# Forum > Gaming > Roleplaying Games >  D&D-isms

## Easy e

Greetings all, 

I am about to embark on running a non-G&D 5e game with my players.  In preparation for this, I want to get a feel from players and other GMs certain habits players pick up from playing D&D that they may consciously or unconsciously carry over into other game systems that probably do not apply to the new game.  That way, I can potentially address and try to get ahead of them in our Session Zero.  

A couple examples I can think of off the top of my head are: 

1. Murder Hobo-ism- This is extremely common in D&D (not all games of course), and this group has engaged in it to some degree.  However, in the game we are about to start on they will be tied pretty closely to the world via family ties, group loyalties, and will not be able to solve ALL of their issues with violence.  To do so would lead to serious repercussions.  

2. Looting.  This is a very common way to get wealthy and treasure in D&D.  However, this game system frowns highly on looting, and even the accumulation of wealth unnecessarily can cause social issues.  There are also serious social and cultural taboos around dead bodies that make looting even less practical.  

Both of these examples are useful and appropriate within the context of D&D but may not be appropriate in other games and settings.  I am sure there are other common D&D-isms that people who have primarily played D&D will bring to the different games.  Help him think of more please?

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## GloatingSwine

I think the biggest "D&D-ism" is expectation of lots of combat.

Most other systems tend to expect less fighty stuff and less proportion of the overall time spent resolving it.

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## Catullus64

Whether or not the D&D-centric assumptions of players will be appropriate or not depends quite a lot on the system you're starting this new game in. With that in mind, I've seen some examples of culture shock whenever somebody tries their first non-D&D RPG system (one might call it 'system shock', hehe).

One of the biggest ones has to do with success rates. Simply put, D&D is calibrated such that a modestly competent character succeeds at a task more often than he fails, and most characters are modestly competent at most things. Many systems, those more heavily skills-driven than D&D, will have your character fail more often than succeed at even the things at which they are modestly competent. 

Correlated with that first point is the assumption that your characters are Important Heroes. I see a lot of people, in discussions about D&D, state that the DM should tend to rule in favor of PC competence rather than incompetence. To the limited extent that I agree with that, I think that's fair for D&D's significant emphasis on the heroic power fantasy as the core of the game. Not every system has that same level of emphasis on being a Cool Dude Who Does Cool Stuff.

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## Alcore

*3. A round is/must be six seconds. And is boring on average when taken separately*. I once ran Maid, the RPG and my party had some trouble wrapping their head around 'the round' that game ran on. Players are used to having a limited set of actions and unless an ability outright implies multiple attacks (monk's flurry of fists, anyone?) Then it is one short attack.

So I got...
Alice stabs with her sword.
And I would send back...
Sakura parries the strike. "Nice try Lady Alice! Now feel the skill and power past down through generations!" Sakura stabs forward a dozen times, her hand blade reduced to a blur, scoring a few hits.
By dice resolution Alice lost and thus lost some HP. I never could break most of them _to have fun with it._ their brains were simply shut off and do the barest minimal effort to finish combat... then demand more combat like the little murderhoboes they were.

A round is as long as it needs to be...

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## Tanarii

Not all modern tables, but combat-as-sport mentality.  Often includes not researching / investigating / scouting.  Generally that enemies can be beaten by smart tactics, and pre-combat planning/activities can't set up a turkey shoot, or avoid one. Typically assumes death is unlikely unless you make a series to serious mistakes.  Often includes the assumption that combat is central to the game.

Also things that are often noted when talking about D&D:
assumption that the PCs are the protagonist/hero
Dramatic gains in power as the same characters continue adventuring
Excessively linear adventures, up to quantum ogres / railroading
Poor support for urban, intrigue, mystery, exploration, puzzle solving, and social interaction
No/few narrative tools, including both character personality / interactions and meta-currency for plot/world control
Lacking degrees of success resolution

Generally speaking, I think the biggest road block for getting players to play non-D&D systems is ones where you don't just control the character, to some degree you control events/the world external to the character.  Second, for both D&D and non-D&D, is getting players used to not having to be spoon fed what to next, at least after any inciting incident.  Although that can be incumbent on the GM (or better yet the game systems structures) to provide some palette of default options.

(Note: I'm primarily a D&D DM.  These are just off the top of my head from discussing the system in forums.  Not dissing the system, nor do I consider these inevitable parts of playing D&D.)

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## Pex

Gaining levels and more powerful.

Not all role playing games do this. D&D is not wrong to do this, but gaining levels and power is a means of accomplishment. Your players will need to have a sense of accomplishment. It is good and fun to save the day of whatever the plot was. That is an accomplishment too, but players can get bored doing the same things over and over. Their characters need to improve somehow. If it's not in game mechanics than it needs to in social interaction. Wealth is one way, but they need Status. They cannot be nobodies forever. Consequences of their actions is not only about when they make mistakes. It also means esoteric rewards for being heroes, doing what is Right.

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## False God

Rolling for everything.  D&D promotes rolling as a solution to resolving unknown situations.  But random doesn't produce good storytelling, which is of greater importance in many other systems than D&D.

"Nat 20".  A lot of folks treat the idea that they _could_ succeed at an impossible task on a Nat 20 as reason that the DM *must* allow them to make a roll.  This really isn't that common outside of D&D.  If you can't pass whatever the check is, the DM is absolutely empowered to just say no.

This plays off being a murder hobo, but there will almost always be a higher focus on social encounters, and a wider range of problem-resolution options than just hitting it.  And many non-D&D systems will suffer if your players choose to hit it as their go-to solution.  Likewise, there will be a lot more situations that are investigative, where combat simply doesn't exist as an option.

Narrow power gaps, as people have mentioned, in D&D the difference between a character with 1XP and a character with 1000XP can be quite large.  In many other systems, the power gaps can be much closer, with characters gaining more options/skills/feats, rather than raw power and HP.

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## Tanarii

Oh, a commonly held, whether true or not, D&D-ism: Wizard supremacy.

Some variations on this are: 
Magic has no limits, non-magic is limited by real world verisimilitude
spells are hard coded rules packets that do what they say, non-magic is loosely defined or dm fiat
Spells are high chance of success, skills are low chance of success

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## PhoenixPhyre

> Oh, a commonly held, whether true or not, D&D-ism: Wizard supremacy.
> 
> Some variations on this are: 
> Magic has no limits, non-magic is limited by real world verisimilitude
> spells are hard coded rules packets that do what they say, non-magic is loosely defined or dm fiat
> Spells are high chance of success, skills are low chance of success


Yeah. These.

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## Quertus

> Oh, a commonly held, whether true or not, D&D-ism: Wizard supremacy.
> 
> Some variations on this are: 
> Magic has no limits, non-magic is limited by real world verisimilitude
> spells are hard coded rules packets that do what they say, non-magic is loosely defined or dm fiat
> Spells are high chance of success, skills are low chance of success





> Yeah. These.


Ok, when it was just 1 person, I wasnt going to say anything. But now there are two of them, so Ive gotta ask: I agree, but what does carrying those (mis)conceptions untested over to other systems look like? What kind of hilarious mistakes does it result in? Ive not got the right experiences to know what to watch for here.

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## Tanarii

Usually culture shock when magic has a cost and/or isn't the bees knees. And culture shock is often translated into "this game sucks".

Same thing for all the things I gave really.  It can potentially happen when players are faced with no assumption of fair battles, no assumption of PCs living, having to deal with mysteries/puzzles/intrigue, have to make decisions about things outside the character (traditionally in the DMs hands), or having to decide what's next for their player characters when it's not a big neon sign saying "this way!"

Otoh unlike some of the others, it probably won't get the PCs into hot water.  So that's a fair point.

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## Telok

> Ok, when it was just 1 person, I wasnt going to say anything. But now there are two of them, so Ive gotta ask: I agree, but what does carrying those (mis)conceptions untested over to other systems look like? What kind of hilarious mistakes does it result in? Ive not got the right experiences to know what to watch for here.


I've seen people making risky/bad choices in magic-as-skill systems, especially with overcasting & miscasts available.

Had one guy, strong necromancer character that would have translated into being pretty good at illusions, abjurations, conjurations, etc. But he wanted fireballs so bought up evocation without also getting the associated stat up. Any given turn he had about a 40% chance at getting off a fireball. It wasn't enough. He constantly overcast to get extra casting dice for fireballs, triggering miscast events every time. That eventually killed the character twice and nuked off all his sanity (which couldn't be easily recovered from unlike mere death).

