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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6288749" data-attributes="member: 6677017">TerraDave hit most of it. While I don't think I could add much of usefulness in specific details, I'll provide a bit of commentary.Overall, the feel of games in the late 80s and early 90s (when I got started) was much more varied. In those days, D&D was popular, but a lot of people had entirely stopped playing it. It was looked down on by some gamers because of its old-school mechanics, which were definitely felt to be more or less outdated.Competitors didn't have the feel of a fringe element of gaming, but it rather felt like there was a vibrant variety of RPG options, with D&D being only the big kid on the block that had been around forever, and you didn't have to choose just one game to play.Class-based systems were definitely going out of style, and skill-based was where it was at. D&D was always classed-based, but if you weren't D&D and you were class-based, you were pretty uncool and viewed as a behind the times D&D clone that missed the memo. Now, the negativity towards class-based systems didn't extend to the same degree to other class-based games with a long pedigree from the 70s to mid 80s--most of those games did class-based because that was what D&D did, but had been around long enough if you liked the game, it was okay. Factions and templates--where you got some abilities from an identification with a group of some sort, but it wasn't considered a category within which you advanced, were considered okay. But creating new class-based systems was viewed by most as obsolete game technology. Skill-based was the new and improved.Class/character levels were under the same state of being viewed as obsolete as classes. Nobody was an X level character. You had skills and abilities, and there might have been an overall level of power based on some trait or another, but you did not advance via some sort of class. You advanced by individual skills and abilities.Note also that you didn't see new D&D clones--TSR would have smacked you down with a lawsuit. Instead, all new systems were relatively innovative, though some were related and you can't really escape being influenced by what has come before.Buying a new game wasn't just buying a new setting and some rules variants. Unless it was part of a set of related games (such as White Wolf's World of Darkness games) you were always buying an entirely new system.However, you had mechanics that had become so entrenched in consciousness that they were implemented in new games without thinking. For instance, prior to 3E D&D, the standard for initiative systems was to have a declaration stage, and then an actions stage--based off of D&D. Even World of Darkness, as unlike D&D as it was, kept this convention. 3E D&D's switch to a simple cyclical initiative system was a technological innovation for most, and became the standard, virtually replacing the declaration phase initiative standard in gaming.When the indie game movement started hitting late in the pre-3E era, it focused on being even more innovative and questioning more of the gaming assumptions that are still embedded in the majority of popular systems.I think most of the developments were a step in the right direction, so you'll have to take my commentary in that light. Consider the rest of what I say strongly biased with opinion.Then 3E hit with the OGL. This was at the same time one of the best things to ever happen to D&D (right alongside the flowering of settings and fluff in 2E) and one of the worse things to ever happen to tabletop gaming in general.D&D retained an obsolete class and level system, but it made several improvements and cleaned up a lot of the junk from the 2E rules that had clogged the system for centuries...er I mean decades. At the same time, it made a few unfortunate choices in the name of ease of use (such as dumbing down the planes). It also changed the mode of play to a more heavily game-focused attitude, and you started building, rather than creating, characters.However, it wasn't the changes to D&D directly that had such a powerful effect on the hobby--it was the OGL.With the freedom for anyone to make use of the basic rules systems behind D&D, we started to see a lot of companies and individuals completely abandon the innovation of the 90s. Why make a new system when you can ride on the D&D train? New systems stopped being mainstream expectations and were relegated to the bargain bin. If you wanted to make money, you just used the d20 SRD and attached a setting to it, whether it fit or not. I particularly remember the Wheel of Time series of Robert Jordan's books being made into a d20 system. Seriously? If that wasn't a prime candidate for its own system, and a horrible fit for d20, I don't know what was. Travesty I say.And of course, many people stopped even pretending to make new games, and just made supplements. "The Big Book of Stuff that WotC Knew Wasn't Important Enough to Publish, Part X" flooded gaming shelves.Oh, and those gaming shelves? They started to disappear, or be filled with Magic: the game your friends Gathered to play when they were too tired for a role-playing game. I recently moved back into a town I had lived in before, only to find that the only gaming store in town appeared to be completely absent of RPGs. CCGs, comics, and maybe a few board games seemed to be their entire stock.Of course, the move to online purchasing also further shut down innovations, since now you had to know what you were looking for to even try it. Had Vampire: the Masquerade come out in that era, White Wolf never would have gotten off the ground because no one would have known to look for it. Game shelves with a variety of different games were the way you used to find new games to try out. Now you were stuck with only playing what you already knew about, or if you were lucky, hearing about Savage Worlds by word of mouth.After WotC had killed off the competition (except for the die-hard fans of other systems that had been around since the early 90s or earlier) they decided to make a new game: 4E D&D.Whereas 3E D&D was the worse thing to happen to the market, 4E was the best thing to happen to the market since the 90s gaming renaissance. It was the best thing to happen precisely because it split the fan-based. Suddenly, the monolithic hold that WotC had over the tabletop industry shattered in an instant. Pathfinder jumped in to grab a good share of the 3E players, while many others simply discovered the forgotten truth that your game didn't have to be currently supported by a publisher to continue to be played and enjoyed. The OSR started up and some fans siphoned off to it. Frankly, it was(is) like a cassette tape nostalgia fad. Obsolete technology to the max, but a lot of people were discovering something entirely new. Kind of like playing a pinball machine or Pac-Man. Old can be fun when its new to you, or when you're just in the mood for some good ol' Super Mario Brothers after however many centuries...er, years.People again regained that sense of choosing games for themselves based on what interested them, instead of just playing "the" game in its endless variety of sameness.But even so, the market remained dominated by several iterations of D&D. That's where we stand today. The hope of new and exciting gaming innovations again taking a more prominent place is beginning to kindle, but it's still a long ways to go before we really get into a true renaissance again. We're now sitting in the mid-80s again, except instead of a variety of different games, we have a variety of different D&D. Soon, I think we'll see a flowering of additional games, but I'm not sure what influence 5E is going to have. If we're fortunate, it will become the next 2E in market effect. Fans of many editions will unite under it (while many others will still stick to other preferred editions) and there will again become an official current edition of D&D. It will be best for the hobby if they don't make an OGL, although that may be too much to ask. If that is the case, we'll start seeing a flowering of entirely new games again, as D&D cloning of the latest and intentionally iconic version of D&D goes off the radar. If you want D&D, you'll mostly be playing 5E, and if you aren't interested in 5E, you'll mostly be looking outside of the whole D&D mindset. Classes and levels will again become obsolete technology and people who study role-playing history will see their brief resurgence as an anomaly or a demonstration of the power of marketing to squash creativity. I hope gaming stores make a come-back, but I doubt it. If we are lucky, online gaming magazines and sites will become popular outlets for informing fans of the new systems coming out, and again technology will progress.And that, IMO, is a very good thing.*Disclaimer: While this article does represent my actual opinions (with some creative exaggeration), it should not be construed as representing serious negativity towards D&D. I'm still involved with both 3E and D&D Next and looking forward to 5E. I just hope that D&D will learn to get into its own, if large, niche, and stop diluting the rest of the role-playing hobby.</blockquote>

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