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

[overgeeked]

Like I said, why not up the stakes. Let them roll for what type of attack/save/skill check die they get. Some guys get stuck rolling d6 for the entire game for everything, others get 2d20. What, aren't you MAN ENUFF for the challenge?!

Again, you already are, effectively, doing just that when you're rolling stats.

I'm not sure why you're obsessed with this caricature of machismo and manliness in old-school play. I get that you don't understand the OSR, that's fine. It's not for everyone. But at least stop with the bizarre strawman.

Do you happen to have been around gaming long enough to remember the Dungeon Bastard? You know that was a parody, right?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean all the self-superiority about having done well in a randomized children's game borders on self-parody.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

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.

We had 1 character with about 200gp (they found a gem while thieving). 1 character was OK wealth (they rolled well for starting GP), and two destitute sleeping in the ground characters.

But this takes me back to why I don't like fighters in early editions. The rogue and wizard had things they could do outside of combat to help themselves without having to face instant death at the hands of a wolf/kobold/goblin/bandit. In order for my character to contribute I HAD to expose myself to be one-shotted or just sling and run away and be relativy safe.

That's not fun (for me).

 

[Willie the Duck]

I gotta say, and I don't mean to be harsh but honestly I really do -- this thread has really made me lose faith in my fellow gamers. The condescension, the elitism, the onetruewayism, the 'I'm just stating my opinion, so my others calling me out for belittling another playstyle are being unreasonable'-ism. And if you think I'm speaking about the other side (whichever that may be), I think that's part of the problem. I'm well aware that I am not a mod, but then again I'm not telling anyone not to do anything, just that it is leaving me incredibly disheartened.

One of the changes in theme that I’ve noticed is the players place in the campaign world.

In OD&D, BEMCI, 1e, there was an implied advancement from being dungeon crawlers to becoming landholders with broader responsibilities. They didn’t give many rules around that beyond the rules for setting up castles, temples etc and attracting followers, but it assumed that there would be a bunch more role playing around that.

What's interesting is that Gary and co. had rules (albeit inexact and supposedly often-changing) for just such stuff. It was David Wesley's Braunstein and I'm sure there would have been rights issues to just port it into D&D, but it's always made me wonder why it or something like it wasn't added to the game. Yes, Birthright eventually and Domain rules in BECMI covered some of that ground, but it certainly could have come earlier and more universally. I know Gary might have said something like 'I was expecting gamers to want to make that up themselves,' but he'd said that about game worlds as well but then supplied (a bit of) Greyhawk almost immediately once people started asking for it. It's just kinda surprising that a product like this didn't appear earlier in his tenure.

 

[Fifth Element]

Some people like a challenge, others don't. There's a real sense of accomplishment from overcoming adversity, rather than hiding from it.

This is very condescending. There is no actual adversity here, it's all imaginary. The sense of accomplishment you talk about here is based on what you pretend happens in a pretend world. Claiming that others "hide from adversity" because they play pretend differently than you do is very condescending.

 

[Fifth Element]

Is this a variation of that ridiculous “you didn’t say ‘in my opinion’ therefore you must think your subjective opinion is objective fact” nonsense?

No, it's pointing out that when you use language that literally argues how a game is supposed to be, you lose the implied IMO. You override it by claiming that there is any way a game is supposed to be, because that takes it beyond your preferences.

 

[Thunderfoot]

No. It just gimps them to allow natural selection (aka death by kobold) to happen. It delays the inevitable.

Sounds like they should be more careful then. lol

 

[Fifth Element]

You shouldn’t pick race. Roll it. Same with occupation/background.

So you believe the vast majority of old-school players have been doing it wrong for decades? "Roll for race" has never been standard in D&D.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Plus, lets get real. Its more about others rolling Barney Fife. I suspect those that made it through the player funnel of AD&D have fond memories of rolling well and another player being saddled with a chump. It likely accounts for the weird machismo that runs rampant through the OSR.

There you would be mistaken, I remember the one time we legitimately rolled three fighters with 18/98 18/99 and 18/00 (at the table in sight) and then rolled 1s and 2s for hp. It was a very short but violent campaign. lmao

 

[S'mon]

People keep using 'superhero' to deride characters who aren't weak and die every ten minutes without actually knowing what superhero as a genre means. For the love if Inigo Montoya, that word does not mean what you think it means.

4e was focused on traditionally heroic characters who are competent and capable in the fantasy world they live in.

I love 4e, it does reactive cinematic superhero comic style play very well.