You are absolutely spot on about the 2000's being a Golden Age of D&D. 3rd edition opened new avenues for the brand which is still being played and produced (Pathfinder) today. I believe there will never be another "Golden Age" of D&D.
The Great D&D Schism: The End of an age and the scattering of gamers
You are absolutely spot on about the 2000's being a Golden Age of D&D. 3rd edition opened new avenues for the brand which is still being played and produced (Pathfinder) today. I believe there will never be another "Golden Age" of D&D.
"Never" is a very, very long time.
GMforPowergamers
Legend
Well I doubt most will look back and call 4e or 5e a 'golden age' (some will just as some don't see 2e or 3e that way) I bet that there will come a day when the pendulum swings back and we have a massive revival of Paper and dice gameing...
[sblock=pessimist] or computer games will over take us and this (now 40 year old) 50 or so years will bearly be a foot note...
[/sblock]
Yora
Legend
What? Pen and Paper games appear to be doing super-well. It's just that one company that used to be the number one top dog that probably held about 80+% of the market that now has been cut down to being the number 2. And still outselling everyone but the new number 1 by a good margin.
n00bdragon
First Post
This topic reeks of rose tinted glasses, glasses which conveniently forget the upheaval every edition change of D&D has courted. The difference is that the internet has exploded the number and variety of quality RPGs on the market (the number of sub-quality RPGs has also gone from simply immense to truly uncountable). There's more forums for edition wars than there were in the past, and there's also a massive batch of people who started pretty much with 3e and don't remember the history substantially before it.
Anyone who thinks the heyday of RPGs was the mid 2000s is woefully ignorant of history. The heydey was in the 70s and 80s. It's been a slow decline ever since.
Anyone who thinks the heyday of RPGs was the mid 2000s is woefully ignorant of history. The heydey was in the 70s and 80s. It's been a slow decline ever since.
Without some global sales numbers that is hard to tell. The Internet made acquiring RPGs and groups more easy. But on the other hand, video games did cut into the market share. It is hard to say if PnPs are doing well or not.
Incorrect.
3rd edition rules are still in circulation 14 years later with no end in sight. Of course there were people who didn't welcome 3rd edition, but there was a massive influx of old and new gamers coming on boards the 3rd edition bandwagon. I wouldn't be throwing the "ignorant" word around that easily. 3rd edition made D&D "cool" again by a lot of people I know.
Ahnehnois
First Post
To me that's a big part of it. When 3e was being advertised and was popular, it was the closest D&D has ever come to being socially acceptable, at least among people who have some idea of what it is. Now, any statement that "I play D&D" opens up a can of worms. With people outside of the hobby, there's the nebulous sense of xenophobia one would expect, but even within the hobby, that statement is a sort of challenge, one that immediately needs to be followed with qualifiers lest you lose the listener's respect.
It's unfortunate that a hobby with D&D's history has added even more negativity to the mix.
HardcoreDandDGirl
First Post
As a self-professed 2e girl I will say this, I jumped into4e much earlier than I did 3e, and am planning to convert to next day 1 (Istill have a playtest running that has 5 players 2 of them had never RPGedbefore).
My ex’s Dad and his group still meet every Thursday night toplay Dungeons and Dragons, but I doubt anyone here would call the game theyplay that. (At its base it is AD&D1e but with CoC skills and sanity graftedon, and a proficiency system that that takes a lot from 3e feats, and they havehomebrew races and classes on top of the ones from that edition) I have neverheard any of them say anything nice about anything published after I was born…
GMforPowergamers
Legend
If I am correct you are counting 3e, 3.5, and pathfinder all in there (correct me if I am wrong). That is three versions (based on the same chaise) for 14 years... at the very least you have to combine 1e and 2e (since they too were backwards compatible) to compare life spans... I believe that is 20 years...
