D&D General D&D Editions: Anybody Else Feel Like They Don't Fit In?

[Lanefan]

The lives of PCs are still cheap: they've just become more durable

And they all come with extended warranties now.

 

[DEFCON 1]

For me at least, at this point I'd rather just play a dungeoncrawler boardgame... Descent, Heroquest, Massive Darkness, etc. Many even allow for progression and someone to "run" while being less prone to human errors and providing a much better arena to test skilled play.

Same. These types of games usually get played as either dice games with a sprinkling of characterization, or characterization games with a sprinkling of dice. I will always choose using board games for the former and RPGs for the latter. Frankly because board games almost to a fault are designed better for the board game experience than roleplaying games are. Most roleplaying games are pretty crappy and unbalanced board games compared to the games actually built and designed with the board game experience in mind... so why play a bad board game via the RPG when there are so many good board games out there?

 

[Remathilis]

I've been interested in Shadowdark since I first heard about it shortly before the Kickstarter ended, but I wasn't in a position at the time to participate. I've since had an opportunity to get it, and to me it really hits those classic play vibes i appreciate. The problem is that my wife is much more interested in the modern style of play where a character's story is paramount, and bad luck isn't just going to kill her PC (a real possibility in Shadowdark). To her, that's what an RPG is. So I hit upon a solution recently: I asked her to not think if Shadowdark and similar games as RPGs as she understands them, but instead as a kind of boardgame, and your PC as a game piece you control. You can if you want give characterization to your game piece, but ultimately its no different from the character you control in Betrayal at House on the Hill (a game she loves), and those folks die all the time.

This isn't how I see classic RPGs, of course, but it will help here have fun with them I hope.

I come from a viewpoint much similar to your wife's. My origin into RPGs was via video games like Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior. Story and exploration of character were important. The SNES Final Fantasies were in particular focused on characters with love, death, betrayal and redemption being as important as saving the world. D&D was pitched to me as being able to tell those kinds of stories with my own characters and settings rather than play out ones passively in a video game. So you me, the notion of a game where that interpersonal relationship is not a driving part of the narrative IS a board game. I play Clue with no attachment to Col Mustard. I play D&D because Remathilis the elf thief is trying to save the world for his wife and children.

So I can empathize with her. And if having that detachment of playing a pawn vs playing a character works for her, with good. I admit that's how I would have to do it too. I'm not playing a character, I'm me controlling a game piece. It's rewarding the same way winning a board game is, but it would pale in comparison to exploring with a character I connect with.

Best of luck to both of you

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I play Clue with no attachment to Col Mustard

What do you mean, you blighter? I’ll have you know that Colonel Mustard is a fine upstanding officer, and had never heard of Doctor Black until being invited to his manor!

 

[Remathilis]

What do you mean, you blighter? I’ll have you know that Colonel Mustard is a fine upstanding officer, and had never heard of Doctor Black until being invited to his manor!

Nah man, Col Mustard did it on the grassy knoll with the magic bullet.

 

[Azzy]

Nah man, Col Mustard did it on the grassy knoll with the magic bullet.

Ah, that Mean Mr. Mustard!

 

[DarkCrisis]

What do you mean, you blighter? I’ll have you know that Colonel Mustard is a fine upstanding officer, and had never heard of Doctor Black until being invited to his manor!

 

[Willie the Duck]

You're story is so typical that it's almost a cliche. Veteran player goes though several editions and each revision takes him further from what he fell in love with. Eventually realizes that he no longer likes where the game is and wants to recapture the gaming of his youth. Tale as old as time.

Certainly far exceeds mere TTRPGs. Star Wars/Trek isn't what it was when I* discovered them. Comics aren't what they used to be. And the music kids are listening to these days! And so on. Seems to be a truism about life (albeit accelerated by increased rate of technological innovation, plus that old IPs are sticking around such that there actually are updated versions of fictional things).
*for a millions or billions of individual 'I's.

I haven't read the 36 pages, and it is an old thread now. But I have a different take on it...

You can't go home again.

Really, you can't. Even if you played the exact same game, it would no longer be the same experience for you, because you change over time - for every "you" around here. Trying to recapture an RPG experience from your youth is like trying to recapture your first solo ride on a bicycle, or your first kiss. It cannot be done.

