D&D 5E Modern influences on 5e!

[redrick]

Ooh, it's an interesting question, though I don't know the answer. Because RPGs are, in some ways, a kind of fan fiction, we are all taking ideas from various works of fiction around us and looking to recreate those stories at our gaming table. The game designers respond to that demand by making sure there is mechanical support for those stories in the rulebook.

Because 5e has so fewer classes/archetypes than some other popular RPGs out there, it could be that it's hard to see the impact of any one fictional archetype on the game, at least with regards to player mechanics. Players of 5e are encouraged to sculpt and mold the existing mechanics to fit their "Hound" character concept, instead of pulling a "Fallen Fighter" class from the latest character options book.

Maybe it's not wrong to say that the stories 5e was worked hard to let us tell were were stories about older D&D campaigns.

 

[Alexemplar]

I think there are two major new influences on D&D 5e

Harry Potter
The Marvel Cinematic Universe

While the nostalgia is there to bring adults back into the fold, those two influences help to hook the kids of those adults.

By going back to the feel of the game in the 70s and 80s and providing a more casual rule set, WoTC is targeting a demographic likely to have children in the right age range to play, and is easier to play for those parents with busy schedules.

In this way, D&D more closely mirrors the way that most of Hasbro's game properties work, with one generation bringing it to the next because of the fond memories they had of it as a child themselves.

Oh, and Anime. There are lots of anime series set in non-industrial worlds full of warriors and magicians and monsters. Lots of steampunk-ish works. Lots of stuff that's pretty much straight taken from Japanese RPGs, which are all generally descended from Final fantasy, which was originally pretty much a Japanese adaptation of AD&D.

Also, anime-based freeform roleplay is pretty big among teenage nerds on many an internet community. It's the first experience lots of people have pretending to be a character with magical powers/martial might facing off against other fantastic antagonists as part of a collaborative story.

 

[OB1]

Oh, and Anime. There are lots of anime series set in non-industrial worlds full of warriors and magicians and monsters. Lots of steampunk-ish works. Lots of stuff that's pretty much straight taken from Japanese RPGs, which are all generally descended from Final fantasy, which was originally pretty much a Japanese adaptation of AD&D.

Also, anime-based freeform roleplay is pretty big among teenage nerds on many an internet community. It's the first experience lots of people have pretending to be a character with magical powers/martial might facing off against other fantastic antagonists as part of a collaborative story.

That's a great point. It's a wild circle that strongly shows through in a game like Persona 5. I'd never played a Persona game before that one so I'm not sure if 5e Warlocks influenced the design of P5 or if early Persona games influenced 5e Warlocks.

At any rate, definitely would amend my original list of 2 to include.

Anime
Harry Potter
MCU

 

[extralead]

I really like the combat system that's available in Shadowrun 4A and 5E since SR4 and Arsenal came out. Arsenal adds realistic Mixed Martial Arts, spy tools/weapons, and emotitoys. You could grab any SR4, Shadowrun 20th-Anniversary Edition (SR4A) or SR5 main book and the SR4 Arsenal book (or just one of those box sets). Read the rules. I bet you'll enjoy them for a modern or near-future setting.

Spellcasting is very-clean in Shadowrun, as is Astral Combat. You can coordinate tactical teams, vehicles/drones, magic, and spirits on land, air, sea, and space in the simultaneous physical, VR/AR/MR worlds, astral plane, and cross-plane spaces. Initiative and Surprise are a breeze. Starting PCs are just as strong as 5e ones compared to their place in the oppositional universe. You can easily have an Ork Burned-Out Mage the starts with a Rating 6 (4/2) Weapon Focus / Power Focus on a magical sword and skillsofts that power her mastery of it, with trigger-obliterating Revolver skills and powered up by her smart-pocket device that runs a Rating 4 Tacsoft to the rest of her team, including all of her senses and their senses. Sensory overload, but managed sensory overload.

 

[Hussar]

The rise of Indie games is probably one of the biggest impactors. So many of the things that we take for granted in 5e got their start in some indie game or other. For one thing, the idea of centralized mechanics. Particularly the idea that you have one or a small set of mechanics for resolving generally everything that happens during the game, instead of a bunch of different subsystems.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Great observation.

