10-18-2011 Legends and Lore - Preserving the Past

[TwinBahamut]

I have to say that what Monte Cook is writing about in this article worries me quite a bit. It is talking about bringing back old elements for nothing more than nostalgia's sake. It is history for history's sake. This isn't a good plan for making a game at all. What is more, for people like me who don't have that nostalgia it would just come across as bizarre or uninteresting. To be honest, I struggle to find almost any kind of classic D&D monster interesting. For the most part, D&D monsters have always seemed either kinda bland or outright stupid to me. Reviving old monster concepts that were left in the dust bin for good reasons is not a good strategy for fixing that problem.

D&D will improve by challenging the past and creating new things, not by repeating old mistakes...

 

[Hussar]

See?

Since none of the groups I ever played with played it like that, I've simply been wondering if _anyone_ actually played it like that. I remember the occasional post here on ENWorld, but I've never seen it in actual play.

The AD&D I know was mostly defined by the houserules of every individual DM. _Every_ DM used house-rules; no one actually played the game as written!

(yeah, I know, this will probably lead to a flood of posts telling me that this isn't true either, and their groups always played strictly by RAW, but _I_ have never met anyone who did, and that what matters to _me_).

I should amend my original post.

The group I played with the most in the early years of my gaming was only three or four people. By the same token, my brother's group, which was considerably older than me, consistently had 6-8 players. And, quite frequently, I was also playing in groups that large as well.

Even back then though, we knew that the game was meant for more than 3 PC's, so, we just used a lot of henchmen and NPC's.

But, as I said, while my personal group didn't have that many players (I was living in a tiny town, which meant pretty limited gamer pool), many of the groups I was aware of were always trying to have 6-8 at the table.

 

[prosfilaes]

I have to say that what Monte Cook is writing about in this article worries me quite a bit. It is talking about bringing back old elements for nothing more than nostalgia's sake. It is history for history's sake. This isn't a good plan for making a game at all.

It's like that recent Star Trek movie where they went back to the original characters. That bombed, didn't it?

A trademark functionally limits what you can do with a product. New Coke may have been great tasting, but the customers wanted Coke Classic. They've got to make D&D D&D to their customers. Making sure they support the old elements is part of the way to give the D&D feel, and may even let them get away with bigger changes elsewhere.