Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Formative Experiences, Introductory Editions, and Current Trends and Controversies
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8528378" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>I think you'd need a survey and a fairly elaborate and well-conceived set of questions to derive a huge amount from thinking about this.</p><p></p><p>Age: 43</p><p></p><p>Year started: 1989</p><p></p><p>First RPG: AD&D 2E</p><p></p><p>How many different RPGs played in first decade? Dozens - possibly over 100.</p><p></p><p>How did you rate D&D compared to other RPGs in that period? Poorly. We mostly played it because it was extremely well-supported and everyone knew it, but only a minority of our RPG-time from 1989-1999 was AD&D.</p><p></p><p>First DM: My older female cousin, who was extremely good DM and taught me a DMing approach which is common now but was 10-15 years ahead of the curve at the time.</p><p></p><p>First players: My brother and friends from school.</p><p></p><p>I wasn't able to read books until I was 7, for unclear reasons (learning disability? being a twit? who knows) but then by the time I was 10 I was reading at a university level (suggesting I was just being a twit lol). I read a ton of fantasy from like 9 to 17, at which point it started to turn me off. By then I'd got through a huge amount of "the greats" of previous eras, particularly including Moorcock, Le Guin, and Tolkien, as well as countless terrible D&D novels. It was probably a good time to stop, because that was the beginning of a new era of fantasy (1995) and it took a while for it to build up. I got back into fantasy in 2000 thanks to Perdido Street Station.</p><p></p><p>Views-wise, er I dunno what we're supposed to be listing but:</p><p></p><p>PC death: </p><p></p><p>Usually boring and annoying. Especially in 2E. Virtually every death I saw in 2E was extremely undramatic, usually a middling enemy in a fight which was not plot-important, would somehow down/kill a PC. Or a TPK would be a slow death-spiral resulting from serious mistakes by say, 2 players in a 5 player party. It didn't typically feel very justified or interesting, especially as the ones who caused it were often the last to go, or even escaped (I guess making it not technically a TPK but you get my meaning).</p><p></p><p>I'd love to have seen more dramatic PC deaths but I just haven't. And indeed there are surprisingly few stories of interesting PC deaths that don't involve a player intentionally deciding that a PC died. In fact I'd expand that - usually when a PC dies, like 7 times out of 10, the PC isn't dying because their player made either a mistake, or a choice which was going to lead to that, they're dying because another player did something dumb, or neglected to do something which had been agreed, or just because the dice really rolled pretty wildly (the first ever TPK I did involved 4 goblins vs a 6-person party and I rolled 4 nat-20s for their first four attacks...).</p><p></p><p>After a few too many TPKs to just totally random dice rolls, I started fudging if it was going to happen, so we didn't have to keep rolling up new parties and giving up on or restarting or drastically modifying adventures. I think TPKs probably work a bit better with a sandbox approach. 4E and 5E are balance and predictable enough that I was able to be done with fudging, thankfully.</p><p></p><p>Current controversies?</p><p></p><p>1) Weird old racist stuff - Yeah it's weird and racist. Some of it seemed pretty weird and racist even in the 1990s. There's no reason we shouldn't talk about it or pretend it isn't weird and racist or try and make up reasons they it's "good, actually" lol.</p><p></p><p>We particularly shouldn't have to do stuff because it makes some aging grog feel uncomfortable if we criticise the book he was into when he was 10 in 1979. Like bro, I liked Tintin when I was that age. Doesn't mean I can go around trying to make people say nice things about Tintin or pretend it wasn't super-racist.</p><p></p><p>2) 5E's recent changes - Apart from the bizarre and I think mostly laziness-related decision to remove height/weight ranges and age expectations from races, and the slight cowardice of backtracking to "races" from "lineages" (which actually has more applicability anyway than races!), I think they all make sense.</p><p></p><p>3) Are modern TT RPGs better or worse than older ones?</p><p></p><p>They're very clearly better, because they're intentionally designed, and their design reflects what works, rather than just eccentric notions of some dude in the Midwest somewhere.</p><p></p><p>What else?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8528378, member: 18"] I think you'd need a survey and a fairly elaborate and well-conceived set of questions to derive a huge amount from thinking about this. Age: 43 Year started: 1989 First RPG: AD&D 2E How many different RPGs played in first decade? Dozens - possibly over 100. How did you rate D&D compared to other RPGs in that period? Poorly. We mostly played it because it was extremely well-supported and everyone knew it, but only a minority of our RPG-time from 1989-1999 was AD&D. First DM: My older female cousin, who was extremely good DM and taught me a DMing approach which is common now but was 10-15 years ahead of the curve at the time. First players: My brother and friends from school. I wasn't able to read books until I was 7, for unclear reasons (learning disability? being a twit? who knows) but then by the time I was 10 I was reading at a university level (suggesting I was just being a twit lol). I read a ton of fantasy from like 9 to 17, at which point it started to turn me off. By then I'd got through a huge amount of "the greats" of previous eras, particularly including Moorcock, Le Guin, and Tolkien, as well as countless terrible D&D novels. It was probably a good time to stop, because that was the beginning of a new era of fantasy (1995) and it took a while for it to build up. I got back into fantasy in 2000 thanks to Perdido Street Station. Views-wise, er I dunno what we're supposed to be listing but: PC death: Usually boring and annoying. Especially in 2E. Virtually every death I saw in 2E was extremely undramatic, usually a middling enemy in a fight which was not plot-important, would somehow down/kill a PC. Or a TPK would be a slow death-spiral resulting from serious mistakes by say, 2 players in a 5 player party. It didn't typically feel very justified or interesting, especially as the ones who caused it were often the last to go, or even escaped (I guess making it not technically a TPK but you get my meaning). I'd love to have seen more dramatic PC deaths but I just haven't. And indeed there are surprisingly few stories of interesting PC deaths that don't involve a player intentionally deciding that a PC died. In fact I'd expand that - usually when a PC dies, like 7 times out of 10, the PC isn't dying because their player made either a mistake, or a choice which was going to lead to that, they're dying because another player did something dumb, or neglected to do something which had been agreed, or just because the dice really rolled pretty wildly (the first ever TPK I did involved 4 goblins vs a 6-person party and I rolled 4 nat-20s for their first four attacks...). After a few too many TPKs to just totally random dice rolls, I started fudging if it was going to happen, so we didn't have to keep rolling up new parties and giving up on or restarting or drastically modifying adventures. I think TPKs probably work a bit better with a sandbox approach. 4E and 5E are balance and predictable enough that I was able to be done with fudging, thankfully. Current controversies? 1) Weird old racist stuff - Yeah it's weird and racist. Some of it seemed pretty weird and racist even in the 1990s. There's no reason we shouldn't talk about it or pretend it isn't weird and racist or try and make up reasons they it's "good, actually" lol. We particularly shouldn't have to do stuff because it makes some aging grog feel uncomfortable if we criticise the book he was into when he was 10 in 1979. Like bro, I liked Tintin when I was that age. Doesn't mean I can go around trying to make people say nice things about Tintin or pretend it wasn't super-racist. 2) 5E's recent changes - Apart from the bizarre and I think mostly laziness-related decision to remove height/weight ranges and age expectations from races, and the slight cowardice of backtracking to "races" from "lineages" (which actually has more applicability anyway than races!), I think they all make sense. 3) Are modern TT RPGs better or worse than older ones? They're very clearly better, because they're intentionally designed, and their design reflects what works, rather than just eccentric notions of some dude in the Midwest somewhere. What else? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Formative Experiences, Introductory Editions, and Current Trends and Controversies
Top