or not it’s.

Barry:
[25:25] Not it’s not cheating it’s not you know spoiling the story they’re just like i just want to be sure that you understand the magnitude of what you’re doing

Barry:
[25:33] and i think that’s absolutely fine.

Mark:
[25:34] Yeah i think i hope that’s given you a little insight into that that genre and style of play um and it’s not one of the most common styles of play but if you choose a particular game system you’ll play it um as a default so moving on to the fourth out of five is the mystery and investigation and as steven’s pointed out we’ve already covered a little bit this the survival horror does cross over with this quite quite a bit with cthulhu.

Stephen:
[26:01] For sure that they take.

Mark:
[26:02] Elements of both they do and marry.

Stephen:
[26:04] It together yeah.

Mark:
[26:04] So focused on role playing NPC interactions and creative problem solving dice rolls are minimal with strategy and exploration driving the story combat is rare but impactful rewarding careful planning and immersion, So, yeah, this is the thinking man’s game, I guess, or the thinking person’s game.

Barry:
[26:25] So far for me, pretty much every system or campaign that I’ve played has had elements of investigation and exploration. Sometimes it’s as simple as you are, you know, walking around town looking for a thing. you know it can other times it can be you are trying literally to discover other people’s other other characters sort of drive and motivations you know it can be really don’t rule out these kind of more cerebral kind of games they are they are really good fun and it’s not what i’d necessarily want to be doing every single solitary week yeah.

Mark:
[27:03] Because you because the dice don’t come into play very often because you can’t say well make a dice roll yourself solve the mystery you as players are having to kind of really ultra engage in in the narrative and what’s going on.

Stephen:
[27:15] Yeah it depends on the system you’re playing with it i think we have discussed independently about a dungeon and dragons kind of investigation can be completely different to a cord cthulhu investigation uh and barry’s right yeah you can have investigations that are quite you know sort like it’s not particularly that complicated that just gets you through a part of a scenario or you can get some of the more kind of old school cord cthulhu scenarios that you have to read reams of uh handouts just to get your next clue and if you miss something in the handout then you’re up you’re off plot and then suddenly you’re failing so don’t.

Mark:
[27:45] Don’t feel so scared about a dnd mystery scenario that that might not be as.

Stephen:
[27:50] No i wouldn’t have thought it would be as in there because some of the old called cthulhu scenarios are just mind-boggling that’s what you have to place together really is you have to be kind of like a detective inspector sometimes in real life to get through these some of these and they they’re really strict on it and um i like it but It’s a totally different styles of game. So yeah, there are extremes within the investigation genre. I think Warhammer… as I was going to say before, is something that kind of hits the middle ground between a D&D and a Cthulhu. That’s what they aim for. In fact, when they come out with the game, they stated they were the midpoint between Cthulhu and D&D. And I think they’ve hit both those things. You get combat and you get like a fairly moderate, decent investigation.

Mark:
[28:29] Yeah. John, you like to introduce mystery into every game that you play. But you and I share the love of one particular scenario. I think Dead Ringer is called. It’s a very independently written Warhammer scenario. And it’s quite short, but it’s a brilliant mystery game. And I think those kind of games work as shorter games. So I wouldn’t want to be involved in something that goes on for too much and is bogged down with research. And going to the library in Call of Cthulhu is cool. It’s the iconic thing to do within that game. And it obviously is great because you picked up on how enjoyable that is. But you wouldn’t want too much of that.

Barry:
[29:02] No, and like I said, it’s not the kind of game that I’d want to play week in, week out. But for me, as a departure, as a break, as a bit of a change, i think they’re absolutely perfect for that shortish sessions when you said that warhammer when they they pitched themselves as being between cthulhu and and it kind of makes sense to me now how how i enjoyed it so much because it was like oh it has it does seem to have taken the best bits of that and the best bits of that so maybe i’d consider doing something longer with with you know warhammer than i would with cthulhu what i really really love the warhammer the sorry i’m going to go off topic so one of the things that i absolutely loved about warhammer was that pretty much every role is opposed and i particularly enjoyed that in combat because it added an element of realism for me you know speaking of someone who has thrown the occasional punch but you can throw what is the best punch you’ve ever thrown, if your opponent sees it coming, sometimes they only need to move their head two inches, and it’s the difference between ouch and unconscious. And I really like the way that, yeah, I’ve rolled pretty well. I’ve got X levels of success, but then they’ve got one more level of success than you. So, you know, you’ve done your bit, but they’ve done something to scupper you, and I thought that was a really interesting dynamic, especially coming from exclusively playing D&D, where it was like, I’ve hit your armor class. I’ve hit you. Because that’s not how fights work.

Mark:
[30:30] You can’t resist. So you’re just soaking things up that are being applied to you. And I think it’s fair to bring in things like that, because if you are exploring other genres and where D&D’s strength is, is not particularly mystery games, then you’re going to be encountering new systems and discovering new ways of playing.

Barry:
[30:47] New mechanics.

Mark:
[30:48] These different genres or gateways into different systems. We are going to, in a future podcast, talk about other systems that you might

Mark:
[30:55] like to play and your choices that you may have to make there. so moving on to the the last part of this podcast we’re going to talk about epic campaigns and we’ve already been saying that a lot of these cross over to create what might be the perfect system for you and then the scenario and the campaign would dictate what that mix is and with the dm’s own slant on it as well but epic campaigns they’re the ones that really you’re most likely to be brought into play especially with dungeons and dragons so players embark on a long-term adventure rising from novices to legendary heroes and their guided narratives feature clear goals massive stakes and a mix of combat diplomacy exploration and they offer unforgettable progression so this is what dnd is attempting to achieve primarily.

