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

[Fifth Element]

AD&D's method one for generating ability scores was 4d6d1 in any order.

And the 1E DMG specifically recommended against using 3d6 in order.

 

[Helldritch]

There’s a lot of odd hidden things in old-school D&D that even the old timers missed. Check out this video for a summary.

I know this video. And it is still how I play with my two regular groups and my Friday Night dungeon. What one group do will have an impact on what the other group will be able to do and vice versa. When I was in my teens, my 12 groups could be interchangeable with some players having a character in many groups. They could play an hireling, a henchman or whatever. But it was never an excuse to have a player being absent for days because his character was wounded. In training, sure, but hirelings and henchmen were there exactly for that.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Quite a few, thanks.

LOL. The use of buzzwords or reading some boxed text in no way makes a game resemble a story.

So, how many novels, short stories, screenplays, or stage plays have you written?

There are people who, when faced with information contrary to their opinions, respond with introspection and adjust based on the new perspective to further conversation.

There are also those that do not.

Act and Scene organization and cut-away scenes distributing important plot information are time honored storytelling tools

 

[tetrasodium]

It's worth noting that the pc's are just lucky & not superhuman reasoning that's been going on results in

Spoiler: this type of superhuman

In some ways that's even worse than the deadpool/wolverine regeneration & superman level toughness granted by modern d&d's fast & trivial recovery.

Gold didn't have any particular meaning in half the lifespan of the game; in OD&D I saw tons of characters buying random things with it because they had nothing to do with it that was actually relevant to the game in-play. It wasn't like in the early days most GMs would let you buy magic items beyond the occasional potion or scroll anyway.

• In 1e I believe gold was also how players leveled up and they knew it, getting gold back out of the dungeon was a big undertaking.
• In 2e it was used to buy things that had prices (like dmg120 "readily available 200gp" potion of healing or dmg116-120 guidance on designing & crafting/commissioning magic items, level based living expenses, etc.
• In 3.x it was super important and directly consumed by crating & even had a wealth by level chart where players were expected to have a certain amount of gold or equivalent at each level in order to a character has the expected amount of power from magic items at a given level by monster math.
• In 4e it was consumed by rituals among other things (crafting?) & then there was residuum valued in gp.
• It seems like only 5e meets your standard of gold not having any particular meaning.

My point about eminent domain was that if you essentially had to use magic item availability to steer people, there was nothing "soft" about that; it was flat out saying "the only thing besides levels that matter to you in this game are entirely in my control and you'll either do what I want or not get them." That's not "soft".

Spoiler: Eminent domain

"refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use".

It has nothing to do with the topic of the gm choosing to provide more needed gold for doing one thing (ie "quest") or less needed gold for another. Likewise it is not relevant to a GM choosing to make or indicate that one "dungeon" is likely to be more or less rewarding than another. When gold has value that the players deeply desire for their characters the gm has the ability to provide (dis)incentives for players voluntarily choosing to do one thing over another.

Under a system like that the player is not forbidden from going down a path the gm has tried to discourage with reduced gold, they are still welcome to, it's just that in doing so the player needs to put in more effort than showing up & killing things as a wall flower week after week. That effort might be through working with the GM between games to develop & uncover interesting plots & events that generate the needed gold at the table when explored later within the adventure space that was previously beyond the map's edge. Alternately it might involve putting in more effort to finding ways to accomplish that needed gold like starting a business & problemsolving (ie murderhobo with roots) adventurer solutions for it in. Both of those need more from the player who wanted to drive off the map in order for them to happen in a way that everyone can enjoy participating in. In modern d&d the players don't really need gold for anything & the gm does not have that soft power over the flow of gold to influence player choice & participation so a player driving the game off the map can then immediately sit back as a spectator passively demanding the gm moisturize them& complain that it fell apart when they didn't bother because they don't actually need anything but something to kill.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So, how many novels, short stories, screenplays, or stage plays have you written?

Fourteen.

What do I win?

