Ethnography Results Week 6:

I was unable to find a group over the week before spring break as many of the people I was viewing did not hold regular sessions due to tests as was I unable to really participate as I was dealing with three tests and a paper of my own to deal with.

Despite this the project must go on and I was able to find a group over spring break!

The group was slated to go for quite a few hours but the call of  St. Patrick's day cut it short, despite this I was able to get some good information.

I joined a group of friends at one of their houses and we sat down to play. This was the most basic version of DnD which is version 3.5. This is seen as the basis for all other system as this was the last system done by the original creators of DnD and they were able to use their experiences with the past versions to make this one the best and therefore it is considered the most inclusive and most played setting of all. The group was 5 people and I decided not to participate but simply just to observe and see if this being the most basic example gave it more or less interaction and if people treated it any differently. In fact there was a lot more preparation for this and to my surprise A LOT more books involved. In fact each player had their own books and in some cases books were passed around as each PC customized their character in nearly every way they wanted down to eye color and dress.

The system seemed very disorganized but again as with these groups the leader was able to keep things together by simply keeping the conversation on the correct track of character questions and stopping meta conversations that threatened to derail the session or slow it to a halt. Once everyone was settled the story was introduced in a similar manner but in this case with a less descriptive manner. I think this was a personal choice by the DM as these players were familiar with each other and wanted to get to the action more so than the story itself.

The story progressed and the DM told me he wanted to introduce each character to each other by giving them a good fight and seeing how strong they were and what kinds of characters each player had developed. Shortly after this combat there was a little more insignificant role playing by the PCs but nothing different than what was observed in the past so I will focus on combat here.

Combat in DnD is a huge part of the system and nearly changes the roles of each person but not necessarily changes the social interactions observed. Each person controls their characters actions and based on their race, class, and abilities chosen has a number of unique things they can do as well as a set of general abilities (movement, yelling, listening, blocking etc...). The first interesting aspect of this is what is known as initiative, this is a commonly understood action where the players all roll a d20 (twenty sided dice) and add this number to their characters initiative modifier (a character ability). This is an action that once stated "roll for imitative" is done quickly and without argument by anyone, the players are all ranked in order of their score and then this decides who chooses an action first, second and otherwise.

Once this is sorted then the first player can choose his action. The meta-conversations then resume here and the player is allowed to look at his options and then decides what to do. The DM normally remains silent and only speaks to help the player figure out exactly what he wants to do, in some cases the player was ready and had it figured out completely and other times it took awhile for the player and DM to determine the whole action. The interesting part of this is how the DM did not stop other conversations from derailing a players action but simply sat quietly and helped out the player, despite his wanted to be partially adversarial and against him. If a player also needed to look up something from one of the books he or another player would assist him in this and they were able to discuss the action and the other players while offering facts, were not allowed to offer advice as this would be seen as a game action. Also each player was ultimately left up to their own to decide on an action and even if the action was poor or not completely thought through the player took the consequences and the group was left to deal with it. In some cases the action almost seemed downright detrimental to the group, this might be because the player did the action wrong, did the wrong action, or their character intentionally wanted to sabotage the group.

Once an action was taken the group would get SILENT for the DM's reaction to the action and allowed him to figure out what to do next be it have something change in the environment or the monster the players were fighting against to take their own action.

The combat ends once the monsters are all dead, the players are all dead, or some kind of action subdues or convinces the monster to stop fighting with them. Once this is done the players have a set of actions that involve searching the monsters corpse for money and items or a treasure chest guarded by the monster. During this time the DM rolls a lot of dice and periodically says how much gold or what items were found and the group decides as whole who to give it to or to split it.

At the end of the session experience is awarded based on how many and what quality of monsters were fought as well as other player actions done. Experience is used for PC's to make their character stronger and "level up" which is a means of upgrading all of a characters abilities and strength in a formatted pre-defined way as specified by the DnD handbooks.

In all combat is the most unique experience of the entire session and can make a session a lot more or a lot less intense. It is definitely the time when there is the least meta-conversation and each person is focusing the most on what is going on. It to me seems like the most exciting part of DnD and I wished I had gotten o do more when I participated but it is definitely the time people enjoy the most and they do their best to help our their team during this time.