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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3394236" data-attributes="member: 4937">Early on, D&D was criticized for focusing on 'What a character could do' rather than 'Who the character was (in the context of the game universe)'.  This may have been due to D&D's roots in tactical war gaming.   This tactical/mechanical emphasis was balanced by the fact that D&D was a very rules light game system, by comparison to just about anything that came out after it.  This took a system which could err too much toward pushing peices around the (often vitual) board in a complex game of checkers, and forced on it other sorts of problem solving.  Yes, it put a psychologically expensive burden on the DM, but it also in the same fashion challenged the player to think and role play if the DM wasa willing to take up the challenge.  And this was good, because ultimately a game entirely about marching order and rolling dice would be pretty trite and limited.As D&D evolved to a more robust rules set (I won't say 'good' here, because its such a loaded term), a couple things changed.  First, having rules explicitly encouraged all sorts of things and tactics and problem solving approaches that were only implicit and a matter of often hesitant DM fiat before.   And the rules were fairer and covered better a large number of situations, which took alot of burden of judgement off the DM (but not entirely, because no rules are perfect).  But as a result, the game became even more about 'what the character could do', and less 'who the character was'.   Interestingly, and maybe even more importantly, it also became even less about 'who the player was' since so many mechanics previously governed by player choice (say going about searching a room) can now be abstracted to a die roll, and maybe even implicitly or explicitly are abstracted to a die roll.   There is even a tendancy toward abstracting the role play itself with a die roll, "I attempt to presuade the troll to let us pass.  Ok, make a diplomacy check.  *clatter* *clatter*".   And while none of this is necessarily new or forced on the DM/group by the new rules, it is alot easier for a game to drift that way and settle there.I think that there has also been a corresponding shift in the balance of power away from the DM and toward the player, because so much more of the game rules are focused on customizing the player and so much fewer areas of the game absolutely require DM interpretation.  I also think that there has been a shift upward in the range of numbers in the game.  The disparity between HD is increasing, and the maximum HD is increasing, and the maximum damage is increasing and so forth.  I also feel that the game has speed up, both in the amount that happens in a given period of game time, and in the amount of leveling up that occurs per session.</blockquote>

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