D&D General Does D&D (and RPGs in general) Need Edition Resets?

[W'rkncacnter]

At my age, I buy a different game if I want to play a different game. I'm too old to wait for any one game to change, whether incrementally or by a full reset.

i mean, i do too, if i can (i bought level up and currently play pf2e for a reason), but that doesn't mean i don't want to see the first thing improve.

though then i guess i am pretty young.

 

[haakon1]

Usual the first golden age is right after the medium is invented and a bunch of new forms of it is created. The second is when a bunch of new high quality versions are created once people figure it out.

That would be late 2e/early 3e for the first and right now for the second.

Agree with your definition. Disagree with your timeline. To me, the Golden Ages were:

Golden Age: 1978-1987. Began with AD&D hardcovers systematizing booklets and magazines. Ended with 2e era. I posit everything that makes D&D great is from this era.

Golden Phoenix era: 2001-2005. Renaissance of the game. Back from bankruptcy, back to #1 rpg, OGL, bloom of 3rd party. Nerds become mainstream with LOTR movies. I posit 3x is the final version of traditional D&D (killed by Hasbro in 4e) and the beginning of the modern era of D&D (5e still has OGL, feats, etc.)

Golden Goose Era: 2016-2023 (and beyond??): Even though Stranger Things show ersatz AD&D, it and Game of Thrones and actual play started a new era of cultural relevance for D&D. That reached its peak in 2023 with the first good D&D movie and the Game of the Year, both based clearly on 5e and Forgotten Realms. But did mass success - WotC becoming the Golden Goose for Hasbro - kill the game as the suits tried to end OGL? Stay tuned.

 

[Zardnaar]

You can make a case for the 70s, the early 80s, or the latter Teens/20s.

The Aughts, it seems to me, might be the second worst decade for D&D, after the 90's, in terms of commercial and cultural impact.

Well that's how it was used/referred to not that long ago.

Buy yeah the D&D golden age is around 81-85. 5E has surpassed that commercially, innovative probably not.

Huge amount of classic adventures date from that era. 5E has maybe 3 by comparison.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I have subscriptions for PF2e rulebooks and the Lost Omens line of lore books because I enjoy reading the books, but Foundry is a much better value and usefulness for my group since that’s where we run our games anyhow and the errata ends up there. I think digital is just making the slow incremental change concept easier to manage.

On the theme of the thread, the PF2e Remaster books cleaned up some of the rules, improved a few classes, removed some stuff that just didn’t need to be in the game anymore, and so far hasn’t caused an issue for me running a pre-master AP with classes that haven’t been adjusted yet alongside classes that have. If WotC can pull off the same thing for their 2024 books, that will be a good thing for D&D in the long run.

Honestly Nethys is so good it makes me almost wish physical books weren't a thing so the designers could patch in errata easier and faster. I'd also love adventures presented as wikis, so they read object oriented rather than sequential.

 

[Parmandur]

Golden Age: 1978-1987. Began with AD&D hardcovers systematizing booklets and magazines. Ended with 2e era. I posit everything that makes D&D great is from this era.

I'd posit that everything thwt made D&D great predates this by a few years.

But did mass success - WotC becoming the Golden Goose for Hasbro - kill the game as the suits tried to end OGL? Stay tuned.

Nah.

 

[Minigiant]

Agree with your definition. Disagree with your timeline. To me, the Golden Ages were:

Golden Age: 1978-1987. Began with AD&D hardcovers systematizing booklets and magazines. Ended with 2e era. I posit everything that makes D&D great is from this era.

Golden Phoenix era: 2001-2005. Renaissance of the game. Back from bankruptcy, back to #1 rpg, OGL, bloom of 3rd party. Nerds become mainstream with LOTR movies. I posit 3x is the final version of traditional D&D (killed by Hasbro in 4e) and the beginning of the modern era of D&D (5e still has OGL, feats, etc.)

Golden Goose Era: 2016-2023 (and beyond??): Even though Stranger Things show ersatz AD&D, it and Game of Thrones and actual play started a new era of cultural relevance for D&D. That reached its peak in 2023 with the first good D&D movie and the Game of the Year, both based clearly on 5e and Forgotten Realms. But did mass success - WotC becoming the Golden Goose for Hasbro - kill the game as the suits tried to end OGL? Stay tuned.

Depends on if you stating the golden age of TTRPG or golden age of D&D.

Incremental RPGs would be dependent on the golden age RpGs not DND.

 

[Parmandur]

Well that's how it was used/referred to not that long ago.

Buy yeah the D&D golden age is around 81-85. 5E has surpassed that commercially, innovative probably not.

Huge amount of classic adventures date from that era. 5E has maybe 3 by comparison.

If you compare like to like, that is it's kodules to chapters of 5E books...then 5E fairs extremely well, IMO. Even weaker campaign books have Chapteras that as modules stand toe to toe eith the best of the 80's...and some like Tomb of Annhilation are chock full of bangers.

