Gaming Generation Gap

[Jack7]

Also, when so many of us tell those old meat-grinder stories, we're not talking about the success of our characters at the end, so much as we tell about our success as players in the end - and a good misfortune story is always more fun than some boring success story, anyway.

You gotta real point there. And early on there was little artificial division between character and player, as the idea developed later on.

 

[mmadsen]

We better all read The Worm Ouroboros so we can be prepared for this event.

Well played, Gentlegamer. Well played.

 

[TwinBahamut]

What are those?

As I was saying before, I would like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for kinds of fantasy other than pure traditional medieval fantasy.

For example, D&D could have some options that would support something like the Star Ocean series of videogames. These games are still all about characters running around fantasy settings killing monsters and taking their stuff, with the one difference that some of the characters happen to be have beamed down to the planet on an away mission for an organization similar to Star Trek's Starfleet (a version of Starfleet where you can major in swordplay or sorcery). So, it would play a lot like traditional D&D, except characters might wander between planets, use beam weapons, or get caught up in a space dogfight. Comparisons to the Phantasy Star series of videogames might also be appropriate.

Alternatively, a few options to emulate something like the Wild ARMS series of videogames would be nice. Again, the Wild ARMS games play a lot like normal D&D, except the characters all use firearms, there is a slight wild-west flavor, half the dungeons they go into are ancient spaceships, and demons know how to control nanotechnology. Actually, a great DM I used to play with told me he once ran a campaign that was very strongly inspired by the Wild ARMS series. It would be nice if the game itself did a better job of supporting that.

Actually, the whole idea that a fantasy setting is in fact the product of some kind of post-apocalyptic future Earth is pretty common in some of the major source material for D&D. Vance's Dying Earth and Terry Brooks' Shannara books both feature that idea, as well as several others I could name. I mean, I quite clearly recall a scene in The Sword of Shannara where the main characters are attack by a giant robot that was left over from the wars that destroyed the older civilization of Earth. The idea of "lost technology" that can be found and used is a pretty major idea across countless anime and videogames as well...

Generally, a few options within a PHB or DMG for guns, beam swords, cars, spaceships, robotic monsters, and various other trappings of modern and futuristic settings is all I really want.

Also, do you see how people might consider it sufficient for D&D to do "its own thing", just as other games do other things -- including some (e.g., Shadowrun) that do Cyborg Orcs With Big Guns, Magic Spells And Mocha Lattes?

I don't think there is really a contradiction between D&D "doing its own thing" and letting it branch out into a few other genres of fantasy.

After all, as several other people (including you yourself, I believe) have quite strongly pointed out, the idea that such things can be found in D&D has dated back to the 1E days where you saw things like "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks". Why shouldn't there be more direct support for that kind of thing, then?

At the same time, D20 Modern and Alternity created numerous interesting and unique IPs related to modern and futuristic settings that, for some, are as memorable as anything seen in D&D proper. However, I don't really see the need to keep the separate from the ideas of D&D, when they could work side by side in the same ruleset. The fact that D20 Modern allowed D&D-style fantasy, a modern setting, and Alternity-inspired futuristic stuff to coexist shows that it isn't impossible.

Also, since you mentioned it, I want to say that Shadowrun is not what I am looking for. If nothing else, Shadowrun is a case where the setting and the game are inseparable, and I have no interest in the particular brand of distopian modern-future fantasy mix-up that Shadowrun offers. I want something modular and flexible, that lets me create my own setting the way I want. What is more, Shadowrun is not D&D, which is both the biggest game on the block by an order of magnitude or two and the only tabletop RPG ruleset that I have ever cared to learn (well, 4E, 3E, 3E variants, and a little 2E and Alternity, so I guess a singular usage isn't quite appropriate...).

Still, I guess it is worth mentioning again that this whole discussion started out as my response to someone saying that D&D could be seen by people of my generation as the embodiment of all the fantasy videogames and such that we grew up playing. Simply because I can so easily name countless fantasy games which include guns, robots, spaceships, or whatever, that statement was false. I think people keep assuming that I am saying that D&D is somehow unplayable or unpalatable to me because it lacks those things, but I haven't said anything like that at all. I mean, it would be nice if I didn't have to create stats for guns and such when it was necessary, and it would be really nice if I had a better baseline to work with in designing my own D&D variant based around Gundam-style mecha (and that it wasn't so hard coming up with 4E-style classes thanks to all those accursed powers!), but I have never said that D&D is a bad game because of their absence. After all, I really enjoy D&D, and even though 4E is the only edition to be completely lacking modern or futuristic stuff so far, it is still my favorite edition.

 

[TwinBahamut]

Your remedy is for everyone to experience level grinding? :cheeky:

Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 7 have no real level grinding to speak of. Final Fantasy Tactics had some level grinding, but only in direct proportion to the number of characters you wanted to use. If you stuck with a limited five character team, it is practically non-existent in that game.

If I may be forgiven for cross-posting, I'd like to post a link to a video game forum that touches on a similar theme (and may tie into some of the video game discussion in this thread):

I tormented my uncles kids with MEGAMAN 9

You know, I am 25 and I am on the old end of that particular generation gap. The idea of finding Megaman 9 to be unplayably hard is completely alien to me...

Speaking to the culture gap, I feel the same way, when a group of younger gamers starts throwing out Rorune Kenshin, or Escaflowne, or Zenki, or (insert random collection of syllables here). I look at most Manga like most people look at Tolkien (not that Tolkien was a fave for me anyway), and the only manga I ever managed to enjoy was Cowboy Bebop - the English Dub is what sold it, and every other program I tried just lost me out the gate.

