I'm interested in your perspective. Could you give some examples?
I myself started in the early 80's, quit somewhere in the mid-90's for other games, got interested again with 3e (though didn't have the opportunity to play much), and was turned off by 4e.
See, I've been playing D&D since you were 5, yet I wouldn't describe myself exactly as a grognard. I feel no desire to actually play AD&D again. Nothing would induce me to look at a THAC0 table again.
And yet... and yet. I do feel like something has been lost since that time, and it's not just my own youthful enthusiasm. I find it hard to describe, but it's got something to do with over-codification of rules, which leave less room for off-the-cuff GM calls. And yet I also know why 3e did a lot of the codifying it did; the unified mechanic was direly needed, but it also inclined itself to be used all over the place.
Hearing you describe the differences you see may help me clarify my own thoughts.
I hesitate to give concrete examples, since it seems the kind of thing that invites arguments. So first a few qualifiers.
These are first and foremost personal impressions, and formed primarily by my exposure to these and other forums. As such, I expect mileage to vary
considerably. And while I may talk about what "D&D is to me", that's the extent of that idea: to me. I understand and support that D&D is other things to other people now, especially since 3e and 4e. I am by no means intending to insinuate that either of those editions are "not D&D".
Also, as I mentioned in my previous post, these are generalizations, not hard and fast categorizations. Some of what I tend to think of as "newer" modes of thinking have been vociferously expressed by people who've played since the 1970s, while I've seen many a blog post by folks who never played TSR-D&D until they got into the OSR.
Lastly, I was "Imprinted" to B/X and BECM, so a lot of what I consider D&D conventions come from that. But I believe this shift that you, Tony Vargas, and I have felt has been in the works since the beginning of the hobby, and in D&D's case may only have been made distinct by the publication of 3e, not caused by it.
Anyhoo, the first and most primary one I've noticed, and it seems you have as well, is a breakdown in the trust between DM and players. I was first struck by this difference reading some threads about "Rule 0". To me, Rule 0 is basically what Moldvay wrote in the intro to BD&D:
Moldvay Basic said:
While the material in this booklet is referred to as rules, that is not really correct. Anything in this booklet (and other D&D booklets) should be thought of as changeable -- anything, that is, that the Dungeon master or referee thinks should be changed....The purpose of these "rules" is to provide guidelines that enable you to play and have fun, so don't feel absolutely bound to them.
This, to me, is the quintessential D&D experience: in essence an incomplete game that leaves room for customizing by individual groups to find the kind of play they like.* But I've seen no few posts by folks calling this "bad design", or saying, "The designers aren't doing their job," or "Why am I paying for a game I have to finish?" Phrases like "Consult the DM about X," or "Y is decided by DM's discretion!" litter my B/X and BECM books, but such "rules" would be derided by many as lazy design.
Related to this is the constant denigration of DM adjudication as "DM fiat", "Mother may I", "playing the DM". This is particularly where the trust issue comes to the fore. Lots of ASCII and bandwidth have been used to debate this issue, but I think
this post pretty much sums up how I feel.
Back when I first started playing, gridless was the order of the day. Just about every game was gridless by default. Some games, like AD&D, Marvel Super Heroes, and GURPS included rules for playing on a grid or map, but this was not considered the default, or even a particularly common mode of play. I think it's safe to say, at least as far as D&D is concerned, that the pendulum's swung the other way. No edition of D&D now is viable without extensive rules for playing on a grid. I hasten to add that this is by no means a criticism or complaint. I enjoy 4e, in all its gridded glory. But I have seen threads by folks who've only played WotC-D&D, asking, "How do you play without a grid?" No knock on them; that's the D&D they "grew up" with. It just makes me feel old.
Conceptions of characters is another one. This is something I do think 3e had a big part in. People seem to desire mechanics to interact with the world, mechanics that have a notation on their character sheet, whether it be backgrounds, or themes, or traits, or skills. The idea of character-customization (to say nothing of optimization) has become very much a part of mainstream D&D. Lots of folks complained about 4e shrinking the skill list, when to me, I'd be just as happy if even 4e's skills were gone. I very much like 5e's conception of skills: not a resolution system, just an optional system of bonuses to ability checks for a little extra flavor. Skills have long been something people have wanted from D&D, going all the way back to the introduction of the thief, and certainly BECMI's Weapon Mastery provided all sorts of extra codified options, so it's not just that. The desire to assign ability scores rather than role them up is another part of it. Back in the day, you played D&D if you liked rolling up characters. If you wanted point-buy, skills, and the like, you played one of the other systems out there. I think lots of folks played both; I certainly had lots of D&D books and lots of GURPS books. Now, as recent threads and polls have demonstrated, there are many D&D players that react to rolling ability scores like vampires do to holy symbols. That boggles my mind and again makes me feel old.
Mike Mornard (Old Geezer) has said of the old days, "Anything not explicitly forbidden was permitted," while the paradigm these days is, "Anything not explicitly permitted is forbidden." I don't think there's hard line here -- much of the continuing push for more rules through D&D's history was driven by people who didn't feel like they had that freedom. They wanted things to be explicitly permitted before they felt comfortable doing them. And even the newer games place a premium on freedom of improvisation and choice through the games -- 4e's DMG really pushed "Say 'Yes'." But I do think a tipping point has been reached, and the minimum necessary rules to be a commercially viable D&D are much, much higher. I don't think even Rules Cyclopedia would be a viable flagship product model for D&D these days. People want the thick books like the WotC-D&D core three, and they want splats.
To sum up, I would consider this a fun D&D game:
Roll for ability scores and HP.
Quick, minimalist character generation.
DM adjudication and houserules to expand on minimalist rules.
No skills, feats, or powers.
No map or minis.
Non-unified XP tables with "dead levels".
Dungeon crawls a primary mode of play.
There are a lot of folks who would hate this game. WotC-D&D, on the whole, doesn't really cater to it. A common meme on certain "old school" boards is that "They changed D&D to appeal to people who hated D&D." I don't think that's literally true. I think a
lot of changes in 3e came from and were desired by D&D fans. The designers were, after all, 2e players and designers. And likewise, a lot changes in 4e came from fans of 2e and 3e, and were attempts to a D&D that specifically supported what the designers felt was the dominant mode of play. But sometimes,
sometimes, in the hour of the wolf when I'm paging through edition wars and reading folks express extreme distaste for the above list in the strongest, most profane terms...I find myself agreeing with that meme, if only for a little bit. I don't know if I would had I not missed gaming through the late '90s and 2000s...
*And even though Gary Gygax wrote rules up the wazoo for AD&D, and said they shouldn't be changed, that very conceit was shown to be false by the concurrent sale of D&D. It's hard to make the case that such rules are necessary for the game when D&D is offering pretty much the same experience at a fraction of the page count.
)
It comes naturally to trust him to do his thing. If I put something on my sheet, I know he'll take it into account, in his own byzantine fashion. (No doubt in ways I wouldn't have expected!) That's not 'Mother May I'. It's 'We're building this game together, and I trust you to hold up your end.'