Personally, I prefer the older way. At least partially because I liked investing in a character over a much longer time. Racing through levels, killing Strahd, and then starting over again doesn't scratch my itch in the right way.

Ideally I would want it be the blend of both: something that feels merely episodic, but with clues and hints that slowly weave together a bigger story.

Me too, overall. So far I’ve been shortening and trimming the published adventures and running them for the same group of PCs, slowing down the level progression significantly and adding plenty of homebrew material along the way. The homebrew material is what serves as the “main plot” so to speak, with the adventures tied in to that story or serving as side quest type adventures.

I do like having a connected theme that forms the main thrust of a campaign, but I also liked the idea of a PC having faced the Slave Lords, the Giants and the Drow manipulating them, the Temple of Elemental Evil, and the Tomb of Horrors. It lemt a certain weight to their achievements.

Not that I disagree with this very interesting point, but I think the realities of the publishing industry and the economically unfeasablity of the traditional 'adventure module' may have had a lot to do with the rise of the adventure path. IIRC, having third parties produce and publish the financially risky adventures was one of the carrots Dancy used to push the original OGL through management at WOTC. Of course, I don't have first hand knowledge of this, it is just what I remember hearing at the time.

I’m sure there are many factors at play, including the realities of the publishjng world and the decrease in profitability of slim adventure modules. But I do think that the trend seems to cross media and format, so there’s something else at play here.

I think that it’s hard to look at 5E and see modern influences all that strongly in the material itself. Some have mentioned examples that I would agree with....Harry Potter, anime/manga, Marvel, and I’d throw Game of Thrones into the mix, too, simply due to its cultural prominence.

But so much of 5E takes its inspiration from earlier editions of the games and the material they drew upon, or other iterations of the game like the OSR or indie game design. But most such games also leaned on D&D in its many forms...so it becomes a chickem or egg type situation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I do miss the old days, where you just put together a string of otherwise unrelated adventures into a longer campaign. The last non-5e campaign we did was starting with ToEE, then White Plume Mountain, and finished with Against the Giants. I just made some tweaks as the DM to tie them all together. The campaign before that was KotBL and then the Slaver Series.

And as hawkeyefan mentioned, I think the modern influence of going way from sitcoms where all problems were resolved after one episode (the 70s and 80s method), to where all episodes are tied into each other and the problems aren't resolved until the end of the season, has influenced how adventures went from shorter modules to longer APs. Cooincidence? Perhaps. But the trends are the same.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I do miss the old days, where you just put together a string of otherwise unrelated adventures into a longer campaign. The last non-5e campaign we did was starting with ToEE, then White Plume Mountain, and finished with Against the Giants. I just made some tweaks as the DM to tie them all together. The campaign before that was KotBL and then the Slaver Series.

And as hawkeyefan mentioned, I think the modern influence of going way from sitcoms where all problems were resolved after one episode (the 70s and 80s method), to where all episodes are tied into each other and the problems aren't resolved until the end of the season, has influenced how adventures went from shorter modules to longer APs. Cooincidence? Perhaps. But the trends are the same.

Yeah as we finish OotA I know I will never run an AP style campaign again. Its felt like a straight jacket the entire time. For a beer & pretzels game its just not a good fit IME.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, when you really look at the WotC adventure books, it becomes clear they are not really APs as pioneered by Paizo, and increasingly less so with each book. They are barely disguised collections of similarly themed modules with an easily removed veneer of plot: simple to chop up and redistribute the component modules as desired. Need a White Dragon lair? Rise of Tiamat has you covered. Need a Stone Giant dungeon? Sky King's Thunder has it. Remix as desired.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The rise of Indie games is probably one of the biggest impactors. So many of the things that we take for granted in 5e got their start in some indie game or other. For one thing, the idea of centralized mechanics. Particularly the idea that you have one or a small set of mechanics for resolving generally everything that happens during the game, instead of a bunch of different subsystems.

Really, a core mechanic like the d20 vs DC? But that goes /way/ back, to core systems like Basic Role Playing. I thought 'Indie' got rolling(npi) early in the 90s?