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

[Remathilis]

This forum isn't the only online place discussing this. Check out this twitter thread for takes many degrees hotter then you'll find here...

Yeesh. And I read all that in Comic Book Guy's voice. That is some nerd- hipster vibes if I ever saw them.

 

[Remathilis]

It became more combat centric, in the sense that all classes makes you a expert combatant while in 2E and before you had characters which were nit good in combat (and in 3E it was still possible to make a less combat character).
It adopted the video game holy trinity a bit by making rogues DPS.
For a time it tried to improve upon non-combat aspects of the game with skills, but has regressed again to a pure combat engine so compared to its beginning there was no change in the end.

And over time it became harder and harder to kill characters.

It made sense though: D&D is a dangerous game in the sense that you are going to battle in dangerous places fighting terrible monsters. You SHOULD know how to defend yourself! This isn't the place for learned non-combatants, weekend military, and pretty street criminals.

 

[Hussar]

This recent discussion does reveal a clear change in D&D over the years.

D&D is no longer seen as punishment. You don't have to "earn" the privilege to play something you want to play. It is now perfectly acceptable to play what you want to play, not what other people force you to play. In fact, forcing others to play things is now seen as a pretty bad thing. But, gaming as a means of personal character building has very much fallen by the wayside.

 

[HammerMan]

Exactly what obligation do I or any other GM have to act as life support for some Main Character Syndrome PC run by a player who refuses to use the chargen rules the GM has set for their table?

getting to play the class you want is now main character syndrome...

 

[Ixal]

It made sense though: D&D is a dangerous game in the sense that you are going to battle in dangerous places fighting terrible monsters. You SHOULD know how to defend yourself! This isn't the place for learned non-combatants, weekend military, and pretty street criminals.

A good thing that the fellowship of the ring did not include such characters or Sauron would have won.
And Smaug with a noncombatant in the party Smaug would never had been defeated.

 

[Remathilis]

A good thing that the fellowship of the ring did not include such characters or Sauron would have won.
And Smaug with a noncombatant in the party Smaug would never had been defeated.

You want to play a commoner? Go ahead. Hope your DM gives you plenty of plot armor. I'd rather play Aragon or Legolas to Merri and Pippin.

 

[HammerMan]

A good thing that the fellowship of the ring did not include such characters or Sauron would have won.
And Smaug with a noncombatant in the party Smaug would never had been defeated.

who is the noncombatant? I thought we all were calling Bilbo a 1st level thief (modern would be rogue) the hobbits were new adventurers in parties with experienced ones (not that I want D&D to do that either) but they all had classes. They all did amazing things.

 

[Remathilis]

getting to play the class you want is now main character syndrome...

Damn entitled players! This is WotC's fault: Before them players were happy to play their fighters with 3 hp and thankful for a 12 strength. They would cry tears of joy if they rolled a 15 charisma because that meant they could play a bard or a druid, though they knew they couldn't squander such luck because the next door could have a poison needle and then it's back to a human fighter again.

 

[HammerMan]

Damn entitled players! This is WotC's fault: Before them players were happy to play their fighters with 3 hp and thankful for a 12 strength. They would cry tears of joy if they rolled a 15 charisma because that meant they could play a bard or a druid, though they knew they couldn't squander such luck because the next door could have a poison needle and then it's back to a human fighter again.

the worst DM I ever had (early 2e) made us roll 3d6 in order, then race and class...then roll hp. My buddy (who still plays at tables with me to this day) got a super high Int and a super low con (I don't remember when negatives kicked in back in 2e but it was negatives) and when he rolled his d4, he rolled a 1, so his character 'died as a kid'... and he had to start rolling again, and when he did he got an unplayable character with an 18 cha.... but str dex int and wis all below 9, and DM would not let him raise anything to 9 (He had an okay con though that time) so the DM said "you must be a dirt farmer...try again"

to make it better the DMs girlfriend had 'prerolled infront of him' and had a paliden with 18 00 str AND 18 cha

 

[billd91]

This recent discussion does reveal a clear change in D&D over the years.

D&D is no longer seen as punishment. You don't have to "earn" the privilege to play something you want to play. It is now perfectly acceptable to play what you want to play, not what other people force you to play. In fact, forcing others to play things is now seen as a pretty bad thing. But, gaming as a means of personal character building has very much fallen by the wayside.

This certainly underscores some of the differences in attitudes you see here and how value-laden terms make them out as badwrongfun.

For people who prefer to roll or who like the attribute requirements of previous editions, it was never "punishment". It is playing the hand you were dealt as part of the overall game of D&D. Some people like that, some don't, some get all dysfunctional about it.

There's room in the hobby in general for both approaches - randomly generated, non-randomly generated, etc. But given the gulf between the character styles the approaches entail, maybe there isn't enough room for them to exist comfortably the same table at the same time.