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

[overgeeked]

And in that, we all must admit, it does an admirable job.

Weird. I never thought if DCC as a parody.

The bolded bit points right at something that's changed over the decades: in older times, players didn't necessarily go in with a pre-formed character concept before rolling any dice. Instead, they waited until a) they saw what the dice gave them to work with, then b) they saw in play the general tone of the party and-or campaign and came up with a character and-or personality that would either fit in (or not, sometimes), and then c) they saw what ongoing play did to that character and allowed/expected those experiences to shape its development.

Exactly so.

It's a big change in player-side philosophy: where it was once "I'll make the best of what the game gives me and see how it goes" it's now much more "I insist that the game give me what I want, right now". That the designers keep catering further to this with each passing edition is unfathomable, as doing so just encourages a type of thinking that IMO doesn't need any encouragement whatsoever.

Well, it sells. That’s all that matters.

 

[Lanefan]

Everyone who says 1e is less complex than 5e invariably means 1e (but ignoring a bunch of non optional rules nobody ever used but that are written in the book) is less complex than 5e.

Did you know that a spellcaster being attacked while casting a spell can't add their DEX bonus to AC or they will automatically lose the spell (DMG 65)? Of course not because nobody has probably ever used that rule.

That one's been in use here since day one, and always will be. A caster in mid-casting loses ALL non-passive defenses.

Bonus question: How do you adjudicate surprise when a party with a ranger encounters a band of duregar? It's in ADDICT. Hint: it requires converting fractions to percentiles.

Does the party also have a Monk?

 

[Yora]

Something I think people usually seem to underappreciate is how much D&D changed stylistically with 3.5e.
There's not much of it in the core rulebooks, which I think is why it's so easy to miss.They are still mostly the old material with mostly the same illustrations. But all the splatbooks for 3.5e are where the whole dungeonpunk thing really kicks in. Which was at the same time as Eberron was released. While they still did various Forgotten Realms books, the Eberron aesthetic became the D&D aesthetic. When you look at older 3rd Edition books, the difference in presentstion is quite striking, in my opinion. I've just been rereading Manual of the Planes, Monsters of Faerun, and Lords of Darkness for 3rd edition, and Unapproachable East and Lost Empires of Faerun for 3.5e, and there really is a noticable difference. Also when I think of Sword & Fist compared to Complete Warrior.
While there's a clear break between AD&D 2nd edition and D&D 3rd Edition, I think the change with 3.5e is just as significant.

 

[Lanefan]

Way back in the day when playing a computer RPG like Wizardry Bards Tale, or Pool of Radiance it was an expected annoyance to have to click "reroll" 17 million times until your primary stat was an 18. In modern games you just distribute points to get the character you want from creation to skip the 17 million reroll clicks.

It's not just a RPG tabletop change of expectation, but more of a gameplay expectation in general.

Actually your computer-RPG example is a backwards-continuation of the same expectation: you're insisting on the perfect character rather than accepting the challenge of making the best of what the game gives you.

 

[overgeeked]

So I picked a rule that is is in play frequently (spellcasters being attacked to interrupt a spell) and found in one of the base 3 books (DMG) that is obscure and rarely enforced.

It’s either, or. Hint: it’s not obscure nor rarely enforced.

Your defense is that the document is bunk because its a bunch of minutae pulled from the entire range of 1e product.

You cited a fan-made document (ADDICT) as your main argument that AD&D was wildly complex. I pointed out that besides listing the main three books it also pulls from modules, later monster books, supplements, Dragon articles, and 3rd party magazines. Saying that document is representative of AD&D is laughable, at best.

 

[Lanefan]

Weird. I never thought if DCC as a parody.

I saw DCCRPG as a parody - albeit a well-done one - the moment I first laid eyes on it. That said, there's some very good ideas in the system if one digs a bit; most notably the mechanic for expanding/contracting die sizes.

Hackmaster is another one that started out as a parody and then developed a life of its own.

 

[payn]

Actually your computer-RPG example is a backwards-continuation of the same expectation: you're insisting on the perfect character rather than accepting the challenge of making the best of what the game gives you.

The game would need to be able to handle disparate levels of stats well, and D&D never has.

 

[tetrasodium]

The game would need to be able to handle disparate levels of stats well, and D&D never has.

3.x included tools that allowed the gm to put their finger on correcting those as needed between players with the combination of +N weapons +2/+4/+6/+8 stat items more unique targeted items & critically body slots/slot affinities. ad&d handled it by making attributes not really matter much since it took like a 6 to get -1 & a 15 to get +1. 5e by comparison lacks all of those and has the +/-1 at 8 &12 of 3.x

 

[payn]

3.x included tools that allowed the gm to put their finger on correcting those as needed between players with the combination of +N weapons +2/+4/+6/+8 stat items more unique targeted items & critically body slots/slot affinities.

Everyone could get these items though, so its not really an equalizer.

ad&d handled it by making attributes not really matter much since it took like a 6 to get -1 & a 15 to get +1.

Sure, the gap is not much of a gulf in theory.

5e by comparison lacks all of those and has the +/-1 at 8 &12 of 3.x

The math is built around stat caps and expected starting places. It works well, if you ditch random rolling.

 

[billd91]

You cited a fan-made document (ADDICT) as your main argument that AD&D was wildly complex. I pointed out that besides listing the main three books it also pulls from modules, later monster books, supplements, Dragon articles, and 3rd party magazines. Saying that document is representative of AD&D is laughable, at best.

That might actually be persuasive if the vast majority of the citations weren't from the core 3 books of 1e AD&D. Moreover, the citations referring to other supplements and Dragon magazine are for specific names/stats of PCs/NPCs/monsters rather than rules or, in the case of one Dragon article, an article about how to use the rules in the core 1e books (and if you have to have read Dragon to understand how to use the AD&D rules... that doesn't exactly argue for simplicity).

So, ultimately, not a persuasive criticism of ADDICT at all.