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

[Vaalingrade]

I have actually heard someone my age complain about 'kids these days' not being willing to hunt their own food... as we ate at a steakhouse. Any excuse.

 

[Thomas Shey]

But, probably pretty unlikely. It's unlikely that you're going to need to get into the mayor's house more than once, if even that.

I'm not arguing against that; I'm just noting that campaigns centered around a single city have not always been that unusual, so if having someone who knows the ins and outs of the mayor's house is useful, the idea it'll never matter doesn't seem as likely as you (or whoever I responded to) was painting it.

 

[Umbran]

Your complaint is the answer to your own conundrum. If the reason why people won't connect to your world is that when they do, that connection is used to punish them with "drama" then hell no I'm not connecting with your world. Not everyone wants to deal with that kind of drama, and if the response to "btw, I have a younger sister" is "great, now she's been kidnapped and will be sacrificed by cultists", then my next character is far less likely to have siblings.

Yeah, some GMs miss a basic design philosophy - if a connection has a downside, it must have a material upside. It is important to remember that "the benefits of connection" must actually appear in game for the player to consider them benefits.

 

[fba827]

( I’ve not read this whole thread, just the original post, apologies if this is already covered or if topic has already drifted to something else)

two changes since ‘the old days’ that I see….
… game rule options being presented in player-aimed books. Giving players more direct hand in deciding/suggesting/(and occasionally assuming) what sorts of optional rules the dm will use in the game

…. Rewards being listed in player-aimed books. No longer are all magic items ( or rewards) just in dmg / dm-aimed books, but some has spread to player books too ( or online compendiums that players can easily browse and pick from/petition the dm for). While I can respect the ease of play that adds, I find it changes the mystery behind items/rewards

 

[pemerton]

Of course, my example isn't based on a total sandbox style game either

That would seem to be an understatement!

My goal would be that if the adventure funnels all choices to B, adding a family member that gets to B is fine, but adding one that avoids B is not. Ymmv.

Why can't the GM just have B show up?

 

[pemerton]

two changes since ‘the old days’ that I see….
… game rule options being presented in player-aimed books. Giving players more direct hand in deciding/suggesting/(and occasionally assuming) what sorts of optional rules the dm will use in the game

Gygax's PHB had both bards and psionics as options presented in the Appendices.

Off the top of my head, I can think of three rules presented as optional in his DMG: how to treat the string of 20s on the to-hit charts; how to handle the fighter to-hit chart (ie +1 per level rather than +2 per two levels as an option); and how to handle discovery of secret doors.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That would seem to be an understatement!

Why can't the GM just have B show up?

Because getting to B is part of the adventure. Why can't the bad guy give up? Why can't the zombies drop dead on their own. Why can't the captured prince rescue himself?

 

[pemerton]

Because getting to B is part of the adventure.

This is just bizarre. Unless by "the adventure" we mean "GM's story time".

To recap: @Remathilis posits that "the adventure" requires the PCs to meet a sage who reads Draconic. He then expresses concern that, if the players posit a family member who can help them out (eg read the Draconic), they will bypass or circumvent the plot of the adventure: "if the adventure funnels all choices to B, adding a family member that gets to B is fine, but adding one that avoids B is not."

I then ask, Well why can't the GM just have B show up? I mean, it's the GM who has decided that this sage who speaks Draconic matters, and the GM has a lot of control over the background setting and fiction. So if the GM thinks the sage is so important, why not just narrate a scene in which the sage is there? I mean, this could be anything from the sage visiting the PCs' family member for dinner (Gandalf seems to make a habit of that), to meeting the sage on the road, to having the sage take shelter from a storm at the same inn as the PCs, to . . . etc..

It's not like having B shows up gives the players an "unfair" advantage - the adventure was funnelling all choices to B!, so the players were always meant to find B. It's not like having B show up will mean everyone has to call the session quits and go home - D&D is an open-ended game, and frankly if B is a sage who speaks Draconic I'm 99% sure the GM has some more material in mind that will follow from the encounter with the sage, which sounds like a transition scene rather than the ultimate climax.

It seems to me that, in this thread, the reasons against having a PCs' relative help the PCs get somewhere, or learn something, or gain an audience, always come back to because the GM's preconception was that the help, or information, or audience, would be achieved in this other fashion that I already decided on. If that's the sort of game the GM is running - setting as puzzle-box - then why would the players bother with PC connections to it? Because those connections will never be relevant, unless the GM happens to incorporate them into their puzzle.

 

[Hussar]

My first exposure to the idea of PC backgrounds was the original OA, which encouraged PCs with families, martial arts mentors, etc, and presented a coherent social and metaphysical situation in which the PCs and both their human and non-human antagonists have a place.

It changed my play dramatically. And I remember in the early 90s - using Rolemaster, not a system with any bells-or-whistles to support background NPCs - that one PC had a family and a mentor, one had a house with a servant (and rent problems), one lived in his manor outside of town which was sometimes a base for the others, etc.

Over the decades I'd like to think I've got more sophisticated about this stuff as a GM. I've never followed your "keep their fingers out" philosophy, but nor have I ever been tempted to scorch the players' earth. And I don't regard any of it as rocket science.

That got me thinking. Where was the first game I played that had that sort of backgrounds. I really can't remember. We did do a lot of different games back in the day. Granted, the exact rules are way out of my memory now, but, I'm pretty sure the James Bond 007 game had something like that. I remember it being the first game that I ever saw (and this was back in the early 80's) that had action points (Bond Points if IIIRC, but, don't quote me on that) that allowed the players to change the scene so that you could succeed in spectacular Bond fashion.

It really was an eye opening moment for me.

Yeah, some GMs miss a basic design philosophy - if a connection has a downside, it must have a material upside. It is important to remember that "the benefits of connection" must actually appear in game for the player to consider them benefits.

I'd take it even a step further than that. Most DM's don't understand odds. The reward has to be GREATER than the risk or it simply isn't worth it. If you (as a simple example) double damage but double the risk of failure, then, well, why would I bother? There's no upside to that. If you want to double the chance of failure, you need to triple the reward.

The shift in D&D to a standard 66% success rate baseline has been a huge change in the game.

Because getting to B is part of the adventure. Why can't the bad guy give up? Why can't the zombies drop dead on their own. Why can't the captured prince rescue himself?

But, here's the part about listening to your players. Ok, getting to B is part of the adventure - the players are supposed to overcome it. Well, the player has brought something interesting and creative to the game and resolved the challenge. Fantastic. But, so many DM's are so fixated on making the players "earn" the success that they completely discourage this type of engagement with the setting. Player must never have any authorial control. Which in turn means that since the player has absolutely no authorial input into the setting, they become passive consumers. Well, if i'm a passive consumer, why would I bother actually engaging with the setting beyond the bare minimum? From that perspective, it is far more rewarding to simply react to whatever the DM places in front of the player and deal with that since no other solutions are possible.

And thus we get these passive players who want the DM to roll up the plot wagon and spoon feed them scene after scene while they passively shovel down whatever the DM puts in front of them. I've seen FAR too many players like that to think that this isn't something that DM's have trained into their players.

 

[Cadence]

I wonder if one side is expecting the players to pull out the "magic background card" for almost any challenge, and the other side expects the players to be reasonable about it and it will maybe happen once or twice ever for each player.

I wonder if the skeptical/non-skeptical sides here are the opposite of who would be skeptical about the DMs abusing something.