D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Morrus]

I’m not talking rules or mechanics. I mean in terms of theme, tone, and aesthetic.

To you, what are the main ways D&D has evolved it’s tone, theme, genre, and aesthetics since you first started playing?

[Note — keep any rants about how you hate inclusivity or diversity out of this thread; not interesting in the slightest].

It’s hard to pinpoint how, but I feel that the implied ‘setting’ or ‘genre’ constantly evolves. I’m not an OSR style gamer generally, and my memories of play way back then are mixed in with being a kid, so everything was different just because I had a different lens. It feels more cartoony or modern American 'Ren Faire' to me than it used to rather than anything European/medieval (which is fine — it is it’s own genre, not a documentary). In other words, the emphasis is more on fantastic heroics than 'dark ages'. I guess player empowerment is a big theme.

I also feel like the implied time period (not that it's a simulation of anything) has moved forward from medieval to renaissance. Obviously this analogy is mightily flawed, but again, I'm talking in terms of aesthetic and tone.

 

[BookTenTiger]

In my experience, over time it's become easier to do fun things with your character.

I started with 2e, although it was just for a year in Middle School so I don't have a lot of memories of it. I remember playing a Wizard and having to think very hard about what spells to prepare and cast.

3rd Edition is when I gained system mastery. I loved the d20 system, but you still had to plan out characters carefully if you wanted to be effective. On the other hand, there was the rule that if you wanted to try something, the DM could just ask you to roll a d20 and add a number to it.

4e was the first time I saw D&D just let players do things because it's fun and cool. Spellcasters could suddenly cast endless spells. Fighters had neat powers. Clerics didn't have to sacrifice an attack in order to heal.

And 5e has continued this trend, in a way. Cantrips allow you to always be able to cast spells. Backgrounds and feats give you things your characters can just do, no rolling required. Bounded accuracy means they even if you are using skills you aren't trained in, you still have a chance of success.

Overtime, it's just gotten easier and easier to have your character do fun things.

 

[el-remmen]

To me it is the "just let players do stuff that is 'fun' and 'cool'" with little to no regard of how likely to succeed or put you in a bad position it might be. Not to say that this style of play did not exist throughout my many decades of play, but it feels (at least) a lot more common a reasoning for doing/allowing things. Personally, I find that approach neither fun, nor cool and the so-called "Rule of Cool" makes me roll my eyes but as I have said before, I am an outlier.

 

[Professor Murder]

I jumped in with 1st ed AD&D. Visually, the quality of layout and production values and how they have improved is one of the most striking for me. Looking back, the DMG felt like trying to read a Phone Book in comparison to today's products.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

As fantasy literature has changed and evolved, I think my campaigns and characters have as well. Early on, my homebrew was very much always in the Tolkien model, with dashes of Fritz Leiber, Thieves World, and Moorcock. Whereas my last homebrew was a world of earthmotes, had magitech, and was mostly set in a sprawling urban environment, pulling more from N.K .Jemisin, Max Gladstone, and Brandon Sanderson.

Now, if we're solely talking about implied settings, one interesting thing I'd note is the role of technology in D&D - in early editions, it was present, but as an outside element, whether from the future, ancient past, or another planet or plane. Now with current D&D, technology is of the world. You have artificers, trains, airships as parts of the world.

 

[tetrasodium]

The "just let players do what they want" is a big part of the shift & I think it was probably a good thing for a while. That kept going till it became "the gm is just life support for The Main Character's story" as it started removing tools from the GM's toolkit that were previously used to influence things. These days d&d pretty much amounts to something akin to "the GM is expected to be mat mercer & mat colville combined but better and he or she better be happy that The Main Character bothered to bless them with their unprepared presence" with very little devoted to filling the GM's toolbox with tools that reward/penalize & incentivize/penalize player (dis)engagement.

 

[Stalker0]

I’d say some of the general themes:

1) alignment playing less of a direct role.
2) spellcasting becoming weaker but also easier to do.
3) focus on d20s for player resolutions (as opposed to % dice or roll 1d6 type mechanic)
4) power of magic items more codified and understood.
5) healing becoming more accessible through “self” mechanics, as opposed to utilizing magic.
6) a very soft inclusion of “points” that can be spent for various effects (action points in 4th, inspiration in 5e)
7) a shift towards faster recovery mechanics (short rests over long ones)
8) XP has become more streamlined, and is almost never used anymore to “power” abilities.
9) the growth of “secondary classes”, whether that’s a subclass, background, paragon path, more and more character abilities come from mechanics outside of class/race

 

[Lidgar]

It has become more of a superhero game, which is fine. In general it can also be more gameist, less focused on narrative and story telling. As always, the tone elements are highly dependent on the DM.

For players, there tends to be more reliance on skill checks and class powers versus ingenuity around interacting with the environment.

