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

[overgeeked]

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.

My theory is it’s the reverse of the cultural norm. In Japan, it’s all teamwork, all the time and black companies and working yourself to death for the company. So following individual baseball players or rikishi is a big deal. But in the US where it’s absurdly rugged individualism, following teams is more the standard.

 

[pemerton]

Basically your PCs only were supposed to heal 7 HP a real week. So unless you had a NPC cleric or the PC cleric was nice, you usually couldn't use your PCs every week.

I don't think this is quite right.

As you quoted, Gygax in his DMG (p 37) says that "it is best to use 1 actual day = 1 game day when no play is happening". But if play is happening, then time can pass more quickly than that, as per the example on pp 37-38 of the PC and henchman who go on a 25 day trek - "that activity [is] not unusual for a single session of play" ( p 37).

The example of the 3 players being deprived of the treasure by the two newbies only arises because Gygax is taking it for granted that the same GM is running multiple sessions for multiple player-groups in the same campaign ("The remaining three 'old boys' decide they will not go with the newcomers" ie they don't play until four actual days later; and see also the discussion at the bottom of p 37 and top of p 38). But if - as I think was more typical even in 1978 - the GM is only running sessions for a single relatively cohesive group, then there is no obstacle to rapidly passing game days in a single session, and having PCs heal far more than 7 hp per real week.

 

[pemerton]

every edition of d&d other than 5e the gm was able to influence player behavior by offering more or less gold for one thing over another because gold was needed for something.

I don't think this is an accurate description of by-the-book 4e.

4e D&D awards XP on a "per encounter" basis, and awards gp and other treasure on a "parcels per level" basis. So as long as the players are participating in encounters and earning their XP, and hence their levels, they trigger the GM's job of placing treasure parcels. And with player-designed quests and player-authored "wish lists", the GM is not expected to be in sole control either of what the encounters are or of what the contents of the treasure parcels are.

So there is no expectation, in 4e, that the GM will influence player behaviour by the parcelling out of treasure (or of XP).

Experience is not a mechanical need in any meaningful way. Its just a counter for how to award experience, but no one cared about it for itself; it was just a way to tell how you got experience, and that can be done any number of ways, all of which is every much as within the GM's control.

(Of course its true of experience. You act like GMs cannot decide to give extra experience for doing a task an NPC gives them. It just doesn't directly connect with money, but so what?)

Again referring only to 4e D&D, I don't think what you say here conforms to the way the rules for XP and treasure are presented. What you describe here does seem, to me, to conform very closely to what 2nd ed AD&D presents. I don't know 3E or 5e well enough in this respect, but I wouldn't be surprised if it fits those versions also.

 

[tetrasodium]

Not sure what you're trying to prove by quote the Eberron Campaign Setting. Eberron was designed by WotC in 2004. Its decades removed from "old school" style. It's as modern as D&D can get. Those quotes are a perfect example of what the game is NOW than anything you can quote in Gygax's DMG. Even most of 2e's advice was for a DM to create a narrative that the PCs should follow to its conclusion rather than drop the PCs in a spot and let the story be the adventures and misadventures of what the PCs did that night. The DM was responsible for more than just creating a zone and letting the PCs muck around in it, they became the ones who crafted interesting plots and molding it to the PCs that the player's create.

So if you were trying to prove me wrong with Eberron, you actually proved me right. GG.

'00s,'10s,'20s, those are decades. You claimed the oversimplification of any meaningful consequence as has been discussed leading to a forced focus on shallow main character syndrome PCs rather than the party in 5E is what allows a particular type of more involved story telling but we're unaware that 3.x both allowed it without needing to focus on the story of specific PCs rather than the party as well as had actual printed material talking about those types of story elements as quoted.

It might make your position easier to convey by pretending that d&d went q1e>5e so you can point at the extreme edges of first edition, but all* of those editions in between were still largely about the party and had tools available to the gm to influence the player choices. Those tools and influence relied on the players having things they needed for mechanical reasons in each of those edition's, 5e characters need nothing but life support from the largely powerless cruise ship director gm resulting in shallow wish fulfillment Mary Sue "stories" that most of the table is almost guaranteed to not give a flip about by virtue of it not being their story or a story about the party they are part of..

I don't think this is an accurate description of by-the-book 4e.

4e D&D awards XP on a "per encounter" basis, and awards gp and other treasure on a "parcels per level" basis. So as long as the players are participating in encounters and earning their XP, and hence their levels, they trigger the GM's job of placing treasure parcels. And with player-designed quests and player-authored "wish lists", the GM is not expected to be in sole control either of what the encounters are or of what the contents of the treasure parcels are.

So there is no expectation, in 4e, that the GM will influence player behaviour by the parcelling out of treasure (or of XP).

Again referring only to 4e D&D, I don't think what you say here conforms to the way the rules for XP and treasure are presented. What you describe here does seem, to me, to conform very closely to what 2nd ed AD&D presents. I don't know 3E or 5e well enough in this respect, but I wouldn't be surprised if it fits those versions also.

Sure ok.
I don't deny my 4e knowledge is scant, I'm fairly certain it was needed for rituals & that residuum was measured in gp then (which I mentioned at some point). It may not have been as big of a need as 3.x or first edition, but it would be very difficult to have it as less need than in 5E where it has almost no mechanical need or function at all .4e's issues lead into the usual 4e quagmire I usually try to avoid stepping into.[/I]
*, with a possible partial exclusion for 4e being 4e

 

[Vaalingrade]

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.

You are appealing to the wrong dude if you're using sports analogies.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Mod Note:

I know it’s difficult to keep track of the changing linguistic landscape, so I’ll just note that “gipped/gyped” are loaded with RW negative baggage. ”Ripped off” is at least neutral.

 

[pemerton]

I don't deny my 4e knowledge is scant, I'm fairly certain it was needed for rituals & that residuum was measured in gp then (which I mentioned at some point). It may not have been as big of a need as 3.x or first edition, but it would be very difficult to have it as less need than in 5E where it has almost no mechanical need or function at all .

Treasure is useful in 4e, for buying magic items (at least in some settings), for residuum, etc.

My point is only that - by the books - the GM does not get to determine when and how the PCs acquire treasure. The GM is expected to provide parcels on a "per level" basis, with the sub-unit being "per encounter". And player-authored quests mean that the GM is not expected to use the promise of treasure parcels to shape player choices/behaviour. And if a particular table is ignoring player-authored quests, and are allowing the GM to lead the players through a particular set of encounters, there is no need for the promise of treasure to provide a type of indirect signpost. The GM just says "Here's the encounter!"

As @Hussar (I think it was?) said, you can make treasure much less important in 4e by using inherent level-based bonuses rather than magic item bonuses. If you do that, and you ignore player-authored quests, then I think 4e would look a lot like 5e as far as the role of "rewards" in play is concerned. And would look very different from Gygax's AD&D or B/X.

 

[Fifth Element]

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.”

It's weird how you can make a perspective seem bad just by the way you characterize it. Characterize it instead as "make the game less tedious", which is much closer to the perspective of the people whose perspective you're misrepresenting, and suddenly it's not so laughable.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Player-authored quests?

 

[overgeeked]

Player-authored quests?

Think milestone leveling in 5E only focused around the structure of a quest.

From 4E DMG, p103.

"Player-Designed Quests. You should allow and even encourage players to come up with their own quests that are tied to their individual goals or specific circumstances in the adventure. Evaluate the proposed quest and assign it a level. Remember to say yes as often as possible!"