D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[LordEntrails]

Yea... not my experience. Even in 5E you can get killed at level 1 pretty easily. So that's no super hero.

The only difference I see in this regard from D&D is for wizards. D&D wizards were man servants until 5th level, now they are actually functional/useable at first level.

Perhaps the biggest thing I take exception to, and this may just be my interpretation of what folks are writing, but there seems to be a "This is my experience, so that is that way it was for everyone" attitude instead of something like "This is my experience, so that is the way it was for me."

 

[Minigiant]

We must have different definitions of these numbers then. In 5E, characters start as superheroes.

Barely heroes. Definitely not super heroes
1st level pcs are still below 15 HP noobs with little power. They aren't nobodies but they aren't super either.

A fresh out of squiring knight is not a superhero. Level 1-4 are the green freshies out of training levels.
People writing inappropriate backgrounds for wizard apprentices, young monks, and veterans of a single battle is a different issue.

 

[tetrasodium]

It's more tiers

1-4: Goblin Slayer, Princess Connect
5-10: Konosuba DanMachi
11-15: Konosuba, Log Horizon
16+: Sword Art, Overlord

sao was permadeath at first, your character dies and you die, lots of people died too. Even the later seasons domn't amount to 5e level 16+ until you start seeing people logging in with admin accounts towards the end... Those admin accounts are still one & done death limited & in some ways more limited than 5e PCs when it comes to recovery. The middle seasons have power scales & PC<->NPC interactions more like 8-10ish 5e PCs.

I'm not familiar with the stuff in between GS & Sao, but goblin slayer has a grittiness & lethality bordering on a DCC funnel, even the vrgtr "survivor" PCs are more sturdy than both the average as well as the exceptional adventurers in GS, there is no 5e level that compares to goblin slayer even if you look at the not really seen "The Hero" character.

Overlord's world has very few individuals not from nazaric & under ainz's rule that can stand to even the weakest from nazaric. Even the ones who can sorta kinda pretend for a bit do so only at the use of & usually consumption of artifact grade items that came from the same place as ainz. It's less obvious in the anime than in the lightnovels but the reason there appears to be such an extreme disparity in power is because basically everyone in the world is a commoner or very slightly better. Ainz even frequently remarks & plans for the assumption that there are more optimized unknown PK types in the world to be scared of because he & nazaric were very much not the most optimized in anything but teamwork & the bonds of friendship.

 

[overgeeked]

Yea... not my experience. Even in 5E you can get killed at level 1 pretty easily. So that's no super hero.

Absolutely not my experience. The DM has to go out of their way to kill off a PC. Let's see. Max hit points at 1st level. Usually higher stats than older editions, with bigger bonuses, too. The lowest hp you can expect for a 1st-level character is 5 (-1 CON mod and a 1d6 HD class), highest you can expect is 19 (+5 CON mod barbarian with tough feat). Three death saves to burn through before death and spare the dying and healing word. It can happen, sure. But it takes a string of very bad dice rolls and very bad decisions by the players along with the DM trying to kill the PCs. Any piece of that doesn't happen, and they live.

And all hit points regenerate overnight. That's absolutely superhero cartoon time.

The only difference I see in this regard from D&D is for wizards. D&D wizards were man servants until 5th level, now they are actually functional/useable at first level.

They were glass cannons before. Now they're gods. But at least it's not as bad a 3X. Woof. Doesn't mean it's good, just better than.

Perhaps the biggest thing I take exception to, and this may just be my interpretation of what folks are writing, but there seems to be a "This is my experience, so that is that way it was for everyone" attitude instead of something like "This is my experience, so that is the way it was for me."

Six of one. Everyone's reporting their own experience. Whether they mean that it applies to others or others are taking it to mean any different experience is wrong...is hard to tell. We have different experiences. Great. Your different experience doesn't invalidate mine. Nor does my different experience invalidate yours.

Barely heroes. Definitely not super heroes.
1st level pcs are still below 15 HP noobs with little power. They aren't nobodies but they aren't super either.

Sorry, but infinite ranged damage spells is not "little power". They regenerate all wounds by taking a nap. That's a superpower. The ability to not die unless you wildly screw up isn't "little power".

People writing inappropriate backgrounds for wizard apprentices, young monks, and veterans of a single battle is a different issue.

It's connected. It's people reading the rulebook and seeing how tough and powerful the characters are and writing backgrounds to match. 5E 1st-level characters are not zeros. They're at least heroes. Explicitly so. Head and shoulders above. In comparison to starting characters of older editions, they're explicitly superheroes.

