Has D&D become less about the adventure?

[Emirikol]

What's your opinion about D&D gaming today? Is it less about the adventure and more about the magical items and levelling? Isn't that what we're seeing in "Living" RPGA games, D&DOnline, and is this permeating into home games?

I'm wondering if I should be spending less time on prepping adventures...

THoughts?

jh

 

[the Jester]

It was always about levels and toys, you just got them slower.

 

[Darrin Drader]

It's all what you make it, man. My home games are always magic item light, and I've been toying with the idea of changing the progression rate. I prefer the game to be more about the adventure than the goodies the party has, but that's just me I suppose.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It was always about levels and toys, you just got them slower.

Not if you beat any of Gygax's modules. There was always a bank vault's worth of loot in those.

 

[Crothian]

It's all what you make it, man. My home games are always magic item light, and I've been toying with the idea of changing the progression rate. I prefer the game to be more about the adventure than the goodies the party has, but that's just me I suppose.

Ya, the game is what I or my group or whoever is playing wants it to be. It is true that players can get caught up in the toys and the levels. But as a DM if that's not where you want the focus do something about it.

 

[Emirikol]

Not if you beat any of Gygax's modules. There was always a bank vault's worth of loot in those.

Problem was, back then it seemed people wanted to play "fantasy" to play an adventure. Yea, there was buckets of loot in Gygax scenarios (they were also high level in general too). But, nobody played "Temple" so that they could get some kind of item out of it or just to bump their character levels. You played "Temple" or "Tomb" because it was fricking cool to say that you had played it and it gave you that 'feeling' of being elsewhere or drawn into another world.

That's what I mean.

jh

 

[the Jester]

You played "Temple" or "Tomb" because it was fricking cool to say that you had played it and it gave you that 'feeling' of being elsewhere or drawn into another world.

That's what I mean.

I think that's still out there, but different. There simply haven't been many published freestanding adventures put out by WotC to create the same level of common experience as for any of the great classics. However, I think the Adventure Path hardbacks might do the trick: I know of several groups that are eager to jump into Age of Worms, for example.

 

[satori01]

It is more about the adventure than any time I can think of. A robust and well designed system that is able to withstand implosion means more games going to higher level.

As a DM, I feel more impowered to challenge my players than any time in the past, definetely more than in 2e. Talk of leveling, builds, and magic items are default, common ground things to talk about. Hey I have been a gamer for over 20 years now, and frankly the last thing I want to here is the sterotypical gamer showing me an example of his barbaric yawlp, and how he and his group braved the evil forest of leporus tree sloths to rescue the fair princess, that turned out to be a cambion.. and then they had to fight her AND her mother who was a half dragon Half demon that had destroyed the ancient Sun elf kindom a thousand years ago, removing the curse of lycanthropy of from all the werewolves in the world, who were really Sun Elves, and how this one time at band camp......

 

[billd91]

I think that's still out there, but different. There simply haven't been many published freestanding adventures put out by WotC to create the same level of common experience as for any of the great classics. However, I think the Adventure Path hardbacks might do the trick: I know of several groups that are eager to jump into Age of Worms, for example.

I think there's a very good point here. Back in the day of the Temple of Elemental Evil, or even more strongly, in the day of the G series and the A series and all that, a lot of us all had those adventures as common experiences. I think that tended to heighten the sense that it was about the coolness of adventuring. We were all picking up the TSR adventures and playing them, whether in Greyhawk or in our own homebrew campaigns, and could relate to completely different groups because of that similar experience.
These days, there are so many more options without even looking at people designing all their own stuff. There are sourcebooks and campaigns galore. Variant rules out the wazoo. And as those variants and campaigns get into what makes them unique, the adventure experiences for each of them become less shareable with other groups who don't use those settings and variants. Hell, that's one of the reasons I'll always back Dungeon's effort to focus on generic or reasonably generic adventures. It's through that kind of transportability that we manage to build that sense of shared experience with the adventure.

 

[Hussar]

Problem was, back then it seemed people wanted to play "fantasy" to play an adventure. Yea, there was buckets of loot in Gygax scenarios (they were also high level in general too). But, nobody played "Temple" so that they could get some kind of item out of it or just to bump their character levels. You played "Temple" or "Tomb" because it was fricking cool to say that you had played it and it gave you that 'feeling' of being elsewhere or drawn into another world.

That's what I mean.

jh

Actually, a lot of people played "Temple" or "Tomb" because there just wasn't anything else to play.

And the fact that we got treasure lists three pages long didn't hurt.