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

[Micah Sweet]

I've had my fair share of PC deaths, but I found that I cared more when I saw the same PC through a campaign from inception to ending. It mattered more to me. I often found that replacement PCs that came in later in a campaign had weak ties to everything; they weren't there when the bad guy betrayed the party, or when they all escaped the King's dungeon and were wanted by the law. They kinda just showed up and said "Oh, Evil Wizard Guy is evil? I guess we should stop them." and that was the attachment they had to the campaign.

That said, I don't necessarily think "this one time at band camp" is a wrong way to play, but for me it's unsatisfying. If all my character is was just a collection of anecdotes, it feels thin. I want him to be a hero or a protagonist, to matter to the story and not be instantly replaceable with Elf#762.

But, in order to maximize your chances of living long enough to be the hero, you have to severely compromise physical challenge. That's always been a bridge too far for me, and makes the continuous push to reduce it make the game less gun for me. I'd live to find a happy medium, but vanilla 5e is not it.

 

[Remathilis]

But, in order to maximize your chances of living long enough to be the hero, you have to severely compromise physical challenge. That's always been a bridge too far for me, and makes the continuous push to reduce it make the game less gun for me. I'd live to find a happy medium, but vanilla 5e is not it.

I never found my options were only just "death or glory", as there were plenty of ways to survive and lose (being captured, retreating and being unable to complete an objective, even ye-olde resurrection spell). I don't find any problems currently with being able to challenge my PCs in 5e, assuming my goal isn't a TPK.

 

[overgeeked]

See, I always liked "this one time at band camp". I was raised on 1e for playstyle, and engaged with 2e mainly through reading about the awesome campaign settings. I never got hung up on any character (I enjoyed them while they were there but always had plenty of character ideas), so if they died it was never a big deal. It actually makes it difficult for me to understand being strongly attached to one character, which is probably why modern D&D's heavy push towards character longevity baffles me. It doesn't take that long to make a PC in 5e.

And 5E PCs simply aren’t interesting enough, mechanically, to be saddled with them for years. Gimme a simple but interesting character who’s on a timer over infinite time with a boring but complex character any day.

 

[overgeeked]

But, in order to maximize your chances of living long enough to be the hero, you have to severely compromise physical challenge. That's always been a bridge too far for me, and makes the continuous push to reduce it make the game less gun for me. I'd live to find a happy medium, but vanilla 5e is not it.

It’s weird how “play smarter” and “outwit your enemies” and “leverage every advantage” isn’t the order of the day rather it’s “make the game easier.”

My main group has played 5E since the playtest. Monthly, except for covid shenanigans. In that entire time we have lost exactly two characters. And both were due to the player being done with the character and forcing them to die by making dumb choices. And the player asking the rest of the group to just let the character die.

 

[Lanefan]

Even ensembles needs, you know, the ensemble. Rare is the successful show with a constantly rotating class, because you still need someone to matter to the audience.

Pick any sports team and there's my example: it's the team's results that matter*, not the individual players or coaches or whoever. Players etc. come and go but the team endures, and people cheer for it.

* - the exception, of course, is if one has a personal friend or family member on a team; in which case you're more likely to follow that person's career regardless of team.

 

[Hussar]

Pick any sports team and there's my example: it's the team's results that matter*, not the individual players or coaches or whoever. Players etc. come and go but the team endures, and people cheer for it.

* - the exception, of course, is if one has a personal friend or family member on a team; in which case you're more likely to follow that person's career regardless of team.

One of the things that has always surprised me here in Japan is how often they follow players rather than teams. Particularly Japanese players who've gone to the States to play. You'll see regular updates about this or that player, regardless of whatever team he's playing for. I keep hoping the Jays will pick up a Japanese player so I can see Jays games on TV once in a while.

 

[Lanefan]

But that only goes as far as telling war stories. People wanted more sophisticated storytelling. They wanted reoccurring villains, twists and betrayals, foreshadowing and flashbacks. Stuff that makes most fiction engaging.

All of the bolded* can happen just as well at the party level as at the individual PC level, only with the added benefit of every one being somewhat-equally engaged.

* - though flashbacks don't work for me AT ALL in an RPG; time only goes one way.

AD&D storytelling works the same way your buddy tells you about his wild weekend in Mexico, it might be exciting, hilarious and even a bit suspenseful, but it's just an anecdote, a recap of events that transpired without past or future. There is no structure, no arching narrative, no connective tissue beyond "'these are the events that happened to these characters without greater rhyme or reason."

Yet the moment a DM tries to overlay some sort of structure or long-term narrative the cries of "railroad!" ring through these halls.

But to me that's a lot of the point - even though the DM might try to overlay something onto it all, what matters is the day-to-day things the party gets up to; and whatever story that happens to emerge from that.

It's not surprising that a game which sold itself on the promise of exploring your own fiction attracted so many people who wanted it to resemble the fiction that inspired them. The idea that "the story is what the PC did in the game" is fine, but for more than a few players, it was unsatisfying. They wanted "Once Upon a Time...", Not "So this one time at band camp..."

"Once upon a time" implies you're telling the story in hindsight, as if it's all already taken place. In D&D you're usually telling a story that hadn't happened yet, as it happens, if intentionally trying to tell a story at all. It's a big difference.

 

[Lanefan]

One of the things that has always surprised me here in Japan is how often they follow players rather than teams. Particularly Japanese players who've gone to the States to play.

I can see that, as a cultural thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

We were talking about gold always having a mechanical need until 5e. Experience is something that split from gold during/after 1e to allow gold to have more nuanced economic functions such as the involvement it had with magic items in 2e 3.x & 4e... (maybe even the d&dNext testrulesets) until 5e.

I repeat again, I was not talking about 3e and after; when I make a qualification like "half the length of the hobby" it is not intended to just take up space. And as I said, outside of minor items, come back when you can find two people outside your group who found they could buy magic items in any functional way in 2e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It’s weird how “play smarter” and “outwit your enemies” and “leverage every advantage” isn’t the order of the day rather it’s “make the game easier.”

What a shocker that "git gud" is preceived as just as much of a jerk attitude that people don't automatically want to deal with in RPGs where its even less justified than it is in computer games.