Stephen:
[31:45] Yeah, definitely. I’d say they are the king of the epic campaign, I’m thinking, because they don’t totally focus on one thing. Especially their pre-written kind of hardback releases from 5th edition have all been really pretty good quality, long-running campaigns where you do go from 1st level to 20th in some instances, which is the whole breadth of the game. and they sort of introduce the different elements of the role-playing game from dungeon crawls to investigation to diplomacy to everything, really. You will get the full breadth of a role-playing game in those, for sure.

Mark:
[32:17] And there was a scene to end with a bit of a dungeon crawl as well.

Stephen:
[32:22] Don’t they? Yeah, as described before, it’s best to end with a dungeon crawl as well as people forget where they were going. So I think they were quite clever there. Usually the dungeon happens at the end, so you don’t really have to go back to a plot. It’s just there, it’s done, and then you pick up your end goal Yeah.

Mark:
[32:36] So D&D does this so well.

Barry:
[32:39] If you said to me, listen, you can only play one system for the rest of your life, it would be D&D. I’m not saying it’s the best, but it’s certainly the one that I feel like I’m most suited to. The library, the resources is huge. I don’t think you’d ever run out of scenarios to play. I think you can always find someone that will DM it. I don’t want to make it sound like just being an advert for D&D. it is at the very least it’s a really good place to start yeah.

Mark:
[33:09] Well most people will start there i think it’s a great question actually if you could only play one system for the rest of your life which one would it be and.

Barry:
[33:15] For me it would be for me it would be dnd.

Mark:
[33:16] So i’m gonna ask that question of the other rpg blokes john one system the rest of your life come on you can do it play or ref i suppose you can choose whether you’re a player or do both you.

Barry:
[33:30] Can no you can.

Mark:
[33:31] No no no you can.

Barry:
[33:32] Only engage with one system for the rest of your life either.

Mark:
[33:35] As a player.

Barry:
[33:35] Or as a DM.

Jon:
[33:37] But there’s a cheat code I suppose World of Darkness because.

Mark:
[33:40] That covers that is a cheat because that’s one of my systems that.

Jon:
[33:43] Encompasses quite a few lines, I mean, I’d probably say Shadowrun.

Mark:
[33:52] Right. And what style of play is that? What genre would you?

Jon:
[33:55] Oh, it covers the lot. Because the world building is so good, you can go anywhere.

Mark:
[34:01] Okay. That was tough for you, I could tell.

Stephen:
[34:04] Yeah, it is a tough question because I think variety is the spice of the hobby. But it’d have to be D&D for many reasons because it is quite a huge variety. the rest of your stuff you can do in it and they’re continuing to support it whereas other games that you’ve just described don’t get a huge amount of support and you know it’s bound to evolve, better or for worse but it will be around and it will be evolving so if I had to pick one that would be it.

Mark:
[34:31] For me it’s a close call but I go with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay that’s my favourite but D&D is bloody close I don’t know that’s a really tough decision.

Barry:
[34:41] Well unfortunately it’s a hypothetical you know.

Mark:
[34:43] You carry on playing your indie guys.

Barry:
[34:45] Games enjoy it embrace do what you love.

Mark:
[34:47] So I did want to that’s a great question to end with but I’ve got another question to ask each of you before we end this podcast out of those different styles that were described if you had to choose an adventure a scenario that was fixed on one of them and was you know predominantly that style, which one would you choose and I’ll go around the table in the opposite direction this time I’ve just said.

Stephen:
[35:08] I like the variety of D&D but it’s if I had to choose.

Mark:
[35:11] One of those styles yeah because D&D can be any of them exactly.

Stephen:
[35:13] That’s what I like about it I’ve discovered I like variety but if I had to pick one of them I love DMing horror games.

Mark:
[35:19] Yeah okay so in D&D that would be Ravenloft primarily they’re.

Stephen:
[35:24] My favourite style of game to DM yeah maybe not to play.

Mark:
[35:27] Okay definitely DM yeah I think we determined that I think I agree as well I never saw it from that perspective don’t yeah would I want to play my own horror game, well John what’s your choice out of those five.

Jon:
[35:41] It’s got to be Sandbox.

Mark:
[35:42] Okay Barry.

Barry:
[35:44] Uh it’s the epic adventure obviously.

Mark:
[35:46] Yeah yeah.

Barry:
[35:47] I love an epic adventure and i think again we’ve all you know touched on you know dnd does a bit of all of this.

Mark:
[35:52] Yeah or at.

Barry:
[35:52] Least it can do.

Mark:
[35:53] It does the best but then again i might be a bit of a contradiction for me because i’ve chosen war hammer as the system i would want to um devote my life to but i’d also choose an epic adventure as the style of play i’d like yeah the best yeah i think it does work well in warhammer 2 the.

Stephen:
[36:08] Same cheating there you pick him on one thing but okay.

Mark:
[36:10] No no i’m just checking I’m not policing.

Stephen:
[36:14] You who is.

Barry:
[36:15] Listen back, if only this was recorded.

Stephen:
[36:17] I’ll check it.

Mark:
[36:20] Okay. Right, well, I think we’re done, actually. So everybody has hopefully got a good idea of the different styles of game that you may encounter and given a choice which one you’d prefer to play.

Stephen:
[36:29] On that note, so let’s…

Mark:
[36:32] Slice and Dice. Slice and Dice.