Quote:
Originally Posted by trooper6
Note: I think these are terrible mission statements:
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Part of the problem with them is that they're more quipped parodies of the central focuses of those games than an actual description. "Kill the monsters and take their stuff" is largely a 2000s-era slogan from the "back to the dungeon" marketing campaign for D&D Third Edition. It makes a funny catchphrase for
Munchkin. But they don't
really encompass the complete game-play focus of those games.
For pre-AD&D 2nd Edition versions of D&D, a core statement might be "wander around dungeons, wilderness, and towns; collect treasures to use or to earn experience points to improve your character." "Collect treasures" might mean "kill monsters and take their stuff," but it also might mean "steal stuff from monsters without being caught" or "take treasures out of traps without getting caught in them."
AD&D 2nd Edition changed the focus to something more like "go on quests to earn experience points to improve your character." Collecting treasure only matters if that's your quest. Wandering and mapping are downplayed in favor of fighting monsters and accomplishing missions. You don't fight monsters for the sake of fighting monsters, though: you fight them because they're between you and your objective.
That's not to say that lots of people haven't played these games as "kill the monster; take its stuff." That's just not what the designers had in mind as the core activity of these games.