 

[Morrus]

I’d say some of the general themes:

1) alignment playing less of a direct role.
2) spellcasting becoming weaker but also easier to do.
3) focus on d20s for player resolutions (as opposed to % dice or roll 1d6 type mechanic)
4) power of magic items more codified and understood.
5) healing becoming more accessible through “self” mechanics, as opposed to utilizing magic.
6) a very soft inclusion of “points” that can be spent for various effects (action points in 4th, inspiration in 5e)
7) a shift towards faster recovery mechanics (short rests over long ones)
8) XP has become more streamlined, and is almost never used anymore to “power” abilities.
9) the growth of “secondary classes”, whether that’s a subclass, background, paragon path, more and more character abilities come from mechanics outside of class/race

This is just rules stuff; we all know about the rules changes in each edition. I'm interested in the genre itself.

 

[overgeeked]

I’m not talking rules or mechanics. I mean in terms of theme, tone, and aesthetic.

I don't think there's any real way to separate these things. The art, theme, tone, and aesthetics imply what the setting is like. The mechanics dictate how the setting actually is. You can have all the story snippets and art suggest heroic or epic fantasy all day long, but if the mechanics tell you that you start with 1 hit point and even a cat will deal at least 1 hp worth of damage...you're not going to get anywhere near emulating that art. Comparing a 1st-level character from older editions to a 1st-level character in 5E will tell you a lot about the shift in the tone and theme. Comparing healing rates of AD&D to 5E tells you infinitely more about the implied world than the shift in art.

To you, what are the main ways D&D has evolved it’s t and aesthetics since you first started playing?

I started in '84 with B/X, but quickly moved to the "more adult" AD&D. So that's my frame of reference. Color covers and black & white art that showed characters engaged in dangerous activities surrounded by typically small- or human-sized opponents, or squaring off against something huge and menacing. And the characters showed fear. They were typically afraid of what was happening around them. Cowering, gasping, shrinking away.

The cover of the Moldvay Basic Set has two characters against a dragon-thing. The woman casting looks horrified. The dwarf standing next to her is leaning away with his shield up guarding his face, spear ready to thrust. The AD&D DMG's guide has an efreeti squaring off against three characters. The unfortunate damsel in distress trope aside, it's three PCs against a huge, tough monster...and all the PCs are shrinking away. Dungeoneer's Survivial Guide has a lone climber being menaced by a few tiny creatures. MM2 has one character against a giant or ogre. The Wilderness Survival Guide has three against some kind of giant or ogre and they're clearly threatened by it. One's already captured and about to be dropped into a ravine.

Compare that to the 5E covers. The PHB has two against a giant. The PCs are on the attack, one mid leap, they show nothing like fear or trepidation. Though the MM cover is more like the older stuff. Two characters against a beholder and it looks like they're running away.

The interior art suggests much the same. In older editions, B/X and AD&D, there was more threat, menace, death, and dying. In recent editions, especially 4E and 5E, there's more action heroes fighting fantasy monsters.

It’s hard to pinpoint how, but I feel that the implied ‘setting’ or ‘genre’ constantly evolves. I’m not an OSR style gamer generally, and my memories of play way back then are mixed in with being a kid, so everything was different just because I had a different lens. It swiftly feels more cartoony or modern American Ren Fair to me than it used to rather than anything medieval (which is fine — it is it’s own genre, not a documentary).

I think it's fairly easy to spot, myself. There's a distinct shift away from being rooted in the pulp fantasy, swords & sorcery, and weird fiction of the 1920s through 1970s. Appendix N. Less Conan and Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. A shift from humanocentric to the "Mos Eisley Cantina" effect. I'm glad for the increasing diversity of human representation in the game, that's wonderful to see. I do think there's something lost when you take every vaguely human-like creature and make them humans with funny hats or facial prosthetics. You're taking something magical and making it mundane. Don't show me the humanity of the monsters, show me the monstrous in humanity. To me, that's infinitely more interesting.

I think that's a large part of the tonal shift. Making the magical mundane. That shift away from even a bad attempt at rooting the game in the medieval to the cartoony Ren Faire you mentioned. Things becoming more abstract and less rooted in our understanding of history. As you say, it's a game not a documentary. But it feels more real, more immersive, when it hews closer to history than self-reference. For something to be special it needs to be rare or unique. Dragons aren't rare, magical, or special when you can fight one every level or play as one. Magic isn't rare, magical, or special when 9/13 of the classes use magic...and there are magic wielding subclasses for the other four. Magic items aren't rare or special when you end up with so many you need to sell them off to make space in your bag of holding. Skipping over things like how much you can carry or worrying about food and water or light sources is also a big shift. Sure, a fair amount of people skipped that back in the day, but a lot of us didn't.

For me, Dungeon Crawl Classics nails it. Rooted as much as you can in the medieval, make magic rare, scary and dangerous...and suddenly it all just pops more. You can go gonzo and weird with it because it also tries to be more rooted. It's only special and magical by comparison. If everyone and everything is magic, nothing feels magical. To quote Syndrome, "When everyone's super...no one will be."

Anyway. A lot. Enough rambling.