If you have a "levels of success" game with skill based magic (trade reliability for unlimited casting type stuff & etc.) and options for safer & riskier magic you might end up with D&D habituated players taking extra risks & harm to replicate the reliability or power levels of D&D slot based magic.

Another thing I've seen is massive over focus on combat ability to the point the characters are incompetent outside of fighting. Goes double if there's "background" type stuff like contacts, npc allies, mentors, and organizations. Who cares if you can be a Starfleet admiral and have planets nuked when those same points will buy you up from 6 dice of "i sword gud" to 7 dice (in a game where 3 dice is a trained professional and 5 dice is world champion levels of skill)?

Something I saw in supers & cyberpunk games from D&D players was a "no survivors, no escapes" mentality. That was to the point they were putting people in permanent comas, willing to let a stadium of 20,000 civillians get bombed to prevent a middle-boss bad guy from escaping, or the time they happily & knowingly slaughtered an entire spaceship of first contact aliens because the aliens were pranksters with 100% nonlethal weaponry that couldn't even hurt half the team.

Prisoners & surrender. D&Ders often assume all surrenders are fake, all prisoners are lying and will backstab asap, and that you can't profit from them in any way. They often won't believe that a filthy rich noble with a reputation to keep might actually surrender, swear parole, and pay ransom. They just treat them like any other CE psychopath penniless murder-hobo and assume the surrender is a fake-out to buy time to recharge a special ability or something. Likewise, they assume everything is a no quarter fight to the death. Like they think they're always fighting hungry troll ninjas instead of honorable knights, and will automatically be tortured, killed, & eaten if they surrender.

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## Thane of Fife

Even in games that are structurally similar to D&D, games can fall in different places on Quality vs Quantity. For example, in D&D, a group of 5th-7th level characters or so can probably take out quite a few orcs or other low-level adversaries, but would get squashed by a storm giant or something. In other games, the opposite can be true, where even the greatest swordsman in the world is at serious risk when fighting just two or three opponents.

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## KorvinStarmast

> Rolling for everything.  D&D promotes rolling as a solution to resolving unknown situations.


 Only if you are doing it incorrectly. (IIRC, the indy game _Roll for Shoes_ was a way of making fun of that attitude).   



> "Nat 20".  A lot of folks treat the idea that they _could_ succeed at an impossible task on a Nat 20 as reason that the DM *must* allow them to make a roll.


 I don't put up with this, and thankfully 5e dispensed with that.   



> Narrow power gaps


 Yes, IIRC CoC and Traveller are both better at keeping the PC power in a narrower range. 



> Magic has no limits, non-magic is limited by real world verisimilitude
> spells are hard coded rules packets that do what they say, non-magic is loosely defined or dm fiat
> Spells are high chance of success, skills are low chance of success


 When packaged like that (good critique) it makes one realize that the original vancian system was better at making magic less overbearing.  



> Usually culture shock when magic has a cost and/or isn't the bees knees. And culture shock is often translated into "this game sucks".


 Magic needs to have a cost and be dangerous.  :Small Smile:  One of the good things about a CRPG (Diablo, original) was the friendly fire was a possibility. Problem was, though, if one was playing over the internet back in the lat 90's latency and lag caused some positioning errors ... my rogue got cooked more than once as a result by an ally.  :Small Eek:

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## False God

> Only if you are doing it incorrectly. (IIRC, the indy game _Roll for Shoes_ was a way of making fun of that attitude).   
>  I don't put up with this, and thankfully 5e dispensed with that.


Well I'm glad the Wizards in Black came out and mind-washed it out of your players, it must be too rural for them to bother here.

I don't put it up with it either, but I didn't train them.  The players I _did_ train don't do it.

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## Alcore

> Something I saw in supers & cyberpunk games from D&D players was a "no survivors, no escapes" mentality. That was to the point they were putting people in permanent comas, willing to let a stadium of 20,000 civillians get bombed to prevent a middle-boss bad guy from escaping, or the time they happily & knowingly slaughtered an entire spaceship of first contact aliens because the aliens were pranksters with 100% nonlethal weaponry that couldn't even hurt half the team.


Yes... *No Survivors, No Escapes* is a big one.


The vary game I earlier refrenced had two players run after aliens, _who were fleeing for their lives_, up and into the spaceship. So we ran a quick dungeon crawl where at the end it was "The aliens are now all dead. You are both now alone on an empty ship with no food or water. The ship continues to hurl itself through space and you are ndver seen again."

They were not happy. 





> Magic needs to have a cost and be dangerous. One of the good things about a CRPG (Diablo, original) was the friendly fire was a possibility. Problem was, though, if one was playing over the internet back in the lat 90's latency and lag caused some positioning errors ... my rogue got cooked more than once as a result by an ally.


I remember playing Halo and my teammate would be so gung ho to kill as fast as possible that she would often carry my sticky plasma grenade in on her back. Using any grenade in her presence was a bad idea. Rockets too.

Mikey, bless his soul, once ran out of rockets and traded a weapon with a marine (who has unlimited ammo). I never saw this though; I saw an explosion that sent me and ny tripod into the air. I had ten seconds to notice several things; Mikey was _really_ sorry, he was dead and his death cam revealed someone shooting rockets as fast as he could reload. Ten grueling minutes of my awesomeness later he spawned back in.

He never did that again.


Once had a player engage in accidental PvP when they didn't take into acount the other players movement into account. One got color sprayed. He made his save and I updated the map on my post.

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## Tanarii

> When packaged like that (good critique) it makes one realize that the original vancian system was better at making magic less overbearing.


Yes. To where the standard common knowledge among those that continue to play AD&D is "Magic-users suck".

Wizards being viewed as overpowered is a Wizards of the Coast D&D thing.

But I'm assuming that D&D-isms generally mean modern D&D-isms.  Not grognard D&D-isms.
Otherwise my list would have centered around how player paranoia means they can't get anything accomplished, since they spend the entire session checking for traps.  :Small Amused:

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## RandomPeasant

> Even in games that are structurally similar to D&D, games can fall in different places on Quality vs Quantity. For example, in D&D, a group of 5th-7th level characters or so can probably take out quite a few orcs or other low-level adversaries, but would get squashed by a storm giant or something. In other games, the opposite can be true, where even the greatest swordsman in the world is at serious risk when fighting just two or three opponents.


I don't know that you can really call that a "D&Dism". How many of what type of enemy you can beat varies between editions of D&D, and in many cases can vary by optimization within a game of D&D. Grimlocks went from "starter enemy" to "midgame enemy" in the transition from 3e to 4e. Lots of monsters get their specific threat level moved around to fill out the Monster Manual properly.

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## Quertus

> Usually culture shock when magic has a cost and/or isn't the bees knees. And culture shock is often translated into "this game sucks".
> 
> Same thing for all the things I gave really.  It can potentially happen when players are faced with no assumption of fair battles, no assumption of PCs living, having to deal with mysteries/puzzles/intrigue, have to make decisions about things outside the character (traditionally in the DMs hands), or having to decide what's next for their player characters when it's not a big neon sign saying "this way!"
> 
> Otoh unlike some of the others, it probably won't get the PCs into hot water.  So that's a fair point.


Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying. Ill admit, Im not terribly thrilled with Whats over that hill? I dont know - you tell me., but, yeah, I see how setting expectations can be important for these..




> Who cares if you can be a Starfleet admiral and have planets nuked when those same points will buy you up from 6 dice of "i sword gud" to 7 dice (in a game where 3 dice is a trained professional and 5 dice is world champion levels of skill)?
> 
> the time they happily & knowingly slaughtered an entire spaceship of first contact aliens because the aliens were pranksters with 100% nonlethal weaponry that couldn't even hurt half the team.


Good for them. They know how to share the spotlight and not step on one anothers toes with strong niches, and know to kill Kender - especially Kender who have the gaul to say, but I only wounded you and your children, not killed you - why are you upset? with a confused look on their face - on sight. (Color blue to taste)




> Otherwise my list would have centered around how player paranoia means they can't get anything accomplished, since they spend the entire session checking for traps.


Was it gurney who responded to finding traps with the opinion that theyre finding them too easily, so they must have missed something? Because thats a proper D&D mindset.

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## awa

> I don't know that you can really call that a "D&Dism". How many of what type of enemy you can beat varies between editions of D&D, and in many cases can vary by optimization within a game of D&D. Grimlocks went from "starter enemy" to "midgame enemy" in the transition from 3e to 4e. Lots of monsters get their specific threat level moved around to fill out the Monster Manual properly.


orcs are a great example of that, they have become increasingly swole.

