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

[Tonguez]

I’d agree that DND is now more renaissance/, early modern Era than medieval and the old s&s is entirely shifted to niche market.

Also things moved out of dungeon raiding

5e is definitely more Anime influenced Too

 

[Vaalingrade]

It is honestly weird how commoners live a life of serf-like suck-ulence despite there apparently not being serfs or a functional feudal system in the game that lies about being medieval.

 

[Krachek]

DnD has evolve as the people get more and more involve into fantasy and gaming experience. It’s hard to make the count of how many movie or tv show, and how many games of different type have been played by a young adult who start DnD in 2022.
Gaming and entertaining experience are fun hobby now, and so DnD has to be a fun experience. So having hard time solving an obscure plot is not trending in 2022.
people want to show off, change identity, play a character that can be mean and cool at the same time. Making difficult choice or being a perpetual underdog is no more trending in 2022.

 

[RuinousPowers]

I miss players having to think to solve problems. I miss that leading to gamers having wild problem solving skills. Now players will press the buttons on their character sheet until it works or give up. I had one of my West Marches groups decide to just sit and wait in a location for a week, waiting for the plot to come to them rather than trying anything more involved than “I roll to search”. It was literally one roll followed by “welp, I’m out of ideas…let’s just wait.”

It's up to the DM to teach players that it's their "job" to interact with the environment, and it's the DM's job to call for rolls based on those interactions. If the DM allows players to say, "I open the door and make a search roll, what do I find in the room?" then it's the DM's fault for allowing that to be considered the player's "action".

Not like this is anything new- these kind of discussions started the minute there was a "detect trap" skill.

 

[overgeeked]

It's up to the DM to teach players that it's their "job" to interact with the environment, and it's the DM's job to call for rolls based on those interactions. If the DM allows players to say, "I open the door and make a search roll, what do I find in the room?" then it's the DM's fault for allowing that to be considered the player's "action".

There's only so much one DM at one table can do against the tsunami. As I said above, I've had players literally stop and do nothing rather than interact with the environment beyond making a roll. Nothing I said or did or asked got them to budge in inch. If the players aren't willing to at least try...that's that.

Not like this is anything new- these kind of discussions started the minute there was a "detect trap" skill.

Sure. But there was a time when it was the norm rather than the exception. I miss that.

 

[SkidAce]

I have my own house rule where any noncombatant NPCs just 'get' 1-3HD and what ever modifires I want to skills and checks... including any/all special features.

I have (in an upcoming session PCs have not meet them yet) a pair of gamblers who have +9 to dice and +12 to cards on one and oppisite +12 on dice +9 on cards on other... and BOTH have skill mastery so they count anything 1-9 as a 10... but they have 11's and 12's in all stats and 2d8Hd... one of them has the lucky feat.

two of the 5 characters like to gamble and will find playing them HARD... but if they end up wanting to just beat them up and take back the winnings that would be Super Easy, barely an inconvenience.

This is the way.

(I like this new phrase)

 

[beancounter]

Commoners can't afford potions. So why does every single gown have a shopkeeper who sells potions these days?

That really depends of the DM. In the game I play in, it's necessary to find a merchant who has potions (not ever merchant has them).

Further, they have a limited supply. Just because you have 5000gp doesn't mean you can pick up 100 healing potions.

In addition, magic items can't be purchased, you have to find them.

It's the DM's job to avoid making the world a "Monty Haul" campaign.

 

[Jer]

It's not about needing items to increase power.

It's that the setting assumes adventurers as an occupation worth creating market for.

Commoners can't afford potions. So why does every single gown have a shopkeeper who sells potions these days?

One of the hidden assumptions of the game setting since 2nd edition at least has been that there are professional adventurers who go around professionally adventuring. IIRC the Forgotten Realms grey box (1e) even had the idea that adventuring companies would register their names and members and I think a symbol as part of the setting.

In all honesty though if you start picking at the equipment lists you'll find all sorts of examples beyond just healing potions. I mean, why should full plate ever be available? Or chain mail in various sizes from halflings through goliaths? Seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't be in stock and you'd need to have hand crafted - but of course that would either slow the game down or create weeks of "downtime" that would need to be glossed over as "well you wait two weeks until Dorfin's new full plate has been finished and the time passes without incident" or do other forms of handwaving so lots of folks just don't tend to bother. (Also just glancing through the equipment list if you assume it's all available it assumes that merchants will have 1000gp spyglasses lying around to sell and frankly that seems even less likely without an adventuring economy than the potions of healing to me).

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Though anime was a thing when I was a kid and teenager (anyone else remember paying $20-30 for a VHS tape with 2-3 episodes of a series on it?), it definitely seems more prominent with younger D&D players.

I think the dungeonpunk aesthetic of 3e represented a huge influx of anime/manga influence into D&D art, and yes, it's something that's continued beyond the limited shelf-life of dungeonpunk.

The Monthly and Weekly Shonen, Shojo, and Seinen mangas and their anime adaptions really affected the internal look of D&D in the minds of many under 40 due to the romanticism of D&D style fantasy in Japan and the overall popularity of samurai. It also influenced the desire for high power many see in warriors and mages.

If you look at the drawing of D&D characters by players today, many look straight out of a manga or manhua.

I'm going to disagree with the idea that long backstories for characters is some new development. When I ran 1e back in the 80s, my players would create genealogies connecting their characters, their ancestry. I have zines from the 80s and 90s that have whole sections dedicated to character backgrounds. Somewhere I have the two-page backstory a player handed to me for their first level halfling in 2e.

Heck, jumping (space)ship to Traveller, arguably it's most notable feature is the background-generation minigame of character creation.

 

[RuinousPowers]

There's only so much one DM at one table can do against the tsunami. As I said above, I've had players literally stop and do nothing rather than interact with the environment beyond making a roll. Nothing I said or did or asked got them to budge in inch. If the players aren't willing to at least try...that's that.

Sure. But there was a time when it was the norm rather than the exception. I miss that.

You don't have to change every table, just yours. But, you do have to work against expectations.