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

[tetrasodium]

Um, most of these don't engage the arguments made at all, or ignore that 5e has as many tools to address them. Also, I'm a bit concerned that most of this list is basically passive aggressively trying to direct the players instead of honest engagement with them. Is that the argument? Prior editions enabled more passive aggressive control features?

No, they are examples. The list is context free examples amplified to explicitly show ways a gm could use the incentives involved with the system being written to need magic items or bonuses to the base PCs that make up for their loss. You simply decided that there is no possible way the GM could be empowered to guide & direct the game other than what amounts to telling the gm "gitgud" or the gm asking players who no longer need anything pretty please please please or there are "serious issues".

 

[Remathilis]

This isn't new. Some desire for more comprehensive rules has been around since the beginning, with competing RPGs arising very quickly that went into more detailed rulesets.

As for me, I very much like games where the GM is much more constrained than in D&D. Those games often revolve around horrible consequences for the PCs, and often feature the PCs getting raked and mauled by fortune and their own bad decisions. The desire to avoid consequences is not well correlated with a more constrained GM. A more constrained GM has less ability to mitigate, for instance. Even in my D&D I prefer play where the GM is constrained, at least at the social contract level, from trying to mitigate the outcomes of play -- for or against my PC.

I call those kinds of games "bowsnap DMs" based on the notion that the DM usually sets up all sorts of rolls and obstacles that make doing anything but the prescribed action impossible. It comes from a DM who didn't want the PCs attacking a plot important villain, so when the PC pulled out his bow to shoot him, the DM made him roll a Dex check and then when he failed, declared his bowstring snapped.

 

[tetrasodium]

Been thinking about this for awhile. I think the fundamental change has been that it's gone from players wanting to "overcome" the consequences they create to more and more players thinking that consequences are bad game design and they should be free snowflakes and do whatever they want. the biggest sign of that I think are the number of GM shouldn't rule on anything it should all be in the rules threads. It's odd how many players seem to want to control the game they asked a GM to run.

Weirdly that how dare the gm abuse their players mindset gets paired alongside "rulings not rules" & "fix it yourself" or goes full circle back to "talk tobeg the players"

 

[Ovinomancer]

No, they are examples. The list is context free examples amplified to explicitly show ways a gm could use the incentives involved with the system being written to need magic items or bonuses to the base PCs that make up for their loss. You simply decided that there is no possible way the GM could be empowered to guide & direct the game other than what amounts to telling the gm "gitgud" or the gm asking players who no longer need anything pretty please please please or there are "serious issues".

I don't see how the majority of the examples you gave -- many of which revolve around the GM not having prep available and so trying to redirect the party away from the not prepped places/things or the GM having prep available the party isn't engaging and how to direct the party to that all through making play miserable when not following what the GM wants. I don't see how pointing out that this is mostly passive aggressive GMing means that I'm saying that GMs need to gitgud or beg. Weird go to, there.

For most of the examples here, the 5e GM can just throttle XP awards and treasure awards as well. XP awards are explicitly up to the GM in 5e, with "whenever I want" being an offered option.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I call those kinds of games "bowsnap DMs" based on the notion that the DM usually sets up all sorts of rolls and obstacles that make doing anything but the prescribed action impossible. It comes from a DM who didn't want the PCs attacking a plot important villain, so when the PC pulled out his bow to shoot him, the DM made him roll a Dex check and then when he failed, declared his bowstring snapped.

Heh, took me at least two readthroughs to realize you were talking about GM that do put their thumb on the scale of mitigating outcomes for and against. Agreed.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Speaking of HP, I really like how The One Ring rpg handles it.

Basically using D&D terms, a hero can take 2 critical hits (and getting 2 saves vs it) and then die. And/or just run out of HP normally and fall unconscious.

My Hobbit got a “Crit wound” in the first battle and man was it tense to avoid another.
And you can’t Simply rest or use magic to fix it. It sticks around for a week give or take.

We plan to explore deeper into the ruins but I may suggest we go back to town (2 days away) to rest for a week first.

 

[Helldritch]

What's a hand wave? My argument that you're waving aside points while being pretty clear what those are and why they matter is a hand wave? You're hand waving my argument that you hand waved? Very odd.

And Artificers are your ace in the hole? The class that requires the GM to tell them how magic items are created? The rules for creating magic items are 1) optional and 2) if taken a downtime activity where the GM has total control over how much downtime is available AND the income of PCs to be able to engage with it! The same kinds of controls you're touting for 3.x!

I strongly encourage you to read about the artificer in 5ed. It will be enlightening I assure you. If you read it already. Do a second read, you missed a few things.

