D&D General Why is tradition (in D&D) important to you? [+]

[teitan]

Tradition is the thread that binds things together from the past to the future. It is important to connect things and build community. It is a sense of common experience and it is an initiation, a rite of passage to learn and experience traditions and their meaning. What is important to answering the question is what do you mean by "tradition" because it means different things to different groups. One player may think it means "Orcs are evil brutes" while another group may think it means "we drink mountain dew on game night and cast magic missile into the darkness".

 

[TerraDave]

There have been changes and experimentation with D&D, and a strong pattern of many of those changes later being reversed.

In D&D elsewhere, you may know enough about something to critique it and think you know how it should be done differently. Getting a bunch of people to agree with you on those changes is a whole different story.

 

[Minigiant]

I value Tradition as a skeleton.
I don't value Tradition as a skin.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Tradition beings continuity and shared experiences, even if the details of the rules might differ.

Someone new can explain their first battle with a fire breathing red dragon along with their party of a fighter, magic user, and cleric with the same reverence as a player who did the same 40 years ago, and they can relate to each other. Each knows the glory of a well timed nat 20, or an Ill timed 1.

 

[overgeeked]

I've noticed this come up in a number of discussions lately. Tradition in D&D is something I find really interesting. Sometimes, when changes are being made to D&D, one of the common arguments against change is the valuing of Tradition. For example, some folks may argue that Wizards of the Coast shouldn't change the name of something, stop using a rule, or publish a new setting instead of an old one because of Tradition.

I think of it like Chesterton's Fence. If you don't know why something is there, don't remove it. If you know why something is there and you can come up with a better way of doing it, go ahead. But removing something without reason simply to remove the thing isn't a great idea. Nor is changing things for change's sake. I'm not a neophile. I don't chase the new. Old things that still work, still work. Especially in regards to RPGs. It's an elfgame. There's smoother and easier, rougher and harder, better and worse...only in regards to producing a particular outcome. Not in objective terms. Rule X is good; rule Y is bad. It just doesn't work that way. Rule X is good for producing Z style results; rule Y is bad for producing Z style results.

For me, there are a few traditions that I think help define D&D, even if they don't make much sense. The six ability scores are a good example of this; if D&D were created now I doubt they would use such ambiguous names that can often define the same things, such as Intelligence and Wisdom. But without those six ability scores, D&D just doesn't feel like D&D.

For me, that's where a lot of my criticism of WotC D&D come from. If they change X, it just doesn't feel like D&D. Trouble is, I came in in the early 80s with B/X and AD&D. So most of the changes WotC made to D&D means that modern D&D just doesn't feel like D&D. Things like zero to hero characters in the old days compared to superheroes to gods in the WotC version of the game. They've changed things that I find foundational to the game experience I want. So it just doesn't feel like D&D anymore.

On the other hand, tradition really doesn't hold much sway over me. Though I've been playing since 2e, I've really enjoyed seeing play restrictions (such as race/class restrictions, multiclass restrictions, etc) go by the wayside.

That was the first house rule I ever made. Any race, any class, any level. Well, second. After dropping gender-based modifiers. Yikes guys.

I find changes really invigorating.

If I like the change, I think it's invigorating. If I don't like the change, I think it's a pointless break with tradition simply for the sake of chasing the new or diluting the game experience.

So I'm curious about those of you who really value Tradition in D&D. Why is it important to you? What value does it have?

Continuity and Chesterton's Fence. My brothers introduced me to D&D when I was a kid. Probably too young for all the T&A in the old books (there's really not that much). I grew up playing. We all had kids and we've since brought all our kids into playing D&D with us. But their experience with D&D is wildly different than ours. Hell, mine was wildly different than my brothers'. They started before the Satanic Panic. I started during the Satanic Panic.

