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

[Vaalingrade]

We're done here.

My God.

 

[CleverNickName]

Absolutely. Some players want that. And that’s great. I play that way regularly. Nothing bad or wrong about it. Pure fun. If that’s your jam. Where the problem lies is when a player (the poster I’m mostly responding to) says they want mutually exclusive things. “I want drama, but I also want no drama.” Not so much.

That might be one of the biggest ways that D&D has changed over the decades: the styles of play have changed. How many different ways to play D&D are popular these days?

1. Beer & Pretzels Play: A game that nobody takes too seriously, it's just another game on the shelf that you and your friends play sometimes, or something to do on a Friday night with your friends. Super-casual, half the time nobody remembers the over-arching story (if there even IS such a thing.) "What are we doing tonight?" "Who cares, my rogue heads to the nearest tavern..."

2. Kick In The Door: The roots of our hobby. The game is played as a series of battles, with only enough story and dialogue to string them together. Lots of emphasis on stats and math, players have their character "builds" mapped out to 20 levels but can't remember whether their characters' parents are alive or dead. (Just kidding, they're always dead.) Kick in the door, kill the orc, take its stuff, rest, move to the next door.

3. The Interactive Novel: The characters are the stars, and the campaign setting is theirs to walk over. Every gaming session is another chapter of a long story about great evils that are overcome, ordinary people who become heroes, and terrible villains who rise to power. The story might be heavily-scripted and inflexible (railroad), or it might be malleable and fluid (sandbox), but it is always the most important thing at the table. The story is king.

4. Dress Rehearsal: The focus is on deep roleplaying. Combat (if any) is hand-waved, rushed, or muted so as to not steal the spotlight or pull focus. The players dress in character, speak in character, and behave in-character on the way to the fridge to get another flagon of mead. Because you serve mead at your gaming session. Because it's setting-appropriate. Everyone expects to be playing these same characters for many months, or even years. Lots of overlap with cosplay and LARPing.

5. Internet Influencer: The game is carefully orchestrated to resemble a radio/television program. You have elaborate setting pieces and character stories, monsters of your own invention, and everything is filmed in 4K HD on a Twitch stream or YouTube channel. The game is more about having a large fan base and marketable product, gaining followers, and generating buzz. It's easy for us to look down on this style of play, but it is the single-largest reason why the hobby has grown (and continues to grow) by leaps and bounds. Much respect.

6. The One-Shot: Nobody is heavily invested in their characters, the adventure, or the story. Chances are, nobody at the table will ever play these characters (or campaign setting, or rules, or game) ever again. Anything goes, consequences are rarely weighed, and even the most wild suggestions are entertained with a shrug and "why not?" from the GM. Very similar to "Beer & Pretzels," but FAR more gonzo.

I'm sure there are others.

 

[Fifth Element]

"expected to survive" does not require severing any risk of death & danger, In fact danger & risk of death creates story.

This post really doesn't address the context of the post I responded to, which was "character death can't be rare in a combat-heavy game."

 

[Thomas Shey]

This post really doesn't address the context of the post I responded to, which was "character death can't be rare in a combat-heavy game."

Well, in a combat heavy game where the failure state is only death. While that's generally true of D&D-oids and some others, it isn't universal.

 

[tetrasodium]

This post really doesn't address the context of the post I responded to, which was "character death can't be rare in a combat-heavy game."

Sure it can, I even gave examples of mechanics that make it rare in a combat heavy game system that has extremely dangerous combat. Fate is so combat heavy that nearly every interaction can be combat. Social interaction?.. totally combat... economic interaction?... totally combat.... fighting a dragon or a bunch of bad guys? Totally combat. Not only are they all combat they all use the exact same combat rules & consequence slots but might use different stress tracks. If Alice takes a severe consequence haggling with a merchant & bob does the same at a social gathering trying to bully the fae queen into giving the group a favor she's not interested in giving they can't use it when they want to mark down something like "guts hanging out" rather than hearing how a dragon decides their fate after annoying it by forcing it to take them out.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

That problem grows beyond just the gm not being able to do much other than threaten Mary Jane/Aunt Mae/Lois/etc though. Take the "overprotective of young women" that you yourself said is a desired personality trait of a hypothetical character & apply the pulp detective trope that often starts out with a thought/voiceover along the lines of: "I could tell the young woman wanting my help was all kinds of trouble I didn't need". with d&d characters they are free to ignore it entirely the second they decide they don't need that trouble & the GM is powerless to do more than ask if the player really want to ignore the npc with problems knowing full well he or she is powerless if the player says yes they do want to ignore the npc's complications.

Sorry, I was assuming mature players that didn't pull crap like that. If a player won't play the character, I don't think the GM or the game system should force them to, at that point find new players. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

 

[Remathilis]

Exactly. You want consequence-free connections. You want the benefits of your character having connections to the world, but not the vulnerability that necessarily comes with it. You don’t want an interesting and engaging story. To have an interesting and engaging story your character has to be vulnerable.

Your complaint is the answer to your own conundrum. If the reason why people won't connect to your world is that when they do, that connection is used to punish them with "drama" then hell no I'm not connecting with your world. Not everyone wants to deal with that kind of drama, and if the response to "btw, I have a younger sister" is "great, now she's been kidnapped and will be sacrificed by cultists", then my next character is far less likely to have siblings.

I've played under a DM who loved to use attachments to create drama for PCs: dead loved ones, broken heirloom swords, exile from important places or groups, gaining and then losing power and prestige. It got real old to always lose what we had. So you'll have to forgive that I don't exactly trust that any backstory I give you won't be weaponized against me.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Sorry, I was assuming mature players that didn't pull crap like that. If a player won't play the character, I don't think the GM or the game system should force them to, at that point find new players. No gaming is better than bad gaming.

Frankly, I got over using carrots and sticks to modify player behavior 30 years ago. Among other things, I never saw it work all that well in the first place.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Your complaint is the answer to your own conundrum. If the reason why people won't connect to your world is that when they do, that connection is used to punish them with "drama" then hell no I'm not connecting with your world. Not everyone wants to deal with that kind of drama, and if the response to "btw, I have a younger sister" is "great, now she's been kidnapped and will be sacrificed by cultists", then my next character is far less likely to have siblings.

I've played under a DM who loved to use attachments to create drama for PCs: dead loved ones, broken heirloom swords, exile from important places or groups, gaining and then losing power and prestige. It got real old to always lose what we had. So you'll have to forgive that I don't exactly trust that any backstory I give you won't be weaponized against me.

This is such a well known issue its pretty much a trope. Its why the "disconnected orphan loner" is such an eyerolling stereotype; because so many players have been taught the only function of connections, friends and family is to give the GM levers to apply to you.

 

[Jer]

Frankly, I got over using carrots and sticks to modify player behavior 30 years ago. Among other things, I never saw it work all that well in the first place.

I realized sometime in High School that when my players were doing things I didn't like, it was an indication that we weren't playing the game they wanted to play. Having that realization (which probably came from some Dragon article advice - I have no idea now) made me realize that just talking to them about what they wanted instead of trying to force them into the game I wanted was probably going to be more productive.

This is such a well known issue its pretty much a trope. Its why the "disconnected orphan loner" is such an eyerolling stereotype; because so many players have been taught the only function of connections, friends and family is to give the GM levers to apply to you.

It was a played out trope when Knights of the Dinner Table were making fun of it 22+ years ago.