 

[Remathilis]

At least in some incarnation, that 5 points could have delivered poison. That's why I maintain all hit point damage must involve some injury, even if its minuscule.

As a counter to that: what injury does psychic damage do?

 

[Panzeh]

It's worth noting that the pc's are just lucky & not superhuman reasoning that's been going on results in

Spoiler: this type of superhuman

In some ways that's even worse than the deadpool/wolverine regeneration & superman level toughness granted by modern d&d's fast & trivial recovery.

• In 1e I believe gold was also how players leveled up and they knew it, getting gold back out of the dungeon was a big undertaking.
• In 2e it was used to buy things that had prices (like dmg120 "readily available 200gp" potion of healing or dmg116-120 guidance on designing & crafting/commissioning magic items, level based living expenses, etc.
• In 3.x it was super important and directly consumed by crating & even had a wealth by level chart where players were expected to have a certain amount of gold or equivalent at each level in order to a character has the expected amount of power from magic items at a given level by monster math.
• In 4e it was consumed by rituals among other things (crafting?) & then there was residuum valued in gp.
• It seems like only 5e meets your standard of gold not having any particular meaning.

Spoiler: Eminent domain

"refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into public use".

It has nothing to do with the topic of the gm choosing to provide more needed gold for doing one thing (ie "quest") or less needed gold for another. Likewise it is not relevant to a GM choosing to make or indicate that one "dungeon" is likely to be more or less rewarding than another. When gold has value that the players deeply desire for their characters the gm has the ability to provide (dis)incentives for players voluntarily choosing to do one thing over another.

Under a system like that the player is not forbidden from going down a path the gm has tried to discourage with reduced gold, they are still welcome to, it's just that in doing so the player needs to put in more effort than showing up & killing things as a wall flower week after week. That effort might be through working with the GM between games to develop & uncover interesting plots & events that generate the needed gold at the table when explored later within the adventure space that was previously beyond the map's edge. Alternately it might involve putting in more effort to finding ways to accomplish that needed gold like starting a business & problemsolving (ie murderhobo with roots) adventurer solutions for it in. Both of those need more from the player who wanted to drive off the map in order for them to happen in a way that everyone can enjoy participating in. In modern d&d the players don't really need gold for anything & the gm does not have that soft power over the flow of gold to influence player choice & participation so a player driving the game off the map can then immediately sit back as a spectator passively demanding the gm moisturize them& complain that it fell apart when they didn't bother because they don't actually need anything but something to kill.

My experience with that is basically it turns the game into a game about a bunch of people trying for the next score, which is valid, though not typically something i associate with fantasy fiction. I've played games that were very much transparently fantasy characters trying to get a quick buck, and i've played the old games, but putting so much of the game around it doesn't really work. That being said, I do think mixing high-dollar rewards and not a lot of stuff to use it on is kinda weird. Having there be a lot of gold under the ground either as gold or as loot one sale removed strikes me as a somewhat strange assumption to demand for something that is supposed to be broadly fantasy. I think i prefer to keep the wealth light, and that artifacts found in weird tombs have more symbolic than monetary value, letting the characters gain experience just by being there for the sessions and going through the adventure.

It's a lot of words, I guess, to say, i find xp = gold to be wrong for the kind of fantasy i'm looking for. It works well for the board-game style d&d that can accomodate huge tables and where character isn't very important, or even for a more character-based game about outright thieves and brigands, but I think for the kind of stuff I play and run, it's just not what i'm looking for.

 

[Fifth Element]

But it was never an excuse to have a player being absent for days because his character was wounded. In training, sure, but hirelings and henchmen were there exactly for that.

The point wasn`t that a player would be absent, it was that a character would be absent. So the player would play another character while the first was healing.

 

[Helldritch]

The point wasn`t that a player would be absent, it was that a character would be absent. So the player would play another character while the first was healing.

Same thing for us at that time. And again, with clerics, no need to be away for days. Gold was exactly saved for that purpose.

 

[theCourier]

I'm the "HP are all meat" (in my games) guy