Were the 80s really the Golden Age of D&D?

[Hippy]

I think again it is a matter of personal perspective. If you are a Gen Xer (like me ) then the 80's was likely the "golden age" for you. It was when you had your first taste of rpgs and got hooked! You will never again have that first feeling and so there is a natural sentimental attachment to it. However if you did not game until the 90's or 2000+ these eras become your "golden age" and that is great! People will always tend to have an affinity to the time and place that made gaming special to them and to me there is no right or wrong answer there.

That said, I personally feel we are entering a different time for gaming. The term is expanded to include the large console and computer gaming marketplace. What we feel is a golden age to us, will be different to those that got hooked on playing computer based rpgs. I do not feel this means the beginning of a "dark age" for table-top rpgs at all. In fact if you look at what places like EnWorld have done to unify and bring diiscussion to table-top gaming, we are in a renaissance period! There are more ways then ever to find out about great new games, that in past times (like the 80's) likely would never have reached an audiance let alone the marketplace! So rejoice that we have the ability to find niche games that meet our individual tastes and can support them as a community!

Cheers,

Hippy

 

[jdrakeh]

But the real commercial Golden Age must have been in the early years of 3E.

That would be my guess. I recall sales of the 3x core books surpassed those of all previous D&D editions. Likewise, it's important to remember that by the time WotC acquired TSR, the company was insolvent, due in large part to the unsold thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of products that Random House finally decided that they needed to be paid for — many of which dated back to the 1980s. The point, of course, being that TSR's sales numbers were artificially inflated back then. Most of what was deemed "sold" was actually just distributed, and under an arrangement that allowed the distributor to return (or pulp, as Mercurius pointed out) unsold copies for cash at a later date. Which they did. To the tune of several million dollars, if memory serves correctly.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

If you compare the RPG hobby to the Ages of comic books- Golden, Silver, Iron, etc.- I'd have to say that the 80s were the "Golden Age" of RPGs. And its not about sales figures.

It was when the hobby really gained ground, expanding like wildfire. There were all kinds of creative things being done for the first time. The main genres were defined, largely in parallel with genre fiction. It had relevance in fiction- several writers were inspired by RPGs to create interesting new works- and relevance in society in the form of Jack Chick, the Satanic Panic and, of course, "Mazes & Monsters."

The Silver age came in the 90's, when you had market forces and internal turmoil bring down some of the original RPGs, and some interesting new designs popped up, like the WoD games and the first cross-genre games like RIFTS, TORG and Shadowrun. GURPS started licensing other intellectual properties.

After that...you had re-invention and refinement. D20 took some concepts that had been floating around in other systems and gave them a uniquely D&D feel and form, and revitalized a flagging IP. But things were also grittier and more simulationist. An Iron age, if you will.

 

[Mercurius]

I believe the '80's where The Golden Age.

My reasoning is based on the following:

1) D&D had real mainstream reach, where as in the mainstream now it plays second fiddle to World of Warcraft.
2) D&D's mainstream reach could be felt in the fact that it had a toy line, and a cartoon on a major network, and it could be purchased along side boardgames in from pretty much every toy retailer for K'Bee to Toys R Us. Today, D&D doesn't even have a print magazine devoted to it.
3) Everything that has happened since then has always been a revival of legendary content and fluff from that golden age. There is 'Return to the Tomb of Horrors' or 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil'. For any other 'golden age' you could name, there would be what? When people talk about experiences in classic encounters, what could you name for anything outside of The Golden Age encounters that could be anything like a shared experience or for that matter 'classic'? Nothing since then has been nearly as iconic.
4) If you took a survey of the sort of people that hang out at EnWorld, I think you'd find a disproportionate number are of the age to have been forged in the '80's.

These are excellent points, the third being something that has irked me for sometime, not only in RPGs but fantasy/scifi movies with the constant remakes (do you know they're remaking Logan's Run and Excalibur? Excalibur?! That was a perfect movie as it was). "Revivalitis" in D&D seemed much alive in the late 90s when TSR was fading and WotC was trying to resuscitate it, as well as in the mid-2000s when 3E was 3Edifying everything. I have a feeling that we're not going to see as much of it with 4E. Well, we'll see the 4E treatment of all of the core stuff, but my guess is that we're not going to see a lot of official remakes of old stuff. Or at least I hope not.

I have to say that WotC's choice of Dark Sun as the next campaign setting--while not totally displeasing to me--seems to support your perspective. I was hoping that they were going to come out with something new, but it looks like we'll have to wait until 2011 or 2012.

But the thing I find a bit bothersome about Revivalitis is that it speaks of creative laziness coupled with economical cowardice. I was one of the rare geeks who didn't like the new Star Trek movie; I thought the franchise peaked with Wrath of Khan (specifically with Ricardo Montalban quoting Moby Dick) and had a few nice plateaus afterwards (movies 4, 6, and 8, and some of the Next Generation), but it was a gradual downward spiral. Rinsing and squeezing one more time still leaves you with the same outworn, overused piece of rubber (or whatever sponges are made of). Sometimes you just need a new sponge, and I applaud James Cameron for trying to do just this with Avatar, even if some of the dialogue in previews ("This is going to be fun!") have left me shaking in the corner.

Define "Golden Age".

(Otherwise the question is ill defined).

No, I will not . Why? Because I'm looking for discussion, not answers. "Golden Age" has a lot of connotations but we all have a general sense of what it means. When things were most glorious, usually back then.