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## Tanarii

> orcs are a great example of that, they have become increasingly swole.


They kinda had to.  PCs have become increasingly Swole.

Keep in mind that in 5e, a CR 1/2 Orc means for four characters they can handle 2 of them without serious danger in 6 separate battles, or 4 of them in 3 more dangerous separate battles. That's a lot more than level 1 AD&D characters want to fight in straight up battles before quite possibly losing someone and/or retreating for the day.

They (any other humanoids) did scale up faster than e.g. human & Demi-human guards tho.  It used to be level 1 Fighter PC roughly equal to Orc roughly equal to NPC fighting man. Where "roughly equal" meant somewhat on odds of one killing the other.  Now orcs are less than a level 1 PC, but far more than a guard.  Even a goblin is more dangerous than a guard, and a kobold is on par.

Which I like.  The idea that humanoids are a serious threat to human/Demi-human guards one-on-one but not nearly as much to adventuring PCs works for me.  It makes my starting quests much more believable.

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## Thane of Fife

> I don't know that you can really call that a "D&Dism". How many of what type of enemy you can beat varies between editions of D&D, and in many cases can vary by optimization within a game of D&D. Grimlocks went from "starter enemy" to "midgame enemy" in the transition from 3e to 4e. Lots of monsters get their specific threat level moved around to fill out the Monster Manual properly.


That's true, but the specific enemies wasn't really the point I was trying to make. In pretty much every version of D&D I can think of, a high-level creature can out-fight quite a few creatures of low level. There are games where that is just flat out not true, even though the equivalent high-level character might defeat one low-level character as decisively or even more decisively.

As you say, there is variety even between editions of D&D, but there can also be great disparity (oftentimes even more) compared to other games; it is a problem that I have seen many people run into when switching between game systems.

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## Cluedrew

It is a little bit different then some of these, because this one comes up most when getting people to try a non-D&D system. People assuming that all role-playing games are as hard to learn and play as D&D. I can pull out an index card sized rules set and yet people have told me they don't like math and therefore aren't into role-playing games.

Another is the broader idea that the game is going to be particularly skill testing. I have yet to find a system that has none, but there is a difference between it being present and the focus. Like people trying to optimize things that are mostly about character expression, breaking character for power and so on.

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## Satinavian

I hardly ever get players that have been socialized with D&D. Even when actually playing D&D it is often the reverse and assumptions brought in from other games that make problems there.


However, D&D-isms i have seen are :

- "The gameworld is the plaything of the DM who has sole authority over it." That is rarely the case elsewhere and even less when official settings are involved and canon is given priority, even if it is a player remembering it.

- Rules are for combat. The rest can be handled by handwaving, fiat and maybe an attribute roll.

- The iconic role for a spellcaster is a squishy, glas-cannon-like blaster.

- The thief/rogue/scoundrel archetype is primarily a damage dealer and expected to outdamage the more tanky professional combattant archetypes

- "adventurers" is a distinct social stratum.

- "if you must roll, you have already lost." An expectation born from the combination of the high spread of single s20 rolls, missing rules for most activities that are not combat and the expectation to be able to sweettalk the DM. That generally doesn't translate well into any syste with proper skill rules.

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## Batcathat

> - "The gameworld is the plaything of the DM who has sole authority over it." That is rarely the case elsewhere and even less when official settings are involved and canon is given priority, even if it is a player remembering it.


Is this really a D&D-ism? In my experience, "the GM has final say over the world" tend to be the basic assumption in most games, even if the goes against a canon setting.

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## GloatingSwine

The GM has final say over the _game_, because that's their job. That's why you even have a GM in the game, so that someone can have the final say when it is needed.

That tends to mean they have final say over the world, in as much as it lies beyond the reach of a character, because running the world is also their job.

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## Zombimode

> Prisoners & surrender. D&Ders often assume all surrenders are fake, all prisoners are lying and will backstab asap, and that you can't profit from them in any way. They often won't believe that a filthy rich noble with a reputation to keep might actually surrender, swear parole, and pay ransom. They just treat them like any other CE psychopath penniless murder-hobo and assume the surrender is a fake-out to buy time to recharge a special ability or something. Likewise, they assume everything is a no quarter fight to the death. Like they think they're always fighting hungry troll ninjas instead of honorable knights, and will automatically be tortured, killed, & eaten if they surrender.


I have no idea why this would be the case, or rather why a family of systems (D&D) should have anything to do with that outlook.

It definitely doesn't match my experience.





> "Nat 20".  A lot of folks treat the idea that they _could_ succeed at an impossible task on a Nat 20 as reason that the DM *must* allow them to make a roll.  This really isn't that common outside of D&D.  If you can't pass whatever the check is, the DM is absolutely empowered to just say no.


That would be a very strange opinion to hold since neither D&D 3.5 nor 5e has automatic success for anything but attack and saving throws on a natural 20.

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## Alcore

> That would be a very strange opinion to hold since neither D&D 3.5 nor 5e has automatic success for anything but attack and saving throws on a natural 20.


Just because it isn't true by RAW doesn't mean the players don't get it in their heads that it is true. 



A more obscure one but I have encountered; *If you have a penalty to use an item you cannot use the item*. I have had more than one argument with a player (while being a player myself at the time) where my character has used a weapon that he was not proficient in and they blow up like you gravely insulted their mother and are giving one chance to apologize.

"Yes, my wizard can use this greataxe to cut through the rope. Sure I have a spell but I'm not wasting the slot."

"Yes, my wizard can use this shield. The penalties are recorded and I have no combat spells left. Seemed like the best idea; now leave me alone while I flank this goblin for you."

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## Satinavian

> Is this really a D&D-ism? In my experience, "the GM has final say over the world" tend to be the basic assumption in most games, even if the goes against a canon setting.


Well i see less tolerance for ignoring canon in other games or from players socialized in other games. It is often assumed that when campaign premise told you the campaign was in seting X, then the GM is bound by Xs canon and that deviations should be a group decision.

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## Zombimode

> Just because it isn't true by RAW doesn't mean the players don't get it in their heads that it is true.


Ok, but why do you want to call an annoying habit that is not supported in D&D a "D&Dism"? I don't see the rationale for this.

Your point about items using begs the same question.

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## Alcore

> Ok, but why do you want to call an annoying habit that is not supported in D&D a "D&Dism"? I don't see the rationale for this.
> 
> Your point about items using begs the same question.


Because we are not talking mechanics; we are talking about assumptions _players_ may take from D&D and bring them to other games. Some of these things are true in D&D and others are things they think is true but isn't; either way these are things a GM running his first non-D&D game can look out for or even address in session zero if he feels the need; he knows his players better than we do. This is all to help him and doesn't necessarily have to be a strict "D&D-ism" as there is more to the thread topic than the title. 


This is more of a social discussion about what a D&D player's baggage might be as they bring it with them.

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## Zombimode

> Because we are not talking mechanics; we are talking about assumptions _players_ may take from D&D and bring them to other games.


But you cant take something from a thing that doesn't have it in the first place.

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## Cluedrew

> I hardly ever get players that have been socialized with D&D. Even when actually playing D&D it is often the reverse and assumptions brought in from other games that make problems there.


You could stick it in a spoiler or something, but I would like to hear about the [whatever]-isms that have caused issues in D&D play. In theory I suppose you could mention any assumption that causes issues when held in some other system, but that is probably (almost?) all of them. Point is I think the opposite side would be interesting.




> Ok, but why do you want to call an annoying habit that is not supported in D&D a "D&Dism"? I don't see the rationale for this.


Even if it isn't rooted in D&D rules, this is definitely rooted in D&D culture. I've had to talk a group out of some destructive critical fumble rules before that they just reflexively added to the system. (We added a confirm fumbles system.)

And I got called away a bit and I see *Alcore* has replied and gone into more detail. The "GM has complete control over the setting" assumption might also count as a D&D-ism, but I've also seen plenty of D&D games disregard it so I think it isn't to the same extent.

And I see that *Zombimode* yeah you can. Even if no official source ever had (from my example) critical fumbles it is a common house rule that I have seen multiple groups add to their game. It is part of D&D culture even if it was never part of the official rule-set. Of course D&D culture is not uniform throughout, so maybe it wasn't around you, but it definitely was near me.

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## Batcathat

> But you cant take something from a thing that doesn't have it in the first place.


