D&D 5E What happened to the punk aesthetic in D&D?

[TwoSix]

I always think that there is a serious mismatch in tone between the song and the event that inspired it.

And after I think that, I think, "Wow, I really spend too much time thinking about things like this."

Upbeat songs about tragic events were a necessary corrective to a half-decade of dirge-like songs about the generic angst of privileged young people.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[robus]

Now, the pendulum began to swing, certainly by the 3e era. And I can understand why people are more comfortable with branded material. But in essence, this is a hobbyist's game still. It is about creation, not just consumption. Or, to put it in the punk parlance, about being given the basic tools to create your own band, not about listening to ELO.****

...snip....

****Don't let me down, commenters

If we're talking ELO then you should be more worried about us "bringing you down" as in "Don't bring me down... shwoop" surely?

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think the issue is people just got turned off 3pp by 3rd eds OGL and mass of imbalanced splat books that turned level 1chars into greater deity killers.

but even Wotc splat spam isn't balanced either. So I don't know why people need official stuff so bad I guess they assume official= balanced.

I honestly don't think that's a big part of it. Balance isn't a top priority of 5e. 4e proved you could have balanced D&D, but even then WotC would put something out, and it'd have to be errata'd within months of the OP crowd getting ahold of it. But, official product does seem preferred (and, really, even in the most variant-prone times, new official material generated excitement). Maybe it's just the veneer of officialdom, maybe the assumption that it'll be 'better' or truer to D&D because it's professionally produced by the IP holder.

So, I've read numerous threads where people have argued that something isn't acceptable unless it is an official, WoTC product. And this very much goes against the grain of how I learned to play and run D&D.

Nod. D&D, like the wargames it grew out of, started off very open to variants and being played differently, not just from one group or DM to another, but from one scenario to another. OD&D was actually 3 different games. It was D&D. It was Chainmail when you were fighting. It was Wilderness Survival when you were wandering around in the woods. AD&D played quite differently when exploring vs fighting in a dungeon vs traveling & fighting out in the open. Modules routinely called out special rules for the creatures, traps, magic, & situations found in them.

Now, the pendulum began to swing, certainly by the 3e era. And I can understand why people are more comfortable with branded material. But in essence, this is a hobbyist's game still

3e, while wide open to 3pp product, seemed to be the nadir of DM Empowerment and homebrew. There was so much official and OGL material, why bother? And, players were feeling very empowered to create just the character they wanted, without having to come to the DM for some novel rule/ruling to make it work ('just' approval of this or that non-Core option).

1. Convenience.
2. Brand.
3. Consistency.
4. Emotional support.
5. Moar Product.

I am sympathetic to all of these claims (even (4)). [/quote]You didn't spin it (4) too favorably, though. 5e's made a commitment to healing the rift of the edition war and being D&D for everyone who ever loved D&D. (Note: not everyone, not everyone who ever played D&D, but for all us devoted fans of each past edition - or multiple past editions, for us long-timers.)

And I'm not arguing that "back in the old days," everyone did it right and customized the heck out the system.

I think you kinda are. ;P

Naw; it wasn't born out of desire, but out of necessity; many "table rules," were often because of convenience or not reading all the cross-references and asides that Gygax buried, and the adoption of additional materials was because, TBH, you had to.

To a certain extent, the only way to Empower the DM is to make DMing hard on him. There's a lot of reasons. A simple/clear/complete/functional system doesn't need rulings, so if you habitually play in such a system, your players are not habituated to accepting rulings as a matter of course. They can rules-lawyer from a clear position. A complicated/vague/clunky system, OTOH, requires an active hand from the DM to keep it running smoothly, so players learn to accept (even appreciate) frequent rulings and exceptions. (They can still rules-lawyer if they want, for or against what the rules say, or alternate interpretatuions of same, it's just a more involved process.) Similarly, if it's hard to DM, the rebut "if you don't like it, run your own campaign," has much sharper teeth. DMs are fewer and in a stronger bargaining position when forging that informal 'social contract,' the harder it is to DM, let alone do it well.

But still ... I like 5e because it is so highly adaptable. What do you think?

I agree with this last bit. ;P

***By punk, I mean DIY nerd. But definitely punk. We did it our way.

Yeah, I totally don't see it. Jazz is doing it your own way. Punk is mohawks and safety-pin piercings.

 

[TerraDave]

WoD had--officially!--a gothic punk style. I always laughed at that. And I still do.

Lets see, DIY in D&D. In OD&D yes, and you basically had to. That attitude was embedded through gamers and things like back issues of Dragon magazine.

But, AD&D was the first attempt to "officialize" things. Both to facilitate what would know be called organized play, and so Gygax could proclaim wrong-bad-fun at all the things that annoyed him.

2E tried to have it all ways, and I do remember a lot of house-rules and mix and match approaches to play.

3E and 4E both seem to really try hard to codify things and reign in DMs and house rules. Though 3E also had the OGL glut...and that may be a contributing factor now.

The irony is that 5E is really DYI friendly. Very easy to convert stuff for it, and the DMG is full of advice for making stuff up, and has all sorts of examples of possible house rules. Unlike 3E or 4E, its pretty easy to change one part, and not worry about the whole thing breaking.

And I think people are doing DYI. They must be making their own adventures, because the DMG sales way, way, (way) better then the storylines. I also think people are running it the way they want to. Some people are playing in a very tight, minis based, 3.5/4E style, and other groups run it much, much looser. And the range of campaigns and characters also seems very wide.

So don't worry. Calling any thing where people sit around and pretend to be elves (or vampires) and role dice "punk" is pretty funny. But D&Drs are doing it their way.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[akr71]

Yeah, I totally don't see it. Jazz is doing it your own way. Punk is mohawks and safety-pin piercings.

I respectfully disagree - what you are describing is just suburban youth buying in to an image pushed on them by MTV, Spin and Rolling Stone. Joe Strummer never sported a mohawk until Combat Rock-era which was far more commercial/mainstream/non-DIY than the first albums. I've never seen any pictures of the members of Black Flag with safety pin piercings or funny haircuts.

Getting back to the OP, though - I think time is the big factor for the older farts (like me). I write/homebrew/DIY my own stuff. I'll borrow from stuff I find online or by non-official stuff from the DM's Guild. If it works, it works. If my players find it interesting and buy in, then great. My Roll20 game (which I play in, not DM) has a fair amount of homebrew content.

Its just my opinion, but I think AL is a big driver to the desire for 'official' material. I don't get it, I don't play AL and I don't want to - it sounds to stiffing. I wanna write my own stuff. I wanna see what other players and DMs are doing creatively. I wanna be sedated.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Jazz is improvisation, but has a high barrier to entry.
...

Sounds like running D&D, to me.

 

[JeffB]

I thought you were speaking of the horrendous art style of 3.x, to which my reply would be- thankfully dead with that edition's demise.