Response: Orc Holocaust

First, big thanks to Timothy for linking to Sofge's article. I hadn't seen it before.

Rarely have I had occasion to disagree so vehemently with a fellow gamer. I'll work my way through Sofge's article (his words in quotation marks) and offer counterpoints along the way. I encourage you all to go back and read his article in full before continuing with this post.

"Sadly, Gygax's creation defines our strange corner of the entertainment world and drowns out all the more innovative and sophisticated games that have made D&D obsolete for decades."

Does D&D drown out other games? It's the most famous roleplaying game, surely, but is its very existence preventing people from playing other games? I'm not inclined to take the author's claims very seriously until I see some evidence of a problem.

"It's the reason that tabletop gaming is not only stuck in the pop culture gutter but considered pathetic even by the standards of mouth-breathing Star Trek conventioneers."

I've never bought into the oft-repeated meme that D&D (or roleplaying in general) is somehow "in the pop culture gutter." A lot of people say that, but where is the evidence that tabletop gaming is considered "pathetic"? And even if someone comes up with some statistics to verify this meme, how do we know that D&D is the cause of it?

"What's wrong with Dungeons & Dragons? It plays like a video game."

In my quarter-century of D&D play, I have not found it to be the case that D&D plays like a video game. But even if it did, why is that a problem? Lots of people like video games. D&D is flexible enough to accommodate a wide variety of play styles.

Sofge's main problem is with the concept of experience points -- specifically, that experience points are earned by means of killing monsters.

"You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons. Why do orcs and other monsters horde [sic] gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them?...You can let sleeping orcs lie...[o]r you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D."

Obviously, orcs and other monsters hoard gold because they use it to trade for goods and services, just as human characters do. All sentient creatures, even dungeon-dwelling orcs, have some sort of rudimentary economy. But the real issue here is the idea that players would have their characters slit the throats of a family of sleeping orcs.

Has this scenario played out at some point in the long history of D&D? I'm sure it has. But it's a stretch to say that the game itself encourages this behavior. Experience points are allocated only when players overcome a challenge. Dangerous monsters are one such challenge, but so too are traps, puzzles, and tests of skill. Characters also earn experience points for completing quests. If your quest is to retrieve a magic item stolen by a dragon, there are many ways you could complete that quest. You could kill the dragon, of course, but you could also sneak in to grab the item while the dragon was asleep, or even engage it in conversation and barter with it. In contrast, slaughtering a bunch of sleeping orc children is not a challenge that would merit experience points, nor is it an act that most gamers would consider acceptable. I, for one, would not allow such an act at my game table.

"For decades, gamers have argued that since D&D came first, its lame, morally repulsive experience system can be forgiven."

The game has no morality; you bring your own morality to the game. The rules are just a framework for resolving actions in the narrative world. As a gamemaster, I could tell the same fantasy story using D&D or Pathfinder or Fantasy Hero or GURPS. These game systems are all tools for helping us translate the words of players into the deeds of fictional characters. A game system is a medium of expression, like a language. D&D is no more "morally repulsive" than English or Chinese or Swahili, even if we can use any of these systems to make morally repulsive expressions.

"There's a reason so many players are turned off after a brush with D&D. It promises something great—a lively (if dorky) bit of performance art—but delivers a small-minded and ignorant fantasy of rage."

This author has quite the battle-axe to grind. It's clear to me that he was turned off after a brush with D&D, but where are these legions of disgruntled players? The article is rather short on supporting evidence.

Sofge has high praise for Steve Jackson's excellent Generic Universal Roleplaying System (GURPS). He points out, rightly, that GURPS allows for considerable customization of one's character. Getting back to the concept of experience points, he writes:

"[C]haracters got whatever the "gamemaster" decided. They might earn points for succeeding at a given task or simply for playing their character in a compelling way."

All of this is true for D&D, as well.

"Of course, players could still take out their real-life bitterness in a fictional killing spree, and the game master might end up with a bumbling and incoherent story line."

At last the author acknowledges that excessive violence is not exclusive to D&D. It is possible in any game system because the choices of the players determine the level of violence. The game system does not make these choices for them.

I feel badly for Erik Sofge. It seems like he's had some negative experiences playing D&D. I wish he'd been able to share in some of our Front Porch adventures, as these game sessions may well have given him a different perspective on D&D. I feel very fortunate that we've had so much fun -- and told such great and compelling stories -- over the past twenty-odd years.

I'll close with a brief anecdote. Once upon a time, Scott (one of our original Porchers) and I were invited to join a different gaming group for their D&D campaign. I knew these guys had a hack-and-slash approach that didn't really suit my style of play, so I decided that my character was going to be a pacifist cleric who withheld healing magic from party members who got too vicious on the battlefield.

We players are empowered to shape the narrative. As the story unfolds, it becomes a reflection not of the game system, but of ourselves.