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

[overgeeked]

Which lie? That it was a darn good combat simulator? That it was leaning way too much on the MMORPG style? Or that it was way better than some people are giving it credit for? No lies were said in this thread about 4ed. It was a good edition, but it was poorly received. Had it gone out 2 years earlier at the peak of MMORPGs, it might have been THE EDITION! Unfortunately, the style it tried to emulate was on the decline with the RPG community (and gamers as well). A steep decline. During these years, WoW had lost about half of its audience, Guild wars was down the drain and KotOR was still ok, but the decline was about to come. In fact, 4ed, by trying to emulate a bit of the MMORPG genre dig its own grave as the backlash was very big. Both against the MMORPG and the style itself. A shame it was.

It really is a shame. It’s a great game and does what it’s designed for fairly well. Trouble is, what it’s designed for isn’t what most D&D players wanted then or want now.

 

[Scribe]

5e is a modern ruleset trying to emulate the genre of D&D while being dressed up to appear to be a throwback to an earlier edition of D&D. This is why even though you are very technically correct that RAW XP is given out only for monsters, the game is actually better played with the "optional" rules on giving out XP for non-combat encounters and/or via milestone leveling. Those rules should be considered core for the kind of game they've built but are written as if they're optional for ... reasons.

Once you include those in the game it's pretty obvious what kind of game 5e is - it's a game that is designed to tell D&D-like stories. It's definitely not a resource management game, but it has the feel of a resource management game because D&D-like stories have resource management as a part of them. It's not a wilderness travel simulator but it has wilderness travel parts to it because wilderness travel are parts of D&D-like stories. Combat is a part of a D&D-like story so it has combat in it, but the combat game itself isn't the main focus of the game as it was in previous editions because the game is trying to capture all of what goes into a D&D-like story and that includes non-combat stuff that would be freestyled outside of the rules in an older edition but have more built-in support in the current edition. It's a modern game emulating the genre of D&D.

This is an interesting post. 5e as a D&D emulator, is not something I had considered before but I can see it.

 

[Jer]

I get what you’re saying…and you’re not saying the following…but what keeps popping into my head is that 5E is a meta-level parody of D&D. It’s not D&D, it’s a D&D emulator. Which is weird.

ETA: To be clear, I’m not saying 5E isn’t D&D. But that description really seems to imply it’s a D&D emulator rather than D&D itself.

To be fair, I think every edition of D&D since 3rd is basically a D&D emulator - devs are trying to get the "feel" of D&D while still using a modern ruleset that works as a modern rpg is expected to, has balance and can be easily extended and maintained. So I wouldn't call it a parody, but it is absolutely a different game than earlier editions and has its own playstyle and quirks and tends towards a more narrative style than previous editions did. I'm not 100% sure if that's on purpose or on accident - different devs have different ideas of what D&D is and so we end up with different games out of it. But whatever it is it's worked to make the game very popular at this moment in time.

 

[Willie the Duck]

Which all kind of leads to an interesting question. What playstyle is 5E designed for?
...
So 5E isn't a dungeoncrawl game. It's not an overland travel game. It's not a resource management game. You only get XP for killing monsters per RAW. The game rewards killing monsters...but fights are trivially easy per RAW...unless the DM puts a heavy thumb on the scale...so it's not a combat game. It's smooth and easy to pick up and use, mostly. But it doesn't push a single playstyle...while actively discouraging or making certain playstyles impossible or pointless.

Fights are only easy when there is no adjustment to the recharge frequency (adjustments which are laid out in the DMG). Yes, 5e is something of 'easy mode,' but only when people refuse to use the mechanisms laid out in plain sight to moderate that.

That, I think, is the fundamental difference in the game. This game, which is, at least to some degree, designed for a group of 10-year-olds to pick up and play with minimal supervisions, actually defaults to easy mode (adults always being able to dial up the difficulty, especially when the how-to is explicitly spelled out, or at least I thought they were).

That isn't a bad thing, it is brilliant, and I find it so odd that Mentzer and Moldvay/Cook went to such trouble to make versions of basic/classic that brought the games to a 10 year old's reading level, but didn't change the fundamental game precepts from oD&D pretty much at all. There were so many kids who I started gaming with who quit the game after the 15th character death before 3rd level; and so many other gaming groups who pretty much rebuilt the game from ground up because they realized that playing squad leader one bad save from an ignominious end wasn't the power fantasy they thought they were buying into.

 

[overgeeked]

All versions of D&D have parts and mini games. The character creation mini game. The combat mini game. The roleplay mini game. The resource management mini game. Etc. Different editions handle these things in different ways. And no edition is only about one of those mini games, even if that mini game takes up a lot of room in the books, sucks up all the air in conversations about that edition, and is seen as the star of the show by fans of that edition.