Just because something isn't in the _rules_ of D&D doesn't mean it can't be in the _culture_ of D&D, the same way something can be part of a country's culture without being part of the country's laws.

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## Zombimode

> Even if it isn't rooted in D&D rules, this is definitely rooted in D&D culture. I've had to talk a group out of some destructive critical fumble rules before that they just reflexively added to the system. (We added a confirm fumbles system.)
> 
> And I got called away a bit and I see *Alcore* has replied and gone into more detail. The "GM has complete control over the setting" assumption might also count as a D&D-ism, but I've also seen plenty of D&D games disregard it so I think it isn't to the same extent.
> 
> And I see that *Zombimode* yeah you can. Even if no official source ever had (from my example) critical fumbles it is a common house rule that I have seen multiple groups add to their game. It is part of D&D culture even if it was never part of the official rule-set. Of course D&D culture is not uniform throughout, so maybe it wasn't around you, but it definitely was near me.


Hm, so maybe it is a bit like "famous" movie/other quotes that gets attributed to certain characters/persons by a significant portion of people although it is actually a misquote?

Still, I am rather curious of how things that were (as far as I know) never part of the D&D rules (that goes for both critical failures and nat 20 auto-success for anything other then attacks and saves) but that _do_ exist in very many _other_ rpgs systems come attached to D&D culture.

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## Alcore

> But you cant take something from a thing that doesn't have it in the first place.


 :Small Confused:   But...


It does have it... how could I have arguments with other players about X if X doesn't exist in D&D?

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## Zombimode

> But...
> 
> 
> It does have it... how could I have arguments with other players about X if X doesn't exist in D&D?


Well, at least you see my point  :Small Tongue: 

So, to reiterate: you brought up one baggage that players coming from D&D bring into non-D&D games is the expectation that a natural 20 is an automatic success regardless of the task.

I responded that I found that hard to believe since in no edition of D&D is a natural 20 an automatic success anywhere besides attack rolls and saving throws.

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## Alcore

> Well, at least you see my point 
> 
> So, to reiterate: you brought up one baggage that players coming from D&D bring into non-D&D games is the expectation that a natural 20 is an automatic success regardless of the task.
> 
> I responded that I found that hard to believe since in no edition of D&D is a natural 20 an automatic success anywhere besides attack rolls and saving throws.


*No.* I do not see your point. *No;* _I_ did not bring up Nat20. False God did, which you found confusing, which I pointed out that "just because it isn't in the rules doesn't mean it can't become a D&Dism", which is my point; which is something you're having trouble with. Which is probably why my last post, which didn't suggest supporting me understanding your point, was misinterpreted as me understanding.

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## False God

> That would be a very strange opinion to hold since neither D&D 3.5 nor 5e has automatic success for anything but attack and saving throws on a natural 20.


And it's a rule people like in certain areas of the game and have applied it to other areas of the game often enough to have trained players to expect it to be a thing.

Players often hold strange opinions, yet they are common enough to be something I'd consider a D&D-ism.

---

Anyway, to add another D&D-ism
"Wealth by level".  In many other systems, low level characters can be quite rich!  But money is often an abstraction used to facilitate character concepts and advance gameplay.  Having money can absolutely substitute for skill or gear in many modern games.  There's also no assumption that high-level characters will be wealthy and well equipped.  There's no inherent gear treadmill, and in fact in many games "gear" isn't even a thing.  _Equipment_, sure, but you're quite likely to be using the same glock you bought at at the start for $500 as you are 20 sessions later.

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## Telok

> I have no idea why this would be the case, or rather why a family of systems (D&D) should have anything to do with that outlook.
> 
> It definitely doesn't match my experience.


Re: no prisoners

Its an outgrowth of D&D's "hp not wounds" model that means 1 hp is a fully functional combatant and DMs playing intelligent monsters like players play PCs. In short any consious prisoner has to be treated like a conniving PC in an "escape from prison & take revenge" scenario. That mind set plus 1) retries or potential high rolls on ropes/manacles, 2) the continuing reduction of restrictions (vsm & prep) on how spellcasting works & inability to inherently identify casters by behavior, 3) more and more npcs getting magical spell like abilities with no restrictions.

So you take 5 kobolds in leather armor & spears prisoner after beating them all down to 1 hp, tie them up with rope, then promise that you'll release them if they promise to leave the area peacefully. First, most players wouldn't feel obligated to keep any promises made as prisoners. PCs would likely run off a bit, heal up, maybe get allies, then come back for revenge. That means most players won't accept any promises as binding. This reduces things to kill the kobolds or keep them prisoner. Second, if the kobolds want to escape it's likely opposed knot tying or a static DC vs 5x kobolds trying a dex check (most being more dexy than strong), possibly with them helping each other. Even if each kobold needs to roll an 18+ that's about a 50% escape chance of one getting out to help others get more rolls. You're looking at having someone guard them 24/7 just to keep them from escaping & trying to kill you (especially if they get a full heal rest opportunity). Third, you can't (modern D&D rules-wise) tell if any of them were casters unless you saw them cast spells. And even if you could the vsm components are so loose and unenforced/optionally unused that you have to blind, gag, and cut their hands off to stop them for casting. Unfortunately there's currently a trend towards 'simplifying' caster npcs/monsters by giving them powers instead of spells, powers that don't have the spell casting restrictions. Which means even blinding, gagging, and maiming an npc caster might not stop them from dropping a not-a-spell-Fireball on the party after a couple more fights that day.

Go through all that and many many players just feel that prisoners are way more trouble and danger than they're ever possibly worth. In old AD&D with retainers, followers, memorization times, casters requiring books or holy symbols, and enforced vsm components, you could pull it off. But the last fifteen or twenty years of D&D have cut out all that as 'un-fun' and made taking & keeping prisoners very hard as a side effect.

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## KorvinStarmast

> Re: no prisoners
> 
> Its an outgrowth of D&D's "hp not wounds" model that means 1 hp is a fully functional combatant and DMs playing intelligent monsters like players play PCs. In short any consious prisoner has to be treated like a conniving PC in an "escape from prison & take revenge" scenario. That mind set plus 1) retries or potential high rolls on ropes/manacles, 2) the continuing reduction of restrictions (vsm & prep) on how spellcasting works & inability to inherently identify casters by behavior, 3) more and more npcs getting magical spell like abilities with no restrictions.


 If you knock them out they are unconscious for 1d4 hours. (In current edition). You don't have to kill them.  Melee attacks can choose to 'knock out' or not. {current edition}  This isn't a video game.

(This was also true in previous editions for those who were not mechanics obsessed)

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## Telok

> If you knock them out they are unconscious for 1d4 hours. (In current edition). You don't have to kill them.  Melee attacks can choose to 'knock out' or not. {current edition}  This isn't a video game.
> 
> (This was also true in previous editions for those who were not mechanics obsessed)


Which absolutely doesn't help in keeping them prisoner because as soon as they wake up it's the same all over again, plus _you_ have to haul the unconsious bodies around while they're out. Knockouts have been a thing in every edition since AD&D, it doesn't matter for taking prisoners if they pop right up at full power as soon as their eyes open again.

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## Bohandas

> If you knock them out they are unconscious for 1d4 hours. (In current edition). You don't have to kill them.  Melee attacks can choose to 'knock out' or not. {current edition}  This isn't a video game.
> 
> (This was also true in previous editions for those who were not mechanics obsessed)


IIRC in 3e and 3.5e you could knock them out for an arbitrary long period of time because there wasn't a limit to nonlethal damage




> Which absolutely doesn't help in keeping them prisoner because as soon as they wake up it's the same all over again, plus _you_ have to haul the unconsious bodies around while they're out. Knockouts have been a thing in every edition since AD&D, it doesn't matter for taking prisoners if they pop right up at full power as soon as their eyes open again.


I know that at least in 3.5 there was an explicit rule that injuries to specific body parts could impose penalties adjudicated by the DM, so theoretically you could break or cut something to prevent them from being able to fight effectively. That's more explicit, but less violent overall.

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## Psyren

> 1. Murder Hobo-ism- This is extremely common in D&D (not all games of course), and this group has engaged in it to some degree.  However, in the game we are about to start on they will be tied pretty closely to the world via family ties, group loyalties, and will not be able to solve ALL of their issues with violence.  To do so would lead to serious repercussions.


I'd call this less an issue with D&D and more an issue with how your players have been rewarded for resolving conflict in the past. A propensity for murderhoboing isn't necessarily their fault, because many games (especially video games) they would have come to D&D from tend to reward it. While it's true that running D&D a certain way can reinforce it, the way to curb it is to craft situations where the nonviolent solution is the superior one, both narratively and in terms of the tangible rewards they end up receiving.




