Has D&D become less about the adventure?

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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

They also cranked out a TON of modules in ye old days of yore. Most of them completely sucked, but there were a few gems, of which I do count Temple of Elemental Evil. Tomb of Horrors IMO is a terrible adventure due to lack of clues about no save death traps, and the ":feeling" of being drawn into another world is more present in a random adventure from Dungeon. Modern adventures dont have the weight of nostalgia on their side. Shackled City or Age of Worms are classics in the making, and objectively better adventures on a whole than anything produced in the early days.

 

[lukelightning]

D&D is even more focused on loot (and restricting/balancing loot) than in the past. It used to be you killed monsters and got their treasure and magic items; you could get vast riches even at low level and nobody cried "foul!" Loot was a reason for adventuring, not a feature of your power.

You accumulated a huge pile of magic items, but that was ok because most weren't that powerful (Wow, another +1 longsword!) but you never worried that this item was counting against your "quota." Nowadays you aren't normally thrilled to find a periept of proof vs. poison since it's worth 27 thousand gold and you'd much rather have something more useful instead.

 

[Kanegrundar]

That's one thing that I feel needs to be brought up: the difference in experience and the warping of memories. I remember the campaigns I played in back when I first started with Basic D&D many years ago very fondly with dungeons filled with deranged halflings and the 10 foot rooms filled with 50 foot long dragons. I remember the blast I had running The Night Below in 2E. However, I don't have as many great memories of campaigns with 3E. It's not that the game isn't more fun (IMO, the system is far and away better than it ever was), it has more to do with the fact that we had more time to play back then. Now it seems like we (my group "we") spend more time emailing about great campaign memories than creating new ones since none of us can get together regularly enough to really play a campaign on par with the games of yore.

Plus, us "old timers" (having only been playing for 15 years myself I'm nothing compared to several on these boards that started with the first white booklets, but to today's kids I'm an old fogey ) started with a different ruleset that wasn't filled with options or a bunch of cool new powers. Our characters still needed magic gear and better spells to have a chance of survival against the ever toughening hordes of monsters. We may not have all played that way, but it was certainly a feature of the system even in earlier editions. Those features are much more pronounced now and are immediately visible upon creating a 1st level character.

None of this means that the games of today have to be a monty haul or not focused on the adventure. It just means that the GM needs to focus more of the players' time on the adventure rather than "Cool Power X". For new players, all they need to really get into the adventure that D&D has always been about througout each edition is a GM to show them that D&D can be so much more than just levelling and getting new magic items and powers, but also about the shared experience of the adventure with good friends doing something fun. That first really captivating adventure will keep most players I've ever met coming back for more just as much, or more, than just levelling and gaining power.

3E is styled such that it's easily accessible to what gamers today are used to: gaining power and plenty of options. That doesn't mean for a second that 3E has to be played like a video game. It's just a tool, the GM makes the game come alive and keeps the fires stoked for something more than just kill/loot/level/repeat, if that's what they're looking for.

 

[diaglo]

it is about killing things and taking their stuff.


example this past sunday our group met.

my human 1st lvl cleric of pelor had used up all his spells. two of his fellow pcs had died and were in the process of being eaten by 5 lizardmen while i carried the last pc to safety. the last pc was at 0hp so could only do 1 action. i was also slightly injured.

but i went back inside the adventure to try and convince the NPCs to help me.

failed miserably. lousy Cha

and ended up going toe to toe with 4 of the lizardmen. yup.. 1st lvl cleric. no spells. not full hps. going toe to toe with them.

i killed 3 of them before the 4th tore me to pieces with his claws and fangs.

 

[Harmon]

Seems to me that our group is headed more for making the cool powerful character, gathering loot, wanting the next level, and not about the road to getting there.

I like the adventure and could really careless for the most part about the next level (yes, I do like advancing, I just don't mind spending five times longer at a level then most). For instance- a year and a half ago one of two of our campaigns were at 10th level- true we have not played it every weekend, but still in most campaigns they would be sixteenth or twentith by now- nope- we are at 11th. Slow moving advancement, back ground plots, a back story, lots of role playing, its how I like it.

 

[Storyteller01]

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.

Quoted for truth.

I've had a hard time pulling myself and my group away from the numbers (the rapture for math nuts...) but it's worked out so far. Each player now keeps a list of npc contacts that they call on for help. Its a nice touch.


Then again, if its about the adventure, make sure you cover ALL your bases. I had a 1st level gnome wipe out a group of 5 half-orcs in a DS campaign via roleplaying and lousy fort saves.

 

[buzz]

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.

Are you kidding me? I knew guys who would just go through the Monster Manual, A-Z, killing things and rolling for treasure so they could claim their character "earned" all their phat lewt.

So much for anecdotal evidence.

Anyway...

The current version of D&D, IMO, "does the D&D thing" better than any other edition I've encountered. I find the chargen more rewarding and the play itself more enjoyable. I actually play in campaigns now. I have characters that are cool instead ones that I imagine are cool. I have a mechanical base that seems to let me successfully drift from the base "hack n' loot" mode when the mood takes me.

Not that I didn't have fun back in the day; but now I have fun without ignoring/changing 90% of the rules.

 

[Infiniti2000]

But, nobody played "Temple" so that they could get some kind of item out of it or just to bump their character levels.

What? Surely, you jest. Getting items and gaining XP were the only reasons to go into the Temple or the Tomb.

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.

Feeling drawn into another world was impossible with such random dungeons and an incomprehensible, illogical assortment of monsters, rooms, and traps.

At least RttToEE benefits from modern technology (e.g. a forum) to help DMs inject a lot more RP into it.

 

[kenobi65]

I think the people who play in and enjoy RPGA games do so because they enjoy the rules-precise nature of them. I see the "casual game" hobby as an almost totally different arena.

I guess I have to respectfully disagree with you here.

Yes, there are plenty of cheese weasels in the RPGA...but I bet there are lots of cheese weasels in home games, too. I've been heavily involved in the RPGA for 5 years, and have enjoyed a great deal of "adventure" and "story" in those campaigns. Then again, I've tended to focus more on campaigns like Living Force and Living Death, which have featured strong storylines and avenues for character development.

 

[D'karr]

At least RttToEE benefits from modern technology (e.g. a forum) to help DMs inject a lot more RP into it.

Inject is a good word. Hand-holding is what I'd call it.

A big difference between adventures now and adventures then was that the DM was given only a rough outline and background. It was left in the hands of the DM to make the adventure his own. If he felt like expanding it, he could. If he felt like just running the adventure as a dungeon-crawl he could do that too.

Many of the classic adventures of past editions required the DM to make the adventure his own, simply because they provided just a mere skeleton of an adventure. The DM would modify for his campaign as needed. There was very minimal hand-holding. If you ask 100 different people how the "Against the Giants" (G1-3) series was handled in their campaign, you would probably have 100 different interpretations. That whole series had less than one full page of DM notes per module for handling the whole overarching metaplot, if you want to call it that. Any motivation for NPC's, etc. were entirely the DM's responsibility.

So my opinion is that good adventures, classic adventures, the kind of adventures that will keep your players talking about them for 30 years into the future, require a significant investment of "soul" from the DM. You need to make them your own. Even if you're simply following the script provided.

You can have that sense of adventure with the old classics or with new adventures. The game really becomes whatever the DM makes of it.