I don't want to be some kind of English nazi (even though I have the credentials), but if you are talking about the English dub of Cowboy Bebop, then you are talking about an anime, not a manga. "Manga" is the japanese word for comic book, "anime" is just short for animation, and these words are not interchangeable, especially since something Escaflowne has both an anime and a manga version (as well as an anime movie and a second manga series), and these things are extremely different stories.

RLW came out a full year before the original Final Fantasy.

Err... so? That says less about whatever kind of connection they might have than anything mentioned in this thread so far. It doesn't change the fact that they don't have any direct connection whatsoever. The things that Final Fantasy pulled from D&D are very different than the D&Disms that appeared in Record of Lodoss War.

I mean, I could clearly argue how Record of Lodoss War was almost certainly a major inspiration for Nintendo's Fire Emblem series, but that argument would not be based on something so simple as which one came first...

Oh, and please support your statements. I want line item. Just note you are talking to someone who did Vampire the Masquerade conversions to d20 long before Monte Cook ever thought of it.

Support what statements? That some of these things were not published under the name "D&D" and that there were differences in the rulesets between these different games? That Gamma World hasn't been officially supported by the makers of D&D in a long time? What exactly do I need to support regarding these statements? And what on earth do conversions between Vampire and d20 have to do with anything? You are seriously misunderstanding what I have been talking about.

Then do them yourself and stop depending on the publishers.

You know, I really don't like this entire line of argumentation you are using. You are basically just saying that my desire to see the game change and progress in a certain way is somehow rooted in my own failings. That it is somehow wrong for me to ask that something show in the rules themselves. Honestly, with the line of argumentation you are using, you may as well ask why WotC even puts out books at all...

Actually, forget it. I already said what I wanted to say above. I don't want to say any more.

 

[mmadsen]

As I was saying before, I would like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for kinds of fantasy other than pure traditional medieval fantasy.

Agreed. Of course, I'd like it if D&D had official support within the D&D brand and ruleset itself for pure traditional fantasy too. After all, it's remarkably bad at emulating Tolkien's Middle Earth, Howard's Conan tales, etc. A more modular system could do both.

 

[Oni]

I will say it would be nice if WotC was a little more daring and actually did some settings that catered to more modern sensibilities in regards to fantasy. Eberron is the closest they've come, but really it amounts to dipping their toe in the shallow end of the pool.

I wonder how they'd do if they hired a few really good manga/anime artists/writers and did a setting unrepentantly different from the standard D&D fare, something that would be more at home in a j-rpg. Personally I think it would be a runaway success if they didn't muck it up, the market with those taste is growing, not shrinking IMHO.

[Not to say that the anime thing is the sum total of modern fantasy, I'm just kind of surprised they haven't done this already.]

 

[bramadan]

What I find interesting is that in a thread on generation gap in DnD, noone mentioned original generation gap between people who saw DnD as a natural extension of table-top wargaming and those who saw it more as a story-telling device.
In my opinion, the split between 1st and 2nd ed. reflected this division more then anything else.

Although I am not of Garry's generation I too have played table-top Napoleonic battles much before I ever heard of DnD and I can tell you that the urge to have Captain Perrier of the second Lancers - or some other miniature "hero" survive and appear again in the next game is very great.

All those baffling multitudes of polearms, together with ridiculous AC system, to-hit tables and "hit points", they all are direct result of DnD's wargame parentage. (In medieval warfare one weapon group you really really care about are polearms). The fact that we are to this day playing DnD "Campaigns" and that our veteran players are "Grognards" are terminological reminders of those origins.

1st ed DnD then was inspired by wargaming in vaguely sword-and-sorcery milieu. 2ed intented to take the whole RP idea much further and was much more explicitly inspired by fantasy stories and enabling players to create/participate in those. 3rd and 4th in my opinion are both in a sense retro-editions, both trying in their different ways to recapture the memory of the 1st edition. In that sense, they are both much more wargamey then the average non-DnD RPG that one could find in today's market and considerably more like a wargame then like any video-game out there (including video games based on DnD).

For better or worse, that nostalgic "feel" that defines DnD is inextricably linked to tabletop wargaming and has relatively little to do with the sort of story being "told".

 

[Fallen Seraph]

I will say it would be nice if WotC was a little more daring and actually did some settings that catered to more modern sensibilities in regards to fantasy. Eberron is the closest they've come, but really it amounts to dipping their toe in the shallow end of the pool.

I wonder how they'd do if they hired a few really good manga/anime artists/writers and did a setting unrepentantly different from the standard D&D fare, something that would be more at home in a j-rpg. Personally I think it would be a runaway success if they didn't muck it up, the market with those taste is growing, not shrinking IMHO.

[Not to say that the anime thing is the sum total of modern fantasy, I'm just kind of surprised they haven't done this already.]

I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.

 

[Oni]

I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.

I could dig it. Really, while I like some of the classic settings, they could do with getting beyond regurgitating the same old same old.

 

[TwinBahamut]

I would like to see WoTC be more daring even with just modern western fantasy. It be wonderful to see influences like Neil Gaiman and China Mieville in a D&D setting.

I'll admit that I don't really know much about Neil Gaiman, China Mieville, and their style of fantasy. Could you please elaborate? I'm curious.