> 2. Looting.  This is a very common way to get wealthy and treasure in D&D.  However, this game system frowns highly on looting, and even the accumulation of wealth unnecessarily can cause social issues.  There are also serious social and cultural taboos around dead bodies that make looting even less practical.


5e is actually the edition that is least dependent on wealth of all of them, because the game's math doesn't require it in order to function. Your players can even do without magic weapons for a long time without too many problems, though doing that will give your casters somewhat of a leg up in a lot of encounters. It shouldn't be too difficult to wean 5e players off these things if you need to for the sake of your world and system.

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## Quertus

> IIRC in 3e and 3.5e you could knock them out for an arbitrary long period of time because there wasn't a limit to nonlethal damage.


Iirc, that was true in 3.0, but in 3.5, while still technically true, they awakened after a preset amount of time, regardless of how many million nonlethal damage theyve accumulated.

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## Cluedrew

> Hm, so maybe it is a bit like "famous" movie/other quotes that gets attributed to certain characters/persons by a significant portion of people although it is actually a misquote?


That is a brilliant metaphor / comparison. Sometimes a work's cultural impact doesn't actually line up with the content of that same work.




> Still, I am rather curious of how things that were (as far as I know) never part of the D&D rules (that goes for both critical failures and nat 20 auto-success for anything other then attacks and saves) but that _do_ exist in very many _other_ rpgs systems come attached to D&D culture.


Yeah that is a much trickier question. I haven't been in the role-playing community long enough to see any such evolution. I have been around long enough to see that they are associated, but as for why, that is guesswork on my end.

For example, I could see the auto-success thing leaking out because people don't want to track multiple resolution systems for one game. And knowing D&D they probably role more attacks and saves than skill checks. Plus it makes for silly stories, too silly for some, but still that makes a mark in people's memory. I'm actually fairly confident that both of those things were factors, but if there could be some other step in this story that I don't know.

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## Satinavian

> You could stick it in a spoiler or something, but I would like to hear about the [whatever]-isms that have caused issues in D&D play. In theory I suppose you could mention any assumption that causes issues when held in some other system, but that is probably (almost?) all of them. Point is I think the opposite side would be interesting.


*Spoiler: Answer*
Show

Well, the biggest one probably is "Combat is for combat characters". People coming from other games usually assume that you can build noncombatants as viable characters and that Fighters and similar classes are supposed to be far better at combat than anyone else.

The second thing that occasionally pops up is that the common faux medieval flavor of most D&D worlds is assumed to imply a real medieval feudal society with all its social classes, guilds, right, privileges and obligation etc. Now the thing is that i live in Europe and most players know quite a bit about medieval society. And when put into practice that really clashes a lot with D&D' Wild-West-with-medieval-aesthetics assumptions.

The third thing is that many players assume the default worldbuilding to be more robust. That is mostly about economy but also ecology (that includes all the monsters) and sociology. D&D players don't expect any of this to work when looking closely and outside of the dungeon-delving context, so they tread carefully. Non D&D players often do look carefully because they don't know better and then are utterly confused and waste way to much time trying to make sense of it.

Another thing might be how PCs are above regular NPCs. Or, most prominently, how in many 3E settings nearly everyone else is a first level commoner and PCs are special. that is not what people expect when they create a lv1 fighter or bard. They expect to have a young, inexperienced normal guy who might once grow into a famous heroes but is probably inferior in skill to most of the older people around.

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## Psyren

> Hm, so maybe it is a bit like "famous" movie/other quotes that gets attributed to certain characters/persons by a significant portion of people although it is actually a misquote?


This phenomenon has an official name: Mandela Effect




> Iirc, that was true in 3.0, but in 3.5, while still technically true, they awakened after a preset amount of time, regardless of how many million nonlethal damage theyve accumulated.


I'm having trouble locating that rule, do you know where it is? My understanding is that you heal character level of nonlethal HP per hour, but you still need to cover all your "debt" before you can wake. I checked both the SRD and Rules Compendium.

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## KorvinStarmast

> 2. Looting.  This is a very common way to get wealthy and treasure in D&D.  However, this game system frowns highly on looting, and even the accumulation of wealth unnecessarily can cause social issues.  There are also serious social and cultural taboos around dead bodies that make looting even less practical.


 In the original game, loot was a way to get XP (1 GP = 1 XP) which incentivized 'getting the treasure' on par with, or even over, engaging in combat. (Which was often very lethal).  But that's been over taken by other means of incentivizing players.

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## Quertus

> I'm having trouble locating that rule, do you know where it is? My understanding is that you heal character level of nonlethal HP per hour, but you still need to cover all your "debt" before you can wake. I checked both the SRD and Rules Compendium.


AFB, Ill check my physical books when I get home (if I can find them  :Small Red Face: ).

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## gbaji

> One of the biggest ones has to do with success rates. Simply put, D&D is calibrated such that a modestly competent character succeeds at a task more often than he fails, and most characters are modestly competent at most things. Many systems, those more heavily skills-driven than D&D, will have your character fail more often than succeed at even the things at which they are modestly competent.


A good portion of this is the very focused class based system D&D uses. Players assume that if they make a rogue, they'll be good at rogue like things and that the difficulty will tend to scale  such that they are successful most of the time (otherwise they will feel like their class sucks, right?). That mindset, when faced with a skill based system, runs into problems. You build your "rogue like character" in a skill based game, and it maybe has a 60% climb  instead of the 40% everyone else has.

There's a lot more "ability by degrees" in other game systems than in D&D, where each character is assumed to have a single somewhat narrow "role" in the party. That can take a bit of retraining to some players.




> Correlated with that first point is the assumption that your characters are Important Heroes. I see a lot of people, in discussions about D&D, state that the DM should tend to rule in favor of PC competence rather than incompetence. To the limited extent that I agree with that, I think that's fair for D&D's significant emphasis on the heroic power fantasy as the core of the game. Not every system has that same level of emphasis on being a Cool Dude Who Does Cool Stuff.


This is somewhat based on the theme of the campaign, but yeah. You can certainly do heroic fantasy in other game systems, but D&D almost requires it. D&D players often have a hard time shifting gears to realizing that their characters aren't automatically any more special than anyone else in the world around them. When you shift from "that farmer is a level X commoner" to "that farmer has the same set of skills on his sheet you do, and you actually have no idea what he's done in his life and may be skilled at doing", you tend to play differently. What makes you likely more powerful than the farmer isn't that you're a different class, but that you are walking around in armor with a sword, and he's just a guy carrying a hoe or something.

Just watch a D&D players head explode when they run into some small village and discover that a large percentage of the able bodied folks there are also part of the local volunteer militia, and practice with weapons regularly when they aren't doing their regular jobs. Are they going to be as skilled or well equiped as a PC might be? Probably not. But you wouldn't want to just dismiss them either.




> Narrow power gaps, as people have mentioned, in D&D the difference between a character with 1XP and a character with 1000XP can be quite large.  In many other systems, the power gaps can be much closer, with characters gaining more options/skills/feats, rather than raw power and HP.


Yup. Most systems, it's just a matter of degrees. So anything can be a threat. I also think that the AC/HP methodology used in D&D tends to create that artificial gap (levels specifically).

Doesn't help that D&D also has long gravitated to a model where the encounters are scaled specifically to X combats of Y difficulty per rest period. D&D has a very attrition based system, and assumes use of these things over a series of level appropriate encounters. Most other games just don't do that. The focus is more on figuring out how to succeed at any given thing, but rarely just "you will use X resources for this encounter" like D&D.





> A more obscure one but I have encountered; *If you have a penalty to use an item you cannot use the item*. I have had more than one argument with a player (while being a player myself at the time) where my character has used a weapon that he was not proficient in and they blow up like you gravely insulted their mother and are giving one chance to apologize.
> 
> "Yes, my wizard can use this greataxe to cut through the rope. Sure I have a spell but I'm not wasting the slot."
> 
> "Yes, my wizard can use this shield. The penalties are recorded and I have no combat spells left. Seemed like the best idea; now leave me alone while I flank this goblin for you."


Yup. Again, that's the class focus in action. Many D&D players just don't even consider doing anything outside of the designed class abilities, even though they are technically available (as you mentioned). In lot of other games, the spell caster picking up a weapon and fighting isn't unusual at all. And in a lot of games there isn't really even a distinction between "caster" and "fighter" at all. It's just different amounts of different things that make up what a character can do.

