Dungeons & Standards

It all began on Friday, November 7th. I was with my friend at Five Guys and we were discussing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D)—I was invited to be a part of his upcoming campaign, and despite being apprehensive about the prospect of interacting with a friend group and people I don't know, I was interested in the mechanics of D&D. After all, I never got to delve into a game of D&D and knew of its inner workings only slightly.

My friend began to talk about each editions, explaining to me that the third edition (3e) of D&D was considered to be an abomination by its fans because of its need it—wait for it—standardize everything. Yep, that's right, my discussion about Dungeons & Dragons with my friend in Five Guys on a Friday night became about standards. Oh boy.

After explaining a condensed version of the minutia of D&D, time went on and my friend ended up introducing me to 4chan on that same night. Now, I've heard the sickening stories on /b/ and considered 4chan to be a relatively vile place, but when my friend showed me /tg/, the "Traditional Games" section on 4chan, I fell in love — people were responsive, generally kind, and the stuff on /tg/ was right up my alley.

Now, tonight, at 3:19 a.m., I turn to my 4chan brethren and sisthren on /tg/, posing a standards-related question:

Yuck it up, people. THIS is standards research. #WheresMyGrant

The results were interesting. Within an hour, I received (and am still receiving as of this writing) several posts from people commenting about both the history of Dungeons & Dragons editions and their preferred play styles. To take a page out of Professor Andrew Russell's book, let's take a look at the history behind D&D standards first. (I'm sure this is what Professor Russell hoped his book would inspire.)

According to an anonymous 4chan user, the original, "old school" D&D style was a "more improv-heavy, less completionist approach to the rules [of Dungeons & Dragons]."

However, the user furthers his explanation, saying the third edition "tried to quantify everything. [the fourth edition] took a similar approach (if sometimes a bit streamlined), at least with respect to combat. The extent to which [the fifth edition] breaks with [the style of the third and fourth editions] is the extent to which it is old school."

To put some context to this user's recounting of D&D editions history, albeit bare-bones, another user provided a more subjective approach to analyzing the editions: "Aside from bad math and broken classes, I didn't like how [the third edition] mixed simulationist and relativist situations - A pit trap filled with spikes will do as much damage as a longsword, and the right kind of fight can eat blows from both all day but go down to bad caviar later on in the day."

The user continues, "[The fourth edition] struck me as the 'ideal' Quantify-Everything approach... [magic] powers were a mix of skill, luck, and drive that hit home at important moments rather than being 'Well, I cast that spell once, now I need to rest a day.' You cast that once a day fireball not just because 'That's how magic works' but because that's how and what the flow of battle dictated..."

Finishing his analysis, the user explains that the fifth edition (5e) seems similar to the fourth (4e), but that the ultimate desire for him as a player was a well-balanced rule set: "That was a big one - [4e] quantified how everything works, and for the most part it worked in a narrativist, subjective way that made sense with the magical setting."

I know. My head's spinning, too.

What does this all mean? Well, I think the key, boiled-down message to take away from this piece is that standards are good until they aren't, or rather, standards are good until those directly affected by them deem they aren't. The goal of standards is to maximize efficiency, providing uniformity for the sake of maximization, not obfuscation. At some point, a standard will fail — become defunct. At that point, those affected by it have two choices: protest of conform.

For Dungeons & Dragons players, a faulty standard has a simple solution: ditch it. Players can simply create their own rules, "homebrewing" the standardized version of the game to fit their needs. As one user remarked, "I tend to prefer a relatively rules-light game because human imagination and ingenuity are what make a game shine, and too many rules get in the way." Another user reinforced this idea, stating, "[It's] almost always easier to add more rules on top than pull away the rules the game was built on. It's kind of like Jenga."

On the flipside, certain game types necessitate comprehensive, deeply standardized rules: "Wargames need strict, precise rules for every situation, because they're adversarial," one user began, "Role-playing games have an impartial referee who is in charge of everything."

At a deeper, player-related level, one user bluntly pointed out the very troubling human factor that either promotes or disregards the standardized rules of Dungeons & Dragons (WARNING: Explicit language ahead): "The only issue is that you have to be able to trust your [Dungeon Master]... It's harder for a powertripping DM to do as much damage in a system with more rules, since they bind him in bonds both gentle and vile. If he fucks you with something you can say 'that's bullshit! See here on page 248' and countermand him."

The rules of Dungeons & Dragons are a fascinating example of voluntary consensus standards, turned up to 11. The D&D community has a profound interest in creating the best game possible, highlighting the creative kid in all of us. When Wizards of the Coast publishes an edition of D&D rules, the community seems somewhat split down the middle. On one end, there are people who seek (even need) every rule in the book. Thus, if the rules are bad, they are unhappy. On the other end, there is an equally large, if not larger, sect of the D&D community who use the rules in varying capacities.

While everything isn't entirely uniform across all Dungeons & Dragons games, almost all players can be satisfied. In this voluntary consensus, uniformity may be the goal on paper, but "customer" satisfaction is the bottom line. And yes, that is because Stone Cold said so.