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

[Helldritch]

It was probably the single most common question I saw back even in the OD&D days. Player/GM conflicts have been an issue since day one.

Really? Most questions I had in the 80's, 90's and 2000s were about rules, how to make good tournament adventures and surprisingly when to stop a campaign as many had trouble playing in the high levels. Yes I had some questions about player management but not to the degree I see these days.

And yes conflicts have been there since the beginning but usually, it was about a ruling or a particular situation that often had nothing to do with the game itself but had everything to do about how to manage the table.

 

[Hussar]

Really? Most questions I had in the 80's, 90's and 2000s were about rules, how to make good tournament adventures and surprisingly when to stop a campaign as many had trouble playing in the high levels. Yes I had some questions about player management but not to the degree I see these days.

And yes conflicts have been there since the beginning but usually, it was about a ruling or a particular situation that often had nothing to do with the game itself but had everything to do about how to manage the table.

I think probably the easiest example is just diving back into En World’s threads. You’ll see multiple Agony Aunt style questions just about every single week. Certainly every month.

One thing I haven’t noticed on the boards is any sort of increase in those kinds of threads.

 

[Helldritch]

I think probably the easiest example is just diving back into En World’s threads. You’ll see multiple Agony Aunt style questions just about every single week. Certainly every month.

One thing I haven’t noticed on the boards is any sort of increase in those kinds of threads.

And in these threads, multiple DMs share their concerns for the same problems.
And as much as I love Enworld, Enworld is just the tip of an iceberg that the gaming community is.
I see the same questions in other forums, both in French and English. And I remember the forum of WotC. These questions were pretty rare compared to what we have now. Something changed in the community.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Really? Most questions I had in the 80's, 90's and 2000s were about rules, how to make good tournament adventures and surprisingly when to stop a campaign as many had trouble playing in the high levels. Yes I had some questions about player management but not to the degree I see these days.

Really. You just didn't seem them for whatever reason. If you were a senior DM and these came from newer players, the easy answer is they were embarrassed they couldn't handle it.

And yes conflicts have been there since the beginning but usually, it was about a ruling or a particular situation that often had nothing to do with the game itself but had everything to do about how to manage the table.

Again, saw plenty of both even in the 70's. Oh, it was often presented as complaints rather than questions, because this was back at the people of the God-DM period, but that was still clearly what it was.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And in these threads, multiple DMs share their concerns for the same problems.
And as much as I love Enworld, Enworld is just the tip of an iceberg that the gaming community is.
I see the same questions in other forums, both in French and English. And I remember the forum of WotC. These questions were pretty rare compared to what we have now. Something changed in the community.

Honestly, Helldritch, at this point its too easy to point at selection bias in any direction. I'll just repeat that my reaction is "Rare? Since when? I've seen this sort of thing for more than 40 years now, and they weren't rare." The best we can say is what seems like a sudden surge to you looks like business as usual to others.

 

[overgeeked]

And in these threads, multiple DMs share their concerns for the same problems.
And as much as I love Enworld, Enworld is just the tip of an iceberg that the gaming community is.
I see the same questions in other forums, both in French and English. And I remember the forum of WotC. These questions were pretty rare compared to what we have now. Something changed in the community.

At a guess, a huge influx of people with no access to and/or no desire to learn from decades of institutional memory.

 

[tetrasodium]

The internet is a much bigger place than it was seven++ years ago. Reddit was a niche nothing of a news aggregator site with a few extra features competing with usenet & fark for clicks compared to now where I expect quite a few don't recognize fark or usenet & reddit is well known enough to actually get mentioned in news along with various corporate marketing strategies. Discord didn't even exist till six years ago & now there are dozens of discord servers dedicated to various d&d/ttrpg communities with hundreds if not thousands of people on them. Looking only at enworld threads for advice on that subject ignores all the reddit folks who decide to ask on a d&d subreddit, all of the people who watch videos from people like Matt Coleville or Matt mercer & decide to ask in their discord for real time conversation about it, & so on

A GM asking about these problem players could look in the books to identify a tool that should help with a given problematic thing & would often ask how to responsibly or effectively utilize that tool as part of the discussion if subtle wasn't cutting it. Even when those questions were asked without mention of those kinds of tools it was still easy & common for people to point out those kinds of tools & explain how they could be deployed. Now however the go to solution is often something like "have you tried talking to your players" as if someone asking what are often total strangers on the internet had not first considered "talking to their players" or "discussing it with their players". It's such a go to solution that it's been suggested in this thread more than once in response to ways those missing & now optional tools change the game when advice on dealing with problems was not even being sought by simply noting the change.

It was always an option for a GM to talk to their players after all else failed at the table. The scope of subtle influences & carrots at a GM's disposal under "all else" to try has shrunk dramatically in 5e. That shrink could maybe have been excused if it were part of a paradigm shift made to make room for different tools like the kind of shared narrative game ones used to push & restrict player actions within the fiction that Mearls mentioned in 5 generations of d&d but that kind of shift didn't happen either. Without that shift to change the tools we can't talk about using those to effectively handle problematic behavior instead of questioning the impact of losing no longer present tools & not really optional "optional" tools.

What new tools does modern d&d bring to mitigate the loss & erosion of those other tools for managing problem elements that would even the scales to keep the frequency about the same?

 

[Remathilis]

Something changed in the community.

Mimics. Or doppelgangers. Definitely doppelgangers. Although we can't rule out the possibility of deep spawn.

 

[Helldritch]

Honestly, Helldritch, at this point its too easy to point at selection bias in any direction. I'll just repeat that my reaction is "Rare? Since when? I've seen this sort of thing for more than 40 years now, and they weren't rare." The best we can say is what seems like a sudden surge to you looks like business as usual to others.

I have seen shooting stars since my childhood. Does not meant that they are a common sight either. Hey! I will have the chance to see the Halley comet twice in my life time if I live long enough! Does not make it common sight either. Your argument can work both ways. I have the clear feeling that these complaints are way more common than they were. I took a small look at the old Dragon magazines, articles and letters about this were about once a year and many years, no articles or letters at all.

 

[Helldritch]

Mimics. Or doppelgangers. Definitely doppelgangers. Although we can't rule out the possibility of deep spawn.

Or a vampire is charming members of the community to make D&D fall...