But there's something lost in those changes. Back in the day, the player had to outsmart the trap or puzzle. Now, it's just another button on the character sheet. Back then, the player had to think and plan and strategize to overcome obstacles. Now, the game is so safe for PCs that they can literally charge headlong into basically any fight and assume a rather large chance of winning...unless the DM intentionally stacked the deck against the players. Back then, you had to deal with the loss of a character and the frustration that brought, but also the joy of simply throwing "Jr" at the end of your character's name and continuing on. Now, the game is so safe for PCs that the DM really has to go wildly out of their way even to threaten PC death, to say nothing of actually following through with it. Back then, you did your utmost to avoid every fight you possibly could because fights were dangerous and deadly. Now the game is balanced around the idea of needing 6-8 fights a day to properly challenge the PCs' resources. To me, those old things are a large part of what the game is. Definitionally. Without those, it's just not D&D anymore. That's why tradition is important. Because I want more of that old-school play and I want to pass that on. Not whatever this new fantasy superhero game is.

 

[Lanefan]

Why is tradition in baseball important?

Answer that, and you've answered the OP's question as well.

 

[Zardnaar]

Mostly for brand identity and expectations.

5Es becoming a bit to gonzo for me and the fluff barely resembles the 2E/3E era which I like.

Gradual change is ok severe change eh.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Tradition, most of the time, gives rise to that feeling of "familiarity," but it need not always do so--sometimes "traditions" sprout out of misremembering or a sudden change that "just seemed natural."

Consider, for example, the trope of giving Barbarians and Fighters fewer skills than other classes. It never existed prior to 3rd edition. In fact, as I recall, it was even common for them to have more skill-equivalents (e.g. NWPs) than other classes, because the origins for these classes were Conan (who had tons of different skills) and various main characters spread across fiction (e.g. John Carter of Mars) who needed to survive by a mixture of thews and thinking. Yet as soon as 3e put the reduced-skill-point Fighter and Barbarian (the latter being illiterate unless you paid extra skill points!), it became instant tradition--several successor games, including 4e, preserved some of that BS, and even 13th Age, a game designed by 4e's lead designer, almost included it too, but changed their minds due to playtest feedback that vehemently said no.

Tradition has honest, legitimate value; I don't mean to paint it as something pointless. But I often find that people portray it as inherently better than trying to investigate why things are done the way they are done, and what ways might achieve the same ends but more effectively. For primarily aesthetic things, it makes no difference, there's nothing really to test, so those should generally do whatever the creator things is best--the value of tradition there becomes the evoked feelings, as is the case with all aesthetic things. But for mechanics, it's a different story.

I mean, consider the following comment from above:

If there isn't a very good reason for it to change, I want it to remain the same or very similar.

In other words, tradition is valuable in and of itself, and you need not just good reason, but a very good reason (emphasis added) for it. And that leads to a big problem: A lot of people are very unwilling to even consider changes to traditions they currently like, even if those changes would actually be useful to them.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Why is tradition in baseball important?

Answer that, and you've answered the OP's question as well.

Because the only people who watch it now are old people who want it to play exactly as they remember it when they were kids.

But all the young people of today realize the current game of baseball sucks because most of those traditions are ridiculous and make the game longer and less interesting than the 37,000 other things they could be doing with their time. Which means the old people can still enjoy their old game, but should be prepared for it to dry up and evaporate as each of those old people begin to die off.

The difference with D&D is that its control was gained by the young people when the old people messed up handling it, and thus they were able to change it and save it from itself. Which is why it is still a popular past-time that has become one with the current times, even if its experience differs from the experience the old people remember.

 

[Oofta]

Because the only people who watch it now are old people who want it to play exactly as they remember it when they were kids.

But all the young people of today realize the current game of baseball sucks because most of those traditions are ridiculous and make the game longer and less interesting than the 37,000 other things they could be doing with their time. Which means the old people can still enjoy their old game, but should be prepared for it to dry up and evaporate as each of those old people begin to die off.

The difference with D&D is that its control was gained by the young people when the old people messed up handling it, and thus they were able to change it and save it from itself. Which is why it is still a popular past-time that has become one with the current times, even if its experience differs from the experience the old people remember.

So ... the old feeble minded codgers were holding the game back? No ageism here folks ... move along ... yeah, you too gramps ... nothing to see.