Downtime can also be in the hands of the players. It depends entirely on the type of game you do. In quests such as OotA, RotFM downtime is scarce but in episodic games with various linked adventures with years between adventure, it is present aplenty and then you have different variations in which players might not want to do what you want them to do because of their agency....

Strange again how my arguments can be handwaved but yours can't. If anything, your arguments are even more shaker than mine. At least I have numerous examples in my area that gives me the firm impression (because using certainty would simply be not true, there are a few that do not have this problem) that what I said is real and not a fantasy of mine. Out of the bat, it maybe around 60 or so DMs which have asked me these questions. Anecdotal? Maybe. But the numbers are sufficient for me to have thought about it and reached these conclusions.

And do you know what? Based on the feedback I received from those that cared enough to give some, my advice did help a lot. If there were no problems as you claim, my advice would not have helped at all. You may dismiss my argument all you want, so far, the facts only reinforce my position. Not for you, I presume as much, but so far your own arguments are as shaky to me as mine are to you. At least, I know that advice did help. Can you say the same?

 

[overgeeked]

Been thinking about this for awhile. I think the fundamental change has been that it's gone from players wanting to "overcome" the consequences they create to more and more players thinking that consequences are bad game design and they should be free snowflakes and do whatever they want. the biggest sign of that I think are the number of GM shouldn't rule on anything it should all be in the rules threads. It's odd how many players seem to want to control the game they asked a GM to run.

Weirdly that how dare the gm abuse their players mindset gets paired alongside "rulings not rules" & "fix it yourself" or goes full circle back to "talk tobeg the players"

While I generally agree with this, I think it's a bit more nuanced than that. It seems to be more about a thoroughly curated experience rather than being completely free from consequences. A lot of modern players seem to think that they get to decide not only what their characters do (of course they do, that's the fun of being a player), but, more importantly, what happens to their characters (of course they don't, that's literally the DM's job). You see it in some of the free-form rules people use. Basically, the player must consent before anything bad can happen to their character. I get why that would be necessary in a free-form, GM-less game. Prevents all kinds of shenanigans and abuses. But in a game with a GM? Nah. It just drags things back to cops-and-robbers. "I shot you!" "No you didn't!"

 

[nevin]

I just pointed out the broad brush of how it seems to have changed. I'm sure not all games are that way. And from the big picture view no matter how much I think I know I've only seen a small sample and suffer from perception bias like everyone else.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I strongly encourage you to read about the artificer in 5ed. It will be enlightening I assure you. If you read it already. Do a second read, you missed a few things.

I have. Perhaps you'd like to point out which parts you think are particularly troublesome instead of encouraging me to guess which ones they are?

Downtime can also be in the hands of the players. It depends entirely on the type of game you do. In quests such as OotA, RotFM downtime is scarce but in episodic games with various linked adventures with years between adventure, it is present aplenty and then you have different variations in which players might not want to do what you want them to do because of their agency....

This seems to run entirely counter to the gist of the argument -- if downtime is in the hands of the player ONLY because of the type of game the GM is running... how is this not under the GM's control, again?

Strange again how my arguments can be handwaved but yours can't. If anything, your arguments are even more shaker than mine. At least I have numerous examples in my area that gives me the firm impression (because using certainty would simply be not true, there are a few that do not have this problem) that what I said is real and not a fantasy of mine. Out of the bat, it maybe around 60 or so DMs which have asked me these questions. Anecdotal? Maybe. But the numbers are sufficient for me to have thought about it and reached these conclusions.

That's just it, I haven't handwaved your arguments. I've addressed them with clear reasons I don't think they hold water. That's the opposite of handwaving. Meanwhile, just saying 'handwave' in response to those arguments I made is actually handwaving them away. It's odd that I'm being accused of handwaving by vigorous handwaving! I'm humored, really.

And do you know what? Based on the feedback I received from those that cared enough to give some, my advice did help a lot. If there were no problems as you claim, my advice would not have helped at all. You may dismiss my argument all you want, so far, the facts only reinforce my position. Not for you, I presume as much, but so far your own arguments are as shaky to me as mine are to you. At least, I know that advice did help. Can you say the same?

Okay, great, I'm glad your advice helped people. I've given advice in different directions and it's helped people as well. People are gonna do what they're gonna do. I have absolutely no objections to you saying that your style of play is such that you find it would be easier if you had control over x y and z, and that you have no intention of changing your approach otherwise. That's fine, you can 100% do that and even advocate for that. My argument hasn't been against this, but against the blanket declarations that you're making about how the GM is impoverished in control over the game in 5e from 3e. That's a staggering claim to me.