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

[Lanefan]

A few years back a.GM at my table was running a game wherey character was a Fighter from the Rules Cyclopedia. 1st level. He set the game in the Harn world.

One player lost a character to a single wolf in the first encounter. For the rest of the first level we avoided everything, only fighting when we had no chance of sneaking or hiding. We found just a couple bits of treasure since we avoided encounters.

When I hit 2nd level my fighter had a dagger some chain armor, and a single long stick I sharpened into a spear during the campaign.

Eventually we found ourselves in a town where my destitute fighter was sleeping outside because I was homeless and didn't have money to afford a common room in the inn.

At this point I tapped out and told the GM I wasn't interested in playing his misery filled campaign anymore. It's simply not fun to spend my 4 hours a week I get to RPG playing some poopy character that is less successful at life than the actual life I am seeking a break from.

Question: were the rest of the PCs similarly impoverished, or had your PC just been unlucky?

Your GM must have been giving xp for avoiding encounters (which is good) if you got to 2nd level with basically no treasure. That said, even though your party lost a character early on there's still a certain amount of risk-reward correlation to keep in mind: your lot nicely avoided the risks but in so doing also very neatly avoided the rewards.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Why would you assume people didn't have fun?

I find it odd that people, you among others, choose create this narrative that classic edition games are just dirt farmers and drudgery and death.

Because of all the complaining about the lack of dirt farmers, drudgery and death.

 

[Monayuris]

I am closing in on 50. I started playing DnD in the early 80s (when I was in grade school and the cartoon was on TV).

A few years back a.GM at my table was running a game wherey character was a Fighter from the Rules Cyclopedia. 1st level. He set the game in the Harn world.

One player lost a character to a single wolf in the first encounter. For the rest of the first level we avoided everything, only fighting when we had no chance of sneaking or hiding. We found just a couple bits of treasure since we avoided encounters.

When I hit 2nd level my fighter had a dagger some chain armor, and a single long stick I sharpened into a spear during the campaign.

Eventually we found ourselves in a town where my destitute fighter was sleeping outside because I was homeless and didn't have money to afford a common room in the inn.

At this point I tapped out and told the GM I wasn't interested in playing his misery filled campaign anymore. It's simply not fun to spend my 4 hours a week I get to RPG playing some poopy character that is less successful at life than the actual life I am seeking a break from.

If I want to get stomped on by a game I'll play a really difficult co-op board game. Then my fellow players can share my misery and we can lose and try again after an hour or two. If I am going to pretend to be someone I am not for funsies and entertainment I don't want that someone to be incompetent at their job...like say rolling up a 12STR fighter with a dagger and being afraid of a single wolf or random pit trap.

The last B/X game I played in we explored a dungeon in the elemental plane of water. Encountered a strange cult who mutated as they studied magic. Defeated a water adapted cultist monster by luring it out into the outside (which was in the plane of air). Fought our way out of being surrounded by zombies. Dealt with strange oozes in pools of water.

I was a 1st level magic user with 3 hit points, my spell was mostly useless (sleep). But I collected a strange alchemical substance and used it to burn the zombies, lit a lot of things on fire with oil, got a few good pokes in with my dagger. We lived to tell the tale.

Older editions can just as likely to be epic and heroic and fantastical as they can be drudgery and brutal. Just like any other game.

I'm sorry you had a crappy experience with RC, but that is the fault of a mismatch of expectations at best and a bad DM at worst... more so than the game itself.

 

[overgeeked]

a certain amount of risk-reward correlation to keep in mind: your lot nicely avoided the risks but in so doing also very neatly avoided the rewards.

I think that's the heart of it for me. No risk, no reward. Picking an array is boring and dull. I'd rather have the risk of a potential 3 for the reward of a potential 18. As you said in another post:

Stepping back a bit, the idea of having a character concept in mind before roll-up night is the root of the problem.

I like the risk of playing a weak fighter that I have to play really smart with to survive for the reward of playing a paladin that's honestly rolled, CHA17 and all. And as you said in another post, it helps keep concepts and classes that should be rare actually rare in play.

The same applies across the board. Older editions were risky. You had to think your way out of problems. You couldn't just bash through everything and be assured you'd always win or always be perfectly fine after an 8 hour nap. The modern setup is just not satisfying to play. There's practically zero risk. There's no sense of accomplishment beating a fight you're all but predestined to win.

The risk is the fun. The roll of the dice, the chance. Doing the best you can with what you have and throwing the bones, a whispered prayer to the Dice Gods, and...

 

[Vaalingrade]

Some of us have neither the time nor the tums to wager on our scant leisure activity.

 

[Minigiant]

Older editions can just as likely to be epic and heroic and fantastical as they can be drudgery and brutal. Just like any other game

By definition, play as the non-legendary underdog is not epic. Epics are long form telling of the deeds of mythic and legendary figures.

Overall, play as underdogs, equal combatants, and favorites are all fun. They are just different types of fun. And all three are possible in every edition of D&D due to it being a level based game with no automatic scaling..

The only difference of what level of power the edition supported at base.

 

[S'mon]

It has become more of a superhero game, which is fine. In general it can also be more gameist, less focused on narrative and story telling. As always, the tone elements are highly dependent on the DM.

For players, there tends to be more reliance on skill checks and class powers versus ingenuity around interacting with the environment.

I think 4e was focused on a kind of fantasy superhero genre emulation, 5e much less so. 5e also seems less gamist than 4e, and less reliance on skills & powers than 3e and 4e.

 

[tetrasodium]

But that's you. Complaining that that's no longer the default for most modern games because its not what you want or some OS types want and dismissing people who do want control over their character is basically deciding that everyone should play like you.

Yarent being dismissed and are in fact doing just that to others that who are talking about how the game changed and elements of those changes. The "elite array" is the only array now and as a result the tourguide still for some reason called the DM is setup with an uphill battle just to nerf that down to [/i] standard[/i] point buy. Where you could still pick the type of class that you want to play right? "magic items are optional" doesn't have quite the same ring as"magic items are already baked into pcs during character creation"

 

[Lanefan]

By definition, play as the non-legendary underdog is not epic. Epics are long form telling of the deeds of mythic and legendary figures.

Overall, play as underdogs, equal combatants, and favorites are all fun. They are just different types of fun. And all three are possible in every edition of D&D due to it being a level based game with no automatic scaling..

The only difference of what level of power the edition supported at base.

Agreed; though I'd add that another difference is in how fast that power level increases as the game goes along.

3e is one extreme - it started mid-low but increased rapidly per level. 4e is the other extreme - it started high but then didn't increase all that much per level.

 

[Lanefan]

Some of us have neither the time nor the tums to wager on our scant leisure activity.

If you ain't got the tums for it I can't help you there.

But you do have the time.

Sure, we're all gonna die sometime but until then the amount of time you devote to the game - as opposed to whatever else you do in life - is very much your own choice. The game is designed to take as much time as you're willing to give it and in some (many?) ways reward you for giving it (relatively) more time rather than less; and if you choose not to give it much time that's fine as long as you're aware that it's your choice, and that choice might lead to some elements of the game being less rewarding or interesting than they otherwise could be.