D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Umbran]

Correct, but I'm afraid this thread has lost its way.

Mod Note:
And you were already warned about your part in that, which makes your choice to continue in the same vein... interesting.

Since this has lost its way, you surely will have no problem with leaving the discussion...

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

On the subject of conservatism, there are still ongoing arguments (some quite bitter) about whether ascending rather than descending AC is a crime against nature. I strongly suspect the same people have strong opinions about which end of a hard-boiled egg should be opened first.

 

[KYRON45]

Both. The game is designed how it's designed and then the DM runs it more or less close to that design depending on a bunch of factors.

When did you start playing? I ask because that can make a huge difference to one's perspective; if you got in during 4e or 5e you'll be used to a much lower level of lethality that someone who either a) got in before about 1986 or b) played lots of low-level 3e.

It's directly pertinent to the OP because one of the slow-but-steady changes over the WotC editions has been an overall reduction in character lethality and-or other seriously negative outcomes. Some people like this trend; others don't, and try their best to push back against it. The latter group would, by the parameters of the OP, be accused of conservatism.

Oh i have no doubt that 5e is designed to make sure everyone gets tucked in safe at the end of the night. On this we agree.

I started playing in 1988 with the Basic red box and played every edition except 4e. I missed out on that edition for logistical reasons and not mechanical ones. Most of the editions just bled into one another. My group really wasn't a stickler for what rules were applied where.

I never played in meat grinder games. This seems to be an exception. Which again comes around to.....most things in gaming are how you use them vs. how they are supposed to be used. Again....i'm probably in the minority here.

I'm not even really sure what i'm talking about any more.

 

[TheMercile]

My point isn't that people shouldn't liek what they like, but rather they should play the game they like rather than constantly complaining that the current game isn't the old game. Just play what you like.

This thread was inspired by a poster literally saying that they would give the current game a try if only it used the old art. Literally used the old art.

That is what is exhausting. Just play 2E or whatever.

I think that might have been me, so I feel I should comment. Mostly I said art because when it is simply the rules, well you can fix rules with your own imagination or ingenuity... no biggie. But the art, the physical pictures staring you down from the pages or the monitor, are mostly inescapable. So even if you want to "pretend something else", you can't, because it is right there every time.

For some perspective. I've always loved D&D, though I never really got to play as much as I wanted till 5e... having kids who are old enough to play and like what you like is rather awesome. I've played plenty of video games around the "D&D style" over the years. RPG or fantasy video games with tactical battles are great.

But I have touched just about every iteration of D&D as a TTRPG, except 4e (was busy having kids)... and I would love to play 4e one day anyway. I can see a lot of cool options in there... tactical battles are probably my favorite part of D&D just like it is my favorite part of video games. My second favorite part? Well that'd be the art and the "feel" of it all.

Art? So yeah, I get very hung up on the art. Not all the old 1e or 2e art was perfect in my eyes, far from it. Every edition has some great stuff, truly. But what I personally cannot handle is putting a modern feel or a scifi feel into D&D. I can't do Eberron, I can't do Spelljammer... it just doesn't work for me. When I heard about the secret scifi part of BECMI, I immediately told myself "nope, not in my world". If I can hide from it, great. But the art in the core rules books are right there, in your face, and you can't hide from it. I would no longer be able to pretend if I'm staring down the barrel of a digital paint/CGIesque/computery guy dressed like someone from our modern age in a D&D book, because it's slapping me in the face every time I turn the page.

So yeah, if 2024 books had an alternate art version, I'd be much more inclined to buy them just to have them. I'm fine right now with 5e with some 3.5e + 2024house-rules thrown in, but one day I'd like to try 2024 vanilla. I own the monster manual 2024/2025, because I gotta have every version of it... but the rest, nah, I don't need it right now. If it felt like a more medieval world, then I'd be more interested.

 

[Minigiant]

Me, as a African American man from an giant urban city, I quickly got bored with the grimy low fantasy low magic but not, European Renaissance Fair fantasy with a twinkle of sci-fi D&D kept trying to paint itself in because I could understand it but never truly relate on love the tropes. And unfortunately almost every other fantasy RPG does the same thing so there is was never another RPG to leave to go play and latch on.

So I was never conservative about keeping D&D or anything else in its original flavor, lore, nor rules

And despite what fans think, they don't think like business men. The old fans will die off. New fans will be always needed. And the new fans will want directly things. So a game company if it leaves over a generation, will have to change

D&D is at least 3 generations old by my math.

 

[rhythmsoundmotion]

Out of curisoity does anyone perfer the art or mechanics of:

​

Level Up Advanced 5th Edition​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Fateforge

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Iskandar

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Pugmire

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Tales of the Valiant

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Esper Genesis​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Into the Unknown​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

 

[Bedrockgames]

The aesthetics can be distinguished from the rules. 3.5e is my personal edition preference and while I like the mechanics, I hate the aesthetics of the rulebooks. I've even ranted about those aesthetics back in the day.

The aesthetics of the 3E books didn't age very well for me (especially in terms of readability)

 

[Greg K]

Unearthed Arcana maybe, but the later books - Oriental Adventures and the two Survival Guides - were (at least IME and from what I recall of Dragon in the day) largely seen as optional.

My experience is the same, but UA was also, definitely, optional.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Out of curisoity does anyone perfer the art or mechanics of:

​

Level Up Advanced 5th Edition​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Fateforge​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Iskandar​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Pugmire​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Tales of the Valiant​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Esper Genesis​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Into the Unknown​

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

it is kind of hard to compare these because they look like very different levels of production. But even though I can't really stand anthropomorphic stuff, I always felt whoever does the Pugmire art and cover designs, does a good job. I like the look. I like color palette of the Level Up book. Into the unknown looks good to me. Iskander has a very well designed cover I think (not quite my cup of tea, but that looks well composed to my eye and getting that radiant color to work is hard).

For edition art, 2E worked best for me. But that is what I cut my teeth on. I liked some of the 3E art, but by edition 4 or so I think the style shifted to something that, didn't look bad at all, but wasn't what I typically look for in fantasy RPG art. I think the art has basically been fine up to the last two or three years for me (and often that is more choice of subject matter or tone, which I don't think is the artists decision anyways)

 

[AlViking]

Both. The game is designed how it's designed and then the DM runs it more or less close to that design depending on a bunch of factors.

When did you start playing? I ask because that can make a huge difference to one's perspective; if you got in during 4e or 5e you'll be used to a much lower level of lethality that someone who either a) got in before about 1986 or b) played lots of low-level 3e.

It's directly pertinent to the OP because one of the slow-but-steady changes over the WotC editions has been an overall reduction in character lethality and-or other seriously negative outcomes. Some people like this trend; others don't, and try their best to push back against it. The latter group would, by the parameters of the OP, be accused of conservatism.

I've played every edition and the meat grinder approach was only ever used by 1 DM. He never ran another game because we all hated it.

High lethality games has always been a style which is still supported in the current version of the game if that's what you want. The GM may have to try a little harder but I've run games that would have ended in a TPK if a character hadn't surrendered. It's just not as easy to do that by accident.