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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Clint_L" data-source="post: 9382936" data-attributes="member: 7035894">I don't spend a ton of time worrying about what is "new school" or "old school." And certainly any claim we can make in these regards is a generalization; there were groups at the dawn of D&D playing in ways that would be considered radically modern today, and groups today that love playing versions of D&D that hearken back to ye olde dungeon crawlers.That said, here are my anecdotal observations about trends in play styles.1. Shift to include more internal conflict. I started playing in 1979/80, and most games back then, most adventure modules, etc. seemed to be driven almost completely by external conflict: the players trying to stop some outside force that was doing a Bad Thing or directly threatening them. However, now there is a much greater emphasis on internal conflict. Plots still tend to be driven by external threats, but most characters have a backstory and motivations, and these often determine how the character reacts, and thus how the narrative develops.I don't think you can overstate the impact of Vampire: the Masquerade, and it's extraordinary popularity in the 90s, on shifting RPGs, including D&D, towards more character driven, internal conflict oriented stories. Edit: and, of course, the explosive popularity of actual play shows, most notably Critical Role in changing the focus towards character-driven subplots.2. Related to that, a shift towards (somewhat) more proactive storytelling. Actually, D&D arguably started with a very proactive structure, because it was originally conceived as contributing towards a larger wargaming campaign, so that characters were intended to be doing all that adventuring and looting with an eye towards a long term goal of building their stronghold and military strength. But the game very quickly became about just the adventuring and looting, and plots reflected it. Now, the A plot still tends to be reactionary (stop the Big Bad from doing the thing), but the story tends to be given more meaning by the B plots relating to character goals, motivations and relationships.That's specifically why I've felt the need to radically rewrite the new Vecna adventure: I need it to matter to my players at a character level, and to have more options than are presented in the adventure as written.3. Player agency. Probably like a lot of experienced DMs, I've taken on ideas from a lot of other games. My current home campaign included a session run using modified Fiasco rules, where we all created the story together, and started with a "funnel" style game using modified Dread rules, in which most of the initial player characters died. In every session, players are welcome to contribute to the storytelling in meaningful ways that relate to their character. And plots are malleable, so that the game can react to and honour whatever choices the players make. On this latter point, even though PBTA-style games are minuscule in sales when compared to the D&D behemoth, I think some of their ideas about story are slowly percolating into the D&D community (note: by this I mean games like Monster Hearts, Dungeon World and now, especially, Daggerheart).For me, this has made DMing a lot more fun. Since I don't know exactly where the story is going, I am excited to play and find out!4. Consent matters. A lot of folks have mentioned the ubiquity of Session 0 in the modern game. As the game has expanded, it has become particularly vital to make sure everyone is on the same page, particularly when starting with a new group of people. As I run starter campaigns for my school's D&D Club, this is super important! You want everyone to have a good time, and one way to help this happen is to come to some essential agreements up front.For instance, at school my D&D games are gonna be PG-rated. That's non-negotiable; I want to keep my job. But even at home I don't run "evil" campaigns, by which I mean "sociopathically evil characters," not "goofy evil characters." No shaming - I love horror movies and I get why these characters are enjoyable for some. But I hate running them and since I'm doing most of the work, nope.And I think a huge shift has been towards being much more conscientious about what the players want and consent to. That's a good thing! We play games for fun, and it's worth making the effort to make sure that everyone is having a good time.5. Alignment gone or less prioritized. When you look at the entirety of TTRPGS, alignment is kind of a weird little D&D quirk, but since D&D is so massive, alignment was kind of normalized. Nevertheless, it has been continually deemphasized for decades, and in the 2024 update is basically presented as a cosmetic option. I think this directly relates back to my first point: as stories are driven more by internal character conflicts, the notion of externally driven moral forces becomes less essential. In effect, D&D stories are evolving towards being more like stories in other media (imagine a novel where you are told the protagonist's "alignment," and how silly that would seem), and less like game contrivances.Edit: a few other things, more mechanical: Systems tend to be more harmonized; there are far fewer bespoke ways of handling different aspects of the game, like Gygax's infamous "harlot table." Along these lines, character creation is far more likely to use standard array or point buy with younger players. Your d20 does FAR more work than it used to. Character class balance, though far from perfect, is MUCH more even than it used to be.</blockquote>

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