What's that line? 'the golden age of [originally comics] is twelve.' I remember being 15-16 and discovering a new music album and having it changing my world. I love my life, wife, family, home and career -- but part of me is afraid I'll never feel anything as strongly again as I did hearing that music for the first time.

I'm playing old D&D side b side with 5E. Without nostalgia goggles you can still have fun BUT.

Group dynamics are the most important factor. Ascending AC is great THAC0 not so much. AD&D engine isn't good the playstyle can be fun. B/X is a lot better. Ymmv of course.

I'm starting a new 2E campaign Thursday. One gp=1xp is a lot of fun these days short term the allure wore off around level 7.

Modern D&D objectively is more complicated. Older D&D the presentation isn't good but it's easier to play and run onve you grok it. It's a lot harder to grok in some ways easier for others.

A modern 2E would be sweet.

I would disagree with the objective part. At least for the AD&Ds and maybe late BECMI. Are feats and short/long rests and bonus actions more or less complex than 1e initiative and WvsAC charts and and non-weapon proficiencies (each their own discreet mini ruleset) and charts of race-specific class lists and level limits and two discrete multiple-class rules and the name-level gameplay shift? I think it is a matter of perspective.

A modern 2E would be sweet. Other than For Gold and Glory (a relatively pure retroclone), I don't see a lot of specifically that in the OSR community. Strange since it seems to be what a lot of people--if not started-with-- latched onto as their most remembered TSR version.

Not with an avatar like that!

Hey, beauty is in the... well, you all know the rest.

This reminds me a bit of the issue that a number of people have with video games, including MMOs. A lot of people had fun discovering and exploring MMOs for the first time but there is a point where that feeling fades. When previous players try to go back to the game, that feeling is no longer there because by that point, the game is now a "solved game." While Classic WoW is still popular,* just as many people realized when they went back to play it, their feelings of nostalgia also came with the realization that the "magic" was no longer there and the challenges weren't as challenging as they remembered because the game had also been "solved" and they had also improved as gamers in that time. That same sense of discovery, exploration, and learning with the game wasn't there anymore.
*One reason being that people are basically playing it as a different game with additional rules they have to follow to add challenge.

The games that work best for re-play value (outside as you say ones that can still add challenges somehow) do tend to be the ones where you can't 'learn the trick' to beating them. Obviously anything where it is learning the maze is hard to have unseen* (and the replay value was sometimes limited even BitD). Likewise, anything that is PvP always has replay if you have friends to play it with. *although Lanefan is right, decades later you only think you have the whole thing memorized.

Bringing this back to TTRPGs, 'the magic' certainly won't be magical again the way it was in your first 1-3 years of gaming*, but at the same time, since every campaign can be different, you don't run into the 'I've already seen this level, I know where the secret passages are' factor. *doubly so if that was when you were a kid.
What I've noticed (in re-playing old games and in revisiting previous game editions) is figuring out which quality-of-life perks later versions have that absolutely grate when I go back to the older versions. I've tried re-playing Final Fantasy I a few times, and I assumed all I would need is a version that would work on my current system, and maybe some fixes where the original had technical issues*. What actually stuck was a version that let you buy 99 cure potions all at once instead of pressing A at the item shop 396 time*. This probably correlated to OSR (or house-rules, of course) that fix whatever of the older games you just can't stand anymore***.
*lag, or the spells/class features which didn't actually do anything
**or whatever it specifically was, I know you had to buy each separately, and it took 3-4 menu choices per purchase.
***For me, 1) BX/BECMI having no cleric or thief PC demihumans,2) all of TSR-D&D having necessary-but-awful thieves, and 3) AD&D having charts of 3 dozen weapons -- 4-6 of which you'd ever deliberately use.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh absolutely... frankly, I don't enjoy playing as much ever since I went forever-DM :'D
I much prefer GMing, but it has greatly reduced my ttrpg enjoyability as a player.

I've found that I can enjoy parts of playing just fine, but my attention tends to wander and nothing much helps. Someone can argue my tendency to read random things or do prep for a different game make it worse, but I've honestly found it makes it better, since I'm at least somewhat present where if I space out.

(Now, if someone wanted my attention all the time, that wouldn't help much, but it is what it is, and I'm not sure I consider that an entirely reasonable ask (as compared to not having to bring me back up to speed, which I do consider such).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I deal with it as needed, thank you.

Yet you felt the need to comment how it felt to you.