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

[Fifth Element]

Traditional RPGs are not designed to emulate story structure. You have to ignore every single thing that makes it a game to force a coherent story structure onto a game like D&D.

This sounds like a No True Scotsman waiting to happen, in that a "traditional" RPG would be defined as one that is not designed to emulate story structure. Any older game that is designed to do this would presumably not be considered a "traditional" RPG.

 

[Fifth Element]

Orders of magnitude more work if the DM is expected to custom write a series of novels starring the players’ PCs.

That "if" is doing a heck of a lot of work in this sentence.

 

[Cadence]

Wow, some people played some strange campaigns back in the old days. I started in 1981 and for the entire run of the 80's and 90's, in both 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D, the only PC I had die and stay dead was a pregen in a tournament adventure. Maybe I just got lucky and was always in groups where everyone enjoyed the story more than the same old boring hack and slash dungeon crawl. That is something about D&D that is very good that it changed over the decades. Real adventures and stories being the focus over that tired old crap.

Our dungeon crawls with player deaths had stories. I didn't realize it was that hard of a thing to do.

 

[Fifth Element]

Our dungeon crawls with player deaths had stories. I didn't realize it was that hard if a thing to do.

It's not necessarily hard - it depends on the group you're playing with. If the group finds dungeon-crawling tedious, they may not be invested enough in the game to create stories, for instance.

 

[David Howery]

Wow, some people played some strange campaigns back in the old days. I started in 1981 and for the entire run of the 80's and 90's, in both 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D, the only PC I had die and stay dead was a pregen in a tournament adventure. Maybe I just got lucky and was always in groups where everyone enjoyed the story more than the same old boring hack and slash dungeon crawl. That is something about D&D that is very good that it changed over the decades. Real adventures and stories being the focus over that tired old crap.

my gaming was all in the 1E and 2E years as well. Most of my PCs lived, but I definitely lost a few of them to assorted reasons... 1E had a lot of notorious 'save or die' things....

 

[overgeeked]

How many different systems have you played?

Quite a few, thanks.

Because Torg (both old and new) ha e adventures divided literally into Scenes and Acts, with mechanics tied to both. Old WEG Star Wars had cut scenes in the adventures where you saw what the bad guys were up to as the players read a brief script.

Lots of old school RPGs were all about emulating a story.

LOL. The use of buzzwords or reading some boxed text in no way makes a game resemble a story.

So, how many novels, short stories, screenplays, or stage plays have you written?

 

[Panzeh]

My experience with old school type d&d is that it was a really light and uninteresting board game where i controlled exactly one piece. Once they got to a party and characters mattering instead of just a meat grinder of rerolls, i actually saw potential in RPGs.

 

[Hussar]

It feels like HP, AC, and to-hit rolls are a quick and dirty, very pixelated, projection of a super high dimensional activity down to three dimensions to help facilitate play. Just like ability scores are a projection of the nigh-infinite number of characteristics to six dimensions. Or like skill challenges take very complicated activities and boils it down to picking from a list and making three dice rolls. Or...

The fact that a picture is blurry and pixelated doesn't mean it has no information.

But it doesn’t have any information. That’s the point.

My pc hits your pc for 5hp of damage. What happened in the fiction?

My pc missed you with an attack. What happened in the fiction?

If the picture cannot actually tell you anything about what happened, it’s not a simulation.

 

[Yardiff]

Did all day cantrips start with PF and 4e?

I believe it was 3.x which added at will cantrips, but the damage was only a d3.

 

[Cadence]

My pc hits your pc for 5hp of damage. What happened in the fiction?

Ten rounds ago when Heliax the Enduring had 120, your blade has either slipped past his dodging, parrying, and/or armor to cut slightly, or maybe bruise him, or perhaps tire him a bit, or maybe spend some amount of fortune's smiles that he had acrued - the lens is cloudy who can say - but in any case death has moved a tiny bit closer.

Five rounds ago when he had been at 65, your stroke bruises, cuts, strains, or taxes him - the scene is obscured so which is hard to tell. In any case some would now remark he is "bloodied" (in the vernacular of the land), that is, half-way to death, even if no blood has necessarily been shed.

Three rounds ago your blade again did enough to task his endurance and brawn and resistance and body, in spite of armor and parrying and dodging - there is a fog of battle, it is hard to be sure which and how - so that he is now much closer to death at ten than the fifteen of a moment ago. He should have been frantically shouting for the cleric before now I think.

With your swing last round he fell to the ground, worn by want of endurance, bruises, loss of blood, lack of will, and/or being devoid of luck - who can say which combination in this maelstrom of flickering blades - and lies unconscious.

And now, with your last swing, he dies. Who can say in the aftermath if it was a cut, a stab, or a pommel strike. It matters little to what was once Heliax the mighty.

My pc missed you with an attack. What happened in the fiction?

Your attack either missed in a way that spent no luck or tired him not at all, or struck his armor to no affect, or was parried - the lens is smudged, it's hard to tell on the screen - but no harm of any sort to note has occurred - even if one were hyper-attuned to noting such things, or even omniscient.

If the picture cannot actually tell you anything about what happened, it’s not a simulation.

Lack of precision is not nothing. A full day weather forecast instead of an hourly one is still more information than no weather forecast.