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

Back in the 70s/80s there weren't very many roleplaying games. If you wanted to try something new, you probably had to homebrew it yourself. If you wanted to play a fantasy game, D&D was it (ok, there were a handful of others). And if D&D wasn't quite what you wanted, you had to change it.

In the 2010s there are thousands upon thousands of roleplaying games. If you want to try something new, an internet search will turn up dozens of results. If you want to play a fantasy game, there are hundreds. And if D&D isn't quite what you want, there are dozens, possibly hundreds of clones, one-offs, and older editions to pick from.

ProgBard said:

All this is pretty much why I give the side-eye to punk's fetishization of "authenticity" (and not just, as one might rightly infer from my handle, because I'm rather inclined to be aesthetically on the side of Bowie and Yes).

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When I read "ProgBard" the first thing I thought of was Rick Wakeman!

I'm just putting forth some ideas here. It's a thought I've had in the past as well and is it nostalgia or was something really different going on?

mflayermonk said:

When I read "ProgBard" the first thing I thought of was Rick Wakeman!

I'm just putting forth some ideas here. It's a thought I've had in the past as well and is it nostalgia or was something really different going on?

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(I'm generally a Fripp/Gilmour/Gabriel/Belew kinda guy, but hey, if it's in a weird time signature and has at least one 15-minute track on it, it's probably okay by me.)

Nostalgia's a powerful thing, both for the music and the games that imprinted on us early. My suspicion is that there probably was something magical going on - for whatever genre or time you recall - that's being magnified to one degree or another by nostalgia and memory. A great deal of my middle age seems to be about sorting through what was valuable and figuring out what might be better to discard.

In any case, thank you for bringing this stuff up, which has added lots to think about to this discussion!

Morrus said:

I can't even conceive of gaming without sticking my oar into it. Being an official stuff only person would bore me, I think. I don't think I'd enjoy the hobby half as much.

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This. A thousand times this. Of course that view permeates so many aspects of my life. I like beer - I like it so much I brew my own (and have won medals for it). I like growing my own food - my garden grew to 3000 square feet. I like D&D - I write my own adventures when time permits. I support the ENWorld patreon and buy stuff from the DM's Guild when time does not permit.

Morrus said:

Those of us who are older don't have the time for it, or are making money from it. The younger people never knew it or are making money from it.

It's still plenty alive with other games, but D&D has this "officialness" thing attached to it these days.


Sent from my iPhone using EN World mobile app

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Nah, the "i want official" people may just be more visible or vocal.

Plenty of DIY punks around here. When I meet up with somone from a new group, its the same as always had been, "what do you use, what did you change" etc.

IME of course.

I don't have time to vet the 3PP material like I'd like to, so I stick to publishers I already know produce quality material.

That also means I don't allow DM's Guild stuff, simply because I don't have the time to go through all of it.

And homebrewing... If I want a system for extensive mixing and matching, there are ones designed with it in mind that are much easier to use. Savage Worlds, GURPS, Hero, FATE, WOIN once it's fully released...

I'm way less punk than I used to be. Every couple of months I will go on a homebrew kick...redefining how races work (so they are much less of a thing), brewing up some alternative combat rules so the non-spell, non-class ability part of the game has fun options and decision points, making up alchemy rules, redoing all the equipment to make them more interesting, and then I find...

a) It's a lot of work. Every hour I invest in homebrewing I could be spending doing something about a dozen other things, all of which probably have a greater return on investment because...

b) nobody cares. None of the pain points I have bother anybody else at the table. Sometimes they can intellectually see my pain points, but they aren't pain points to them; they might go along with my homebrew because I'm the DM and it makes me happy to pee in the pool at little bit, but they'd have just as much fun playing the game straight as they would with all my house rules. They're all grown ups too, with limited time to spend worrying about rules and verisimilitude. They just want to roll some dice and kill some orcs.

I think half my love of OSR is because nobody bats an eye if you tear your B/X game apart and put it back together, or leave huge chunks of AD&D out of the game (seriously you almost have to). But with 5e, the prevailing attitude seems to be "play it as it lies" (for me as well, which is why I get so bent out of shape over default lore).

[MENTION=40233]Salamandyr[/MENTION] Yep, I have experienced this too. I had an idea to create my own world where magic works differently - weaker the farther you get from the magical pole. I could spend probably 100's of hours getting it to where I wanted, but thankfully I realized the ROI wasn't worth it. We play in the Realms and I have always been a big proponent of 'My Realms' - I'll take what I want from canon, but ultimately if I want to change the geography, the politics or the key players to suite what is happening in my game, I will.

Aye. [MENTION=40233]Salamandyr[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6801213]akr71[/MENTION], I'd say exactly the same thing, except that my big homebrew work would be setting up lots of mechanics to reward worshipping and praying to the gods rather than a magical pole.

Instead, I turned my effort to (occasionally) making up magic items, because the players will use them.

My own DIY efforts in 5e haven't been so much rules hacking (other than the usual house-ruling that happens at almost every table, and I do enjoy creating and modifying monsters) as creating physical artefacts to use in play. I'm an enthusiastic convert to the make-your-own-terrain-out-of-junk movement as pioneered by The DM's Craft. And I also make my own monster pawns, as well as magic item cards I hand out to players when they get treasure - that way no one has to try and remember what their items do, and when they use consumables like scrolls and potions, they can just hand them back to me instead of having to cross stuff off their equipment lists all the time.