Quote from: Tyberious FunkHere's my most recent experience playing D&D...
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My experience was sorta similar: two gung-ho D&D3E-loving players; 5 who had no previous experience with any RPG, but grew to dislike D&D3E; one experienced gamer who started out loving D&D3E, and ended up very frustrated; and me (i started out very skeptical, then gave it a fair shake, and discovered it wasn't anywhere near as bad as i thought, but, the more i learned the system, the more i found bits that drove me batty, and i wasn't finding the gems that pleased me to compensate, so my opinion went steadily downhill). We still stuck with it for a couple years of mostly-weekly games, before finally switching systems.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkThey weren't mindless drones, fooling themselves that they were having fun.  They definitely were having fun.  But mostly the fun wasn't because of D&D.  And that's not a criticism of D&D because it could have just as easily been another system.  So I bristle when I hear people try and equate the popularity of D&D with it's superiority as a system.  My experience just doesn't support the theory.

Ditto. While I've had tons of fun playing various RPGs, including D&D of various versions, I don't think i can credit much of the fun to the game itself, as distinct from the getting-together-with-friends and the general playing-of-an-RPG. And, to be fair, i've recently had a great time playing With Great Power..., but if our fun had been dependent on deriving solely from the rules, it would've been a merely mediocre time. IOW, we had a great time, but for reasons other than the quality of the system. [In fact, we were fighting the system *almost* as much as when we played D&D3E, though for completely different reasons.]

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckYou're saying, in essence, that "bad gaming is better than no gaming". Am I reading you right here?

Dunno if he'd say that, but, depending on the degree of "bad", yeah, i'd say that. I would basically never pick any sort of game but RPGs, given the choice. I really don't get any enjoyment out of playing other sorts of games. 'Cept Robo Rally. Nonetheless, i'll gladly spend a day playing Power Grid or Settlers of Catan, or whatever, with my friends, 'cause that's what they want to play. And i'll have fun, but that fun really won't have anything to do with the particular game i'm playing. So thinking that people might, similarly, play D&D, and have fun at it, but not consider D&D itself enjoyable, doesn't seem at all bizarre to me.

Quote from: RPGObjects_chuckIt really is a good game.

If it wasn't, people would *gasp* play something else.

Depends on what you mean by "good". If by "good" you simply mean "not bad", then, yeah, it must be--'cause if it were bad, people would seek something eles out. But if by "good" you mean "better than average", that's not necessarily so. It coudl well be true, but simply showing that people play it and stick with it doesn't necessarily prove this.

First, there could be ignorance--if people haven't tried other games, they have no basis of comparison, so if D&D3e doesn't actively drive people away on its own [lack of] merits, they'll keep playing it.

Second, inertia: again, provided that people are not disappointed with what they're getting out of D&D3E, even if they are aware that they could--or maybe even would definitely--get better results with another system, what they have is good enough, so why exert the effort to switch?

So, D&D's popularity is proof that it's "good enough"--but since there are plausible explanations why people would stick with it even if it were no better than any other system out there, or even if it were worse than the rest, we can't conclude that it is necessarily better than other alternatives, even in the minds of those who choose it.

To be clear, i'm not saying it's *not* great--just that you can't conclude that based solely on its popularity.

Quote from: RPGPunditIts obvious that classes and levels are good design; the video game industry uses them for a reason. They allow you to make clear characters that fit archetypes, if they're WELL done on top of that they allow you to individualize tons as well.

People who dislike these things, well, they're either people who just hate D&D because they hate its success; or they hate levels and classes because they'd rather min-max and be munchkins. Yes, those are pretty much the only possible reasons when you come down to it.
(note: those aren't the only reasons to LIKE point-buy systems, but they are the only reasons to HATE class/level systems; sorry)

Or, there are no classes to do what you want. Though i suppose that might not be a critique of the class system itself, depending on how you look at it. Nonetheless, when playing D&D I have yet to come up with a character concept that could be easily modeled with the D&D3E classes--we always end up using something other than D&D3[.5]E for our D&D games (Iron Heroes, Arcana Evolved, etc.), or i end up building a custom class.

Quote from: woodelfTo be clear, i'm not saying it's *not* great--just that you can't conclude that based solely on its popularity.

Inasmuch as you can give any objective measure to great, popularity as well as the ability to "get the job done" is pretty much it.  D&D succeeds at both.

Now you may think D&D stinks.  That's perfectly acceptable.  But that doesn't mean it's not a great game (save, again, for you).  It just means that it's not to your tastes.