D&D General Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast the First Magic Missile: Why Gygax Still Matters to Me

[EzekielRaiden]

All you have to do to make this happen is make a campaign based on one of those things. There is also a growing number of options available, even for d20 based games, exploring this stuff. And if you are willing to go outside D&D this stuff is everywhere now

I already have. As I said.

Hasn't made a lick of difference for what options are there to PLAY. As a PLAYER. Y'know, the thing some 75% to 90% of participants in D&D do? And certainly a plurality does it exclusively.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Then make your own setting? D&D is a thing, and it's not this.

So it isn't and never was actually a toolkit? That whole thing was a lie all along?

 

[mamba]

A relevant thread, from Morrus himself, where he explicitly notes the proliferation of complaints that D&D is being "Disneyfied."

apparently Disneyfied means “made to entertain or be attractive in a safe and controlled way” and then I am not sure whether I disagree, look at the new PHB art, all bright and cheery, that is definitely a different vibe than early D&D.

WotC said they cannot do Dark Sun today because it is too ‘problematic’, and we frequently enough have threads about how something from an adventure in the 80s can no longer be in its 5e remake, so yeah, not sure I can disagree with the notion

Morrus's thread is particularly relevant, because (as he rightly pointed out in its OP), of the books published, perhaps two might, if one is feeling generous, actually qualify. And yet their presence was hailed by quite a few loud voices as utterly unacceptable intrusion of "Disneyfication" into D&D. Which was my point; it isn't that that is a common or even leading aesthetic and other things also happen. Other things are not allowed, and they get active (even vitriolic) pushback simply for not being sufficiently traditional.

and yet they exist and sell, that some people do not like a thing and let you know about it happens to pretty much everything

Because they cannot--even in principle--be more than about 30% of current D&D fans. The rest came in much, much more recently--and are of a generation that embraced significantly more variety than that of the 1970s, for a whole host of reasons, not least that most of them are between 15 and 25 years younger than that generation.

I am not sure that everyone under 30 has to love anime or whatever. If more than 70% liked something else more, then why do you keep failing to find people interested to participate in the kinds of games you want to run / find a game to play in that has a theme you like?

Personally I did not find your list

"Medieval" also includes the Islamic Golden Age. "Medieval" also includes feudal Japan, and the Eastern Roman Empire, and Imperial China, and the empire of Angkor, and the Sultanates of India. Stretch the boundaries just a little and you can get early Renaissance or late Antiquity.

something that seems so far outside the norm that there would be no interest, unless you very specifically want to recreate a historic scenario rather than loosely base your campaign around such a theme

Paizo just had a setting book for their China / Asia (Tian Xia), Kobold Press has their Africa (Southlands), Victoriana for 5e was just kickstarted, and Historica Arcanum seems to be doing well enough with their books to stick to the theme

Historica Arcanum: The City of Crescent (5E)

Sourcebook Inspired by Near Eastern Cultures | Professions for 5E Characters | Toolbox to Forge Your Alternate History Campaigns

www.kickstarter.com

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metismediarpg/historica-arcanum-era-of-the-crusades-5e/description

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/metismediarpg/historica-arcanum-empires-of-the-silk-road-5e/description

 

[GrimCo]

For me personally, GG never meant anything. I didn't even know he existed well after i started playing D&D, and even then, i couldn't care less. Yeah, he "invented" ( or rather, popularized) ttrpgs. Good for him. If it weren't him, it would be someone else. But as far as d&d is concerned, Gygax is irrelevant for a long time, both as game designer and as influence on the game itself.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Hasn't made a lick of difference for what options are there to PLAY. As a PLAYER. Y'know, the thing some 75% to 90% of participants in D&D do? And certainly a plurality does it exclusively.

That is something that is beyond our control though. I would worry more about what you can control. You can advocate for what you want to see, but the hobby is going to do what it does. I would love for more people to run 2E Ravenloft but I know that isn't going to happen. I praise it where I can. I would be disappointed if I expected it to be. I would recommend trying online gaming if you haven't as that makes it easier to connect with people who share your interests.

