Dungeons and Dragons - Styles of Play

When it comes to table top role playing games there are as many styles of play as there are games.  This holds as true for Dungeons and Dragons just as much as any of the rest.  Conflicting play styles can put a play session in its' grave as quickly as anything else if the group doesn't reach a middle ground of some sort.  Very few people share the same views when it comes to how to play the game to get the most fun out of it.  The trick here is to identify how each individual, including yourself, likes to play and what can be tweaked on everyone's part to make the game enjoyable for everyone.  Let's start by identifying a few playing styles.

(Note: this is covered in the 2nd edition Dungeon Master's guide, and 'm pretty sure it's in the 3rd edition one's as well.  But, I'm just gonna wing it.)

You will have a variety of players sit down to play your game.  Among those will be the power gamer (min-maxer), role player,  combatant/hack'n'slasher.  That's all without breaking it down into extremes of each category, and you of course have the typical Dungeons and Dragons player that is a mix of all three.  Now before we discuss them, you have probably picked out one or two styles that annoy you.  Well, all three can be annoying as hell when taken to extremes.  But my personal dislike would have to be a power gamer, a.k.a., the Meta Gamer.  Enough of that, let's discuss how to accommodate them.

We will start with the role player.  I know I'm going out of order, but I will save the power gamer for last as I think it is the most complicated.  Role players come in a few varieties, but most typically fall into Light and Heavy RP.  Some will say Medium, but there really is no such thing.  Light role players are pretty easy to make happy in your game because most of their interest revolves around a simple story involving their characters.  You don't have to write a novel or keep up with one-hundred extra pages of notes.  Heavy RP on the other hand can prove extremely difficult.  With Heavy RP the players tend to get so involved with the most minute of details, almost to the point of treating it like real life.  There can be an advantage to this if you have a group of heavy role players because they will feed off of each other and create the bulk of the story themselves leaving the DM to just have to work the major story points and a general outline.

The Hack'n'slash players are easy enough to accommodate . . . kill, kill, kill, bigger monsters, kill, kill, kill . . . with challenges of course *wink*.  But, it can get old fast; and, our combat minded players can easily slip into becoming power gamers and meta gamers.

Let's define the difference in power gaming and meta gaming even though in my experience they tend to flow hand in hand with players.  Power gaming is working every aspect of the game you can in favor of making your character the most powerful it can be.  Meta gaming is taking player knowledge such as armor class, and knowing what special abilities a creature has, and acting like your character knows it.  This tends to be the cause of people having trouble learning to role play.  They simply can't break away from the numbers.  This type of player will choose a 1d8 damage weapon over one that deals 1d6 simply because of the damage.

I'm sure you can look farther into each play style and see more pro's and con's with each, but that pretty much sums it up.  Balancing the game so that all of your players can enjoy it takes a lot of practice.  You have to start somewhere though.  Start small.  There is nothing wrong with your first play session being a haunted shack that players hear about in town.  The shack has two rooms with three little monsters and a treasure chest.  It's simple, but a good DM can bring it alive.  A little role play to get into the situation, some combat to get out of the situation, some loot to distribute, and a little closing role play.  Games like this can be memorable for everyone, you just have to expand on it depending on what your players like and make sure everyone gets in the spotlight. 

I really recommend the 2nd edition adventure below from Amazon.com.  It was one of the first published adventures I purchased, and I have ran it multiple times in both 2nd and 3rd edition.  You will have to convert it to 3rd, but it isn't very difficult.  I just eyeballed it.  "The Accursed Tower" is easy to follow, just have your DM read through it a couple of times and write down a few notes and you can make many game sessions out of it if you wish, or you can tackle it in one evening.  If you buy it I'm pretty certain you will enjoy it, even if it's just for a good read.

Happy Gaming.