Search results

Yeah, I kind of agree. I mean, I like the three categories, so maybe I'm just nitpicking with the labels and which systems push that style as the "default." The "modern" style with a side dish of the "new" style; that's probably the closest label for how I've been playing since 1980 or so.

That's A play style, certainly.

I don't necessarily love or agree with all of what this guy says, but this particular video really nails it on the head, and I think is very directly relevant to the idea that playstyle expectations and how WotC has addressed (or not) that angle leads to the "DM Crisis." That's some grade-A...

I'm curious what you see the three styles to be and the characteristics of each. I'd mostly say that currently there are two main styles, but taxonomically I'm probably too much of a lumper, and I could see various ways of defining and splitting playstyles.

My pet theory about the evolution of the player base has to do with what happened to D&D in the early 80s when it really "hit it big." For a time, D&D as an evolution out of the wargaming hobby with a bunch of wargamers as the target audience made D&D as it was written make some sense. But when...

Curiously, I played 3e with all of those "OSR" traits very much front and center, because that's just how I've always played every game no matter what year it is or what system it is. I mean, 3e had lots of rules text, I guess, but if you focus on rulings over rules, it doesn't really matter...

I often say (in fact I think I did here earlier, in fact) that I AM old fashioned, but I'm not old school. Part of what I mean by this is that I think those playstyles that you're describing exist independently of the rules, to a great degree. Certainly some rules make some playstyles easier or...

That's exactly the problem I'm talking about; OSRians seem to operate under the impression that the OSR is the solution to EVERYTHING, and the only reason someone doesn't like the OSR is because they don't understand or don't know enough about the OSR. It couldn't possibly be that... they...

There's another parsimonious, Occam's razor-favoring interpretation of the discrepancy between 5e and the OSR "DM crisis", although it's not going to be a popular one, especially with OSR players. Maybe there's tons of DMs in the OSR and not in 5e because nobody (not literally, but relatively)...

If every edition needs to go "back to the dungeon" that clearly indicates that something about either the D&D player ecology or publisher ecology really doesn't want to be in the dungeon in the first place, so they're constantly trying to escape it, only to be wrangled back in by back to the...

That summary sounds exactly right by what I remember. Thanks! Yeah, I think that that's it!

I have no idea what it was called, or who wrote it. I don't even know what setting it was in. But I remember very clearly picking it up because it had the same Larry Elmore cover as the Companion set; the one with the big green dragon. I remember it featured a main character who was a kind of...

Yes, I realize that that's the default position that most people have, which I'm suggesting I know that I'm unusual for rejecting outright. In such a game run by me, there wouldn't ever be a hook that led to a full-on dungeon crawl.

I suppose now we get to the point where we get to hear about how the word "mood" isn't actually being used in the way that it's normally used. I was starting to miss that phase of the discussion. Look, nobody thinks that in the kinds of games y'all are describing that your character wakes up...

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good slightly more detailed explanation of what I mean when I say that I'm not old school, but I am old fashioned. It's the principles of OSR play vs the actual rules of OSR play that I like. The actual rules I tend to not like. Tim Kask explained it in more...

@Dannyalcatraz Railguns don't have to be any bigger than todays light weapons; pistols, carbines, rifles, etc. All it takes is a more efficient power source to generate electromagnetic energy from smaller battery.

eh, don't read too much into that. My wife complains about this about me a lot too. Strong words is just how I talk. Everything is dramatic and extreme and superlative. Except it's not really. I just talk that way, and I have for almost fifty years now, so I think the behavior patterns are too...

Well, I mostly meant it as a joke. But that's another possibly weird affectation of my personal taste; I actually think PC v PC is a lot of fun if the players buy into it. How many books, movies, TV shows, etc. have you watched where a somewhat adversarial relationship between two or more...

I'm not talking about tone and theme. And I'm not talking about classes, races and sourcebooks. I agree with you 100% on that. I'm talking very specifically on the idea that if the players don't build a "balanced party" then their chances of failure increase, because the game the GM has in mind...

I will point out that I'm making this statement from the perspective of a gamer who sees himself primarily as a GM rather than as a player. Obviously, I've done loads of both, but my stance on this is based on my GMing.