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<blockquote data-quote="Jer" data-source="post: 7752410" data-attributes="member: 19857">I strongly suspect it's because the expectations of the players in 2018 are different from the expectations of the players in 1975.In 1975 the game you were playing was a game of resource management.&nbsp; All of the players had a wargaming background and brought that to the table - the way you &quot;beat&quot; a dungeon was to take it on via wargaming tactics.&nbsp; And wargaming tactics say that you bring overwhelming force to bear where you can and tactically retreat when you are losing.Fast forward just a little bit and you find a game where that has all fallen by the wayside.&nbsp; Roleplaying even by the 1980s was a lot more about characters and stories than it was about tactics and &quot;beating&quot; the game.&nbsp; You started to see narratives and plotlines and a focus on thinking of your character as a character and not as a commander of hirelings.&nbsp; As the playerbase expanded you brought in people who had never wargamed in their lives - and early on you started seeing people ditch the miniatures altogether and go with what we'd call these days Theater of the Mind play where tactics become less important than descriptions and interesting actions.&nbsp; And with that brought a shift in expectations.&nbsp; The characters are now the central cast of a fantasy story, and the central characters of a fantasy story rarely get beaten back by cannon-fodder bad guys.&nbsp; They might suffer a temporary setback at the hands of the big bad, but it's rare that a bunch of mooks are going to do much to them.&nbsp; As players started thinking of their characters as heroes instead of soliders, the expectations started to shift.&nbsp; (They also don't tend to have a bazillion hirelings around them looking for gold - at best you'll have a loyal butler or something, who might even be a PC in his/her own right).I think that's got more to do with the shift than anything else - shifting expectations by the players.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Jer, post: 7752410, member: 19857"] I strongly suspect it's because the expectations of the players in 2018 are different from the expectations of the players in 1975. In 1975 the game you were playing was a game of resource management. All of the players had a wargaming background and brought that to the table - the way you "beat" a dungeon was to take it on via wargaming tactics. And wargaming tactics say that you bring overwhelming force to bear where you can and tactically retreat when you are losing. Fast forward just a little bit and you find a game where that has all fallen by the wayside. Roleplaying even by the 1980s was a lot more about characters and stories than it was about tactics and "beating" the game. You started to see narratives and plotlines and a focus on thinking of your character as a [I]character[/I] and not as a commander of hirelings. As the playerbase expanded you brought in people who had never wargamed in their lives - and early on you started seeing people ditch the miniatures altogether and go with what we'd call these days Theater of the Mind play where tactics become less important than descriptions and interesting actions. And with that brought a shift in expectations. The characters are now the central cast of a fantasy story, and the central characters of a fantasy story rarely get beaten back by cannon-fodder bad guys. They might suffer a temporary setback at the hands of the big bad, but it's rare that a bunch of mooks are going to do much to them. As players started thinking of their characters as heroes instead of soliders, the expectations started to shift. (They also don't tend to have a bazillion hirelings around them looking for gold - at best you'll have a loyal butler or something, who might even be a PC in his/her own right). I think that's got more to do with the shift than anything else - shifting expectations by the players. [/QUOTE]

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