Do we live in the d20 Dark Ages?

[Ulrick]

The grognards have had their say, the Golden Age of D&D is long gone.

And i agree.

But I'm not part of the old school crowd. I started playing D&D in 1989, when AD&D Second Edition was published. AD&D 2e was great, the rules were organized, easier to use. Yet somehow, the aura of mystery and fantasy that the older material invoked was gone (along with demons, devils, and assassins). So I was torn between the old and the new.

Others seemed to have thought the same way. Somebody on the boards mentioned that AD&D 2e experienced a "diaspora" of gamers. Rarely anybody champions AD&D 2e in the Edition Wars (as ugly as the Edition Wars are). But somebody must have played AD&D 2e, because WotC feels its worthwhile to reprint the core books.

I view the publishing of 2e like the splitting of the Roman Empire around the 3rd Century AD. Those who went to 2e were like the Western Empire, soon to be overrun. Meanwhile, other D&D players, stuck with 1e or even basic, carrying on the old traditions like the Eastern Roman Empire, the Byzantines. 3e/3.5e was like Charlemagne uniting Western Europe for a brief period before things fell apart again. With the OGL, nearly anybody could claim "lordship" over the rules. 4e brought all kinds of problems. The Edition Wars were like the new concern over and the persecution of heresy in the 11th and 12th centuries. Many through they had the one true way.

Like with any analogy, you can poke gaping holes through it. Yet I think something last been lost from the Golden Age, namely the grand narrative that bound most D&D players together: being introduced to D&D after already being exposed to literature and history that inspired, the shared experience of playing through the same modules, and playing the game before computer games and CCGs really took off.

D&D players, and the tabletop RPG hobby as whole, are more fragmented than ever. There's so much stuff out there you can never play it all. After reading the State of Mongoose 2012, I believe the d20 Dark Ages are still with us. Maybe 5e will bring everybody back together again, who knows.

I've been exploring these ideas on my blog d20 Dark Ages.* I don't consider myself part of D&D's "Lost Generation" but I think D&D lost "something" in 1989, and since then, after TSR tanked, WotC has been trying to get it back.

You're more than welcome to visit there, or discuss things here. If you grew up playing 2e in the 1990s, I definitely want to hear your experiences.


*As a medievalist, I understand that the proper term for the "Dark Ages" is the Early Medieval Period. But "d20 Early Medieval Period" just doesn't have nice ring to it.

 

[herrozerro]

I have heard this or variations of this for a while and I do have to ask one question. Why is varity a dark age? why must we all be united in a single game to have a golden age? Personally I love the varity, I dont have to force a game to play the way I want i can find at least 1 that's exactly what i want.

 

[Crothian]

A lot of things were happening in the Dark Ages it is a very misnamed time period. I would call this the d20 Dark ages since very little d20 stuff is coming out if we ignore the glut of things that exist for Pathfinder.

 

[herrozerro]

Actually Ill revise what i said before, yes, this might be a d20 dark age, but it is a indie renascence.

 

[Libramarian]

Lol at that State of the Mongoose address. Last year the RPG market "had a pulse". This year...it doesn't.

I think we're beyond the Dark Ages at this point. More like the UN has just announced that a giant asteroid appears to be on course to impact Earth.

5e is the team of astronauts sent to nuke the asteroid.

Google+ circles are the secret underground vaults where the elites are starting to hide out in.

 

[JeffB]

I always enjoy Matt's year end wrap up. But I get anmoyed by his "I heard from one guy that another guys product sold..." BS. He has a bad habit of using those statements to back up his viewpoint on how the whole market is doing. The truth is that barring Traveller, Mongoose no longer has any RPG brands that are attarctive to anything but a very very small subset of RPGers, and often even smaller as some games that are pretty popular on his side of the pond have absolutely no traction here in the states.

That said, the Golden Age will never return because D&D became a worldwide fad/phenomenom in the very early 1980s. It is not ever going to happen again. 3e was the perfect storm because of its timing, and some smart people in charge of the brand who were gamers who did not answer to shareholders.

The "glory days" are over and this medium of entertainmen has been far eclipsed by technology. Thanks to the SRD and easy second hand methods of getting materials, you can play the version you want for the rest of your life, and IMO gamers would be better off spending their time playing and talking about what they love AND TEACHING OTHERS TO PLAY instead of tearing other versions and their fans down, or worrying about capturing lightning in the bottle *again* "for the sake of the hobby's future". The OSR is proof positive the hobby will remain long after corporate america has abandoned it.

 

[Achan hiArusa]

I loved 2nd Edition. First was so clunky as a rules set and in its writing (which probably added to the mystery people experienced) and 2e streamlined it all. And it allowed for more customized characters. Now, I didn't accept everything they did and did run a fusion 1e/2e game (gave the bard priest spheres and gave him some restricted schools, allowed the ranger to learn wizard spells for example) and I introduced elements from BECMI. It had its problems. They kept a lot of the 1e clunkiness because they were afraid the players would get angry (keeping % thieves's skill instead of folding everything into proficiencies like Zeb Cook promised, % Strength Scores, and abilities that go up to 25) and then Skills and Powers threw open the doors to chaos (points and levels don't mix well) but I allowed the players to customize with a limited point pool. I used a lot of rules revisions that were introduced in later books like Panache (Savage Coast), all skills including thief skills as proficiencies (Masque of the Red Death), smoother ability scores (BECMI), elimination of % strength (Dark Sun Revised), character customization (Skills & Powers), bringing back some 1e lost abilities (Later Complete Handbooks), and a few of the reforms of 3e (10 Ways to Start Playing 3e now from Dragon Magazine). I think with a lot of house cleaning like this it could have been a better system than 3e. I have the file with my revisions, maybe I should write my own retroclone.

 

[khantroll]

I find that I honestly don't know where I stand on this. The golden age is past, and I doubt that we will ever see something like it again. As for where do we go from here..I honestly don't know.

On the one hand, I know that JeffB is right, and that RPGs of a sort were here before 1975, and they'll be here long after that. I also know that grassroots and underground hobbies can thrive, because I am myself a member of some of them.

That being said, there is a part of me that remembers deploying a network for a rather large metropolitan church several years ago. The pro audio installer was visiting with the individual in charge of project, and apparently that person was shying away from the price. "Look," the pro audio installer said, "If you want to be seen as a big church, you have to sound, look like, and be a big church."

That part of me wonders if we aren't the same way. If we want to be a popular medium, then don't we have to look and sound like it? Don't we need the cons, the big store displays, and etc, and all the trappings of the glory days?

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

If you grew up playing 2e in the 1990s, I definitely want to hear your experiences.

Honestly, I can't relate to your doom and gloom sentiments. I started with 2e too, and I've enjoyed every edition of the game more than the last one. I've already lost interest in 5e, and I'll eat my boots if it has any notable effect on the hobby's demographics, but I'm sure plenty of gamers will love it. Yeah, the hobby is diversified (aka 'fragmented'). No, nobody with a job could ever play every rpg on the market. These are good things; they mean that the hobby is growing and evolving.

I sympathize with your loss of that sense of mystery and fantasy. Back during my 2e days, I thought that D&D was a cohesive and magical whole. But that was just my own (mis)perception, not a result of some rpg golden age. In the years since then, I've gained some perspective, savvy, and taste. The hobby is the hobby, and always will be -- what really changes is our individual perceptions of it.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

I think we're beyond the Dark Ages at this point. More like the UN has just announced that a giant asteroid appears to be on course to impact Earth.

...And now Bruce Willis has to roll up a d20 Modern character along with a crew of oil riggers, while Liv Tyler GMs the "Armaggedon: I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" module.