D&D General Has the meaning of Roleplaying changed? my own thought.

[Ovinomancer]

"Roleplaying" is a wide band of activities that usually gets coopted by people to mean a specific, narrow set of activities they prefer. It's better for clarity to explain what you do than to just use the term "roleplaying."

That said, what the OP is talking about is better described as a shift in agenda of goals of play rather than a shift in roleplaying. The agenda of play has moved which means that the modes of play have shifted. There's no evolution in "roleplaying" just a different set of agendas that are part of the popular zeitgeist for D&D. Play endorses a different set of goals of play more strongly than it used to. And people have either moved their preferred agendas as they've found they prefer different thing or just to keep up with the cultural shift in the hobby.

 

[aco175]

I still like a good ol'fashioned dungeon bash 'beer and pretzels' game. I remember when conventions had pre-generated characters and each play was a 1-shot that you could act a bit silly in and have fun with the others doing the same thing. Adventure League (AL) kind of makes it less so to me.

 

[Jay Murphy1]

Eh. I think that as I've grown older, I've probably become less sophisticated. As soon as people are old enough to know better, they usually don't know anything at all.

Sophistication is often just the name we give to the narrowing of our imagination.

Sophistication in my sphere of thought and language is in an artistic sense. I've painted long enough I know how to use the materials; form, texture, color, "effectively". All that means is becoming conscious of ability. You can recognize the lines of discovery you have yet to cross, and you just might get there because the tools are no longer fighting you, you are just left with your own limits. This collision of desire and ability is where growth happens. Obviously I don't just play ttrpg's for entertainment, I believe ttrpg's have artistic merit, that this idea is not regularly looked at and I love diving into unknown territory.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Note to self: I should probably adopt Umbran’s use of “Mod Note” prompts when posting as a mod, regardless of use of gentle orange or serious red. Less chance of confusion.

 

[Eyes of Nine]

I wonder how many of those who were 30 years old in 1974 or 1977 (when I started at age 11) are still playing now? I often feel like I'm the oldest in the circle of players I know...

But the point is, I still reach out for help now and then - but usually on a forum like this now.

 

[Khelon Testudo]

My experience as someone who was 19 in '82 when I started playing, was that different groups had different ideas about what role-playing was, and whenever you joined a new group you had to feel your way through to what level it was rolling dice, and what level it was about playing a theatrical character, or embodying that character. But people only played in a few groups, and so only experienced a few examples, which they themselves swayed by their own style of play within each group.

Now with youtube games many thousands of players and potential players can see what different styles of roleplaying look like. This is a good thing, because now you can get a group together and say if you want a mood like Adventure Inc. or Critical Role, or share some group you've found online that's an example of your preferred style.

 

[Older Beholder]

I think DMing may have changed more than roleplaying, not the definition, but how people run games feels different these days compared to when I started in 2nd edition. Probably a discussion for a different thread though.

 

[Bird Of Play]

One of the reasons of DnD's mass appeal is certainly that it can be played in so many, many different ways.
Do you want to, I dunno, re-enact the story of Lord Of The Rings and play as Aragorn? You can.
Do you want to have a Diablo-like fierce hack-n-slash combat experience? You can.
Do you want to play in a world that feels like a manga? Or like a novel? Or like a movie? Or like something all different? You can do all this and more.
Do you want to strictly follow the ruleset or merely use itas a general suggestion? Whatever you choose!

There's room for many types of players so I don't think there's even a "correct" way to play.

However, I certainly play different than how I first started as a kid. Yet, somehow, I also play the same way.
As a kid I loved to come up with my own version of Faerun and I tried to favor a plot over the combat. As an adult, I love to come up with my own version of Faerun and I try to favor a plot over the combat. Yet..... the end result is very different. Obviously.

A side note: I think the current DnD, the 5th edition, is favoring too much what I call the "videogame approach". I feel like, compared to the old versions, now DnD is pushing more to satisfy players who min-max and want long dungeons, hitting monsters as they watch the numbers go up.

 

[nedjer]

5e has more than a dash of CCG about it, which invites min-max, and there's not a lot of jeopardy compared to OSR play. Works v well with some of the published scenarios, but at higher levels the hope of surviving has been replaced with an expectation along the lines of my Flaming Flamingo Doomdancer uses it's +7 Beak to cause 957 hp of damage in the first round.

 

[Lyxen]

5e has more than a dash of CCG about it, which invites min-max, and there's not a lot of jeopardy compared to OSR play. Works v well with some of the published scenarios, but at higher levels the hope of surviving has been replaced with an expectation along the lines of my Flaming Flamingo Doomdancer uses it's +7 Beak to cause 957 hp of damage in the first round.

IMHO, this CCG started with 3e and continued with 4e, whereas 5e strongly backed down from this in particular with the natural english rather than the jargon and the severely controlled power drift. Despite this, some people insist to play it as per the previous editions, still claiming that it's poorly written and deploring the lack of crunchy extensions with myriads of feats that could be exploited. For me, it's a bit of a paradox, but I don't lose a lot of sleep over it as I'm playing in a completely different style.