Not Enough Game

D&D started as a wargame, in which the goal was for one's unit, represented by a paper chit, to defeat or destroy other units and claim victory.  Thus the payoff, or reward, was the visceral feeling of having "won."  As the playing board lacked any other features, and as the units had no "character" per se, the pursuit of strategy and survival represented the entire game.  It was called Chain Mail.

The introduction of character evolved from the tendency of the players to anthromophise their game chits, "rooting" for one to win, or do well, because it had displayed qualities of luck that caused viewers (including the players) to impart empathy to the chit.  I've experienced this sensation many times while playing wargames, feeling myself drawn to a particular unit that "somehow" (e.g., luck) kept surviving when it should have been long dead.  The mind impresses a vision of a small and desperate squad holding a position against all odds; despite being surrounded by the enemy, they somehow last turn after turn, even inflicting damage in kind.  And if the unit does die (though when is more common than if), one feels a solemn respect that, in consideration, makes no sense at all.  But the sentiment is very human.

Steadily, this emotional tone suggested first the notion that a given unit would naturally continue onto the next battle — and having been a "winner," it should be somehow stronger and more capable in the next fight.  The fights themselves were transformed into affairs that had their own personalities, until it was conceived that the fights were taking place against a fantasy background, based upon the idea of romantic knights pursuing evil creatures in the dark and dispatching them, in the manner of Beowulf, St. George, Lancelot and other themes to be found in the stories of King Arthur and The Faerie Queen.  Thus established the notion of a "dungeon," into which characters entered to kill monsters ... but as the game was invented by Americans, so that "honour" and "renown" ceased to be adequate for the victory, treasure was installed as a meaningful payoff.

Various alterations to this theme produced a game in which acquisition was the goal; specifically, acquisition of experience, treasure and ultimate prowess and empowerment.  This would establish a pattern of "characters" — essentially player-manipulated chits, though the chit and its manipulation now took place in the imagination of the "dungeon master" and the player — killing monsters to get treasure to buy objects that made it easier to kill monsters, so that bigger monsters could be killed, with bigger hauls of treasure that could buy even more fabulous monsters, with more fabulous treasures and so on.

Though despite the clear establishment of a game that definitely aroused the imaginations of the contestants, and appealed to a wide age range of gamers who were willing to shell out quite a lot of money each, the result was rather ... repetitive.  This was understood almost at once, within a year of the game's initial basic launch.  Yet it was conceived that with additional monsters, additional powers, additional character-based collection of powers, additional things to buy at the market and more elaborate arrangements of underground rooms and monster collections, the repetitiveness could be forestalled indefinitely.

Yet these things merely exacerbated the market's dependency on "new" things, without in fact addressing the repetitive aspect of the game's design.  It was seen, generally, that all games are "repetitive."  Chess, checkers, cribbage, poker, bridge, boardgames and even outdoor games and sports have a repetitive aspect, so this element in role-playing games was viewed in the same light as any other game ... overlooking the fact that the games listed above, and most other games besides, are easy to play, and don't require enormous prep work, understanding of the rules and time to gain experience and proficiency.  Other games involve a single cash layout, or may be borrowed, require very little time before play can start and enable the player to develop a fair skillfulness after 20 to 40 hours.  D&D and other role-playing games have multiple price points, encourage continuous outlay of funds, requires considerable time spent familiarising oneself with the rules and often more than an hour of game time just to start playing.  And many DMs who try to run the game find that they're ineffective or still struggling after years of play.  All for a game that's still repetitive and from which most players drop out after 18 to 30 months.

I can still sit down to play a game of cribbage right now, though I haven't actually played the game since the 1990s, without needing the rules re-explained.  Any player who hasn't participated in a D&D game for the last 25 years will not only find that they've forgotten nearly everything they might have once known, that many of the rules have been changed and vast numbers of things have been added in pursuit of the "newness" that counteracts the game's repetitiveness.

Some pushback to be felt among players who tire of the amount of time spent includes simplifying the rules, reducing the amount of time "wasted" on character creation, reduction of "excessive" combat (the original game, that brought about the game's popularity, possessed only combat), shortcuts to rule management and emphasis on non-game elements like "character" and "story."

The rise of these latter elements stress "game" elements such as objective, in which the player attempts to achieve something; interactivity, or engagement with the game world; player agency, in which the player influences or shapes the game's narrative; cooperativeness, in which players strive to achieve prepared goals; and aesthetic, those elements of the game that appeal to the player's emotional connection with the game experience.  The payoff, then, is having achieved these things to one's satisfaction.

Game elements not enhanced or even addressed by character and story include rules, what's allowed and what isn't; mechanics, those specific actions or alternatives available to the players; feedback, hard evidence of the player's game progress; challenge, concrete difficulties that must be surpassed to achieve the objective; skill and mastery, which describes the player's learning of the game and grown more masterful of it; and strategy, in which choices dictate the possibility of achieving the outcome.

Take note of how exception of the latter category makes the game's objective more easily obtainable, since advancing characterisation and story requires no specific actions, no evidence of progress and difficulties that can be handwaved, without the player needing to be skilled, capable of planning or subject to consequences.  With much of the game stripped away, either by ignoring multiple game elements, or by drastically simplifying rules and fixed character skills and stats, the result becomes something that's, quote, "easy to play" ... which is exactly the drawback that D&D has had since the beginning, that makes it different from other successful games.

Unfortunately, it's still repetitive.  And while chess, checkers, bridge, cribbage, poker, bridge, boardgames, outdoor games and sports offer inescapable competition between participants, scaled-down simplified D&D offers none of this.  What's left is a repetitive, easy to play game that's yet drowning in game elements like monsters, feats, characters, races, special rules, equipment and magic, so that the DM still has to remember vast amounts of information and still has to manage a game group in a manner that keeps the experience as fresh and lively as possible, while ensuring their agency to be whatever they want to be without restriction or measurement.

Yeesh.

Returning to the original concept of the game that firmly placed acquisition as the game's objective.  Initially, it was acquisition of survival as a chit on a combat game board, and later it became the acquisition of materials and character empowerment.  These things are not the fault, as I see it.  The fault was that, having established the dungeon as the place to get materials and empowerment, the game CEASED to evolve, stopping there.  Materials and empowerment were specifically tailored to manage dungeon play, and nothing else, because nothing else was meaningfully addressed as a long term ideal for game play.  It was imagined that eventually player characters would become powerful enough to establish themselves as rulers over part of the game's setting, but what they would do as rulers was never properly addressed or described, while none of the community's on-the-side game development considered player fiefdoms or castles as merely places to store stuff while the players went back to the dungeon for more.

Essentially, what D&D lacks, and which it needs desperately, are other challenges against which players may apply their wealth, their gear, their intuition, their strategy and their empowered selves against.  Then, when that had achieved the goal of plundering a dungeon, there would be other entirely different goals, ones that couldn't be solved by more fabulous equipment and stronger abilities, but which would challenge the players in a totally different manner.  If the game could be drastically enhanced in this way, it would cease to be repetitive — and participants who, at the beginning, fell in love with the game, would have less reason to quit.

Unfortunately, such would require more rules and more mechanics — and not merely of the sort where we're able to churn out the same motif, but different, as with monsters, spells, magic items and feats.  No, to support advanced game application would require the establishment of boundaries, limitations and a structured framework, with puzzle solving and resource management of a completely different manner.   In many ways, we're speaking of a completely new and additional, yet compatible game, within which the players would be able to develop new personal skills (rather than selecting character skills) and mastery over these new mechanics and strategies.  Done well, this would allow players to engage with the game very differently, increasing the level at which players are absorbed and connected to a game that they've long loved, but with which they've grow increasingly tired of due to its dissatisfying repetitiveness.

Unfortunately, this would make the overall game more difficult to learn.  It would mean even greater preparatory time in many cases.  It would defy the simplicity of producing commercial material on a standardised template, as the expections of the players would be that much higher.

But I don't think it would necessarily take longer to learn.  DMs could cut their teeth upon the game's original dungeon format, until gathering the necessary acumen to elevate to the advanced game.  Once sufficient numbers of advanced DMs and gamers had come into existence, it would be easier for these to lend a hand up to others, especially as they gathered insight into how to step up from the "lower" game.  Then, after the usual two year period at which DM's quit, because there seems little point to just starting just another adventure in a dungeon, they might recognise that they're ready to move onto the next thing.

True enough, I'm always postulating such things as though they might happen, when it's highly probable they won't.  But they might have.  IF the goal of Gygax and others in the beginning had reached higher in the game's formative years, they might have realised — though clearly they lacked the necessary vision — to understand that what they'd wrought wasn't actually enough game.  But the fooferaw convinced them that they HAD done it, that they'd thought of everything, that what they had was the sum total of the game's potential, and thus they fell into the trap that would have them, and hundreds of game leaders after them, perpetually polishing a turd to be as bright as it could possibly be.  Today, nearly all of what's written about or designed for D&D has been trying to improve or make it look better, without it actually becoming better.  So much effort has been put into enhancing the appearance of the thing, while ignoring its fundamental flaws and lack of quality across the board, in every edition, that it's been lost to the vast majority of adherents that D&D, and other games like it, just AREN'T as good as they pretend to be.  And let's admit: the underlying problems are substantial.  Because the game, as a game, is substandard.

I continue to believe that additional applications to player character development are legion.  Cast aside the dungeon, and the characters' host of skills are applicable to any pursuit the players choose to undertake.  A practical minded, experienced DM ought to be able to manage a party attempting to do any of those things — which we can see in the structural mechanics of media and video game sources with which we're all familiar.  Players ought to be able to find their missing adoptive daughter; settle personal struggles with fellow gang members; grow as leaders and build relationships with followers and others; piece together the history or culture of the game world; uncover mysteries such as the disappearance of fellow characters; navigate through, or take over, an existing civil war; respond to massive breaches in space time and reality; face moral dilemmas; make moral judgments about others; and do all of it without ever once needing to get a McGuffin from a dungeon, or wholly rely upon their magical abilities to solve every problem or overcome every obstacle.  Players can find themselves face-to-face with real world situations that mere empowerment, wealth and special tools can't fix in a heartbeat.  Where they have to fix the problem by thinking about it, and acting with dispatch, courage, risk, compassion and pragmatism, as the case calls for.

We're already building hundreds upon hundreds of video games where every conceivable form of human interaction or struggle is being given RULES and MECHANICS.  Why can't these same rules and mechanics be imposed in a D&D setting, with a little imagination and practical methodology?  It's not like clunky video games, which rely upon pre-programming a finite set of interactions, can do something the human mind can't do, an instrument that can instantly produce a spontaneous interaction, within a second or two, as needed?

There is far, far, far more game available in D&D than we give the potential structure of the game credit for ... but first, we need to understand how, and why, we continue to cling to an outdated, clumsy, badly designed, unevolved piece of junk.  And for the sake of what?  Nostalgia?  'Cause that's what we played when we were kids?  Because we already have the books?  Because design is takes a lot of time, despite the billions of hours that are shoved into video games that still don't produce a human experience like D&D can?  Piffle.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.