 

[Minigiant]

Sorry, but infinite ranged damage spells is not "little power". They regenerate all wounds by taking a nap. That's a superpower. The ability to not die unless you wildly screw up isn't "little power".

Unlimited pew pew never felt superheroic to me. And level 1-4 5e PCs are very killable.

Must be a generational, cultural, or genre preference thing.

It's connected. It's people reading the rulebook and seeing how tough and powerful the characters are and writing backgrounds to match. 5E 1st-level characters are not zeros. They're at least heroes. Explicitly so. Head and shoulders above. In comparison to starting characters of older editions, they're explicitly superheroes.

People have been making out of wack backstories since I started D&D 20 years ago.

The level 1 veteran of 100 battles, 12 duels, and 4 world wars isn't new, it's a meme based on PCs people have been crafting for decades.

 

[Charlaquin]

full on Avengers assemble end of the power scale has already been mentioned... d&d goes well past "super heroic" into a box of its own that shares more with one punch man's sarcastic take on dragonball or the extreme over the top isekai style power scales. It's telling that overlord & slayers tells a story that feels more like d&d5e than goblin slayer's old school feel

My partner and I joke that every DM wants their campaign to be Lodoss War but every player acts like they’re in Slayers.

 

[Lanefan]

This. The abilities of 5e characters are so far beyond "trained". They are the Avengers, not a bunch of mercenary monster hunters.

Which points directly at another change over the decades: at one time the PCs were for the most part seen as being an integral part of their community in the setting. Joe the farmhand who became a low-level Fighter was very much still Joe the farmhand underneath it all. Callie the low-level Cleric was still very recognizable by her fellow villagers as Callie the sometimes-bumbling acolyte. And so on.

Now, and the Avengers example makes this clear, the PCs are being made more and more remote from their own communities even at level 1. By the time Joe becomes a low-level Fighter his farmhand days (and, more importantly, his days of thinking like a farmhand) are long since behind him. Callie as a low-level Cleric probably hasn't seen her home village in years.

This change reached its peak in 4e; 5e has dialled it back a bit but there's still a far-too-big gap between a commoner and a 1st-level PC.

 

[Lanefan]

Unlimited pew pew never felt superheroic to me.

It sure feels superheroic to me.

An archer will inevitably run out of arrows. A pew-pew wizard will never run out of pew-pew.

The level 1 veteran of 100 battles, 12 duels, and 4 world wars isn't new, it's a meme based on PCs people have been crafting for decades.

Indeed.

The difference is that where such backstories were once seen as laughable, we're now expected to take them seriously.

 

[Charlaquin]

Which points directly at another change over the decades: at one time the PCs were for the most part seen as being an integral part of their community in the setting. Joe the farmhand who became a low-level Fighter was very much still Joe the farmhand underneath it all. Callie the low-level Cleric was still very recognizable by her fellow villagers as Callie the sometimes-bumbling acolyte. And so on.

Now, and the Avengers example makes this clear, the PCs are being made more and more remote from their own communities even at level 1. By the time Joe becomes a low-level Fighter his farmhand days (and, more importantly, his days of thinking like a farmhand) are long since behind him. Callie as a low-level Cleric probably hasn't seen her home village in years.

This change reached its peak in 4e; 5e has dialled it back a bit but there's still a far-too-big gap between a commoner and a 1st-level PC.

Yeah, I remember in the early days of the 5e playtest, at the height of the simulationism vs. gameism debates, someone wrote a very insightful mini-essay on their revelation that one of the biggest points of division among the camps was on the role of the PCs. On one side the PCs were the protagonists in a fantasy story, where on the other they were people in a fantasy world.

In my experience, players tend to prefer the former and DMs the latter. Naturally, players want their characters to be special and important within a grand narrative, whereas DMs tend to have a strong desire for cohesive-feeling worlds, which PCs-as-ordinary-folk appeals to. This, I think, is the reality the Lodoss War vs. Slayers joke hints at.

 

[Helldritch]

It sure feels superheroic to me.

An archer will inevitably run out of arrows. A pew-pew wizard will never run out of pew-pew.

Indeed.

The difference is that where such backstories were once seen as laughable, we're now expected to take them seriously.

Indeed, backstories or backgrounds are now so ludicrous...
Got a friend of mine who joined an other group. (We're about 600km apart). His story was not deemed "heroic enough".
I remember a time when the main advice for a backstory was: "If you're character can't do it even with 5 twenties in a row, do not use that background." We could even play the backstory with the character just to show that sometimes, ludicrous is ludicrous.

Now? It is almost the norm. It seems that only old grognards like me still want to see logical backstories.