 

[The Soloist]

I'm 60, started in 1980, and even then we could see the problematic stuff. Gygax wasn't from our generation. He was our dad's generation and had those biases. Did we stop playing D&D? No. We ignored the weird.

He was not me. I'm not him at the same age.

 

[Scribe]

So it isn't and never was actually a toolkit? That whole thing was a lie all along?

It certainly was, and can be a toolkit, but that's not what you asked for. You want the golden age of Islam or whatever.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So it isn't and never was actually a toolkit? That whole thing was a lie all along?

If you look around the web, I think you will find lots of people running settings like you describe using a D&D or D&D-based ruleset. Obviously some areas a history are going to have more mass appeal than others (so games set in big well known empires might be easier to find), but lots of gamers are into history and explore this stuff through D&D

On D&D being a tool kit, it can be but I do think if you want something highly specific, another rules system might work better. D&D can work for other things, but you often have to fold them into D&D frameworks

 

[el-remmen]

Like why wouldn't you always play an elven magic-user/thief in 2e, or an elven fighter/magic-user in 1e? It just seems correct.

Speaking only for myself and most people I’ve played with regularly, we always saw the math as second to the character. Sure it was possible to make a mechanically superior version of a character (tho we had some houserules) but people made choices based on the ability scores we rolled and what kind of character we wanted to play in the world of the game. So elves might not have an appeal personally or narratively to a player.

I will admit that I am the kind of player that winces when he hears words like “build,” “suboptimal”, and “DPR”. I like combat. I like tactical play. But for some players it is about what you do with the character you want to play no matter what they can do or not do while still liking contemporary D&D’s crunchy bits (without getting into the weeds of a system like 3e which I loved at first but grew tired of).

None of this is to argue that 2E or 1E or even BECMI’s systems were better or that wildly out of balance characters are a good thing, but just to explain why for many people it didn’t matter that much because the point to us was not to play the so-called “best character” but to enjoy the experience of being X character in the world.

(That said, I only ever saw one non-multiclassed thief in all my time played 1E/2E)

 

[Bedrockgames]

Speaking only for myself and most people I’ve played with regularly, we always saw the math as second to the character. Sure it was possible to make a mechanically superior version of a character (tho we had some houserules) but people made choices based on the ability scores we rolled and what kind of character we wanted to play in the world of the game. So elves might not have an appeal personally or narratively to a player.

I will admit that I am the kind of player that winces when he hears words like “build,” “suboptimal”, and “DPR”. I like combat. I like tactical play. But for some players it is about what you do with the character you want to play no matter what they can do or not do while still liking contemporary D&D’s crunchy bits (without getting into the weeds of a system like 3e which I loved at first but grew tired of).

None of this is to argue that 2E or 1E or even BECMI’s systems were better or that wildly out of balance characters are a good thing, but just to explain why for many people it didn’t matter that much because the point to us was not to play the so-called “best character” but to enjoy the experience of being X character in the world.

(That said, I only ever saw one non-multiclassed thief in all my time played 1E/2E)

A few things pop out in my mind. One is culture of play. Min-Maxing (which is what we used to call optimization) was somewhat poorly regarded through much of the TSR era of D&D. You could play that way, and people did, but there was a sense that you weren't always just supposed to take the most mechanically advantageous option. The other is TSR era D&D, at least in my experience, doesn't get as wildly imbalanced as WOTC D&D could (at least during 3E, I am less familiar with how optimization impacts 4E and 5E). It did have spikes, but they were a lot easier to manage. Also in actual play many things that looked like an advantage weren't. For example an elf Mage Thief in Ravenloft was going to have a very hard time.

Also, very importantly there were racial level limits in 2E, and these were in the DMG. Why not be a mage thief? Maybe you want to eventually be a 20th level mage. Plus you are progressing slower and multi classing was a huge pain in the ass in the 1E/2E era: