D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

I don't see any major shifts in D&D happening any time in the near future. DDB is now integral to the game, which means D&D needs to evolve gradually, like with the 2024 update. Which is also WotC's emphatic position: no more "editions" (in the old sense of a D&D edition) and instead incremental change over time. Evolution, not revolution.

Any speculation about the future of D&D now has to start with one question: "Is this feasible given that millions of players (probably the large majority of the active player base) rely on DDB?"

Clint_L said:

I don't see any major shifts in D&D happening any time in the near future. DDB is now integral to the game, which means D&D needs to evolve gradually, like with the 2024 update. Which is also WotC's emphatic position: no more "editions" (in the old sense of a D&D edition) and instead incremental change over time. Evolution, not revolution.

Any speculation about the future of D&D now has to start with one question: "Is this feasible given that millions of players (probably the large majority of the active player base) rely on DDB?"

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Which can be made to work, as Chaosium has done. Their BRP system has fewer fiddly bits, though, so fewer points of friction.

Distracted DM said:

Yeah, zines like Different Worlds, and Alarums and Excursions, had this kind of discourse and advice in them- people writing to one-another responding to letters published in previous zine issues.

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Polyhedron had some I think.

Thomas Shey said:

The big difference is its not taken generically as a given,

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I have yet to see any evidence, beyond some personal anecdotes, that there is a "big difference" in people's ability to recognise or reject unfun games today vs the bad old days. I reject the premise that GMs inflicting random, arbitrary death on PCs to exert dominance was ever taken generally as a given or the expected style of play.

As teenagers, we were aware of such concepts, but were easily able to recognise the problems with such play. I don't think we were a bunch of prodigies, mature beyond our years, this is pretty basic stuff.

SableWyvern said:

I reject the premise that GMs inflicting random, arbitrary death on PCs to exert dominance was ever taken generally as a given or the expected style of play.

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You reject it because you never experienced it personally?

SableWyvern said:

I reject the premise that GMs inflicting random, arbitrary death on PCs to exert dominance was ever taken generally as a given or the expected style of play.

As teenagers, we were aware of such concepts, but were easily able to recognise the problems with such play. I don't think we were a bunch of prodigies, mature beyond our years, this is pretty basic stuff.

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Proof of any playstyle pre-internet is impossible to assemble. Everyone was siloed at their own tables, even more than they are today. Two groups playing the same game miles apart could have had wildly different styles.

No one really knows what was widespread, only what was claimed in published materials, especially widely circulated materials. Letters to Dragon are probably more indicative than a mimeographed zine circulated at a regional game convention, but even then, it's a data point, not proof.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Proof of any playstyle pre-internet is impossible to assemble. Everyone was siloed at their own tables, even more than they are today. Two groups playing the same game miles apart could have had wildly different styles.

No one really knows what was widespread, only what was claimed in published materials, especially widely circulated materials. Letters to Dragon are probably more indicative than a mimeographed zine circulated at a regional game convention, but even then, it's a data point, not proof.

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Essentially, I agree that we don't and can't know, which is why I push back against people who claim that their personal experience is truth that is indicative of what was standard and widespread across the entire hobby. Even your letters to Dragon represent a tiny subset of the hobby, and were most likely selected at least in part because it was expected they would generate more discussion.

TiQuinn said:

You reject it because you never experienced it personally?

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Because I didn't experience it. Because no one has presented any real evidence that it was the case. Because, as I mentioned, it seemed self-evident to us as teenagers that it wasn't a great way to play and I am assuming that if we could see this, many other people could as well.

I'm definitely not saying it didn't happen -- I'm sure it did, and I'm sure it still does. What I reject is any claim that expects me to take it as a given that this was a thing that was normal and expected across the majority of the hobby in the past, and that it is only relatively recently that people have been able to understand it comes with problems and reject it.

SableWyvern said:

Because no one has presented any real evidence that it was the case.

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Right, because it is literally impossible to present such evidence. So you can probably stop asking for it.

If you want to demand proof of something you're not going to get, make it something more exciting, like Bigfoot.

Whizbang Dustyboots said:

Right, because it is literally impossible to present such evidence. So you can probably stop asking for it.

If you want to demand proof of something you're not going to get, make it something more exciting, like Bigfoot.

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I don't believe I've made any demands for proof -- I have simply stated that there is no proof and that, lacking it, I reject these particular claims about what was normal across the hobby. I don't want proof so much as I want people to stop making these types of claims.

SableWyvern said:

I don't believe I've made any demands for proof -- I have simply stated that there is no proof and that, lacking it, I reject these particular claims about what was normal across the hobby.

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This is, I believe, an example of Hitchens's razor in action.