Has D&D become less about the adventure?

[Dragonbait]

Adventures are for sissies.
Oops, stuck in silly meta-troll mode. Changing gears.

As others have said, it has always been about the goodies. BUT I think that the adventure and story are still there. It's just that the tools are more complex, and the 'goodies' that characters gain each level are more numerous, so there is more going on, on both sides.

 

[Odhanan]

Yeah I'm going to cut back on alot of the magic items,
because I don't like to see characters that are made up of items instead of abilities,
you take away the toys and they start to look skinny and puny,

I want character to be define by themselves, and not by their stuff

Check out Iron Heroes.

 

[Emirikol]

LOOT & LEVELS AND SUCKY DM'S

Yeah I'm going to cut back on alot of the magic items,
because I don't like to see characters that are made up of items instead of abilities,
you take away the toys and they start to look skinny and puny, I want character to be define by themselves, and not by their stuff

As a DM, I think sometimes we get confused on the difference between what the players want and what we provide. If the players want to run L&L "Loot & Levels" and you want to run D&D, you're not reading your players very well (and will be very lonely).

If it's LOOT & LEVELS that players want, shouldn't a DM give that to them? If they want a hamburger and you keep giving them pea soup, eventually your game will be considered "sucky." You're going to eat your pea soup and like it!

Thoughts?
jh
P.S. I run a low-magic, low-items CONAN game and I have trouble finding players who are interested after they find out they can't play Uber-Elf-with-Stormbringer..so I changed my advertisement and some of my house rules..guess what? Finding players became a lot easier..whether or not they'll still bite is the question.

P.S.S. The reason why I started this post is because of a couple of recent games that I ran regarding Living Greyhawk (I took a hiatus after I burned myself out on the County of Urnst Triad and had to put up with this very thing). Just like L.C. before it, too many LG players have become very much about burning through an adventure as fast as possible to get loot and levels.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Personally, I feel that D&D games should be about the fun, roleplaying the characters, and the adventure.

It seems to me that when I hear discussions about D&D games these days, I hear a lot about balance, character builds, and so forth. I hear less and less about character backgrounds, exotic locales, and story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for options and new character ideas. From my perspective, the very feel of fantasy games of epic proportions is missing these days. Now I don’t discount that there have always been people who try to make it about the rules, no matter the edition. I’ve just noticed that discussions are a lot more focused on mechanics over the adventure in recent years.

YMMV, of course.

 

[painandgreed]

I think each game is way too customized for each gaming group to ever say it does this or that. If your game is favoring loot over adventures (or the other way around) and you don't like it, you just have the wrong DM and players.

Personally, I remember going through S2 to get Black Razor. If more older modules had neat special weapons, you would have seen more people playing modules in the old days for the specific loot. In my group anyway, even when we had a campaign with set characters, the DM would still pull out standard modules for us to play and usually we'd get to decide which one it was going to be.

 

[Emirikol]

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.

Maybe it's the elimination of the RPGA "classic" adventures which demonstrate the change in interest of players away from "playing for fun" to "playing for loot & levels." The only "classics" out there anymore are the Cthulhu scenarios..but that's a differen't genre entirely too.

I can't blame them . I think the "living" campaigns are brilliant, however strong storylines for a living campaign is not the same as the 'role playing' that goes into a classic.

I've found 'roleplaying' very lacking in 5 of 6 players at any given living table, but that doesn't make it less fun for the players. As a DM, I guess I'm just there to provide them with a good time. Should I learn how to have a good time playing that way?

jh

 

[Uder]

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

I have done the impossible! Way to cheer a guy up!

 

[The Shaman]

I have characters that are cool instead ones that I imagine are cool.

Your imaginary character is cooler than your...OTHER...imaginary character because it has numbers that represent the coolness of your imaginary character better than your imagination can imagine coolness?

Ow. I think I broke a synapse. :\

 

[ThirdWizard]

It seems to me that when I hear discussions about D&D games these days, I hear a lot about balance, character builds, and so forth. I hear less and less about character backgrounds, exotic locales, and story.

Arguing over story isn't as much fun. And, on the intarweb, that's what matters. Story isn't dead, its just not controversial. Having said that, you can find it in the Story Hours, though.

 

[Wraith Form]

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.

You use 1st edition. Ergo, you don't count.