But since overall flourishing is more important to adjudication a Golden Age than oreferwnce, it is worth noting that the 5E Adventures have had rather shocking success.

 

[mamba]

To me, the Golden Ages were:

Golden Age: 1978-1987. Began with AD&D hardcovers systematizing booklets and magazines. Ended with 2e era. I posit everything that makes D&D great is from this era.

largely agree, it casts a big shadow (many 5e adventures are still inspired by this, if not outright updates) and certainly was the first golden age

Golden Phoenix era: 2001-2005. Renaissance of the game. Back from bankruptcy, back to #1 rpg, OGL, bloom of 3rd party. Nerds become mainstream with LOTR movies. I posit 3x is the final version of traditional D&D (killed by Hasbro in 4e) and the beginning of the modern era of D&D (5e still has OGL, feats, etc.)

not sure I see this as a golden age at all. Sure, D&D came back from the dead and the OGL was a great idea that too has relevance until today (even if now in the form of the CC SRD, which we would not have without it). The rules themselves and the adventures of 3e were not that great however imo, so to me this was not a golden age, it simply ensured survival.

Golden Goose Era: 2016-2023 (and beyond??): Even though Stranger Things show ersatz AD&D, it and Game of Thrones and actual play started a new era of cultural relevance for D&D. That reached its peak in 2023 with the first good D&D movie and the Game of the Year, both based clearly on 5e and Forgotten Realms.

I see this as the second golden age, this time mostly based on popularity, not so much on innovation

But did mass success - WotC becoming the Golden Goose for Hasbro - kill the game as the suits tried to end OGL? Stay tuned.

the OGL will have had no impact, that is pretty clear by now. Whether the need to squeeze ever more money out of D&D will have a negative effect is tbd. I am not seeing it grow forever or even keep the current level, that is the nature of the game, but what will cause the downturn is wide open.

 

[Remathilis]

On the theme of the thread, the PF2e Remaster books cleaned up some of the rules, improved a few classes, removed some stuff that just didn’t need to be in the game anymore, and so far hasn’t caused an issue for me running a pre-master AP with classes that haven’t been adjusted yet alongside classes that have. If WotC can pull off the same thing for their 2024 books, that will be a good thing for D&D in the long run.

I'm far from an expert, but the amount of stuff changed in PF2R and D&D24 seems comparable, but not the same. Paizo wants me to relearn that Burning Hands is now called Dragon's Breath but is mechanically the same, and WotC wants me to remember that Conjure Animals is a different spell with the same name.

That said, I don't expect there will be major issue except from the people who already decided it was going to be an issue.

 

[Deadstop]

So let's see what you consider incremental change to BX and what not

1) not having races as classes
2) removing racial class limits
3) adding skills and feats
4) adding cantrips to vancian casting
5) unified XP progression
6) subclasses

Remember the evolution analogy. The key with incremental changes is not that they can’t lead to a large departure in the end, but that you never have so many of them at once that there’s a clean break.

BX 2023 probably looks nothing like, and is incompatible with, its distant ancestor BX 1981. But 81 was mostly compatible with 83 and 91 (in real life), and our notional BX 23 would have been mostly compatible with its closer ancestors.

Race/class split? Both Labyrinth Lord and OSE already did this in their “advanced” rules, without changing the underlying BX chassis.

Removing level limits and unified XP progression? I feel like there’s at least one retro-clone that does that already.

Rules Cyclopedia added skills. There are all manner of third-party BX “feat” systems. (Remember, while in the AD&D 1e days Gygax liked to maintain strict control over what was “official,” even TSR’s own magazines would publish a vast array of new classes, races, spells, magic items, and even optional system bolt-ons. The thief, paladin, ranger, druid, and illusionist all started as magazine contributions before becoming mainstream D&D. Heck, the Rolemaster RPG started as a set of plug-in replacement combat and magic rules for (A)D&D. If that ecosystem and the general ethos of “tweak the system to fit your table, we sure did” is allowed to persist alongside the incrementally developing BX, that changes things considerably.)

Cantrips were an Unearthed Arcana add-on to AD&D, previewed in Dragon. They weren’t significantly damage-dealing until 3e and didn’t become the round-by-round go-to of spellcasters until 4e and 5e (with the late-3e warlock as a precursor). Shouldn’t be too hard to add (though we should note that this alternate history is presumably not required to result in the same changes seen in our current D&D — incrementally modified BX might follow a different path away from fire-and-forget magic.)

Subclasses? I know of at least two OD&D clones that offer them, and Dyson Logos had a set of BX ones on his blog years ago. Heck, “subclasses” were what the paladin et al. originally were, and of course BECMI made some of them into proto-prestige classes, so it’s literally been done as incremental change to an existing game already.