4E isn’t only about combat any more than any other edition. But combat was clearly the star of the show from the start. It has the most design dedicated to it. The combat-focused rules are more detailed and involved and have more word count than some other editions have word count. It clearly is the topic most discussed. It’s not a lie to point this out. It’s not a lie to note how divergent 4E combat is when compared to every other edition. Nor is pointing this out “edition warring”. 4E combat was, in and of itself, a complete game. So much so that they literally copy and pasted the rules for use with boardgames. Tactical skirmish miniatures boardgames. That is a fact. That also in no way implies that 4E the RPG was only that.

4E, like every other edition of D&D, is exactly what you make of it. Want to run entire campaigns without throwing a single die? It can be done with any edition. Want to get deep into immersion and character backstory? It can be done with any edition. Want to chuck all that and beer & pretzel your way through a glorious murder hobo game? It can be done with any edition. No edition is only about one part or mini game. But the differences between the editions, the actual rules used, vary. Which varies the feel of those editions and reinforces certain styles of play. If you don’t want to play a game that leans into the big draw of a given edition, why play that edition?

ETA: Sorry for breaking the first two rules of 4E club. Despite being a fan of it, it’s apparently topic forbidden.

 

[overgeeked]

Fights are only easy when there is no adjustment to the recharge frequency (adjustments which are laid out in the DMG). Yes, 5e is something of 'easy mode,' but only when people refuse to use the mechanisms laid out in plain sight to moderate that.

What version of the rest and healing variants do you use?

 

[Remathilis]

I get what you’re saying…and you’re not saying the following…but what keeps popping into my head is that 5E is a meta-level parody of D&D. It’s not D&D, it’s a D&D emulator. Which is weird.

ETA: To be clear, I’m not saying 5E isn’t D&D. But that description really seems to imply it’s a D&D emulator rather than D&D itself.

I think if you asked a thousand different people what "the soul of D&D is", put that all in a juicer, hit frappe, and pour it into a glass, what you would get is 5e. It tries to emulate the basic rules-lite flavor of BECMI with the expanded options of AD&D and the more streamlined feels of d20 without the spiralling math of those editions. It doesn't have a focus because it's too busy being D&D's Greatest Hits rather than an album in itself. It was safe and nostalgic. It's only after its newfound success that it has attempted to try anything beyond tried and tested material.

 

[Ovinomancer]

All versions of D&D have parts and mini games. The character creation mini game. The combat mini game. The roleplay mini game. The resource management mini game. Etc. Different editions handle these things in different ways. And no edition is only about one of those mini games, even if that mini game takes up a lot of room in the books, sucks up all the air in conversations about that edition, and is seen as the star of the show by fans of that edition.

4E isn’t only about combat any more than any other edition. But combat was clearly the star of the show from the start. It has the most design dedicated to it. The combat-focused rules are more detailed and involved and have more word count than some other editions have word count. It clearly is the topic most discussed. It’s not a lie to point this out. It’s not a lie to note how divergent 4E combat is when compared to every other edition. Nor is pointing this out “edition warring”. 4E combat was, in and of itself, a complete game. So much so that they literally copy and pasted the rules for use with boardgames. Tactical skirmish miniatures boardgames. That is a fact. That also in no way implies that 4E the RPG was only that.

4E, like every other edition of D&D, is exactly what you make of it. Want to run entire campaigns without throwing a single die? It can be done with any edition. Want to get deep into immersion and character backstory? It can be done with any edition. Want to chuck all that and beer & pretzel your way through a glorious murder hobo game? It can be done with any edition. No edition is only about one part or mini game. But the differences between the editions, the actual rules used, vary. Which varies the feel of those editions and reinforces certain styles of play. If you don’t want to play a game that leans into the big draw of a given edition, why play that edition?

ETA: Sorry for breaking the first two rules of 4E club. Despite being a fan of it, it’s apparently topic forbidden.

Yes, you're the victim for a hasty generalization. Every edition of D&D puts combat front and center. 4e wasn't different. But, at the same time, 4e provided more and more robust tools for the non combat game. It plussed up both sides. It provided tools for non combat that had never been seen before in D&D while keeping the rest. The claim you made that 4e was all combat except for skill challenge was wrong, at the generalization level and at the detail level.

As for 4e not being important or worth discussing: if we're going to do that, then please cease and desist discussion of all prior editions because they don't matter in the same way, either. Let's only ever consider current edition. Of course, that makes the OP meaningless, so maybe we can talk about prior editions and maybe it is worthwhile to discuss them fairly so we can talk to the OP question. Radical ideas, I know.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Thereby eliminating something that might be a threat again, by ignoring all the other things that are currently threats. There's an opportunity cost there.

Eliminating an enemy permanently is almost always a better move than inconveniencing one for what might not even be a full turn.

 

[eyeheartawk]

Eliminating an enemy permanently is almost always a better move than inconveniencing one for what might not even be a full turn.

"The best status effect is DEATH" ~ Aristotle, probably