I think I’ve finally nailed why I dislike Dungeons and Dragons so much--and it’s a matter of play style. While any rule set can be turned into a game with varying moods depending on the players and the game runner, certain games are more attractive to certain play styles. And DnD seems to attract people with what I would call a ‘Destructive Play Style.’ People who have or prefer a DPS are all about breaking stuff. They want to ‘kill stuff.’ They want to gain XP, for the goal of acquiring better gear, for the purpose of....killing bigger stuff. Their character building styles are bent towards creating a a means to...killing stuff better than other characters.
This could be considered something like a player alignment system, with the other axis going something similar to a ‘cooperative, neutral, and antagonistic’ spectrum. And while I can appreciate the power fantasy in breaking stuff, it makes me severely uncomfortable. This is partially because people with the DPS mindset also seem to have little care for the fun of others--or are just not fucking fun to play with. You could peg them as antagonistic players. I’ve had multiple people with this mindset let me know--you know, to be polite--that if they got bored that they were very likely to go PVP and kill everyone else’s characters. Y I K E S People may claim they have a different player alignment than they actually do. I tend to run around a Constructive, Cooperative quadrant--but I’m not without my issues. I generally think that the point of a game is for everyone involved to enjoy themselves (cooperative), but I don’t like pointless destruction or cruelty. My power fantasies run closer to me being able to positively effect the world around me, and be well liked. I like making stuff. (Constructive). And a lot of the reason why I leave games are because of an incompatible player base. Regardless of someone’s in character intentions, they can be a fundamentally antagonistic player if they make choices and take actions that decrease the enjoyment of other players. LARPers who trample over the established canon and lore of the in-character setting are just as antagonistic as players who deliberately start fights or insult others. Their actions essentially disregard or minimize other players, and the work that they have done. It’s a form of disrespect that I find more insidious than verbal insult, because game runners seem more content to let it go as ‘harmless,’ in comparison. I’ve had personal problems with a lot of antagonistic players in tabletop and LARP, but this was the first time I was able to articulate what they all had in common. Just food for thought on player alignment charts.
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