My Shadowrun shaman certainly had some melee and short range weapons he used all the time. Did I charge into battle? Oh heck no. But I... er... "lurked" around and took shots when they were available. The D&D mindset would be "I put my spirits into play, and are helping, so now I just stand around and do nothing else". Er... no.

The classic ones I've run into myself are players "looking for a dungeon" (yeah, seriously). I literally watched a player walk up to a town guard and ask that, and was promptly taking to "the dungeon" (jail), and asked if he really wanted to go there. Hilarity ensued.

D&D players also often assume that every single thing in the game setting must be relevant to the adventure they are on. I don't know that this is really D&D specific, or just the result of so many published scenarios and games re-inforcing this thinking. I think a lot of those scenarios program the players into poking into everything because failing to do so makes them "miss something important".

Also, D&D players do tend to think that their nature as "PCs" make them special and "above the law". It can be amusing when they discover that yeah, that evil guy living in the house down the street doing horrible things needed to be taken out, but having done that they discover that breaking into someone's home at night, killing his guards, killing him, and taking all of his stuff is still, shockingly, also illegal. So the town guards who arrived after hearing reports of fighting and spells going off at the location wont automatically just realize "Oh. These are PCs on an important mission, so I guess it's all ok".

I suppose any game system can lend itself to these foibles (and I certainly have run into D&D tables that avoid them), but they do seem to be just so much more common among players who start out playing D&D than in other games. And to be fair, a lot of this is likely that most new players will start out playing D&D, so they're "new players". And yeah, a lot of times you are just playing quick direct adventure scenarios, so some of the larger world setting stuff gets commonly left off to the side. But yeah. It takes some time for those players to adjust to a more... "mature?" game.

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## Bohandas

I'd argue that most of that is more a CRPG thing

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## gbaji

> I'd argue that most of that is more a CRPG thing


That's a good point. And I'm sure that these days, that's probably the case. But I can say that I've made the same observations about these sorts of game playing behaviors from well before CRPGs existed. So maybe it's that CRPGs encoded those assumptions into their games? Or are limited platforms for playing in the first place and therefore accurately simulate poorly run/GM'd game environments that some of us have been seeing for 40+ years?

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## Telok

I'm remided of something. Species/race as politics.

Players see a town/planet/etc. in a future or fantasy game marked as "elf majority" or that something is in territory near "elf" and assume it's politically aligned with the nearest "elf nation". Therefore anything that isn't elf is apparently an invader or bandit or criminal, which makes it fair game for "laws don't apply to us so kill & loot it". So you get something like allied dwarves having a military fuel & ammo depot in an area the players think of as elf, and they make weird assumptions up to and including starting interstellar wars by attacking military assets under the auspices of other nations while letting actual criminals escape because the person on the video call was a particular species. It's be like US military contractors attacking overseas UN assets based on the hair color of the guards at the gates.

You can head it off if you notice it, but you have to pay close attention to how the players are acting. Quite often they won't ask any questions or discuss anything, they just make assumptions and do stuff like basic reasonable recon that suddenly morphs into an all out no prisoners taken berserker attack. And you have to put a absolute hard stop on it, they won't take hints or pay attention to NPCs because they brush those off as "NPC cowardice" or think you're talking about combat odds instead of massive wars across the setting.

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## Bohandas

> Yup. Most systems, it's just a matter of degrees. So anything can be a threat. I also think that the AC/HP methodology used in D&D tends to create that artificial gap (levels specifically).
> 
> Doesn't help that D&D also has long gravitated to a model where the encounters are scaled specifically to X combats of Y difficulty per rest period. D&D has a very attrition based system, and assumes use of these things over a series of level appropriate encounters. Most other games just don't do that. The focus is more on figuring out how to succeed at any given thing, but rarely just "you will use X resources for this encounter" like D&D.
> 
> ....
> 
> Yup. Again, that's the class focus in action. Many D&D players just don't even consider doing anything outside of the designed class abilities, even though they are technically available (as you mentioned). In lot of other games, the spell caster picking up a weapon and fighting isn't unusual at all. And in a lot of games there isn't really even a distinction between "caster" and "fighter" at all. It's just different amounts of different things that make up what a character can do.


It seems to me that these two things, combined with D&D's unusual spellcasting system, should cancel out in a lot of situations. The high level spellcaster's not going to waste their limited spell slots on random encounters and low level mooks when they can break them apart with their bare hands

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## gbaji

> It seems to me that these two things, combined with D&D's unusual spellcasting system, should cancel out in a lot of situations. The high level spellcaster's not going to waste their limited spell slots on random encounters and low level mooks when they can break them apart with their bare hands


You'd think so, wouldn't you?

I don't play D&D actively enough (or at high level) recently to know if that's the case though. My suscpicion is that a lot of folks playing a pure caster in D&D will either sit around doing nothing and let the fighters take out the mooks, or will, in fact, gleefully blast them to bits with spells. Very few will actually do the math, realize that their relatively poor AC is still well past good enough to avoid taking any more damage than the fighters (AC past "nat 20 required to hit me" just don't matter, right?), and their wimpy damage with a melee weapon is still plenty to take out those low hp opponents quickly. So yeah. They *should*. I'm curious how many actually do though. Like, if the wizard has a full set of spells and the first encounter of the day is said mooks, what would they do?

My money is on "blast them", but I could be wrong.

Eh. And there's a RP element here too. Lots of people play pure casters as being folks who just don't like to get their hands dirty with melee, so that may skew the results a bit. Again though, that's a function of the firm class structure of the game. Lots of other games don't make the same distinction, so you're less likely to ever run a character who might think "hitting someone with a *gasp* weapon? How uncivilized!" in the first place.

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## Satinavian

> You'd think so, wouldn't you?
> 
> I don't play D&D actively enough (or at high level) recently to know if that's the case though. My suscpicion is that a lot of folks playing a pure caster in D&D will either sit around doing nothing and let the fighters take out the mooks, or will, in fact, gleefully blast them to bits with spells. Very few will actually do the math, realize that their relatively poor AC is still well past good enough to avoid taking any more damage than the fighters (AC past "nat 20 required to hit me" just don't matter, right?), and their wimpy damage with a melee weapon is still plenty to take out those low hp opponents quickly. So yeah. They *should*. I'm curious how many actually do though. Like, if the wizard has a full set of spells and the first encounter of the day is said mooks, what would they do?


My experience is that encounters where the enemies are mooks need nat 20s to hit even the low AC party members and don't have better options, simply don't come up which makes it hard to do generalized predictions.

Otherwise, most high level casters have option to take out extremely underlevelled enemies without paying with resources and also without doing melee. Depending on edition its unlimited scaling cantrips or reserve feats or class abilities or whatever. But when one has no such option available, yes, i tend to see either using a range/melee weapon or doing some AoE.

But even if they sit out and let the fighter do it, they probably do so not because of lacking math, but because they know that the fight is utterly irrelevant and pointless and probably only exists to let the fighter player have some spotlight.





> Eh. And there's a RP element here too. Lots of people play pure casters as being folks who just don't like to get their hands dirty with melee, so that may skew the results a bit. Again though, that's a function of the firm class structure of the game. Lots of other games don't make the same distinction, so you're less likely to ever run a character who might think "hitting someone with a *gasp* weapon? How uncivilized!" in the first place.


And i don't think that is true either. While classless systems tend to have more casters etc. that don't fit the D&D iconic class, the concept of "civilized noncombattant" is still strong and many people build and play such characters even without being nudged there by the systems. Many of them are even non-casters.

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## KorvinStarmast

> But I'm assuming that D&D-isms generally mean modern D&D-isms.  Not grognard D&D-isms. Otherwise my list would have centered around how player paranoia means they can't get anything accomplished, since they spend the entire session checking for traps.


 *Snort* Checking for traps is a good survival skill to have. 



> Well i see less tolerance for ignoring canon in other games or from players socialized in other games. It is often assumed that when campaign premise told you the campaign was in seting X, then the GM is bound by Xs canon and that deviations should be a group decision.


 The obsession with canon is the problem there. 
With that said, Blades in the Dark has a well established setting, and feel, so I think that if the GM starts to go off piste at least one of the players, me included, will ask why. 

