Parmandur
Book-Friend
Nope, 100% serious: 40 year old versions of D&D are going to be way less dated than 20 hear old PC games: human brains and social interactions haven't changed the way that computer power and digital UI philosophies have.
D&D (2024) D&D Player’s Handbook (2024)
Zardnaar
Legend
20 year old games aren't to bad graphics wise. 25-30 year old games are terrible generally unless they're 2D maybe isometric.
I played SMAC the other day. Dated but not terrible. Late 90s Tomb Raider bleah.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
This is wrong. To a certain extend at least.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Ok. Fixed my comment to thumbs up then.
Although I do disagree partly.
I can play my 35 year old GameBoy games (like tetris) just fine today. I had more problems playing AD&D today.
Zardnaar
Legend
Up to a point. Older D&Ds and RPGs have aged better relative to video games was tge main point.
As long as the rules aren't staggeringly bad or laid out terribly you can usually have fun with RPGs as long as it's niche/genre interests you
Incenjucar
Legend
You really don't need the books to play the game, they're just much more pleasant to read than the freely-provided OGL etc. documents. The only 5E books I own are the Planescape set and I could still cobble together a campaign without paying a cent or doing anything dubious. The barrier is mainly for new folks who need to learn core concepts.
Zardnaar
Legend
Sort of. PDFs and print outs tend to annoy me.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
I don't think that is universaly true. Tetris can still be perfectly played today. A few years ago I played Final Fantasy adventures and Secret of Mana. Mario Kart 1 also never gets old.
Some things that were revolutionary back then feel very outdated today.
Be it rules, mechanics or depiction of races and classes, the kind of soties and so on.
Zardnaar
Legend
No you're kinda right. Old 2D games have aged better.
16 bit games cam still look pretty eg Sonic or Mario.
Mario Kart and Micromachine games still fun. Same with tetris.
Worms hasn't drastically changed in 30 odd years. Other genres don't really exist anymore or are few and far between.
PS1 games look terrible.
OSR games also fun. I'm not running them with grogs who hate modern D&D.
GrimCo
Adventurer
Anecdotally, but i played PF1 in a group in which no one ever owned any of the PF1 books. Yes, we all played 3x before, but we used only SRD for PF1.
How good or bad something looks depends mostly on personal frame of reference. If you never played any version of D&D or any TTRPG, you don't really have anything to compare it to, your frame of reference is empty, so even 30y old 2ed looks good.
If you don't really play latest AAA games on 75" 4K oled tv (consoles) or 34" 120Hz 4k gaming monitor (PC), lot's of older games look good enough to kill couple of hours.
Somebody mentioned that comparing TTRPGs to video games is like apples to oranges. I would beg to differ. They both fall in the same category - hobby/leisure time activity/entertainment. Yes, there is social aspect and game aspect. But my regular weekly futsal game with guys from work has that too, game aspect and social aspect. In the end, all those things compete for the same resource - free time.
How good or bad something looks depends mostly on personal frame of reference. If you never played any version of D&D or any TTRPG, you don't really have anything to compare it to, your frame of reference is empty, so even 30y old 2ed looks good.
If you don't really play latest AAA games on 75" 4K oled tv (consoles) or 34" 120Hz 4k gaming monitor (PC), lot's of older games look good enough to kill couple of hours.
Somebody mentioned that comparing TTRPGs to video games is like apples to oranges. I would beg to differ. They both fall in the same category - hobby/leisure time activity/entertainment. Yes, there is social aspect and game aspect. But my regular weekly futsal game with guys from work has that too, game aspect and social aspect. In the end, all those things compete for the same resource - free time.
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