“Sometimes you just wanna go kill monsters and take their stuff.”

I hear that a lot, or a variation of the same idea. “Sometimes you just feel like a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl.” “Sometimes a little tabletop hack-and slash is just the thing after a long stressful day of real life.”

I hear it from people I consider close friends and rpg kindred-spirits. I think most of the rpg folk I know have expressed this sentiment at one point or another – including some of the most hippie-narrativist players I’ve met. People who deftly throw down with hot emo story-driven emotionally complex drama 80% of the time will nevertheless occasionally express a desire to scratch the dungeoncrawl itch and kick it old-school with a night full of smash-and-grab.

And there is totally nothing wrong with that. There’s no implication of judgment from me toward that notion, and I can even go so far as to say that I think I understand it. I get it.

But I can’t ever recall actually feeling it myself. I can’t think of any time when I’ve showed up to a table for a session hoping that it would be about smashing and grabbing so that I could just kick back, blow off some steam by bashing orcs and kobolds, and be rewarded with treasure and cool magical items.

I think there’s something wrong with me. I’m the odd one out here. Doing that stuff doesn’t scratch any of my itches.

Now, to clarify – I have no problem participating in any of the things I’m describing here. I can take my character into some cool fantastical location that a GM has poured lots of effort into, making maps, devising traps, populating the nooks and crannies with baddies and interesting stuff to find and procure. I’m fine with that as an objective throughline, as the activity that a group of characters is doing within the larger scope of the adventure.

As long as it is not about said activity. As long as it is being done as part of a larger scope story-driven need to accomplish something within the fiction being created at the table.

I guess it’s really a subtle difference. In effect, objectively speaking the same basic thing could be happening and the only difference would be the subjective intent.

In other words, “Let’s get together to explore character relationships and make choices and create a narrative, and in that process we will go into a dark underground temple and fight monsters in order to procure artifacts that will enable us to accomplish an important story goal” could be, from an observer’s point of view, pretty much the same as “Let’s get together and blow off steam by fighting monsters and taking their stuff, and in order to make some modicum of sense out of it, we’ll say we’re doing it in order to obtain an artifact that will accomplish a story goal.” But as a player, I’d be fine with the former intent but totally disengaged with the latter. In fact, I have to admit that I have a history of reacting with childish passive-aggro dickishness when I find myself in the latter situation. And friends will sometimes call me on it and say, “Dude, it doesn’t always have to be some emo-epic big deal.  Sometimes, don’t you just wanna kill monsters and take their stuff?”

And I see their point. And I feel like I’m in the way of their fun. And I have no right to be in the way of my friends’ fun. But still, if I’m answering honestly, I have to respond by saying “No, actually, I never do just wanna kill monsters and take their stuff.”

I could be playing every night of the week, with a vast pool of potential co-players, if only I would wake up one day and be able to answer “yes” to that question. Do I occasionally want to dial down the emo stuff and do some more laid-back stress-relief gaming? Sure, yeah. But smash-and-grab doesn’t relieve my stress. It actually amps it up. And I’m just so damn prickly about it, and I think it has cost me opportunities for play.

So, what’s wrong with me?

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