As to high level casters blasting mooks.   :Small Smile:  
I had a 12th level sorcerer shoot a light crossbow at a Dao on Wedensay (me DM) and he missed. 
His Team mates gave him the old "Is there a reason that you didn't use firebolt?" question.  
My brother spelled out the difference in damage, and the chance to hit. (Sorc has a Cha of 20). 
Sorcerer took it good naturedly, and used Mind Sliver on the following attempt.

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## CarpeGuitarrem

> Is this really a D&D-ism? In my experience, "the GM has final say over the world" tend to be the basic assumption in most games, even if the goes against a canon setting.


That's a bit different from "the world is the GM's plaything". I've had a doozy of a time with some people who keep trying to defer to me and treat me as an absolute rather than a chair among equals.

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## Alcore

> That's a bit different from "the world is the GM's plaything". I've had a doozy of a time with some people who keep trying to defer to me and treat me as an absolute rather than a chair among equals.


And _this_ is why I don't do D&D anymore. I don't want to be on a pedestal, I don't want to be treated like a king; I want to enjoy a game with people that I, someday, would like to call friends. 

The loneliness of the pedestal is killing...




> D&D players also often assume that every single thing in the game setting must be relevant to the adventure they are on. I don't know that this is really D&D specific, or just the result of so many published scenarios and games re-inforcing this thinking. I think a lot of those scenarios program the players into poking into everything because failing to do so makes them "miss something important".


I feel this is more a problem with the medium. At the table you have three or four hours to get through material that is spoken. So you cherry pick details that actually do matter until they start investigating. In Play by Post I can make it as detailed as I want and you can reread it, unedited, as often as desired. That can bite the game and the players in the butt when they take everything not nailed down expecting it to be of use. Spoiler; good looking treasure, with descriptions, can be sold.

Some won't remember what you said and others seem to be challenged by reading a three sentence paragraph. Stuff is missed, misinterpreted or lost to time.

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## Tanarii

> That's a bit different from "the world is the GM's plaything". I've had a doozy of a time with some people who keep trying to defer to me and treat me as an absolute rather than a chair among equals.


D&D-ism:
Being a dungeon master is hard work that requires extensive knowledge of the rules and lots of prep time.

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## Bohandas

> You'd think so, wouldn't you?
> 
> I don't play D&D actively enough (or at high level) recently to know if that's the case though. My suscpicion is that a lot of folks playing a pure caster in D&D will either sit around doing nothing and let the fighters take out the mooks, or will, in fact, gleefully blast them to bits with spells. Very few will actually do the math, realize that their relatively poor AC is still well past good enough to avoid taking any more damage than the fighters (AC past "nat 20 required to hit me" just don't matter, right?), and their wimpy damage with a melee weapon is still plenty to take out those low hp opponents quickly. So yeah. They *should*. I'm curious how many actually do though. Like, if the wizard has a full set of spells and the first encounter of the day is said mooks, what would they do?
> 
> My money is on "blast them", but I could be wrong.


In any case, that's generally how I end up playing turn-based d20 CRPGs like _Temple of Elemental Evil_ and (to a lesser extent) _Kingmaker_

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## Alcore

Giant in the Playground




> I don't play D&D actively enough (or at high level) recently to know if that's the case though. My suscpicion is that a lot of folks playing a pure caster in D&D will either sit around doing nothing and let the fighters take out the mooks, or will, in fact, gleefully blast them to bits with spells. Very few will actually do the math, realize that their relatively poor AC is still well past good enough to avoid taking any more damage than the fighters (AC past "nat 20 required to hit me" just don't matter, right?), and their wimpy damage with a melee weapon is still plenty to take out those low hp opponents quickly.


if it is that unbalanced then...

As a player: *turns to the GM* "why are we even rolling?"

As a GM: *why the **** am I making them roll? Leans over the table. "You come across seven goblins and two are shamans. They are much weaker than you. [I]Who wants to describe their demise from the party?"




> So yeah. They *should*. I'm curious how many actually do though. Like, if the wizard has a full set of spells and the first encounter of the day is said mooks, what would they do?
> 
> My money is on "blast them", but I could be wrong.


if stressed for time (due to plot) it is blast them. Usually with sleep.

I tend to favor Occultists who have medium armor and martial weapons. Witches for a full caster option (the race usually provides defensive or offensive melee options) where, yes; charge right on in with quarter staff and mage armor _might_ be on. At low levels a board and stick is the go-to trying to be the rogues best friend. With a penalty for the shield I might never hit a mook but all my job is is to threaten.

Pathfinder even has a rule for aid another adding +1ac to someone else. More than one tunnel was done with my squishy in the second row with a longspear. _You help the party. If you are not doing anything you're failing._ Some use Daze to cost one enemy a round. They use that every round. 


I don't like playing rocket tag so most spells don't ever tough the enemy directly and my feats are combat focused.

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## Quertus

> if it is that unbalanced then...
> 
> As a player: *turns to the GM* "why are we even rolling?"
> 
> As a GM: *why the **** am I making them roll? Leans over the table. "You come across seven goblins and two are shamans. They are much weaker than you. [I]Who wants to describe their demise from the party?"


Theres actually a rather hefty list of reasons why players and especially GMs might want to actually roll things out. Including *attrition* (it matters (or can matter) what you lose in this fight), *meaningful decisions* (did you kill the bandits, or capture them alive?), *roleplaying* (Katniss Everdeen seems to just be begging to become the poster child for the difference/importance of combat roleplaying), *external factors* (being watched, time crunch, reinforcements, noise, etc), *incomplete information* (you dont know what level these goblins are, or whether theyve poisoned their blades - do you dare attack with only 10% of your power?), *theme/feel*, *setup* (now that youre used to fighting goblins), and *flukes* (we all missed that one particular kobald?!).




> _You help the party. If you are not doing anything you're failing._


Eh, thats complicated. When the Rogue is finding and disarming traps, the best help the BDF, Wizard, etc are likely to provide is to _stay out of the way_. Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, _believes_ that its best for an academia mage not to interfere in battle so long as a) there are trained combatants dealing with things, and b) theyve got this.

Not helping is a valuable tool in the spotlight sharing toolkit.

Stranger, theres groups where PCs being _an active hindrance_ to the party is not just accepted, but encouraged. Not my cup of tea, but point is, while I prefer cooperative play, it is sadly not fair to assume it as a universal truth.




> if stressed for time (due to plot) it is blast them. Usually with sleep.





> I don't like playing rocket tag so most spells don't ever tough the enemy directly and my feats are combat focused.


I could be mistaken, but I suspect most people wouldnt consider sleep and rocket tag to be mutually exclusive sets. In fact, I think SoD/SoL effects usually evoke thoughts of rocket tag.

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## Alcore

> Theres actually a rather hefty list of reasons why players and especially GMs might want to actually roll things out.


This was the best part of the post. A shame most your arguments break down afterwards...





> Including attrition (it matters (or can matter) what you lose in this fight), meaningful decisions (did you kill the bandits, or capture them alive?), roleplaying (Katniss Everdeen seems to just be begging to become the poster child for the difference/importance of combat roleplaying), external factors (being watched, time crunch, reinforcements, noise, etc), incomplete information (you dont know what level these goblins are, or whether theyve poisoned their blades - do you dare attack with only 10% of your power?), theme/feel, setup (now that youre used to fighting goblins), and flukes (we all missed that one particular kobald?!).


My post was quoting a paragraph where the party wizard can wade into melee and will only suffer damage 5% of the time (nat 20).

Attrition: 5$ chance of it happening _at all_.

Meaningful decisions: if the party expresses the desire for captives. Sure.

Roleplaying: covered that in the post you quoted. Well... more implied.

_(frankly all of this would of been taken into account when making the encounter in the first place but whatever...)_

Setup: ... you add hobgoblins? Put them on worgs? Have them in a defensive position so the combat can last another ten minutes to possibly inflict such attrition? The thought you had just ends.  Which is a shame cuz you were really building up for a moment before dropping momentum. 'Setup' is too generic a word to bring too much to mind. 

Fluke: Ok, sure! Now I get a 5% chance to inflict attrition.
All of this time on a combat that could be better spent.




> Eh, thats complicated.


 So was my post before you cherrypicked one statement and divorced it from it's context which leads too...



> When the Rogue is finding and disarming traps, the best help the BDF, Wizard, etc are likely to provide is to stay out of the way.


Funny thing...

How one can take a statement about combat (wizards in melee to be specific) and taking it out of context the statement might not hold up. Language is funny like that sometimes... _anyways;_

I think there are a few spells to help the rogue get better. A fighter (or anyone) using aid other with perception can help if there is room. 