That would be my guess. I recall sales of the 3x core books surpassed those of all previous D&D editions. Likewise, it's important to remember that by the time WotC acquired TSR, the company was insolvent, due in large part to the unsold thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of products that Random House finally decided that they needed to be paid for — many of which dated back to the 1980s. The point, of course, being that TSR's sales numbers were artificially inflated back then. Most of what was deemed "sold" was actually just distributed, and under an arrangement that allowed the distributor to return unsold copies for cash at a later date. Which they did. To the tune of several million dollars, if memory serves correctly.

Can you imagine? Hundreds of thousands of D&D books burnt to a crisp in the boiler room at Random House. Oh, the shame, the shame.

 

[glaucon]

Both of these things were/are true of D&D 3x and D&D 4e, as well.

Funny how there's a new 'rule book' (sic) every 3 months now....

 

[jdrakeh]

Funny how there's a new 'rule book' (sic) every 3 months now....

And they're all 100% optional, as were the additional rule books for OD&D — Supplement I: Greyhawk, Supplement II: Blackmoor, Supplement III:Eldritch Wizardry, Supplement IV: Gods, Demi Gods, and Heroes — and the hardcover rule books for AD&D 1e and 2e, such as Unearthed Arcana, Dungeoneer's Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Player's Option: Skills & Powers, etc. All you need to play D&D 3x or D&D 4e are the three core books. Nothing else is required. If your argument hangs on the semantics of the term "rule book," then it's an incredibly weak argument with nothing substantial to back it up. A "rule book" is, using the most simple definition, merely a book of rules. All of the aforementioned products are rule books.

 

[glaucon]

And they're all 100% optional, ...

All you need to play D&D 3x or D&D 4e are the three core books.

Well, I can't say for sure, as I couldn't be bothered to buy more books, but I've heard different. As an example, I read someone saying how the rules for vehicular travel (beyond horses..) are in the Adventurers Vault, or something else...

 

[Mercurius]

If you compare the RPG hobby to the Ages of comic books- Golden, Silver, Iron, etc.- I'd have to say that the 80s were the "Golden Age" of RPGs.

Now that's interesting (does some quick research). Wikipedia has the comic ages as follows:

COMIC BOOK AGES

• Golden Age: Late 30s to late 40s. "...the arrival of the comic book as a mainstream art form, and the defining of the medium's artistic vocabulary and creative conventions by its first generation of writers, artists, and editors." Think Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America, etc.
• Atomic Age: Mid-40s to mid-50s. Not a proper age as much as an interregnum, a lull in popularity following WWII.
• Silver Age: Mid-50s to c. 1970. "A period of artistic advancement and commercial success." Wikipedia cites the arrival of the Flash in 1956 as the first new popular superhero since the Golden Age. This time also saw the debut of Marvel Comics, incl the X-Men, Avengers, Spiderman, etc.
• Bronze Age: Early 70s to mid-80s. "...retained many of the conventions of the Silver Age...However darker plot elements and more mature storylines featuring real-world issues." Think the Phoenix Saga.
• Modern Age: Mid-80s to present. "...characters generally became darker and more psychologically complex, creators became better-known and active in changing the industry, independent comics flourished, and larger publishing houses became more commercialized."

Can we apply the same basic criteria to RPG History? Maybe. You did it quite well, but I'll add a bit:

RPG AGES

• Golden Age: 1970s. Do we begin with Braunstein, Chainmail, or OD&D? Hard to say, but the Golden Age would span most of the 70s and would be the only era that was truly dominated by one figure: E. Gary Gygax, the Babe Ruth of RPGs.
• Silver Age: c. 1977 to late-80s. This would be the 1ed AD&D era, peaking in the early 80s and beginning to shift to a more "humanistic" element with Dragonlance in 1983 at the midpoint, which would in turn foreshadow 2ed AD&D. This also saw the development of other RPG systems, notably Runequest, Pendragon, Traveler, Rolemaster, MERP, etc, and the first glimmerings of the Indie RPG movement.
• Bronze Age: c. 1990-2000. Three major trends united into a general period feel: the focus of AD&D on settings and the further focus on non-combat elements; the arrival of the World of Darkness with its story-based games; and the explosion of the Indie RPG market, not as an attempt to compete financially with D&D (and WoD) but with the craft of design and "RPGs as art" as central.
• Iron Age: 2000+. The OGL, baby. Or rather, the OGL coupled with the proliferation of DIY publishing and PDFs.

I call the most reason age that of "iron" because the word "modern" doesn't really seem to suit; actually, postmodern would be more appropriate, even post-postmodern as the 90s were more postmodern in vibe, especially with the very pomo WoD games.

 

[Victim]

2) D&D's mainstream reach could be felt in the fact that it had a toy line, and a cartoon on a major network, and it could be purchased along side boardgames in from pretty much every toy retailer for K'Bee to Toys R Us. Today, D&D doesn't even have a print magazine devoted to it.

Well, now it's in all the chain bookstores like Borders and B&N. Those are more common in my area than Toys R Us. I'd probably call that a wash as far as buyability.

 

[jdrakeh]

Well, I can't say for sure, as I couldn't be bothered to buy more books, but I've heard different. As an example, I read someone saying how the rules for vehicular travel (beyond horses..) are in the Adventurers Vault, or something else...

Well, I hate to break it to you, but there are a lot of rules not present in the AD&D/OD&D core books, as well. For starters, everything published in the supplements. Using the logic you're applying to 4e, that means those those rule books must be required, too.

The truth is that no edition of D&D has rules for everything in the core three books and that all editions of D&D allow the DM and players to improvise solutions to those things not covered or to design their own material to supplement those things that are.

Coming here and stating that 3e and 4e are somehow incomplete in three books while AD&D/OD&D are not is a non-starter, as is suggesting that 3e and 4e don't allow for the creation of home-brewed content or house rules. Neither of these things is true.