> Not helping is a valuable tool in the spotlight sharing toolkit.


Indeed. It is kinda hard to get the whole party to help each other. Sometimes some need to excluded so others can can be included but some don't want the spotlight. It's complicated.





> I could be mistaken, but I suspect most people wouldnt consider sleep and rocket tag to be mutually exclusive sets. In fact, I think SoD/SoL effects usually evoke thoughts of rocket tag.


Ok. 

...are you responding to a statement I made? I am not reading where I said they were exclusive. The first quote is one example of one; "a rather hefty list of reasons why players and especially GMs might want to actually roll things out." While the other is unrelated to save or die. Crowd control is a real thing that tips battles one way that rarely outright win them.

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## Telok

Don't recall if this has bern mentioned but one D&D-ism that I tend to see coming from "long time" and/or "only plays" D&Ders is dogpiling or retrying rolls.

Typically in rl & dice pool systems if the strongest person in the group can't force a door, the Olympic swimmer can't swim a river, or the person with the most skill at say... writing poetry can't make something sound good, then untrained no-skill people aren't doing it either. But several D&D versions emphasize rolling high as more important than character stats & skill, at least at the levels most commonly played, the 1-12 range. This has trained people to throw more rolls at stuff without regard to if it's appropriate that the character should actually be able to accomplish it.

There's solutions of course, mostly aligned around [ya know, this isn't the place for that miff]. Because it works as a reward system for the activity in D&D, the players tend to carry the habit over to other games where the character being competent or incompetent at something translates into success & failure more than just rolling higher on a d20.

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## Witty Username

I think retry/all units move in is less a D&D ism more that other popular systems have rules for group actions.

In d&d, if the Olympic swimmer and the amatuer bodybuilder can't force the door individually, they can't force it together, where Call of Chultuhu has its rules for joining forces to have a higher functioning characteristic, and dice pool systems tend to have group rolls.

And retry always depended on context, I think the 3.5 stuctures of taking 10 and taking 20 are missed in 5e, as it gave a framework of high/low stress situations. Since checks tend to have no consequences or framework when they aren't needed it leads to a bunch of unnecessary rolling.

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## KorvinStarmast

> D&D-ism:
> Being a dungeon master is hard work that requires extensive knowledge of the rules and lots of prep time.


 That was never made a secret of.  Laid out in plain English in the three little books, and the ones published thereafter.

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## Tanarii

> That was never made a secret of.  Laid out in plain English in the three little books, and the ones published thereafter.


But it's not something that necessarily carries over into running other games.  Lots of them are intentionally designed so they require minimal prep, although that usually comes with a side-order of excellent improvisation skills.  But sometimes it's highly procedural instead. 

Of course, you _can_ run a game of D&D with minimal prep. I've done it many times, both via improvisation and procedurally, as well as the old standby of "quickly scan the module before easy session". But that doesn't mean it's not an assumption of many D&D-ers, DMs and Players alike.

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## KorvinStarmast

> But it's not something that necessarily carries over into running other games.


 We appear to be in violent agreement.

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## Quertus

> This was the best part of the post. A shame most your arguments break down afterwards...


Well, theyre not arguments. Theyre not intended as teach a man to fish, or even give a man a fish, so much as you know, theres such a thing as fish.

But, since that gentle nudge wasnt useful, perhaps a more practical example is in order?

Hmmm lets say the party can, on average, kill 5 goblins per round. So, fighting 20 goblins, theyll last 4 rounds, averaging 10 goblin attacks per round, or an estimated attrition of 2 hits.

Now that youve fought 20 goblins, and gotten a feel for their threat, heres 100 goblins. If your intuition is bad, or youre bad at math, you might expect that to cost 10 hits to clear (or 5 hits if this misfortune is compounded by having good luck, and only being hit once in the practice round); however, if you are overconfident from your last engagement, and fight them in such a way that they can all attack every round, thats 5x as many attacks per round for 5x as many rounds, for 25x the cost, a whopping 50 hits on average. That dawning horror of this wasnt as easy as I thought it would be is priceless, and an important lesson to would-be adventures who look down their noses at pest monsters like goblins.

Or, if youre better at math, or have a better intuition, you may realize that this isnt as easy as it looks to some, and evaluate the costs of dropping limited resources (a Fireball or 3, grenades, summoning Space Vikings, whatever), attempt stealth or Diplomacy, look for advantageous terrain, or straight up turn tail and run away. Some of which may still happen in the first scenario, just perhaps only after the goblin-wielded clue-by-four lodges itself in your spine.

Theres also the cost/benefit analysis of how much will it cost us to not have the ability to blow the Horn of Valhalla / drop this many Fireballs / have this healing magic later?. Its  possible that, in the final analysis, 50 hits is deemed the most affordable cost.

Of course, there may be other considerations. If youre trying to bring the escaped princess home, while fighting 100 goblins, youve given your captive 20 rounds of lack of attention - time enough for them to take 20 untying their bonds, or to leave a secret message for their coconspirators (via leaves of lorien or whatever).

Theres a very different feel and flow to actually running through that engagement, than what you get from its 20 goblins - tell me how you win we beat them up and take their lunch money? that costs 2 blows  its 100 goblins, what do you do? We beat them up and take their lunch money? That costs 50 blows (and the Princess is untied, but you dont know that yet) what?

And, again, thats just the tip of the iceberg of reasons why someone might choose to run through such an engagement, rather than simply narrate past it.

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## gbaji

> My post was quoting a paragraph where the party wizard can wade into melee and will only suffer damage 5% of the time (nat 20).
> 
> [Indent]Attrition: 5$ chance of it happening _at all_.
> 
> Meaningful decisions: if the party expresses the desire for captives. Sure.
> 
> Roleplaying: covered that in the post you quoted. Well... more implied.


Yeah. I presented an extreme example, just as a baseline. But we can (should really) assume a range of difficulty from that point and maybe ask "Ok. At what point will the wizard just walk up and wack something instead of just standing back and either doing nothing, or cast spells?".

And yes, your counter point is well taken. We can ask "why are we doing this in the first place?. But I can also think of a few situations, maybe not as formulaic as Quertus', but there are some. And it does somewhat highlight the differences between D&D and some other less rigid class/level based games. In D&D? Yeah, once an encounter slides that far down the relative CR level, there is a tendency towards handwaving it away to save time, but that's part of the point here. The situation itself is less likely to be played out, so a "pure spellcaster" is less likely to ever even make such a decision in the first place.

That's not so common in other games (not even at all really). Every encounter is significant (and yeah, I'm limiting this to combat stuff for simplicity). I commonly toss "speed bump" encounters at my players. Part of it is for me as the GM to see how they respond and get a sense of their capabilities (especially early in an adventure), but it can also happen just because that's what would reasonably be there. The game isn't about tossing a mathmatically determined number of calculated difficulty encounters at the party each day. Sometimes, the opponents blocking the party's path are going to be relatively wimpy (relative to the party of course, but not to regular folks they're maybe expected to deal with). The minions of the evil bad guy they're fighting probably aren't that tough either.  And heck. Maybe the main bad guy isn't actually that tough either (there are many ways to be "evil bad guy" that don't require "super powerful in combat").

I've always found the idea that the world somehow magically adjusts the powerlevel of random opponents and problems to the power level of the party to be ridiculous. I avoid it as much as possible (within the contraints of trying to avoid being a "killer GM" or just boring my players, of course). So the main thing they're doing is almost certainly scaled to their level, but random stuff along the way? It's scaled to the world around them. And as PCs become more powerful, those things are increasingly going to be somwhat "easy" for them.

Lots of time, it's not about difficulty, but time. Wimpy minions may be thrown in front of the party by some bad guy just to delay them while <some evil thing> is going on elsewhere. And yeah, it can also be about how they handle things. What level of force do they use? Is it "reasonable", based on the situation at hand? Or do they go full muderhobo? This becomes relevant to the whole "We just randomly ran into a group of local bandits and are steamrolling them" sort of scenario.


Ok. So that's a bit off the original scenario we were exploring, but this is about an examination of the thinking and playing process of players based on the system they learned on (or play primarily). I'm not sure where exactly we can nail down that hesitancy to wade into battle by a D&D wizard vs spell casting though, but I do tend to think that it's going to be a higher threshold than in other game systems. There's lots of cases in the games I play where even though a character absolutely has the ability to use magic to attack, they'll tend to use melee instead, and it's usually about resources, or even sometimes a RP thing "I haven't used my weapon in a while, these guys don't look too tough, so why not?".

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