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

[Charlaquin]

But is that a change in tone, if that has been the tone for 40 years?

Couldn’t say, as I’ve only been playing for about 15. But that ren faire vibe has definitely been present that whole time in my experience.

My guess would be that it has existed the whole time, but may over time have grown more predominant, or at least more visible.

 

[Helldritch]

My condolences on your friend's experience. It highlights that both players and DMs need to come together in collaboration when shaping a new campaign. I would argue that a DM who is inflexible in their vision for a campaign to any player designs is just as at fault for a game failing to coalesce as players whoa re not willing to stretch and work within any guidelines presented by their DM. What needs to change is how DMs often put in so much more labor and, to be blunt, financial expense, to start up a game.

Hey, don't be. It is not that he is inflexible. In fact, it is quite the other way around, usually. These players specifically sought him up because of his reputation for being a nice fellow. These would have been his third group and he did not have the time or the will to build up a full world for them. He accepted to try them up to see what kind of players they were and how HE COULD ADJUST TO THEM! But they were blunt, impolite and frankly, he should have asked me about them. They had approached me first but with two groups of 6 people with my Friday Night D&D once or twice a month, my work and my family, I simply do not have the time for an additional group.

There really needs to be a cultural shift in gaming culture about sharing the labor more evenly.

On that one, I must disagree. Sharing the expanse is as close to what I would accept. The campaign world is my creation, my adaptation, my vision. As players, people are invited to build on that, but with certain parameters that I control for the sake of continuity. I don't mind a few campaigns in outlandish settings created from scratch once in a while. But if players are invited to play with me (or seek me out), then they agree to abide by certain rules, guidelines and expectations. If it is not to their taste, I would simply do as my friend did.

The only thing going for a DM's fun is exactly what players forget. The fun in being the DM is to build a world and to share it with your players. It is not to see players destroy it or its basis for the fun of their own agencies. If as a player, someone does not agree with my style, I do not mind at all. But if that person seeks me out, and want me to change everything to suit him and ignore the other players and groups playing in my world, it is a sure way to see me offer that player a one way trip exlclusion from my games.

A player's agency should be within the parameters of the campaign world. The player has to adapt to world, not the other way around.

 

[kenada]

To you, what are the main ways D&D has evolved it’s tone, theme, genre, and aesthetics since you first started playing?

I got started with 3e in the early ’00s. What I’ve noticed over the last twenty years or so is everything’s gotten a lot more super heroic. It seems like the default assumption now is that of course the game is about saving something bigger than you from the bad guy. In terms of aesthetics, there’s a lot of dungeonpunk, which I’d attribute at least some to Samwise Didier and the popularity of Warcraft.

 

[Minigiant]

I think D&D passed Ren Faire and in firmly in Online VG Hubtown territory.

Like the cosplayers at the Comics Anime Con walked into the Ren Faire and stayed. And Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart are there for some reason. And they're elves.

 

[darkwillow]

D&D has shifted from a combat focus to a roll playing/story focus as evidenced by a recently released module "The Wild beyond the witchlight" where combat is discouraged, and they specifically say that you need to talk your way through encounters.

It has also gone from hard gritty and dangerous/deadly to a big emphasis on your backstory and where it's very hard to die.

I don't really see that to be the case. When we played 1e we read the rules, grabbed a module, bastaradized it, or wrote our own and played it as we saw fit. It was often dungeons, and often had a lot of combat but that was because that part was easy and fun to put together.

I would write puzzles, or traps or non-combat encounters, but that naughty word was HARD, much harder to write because you had to open your creative side and become a "writer", which as an engineering student, was mind blastingly difficult.

So yeah we had a lot of combat, but pure hack and slash gets boring, and you can't have every fight to be close to party wipe, because you want to save it for the end of the night big fight.

What changed was the internet and people looking at what other people are doing, and then getting offended when people were playing D&D differently. Personally I don't care what anyone else in the world is doing, if you want to do a performative art piece or a play, cool, but it doesn't affect how I read the rules and play the game, or how my combat works.

As for "The Wild beyond the witchlight", thats a specific setting intended for a particular audience, that is not me, but just because I want demons and devils and world ending events, doesn't mean that I think a different setting is "changing the game".

 

[Laurefindel]

I would take this a step farther... it isn't medieval or renaissance it's fantasy. It just pulled back the limits more and more and made it HIGH fantasy

Lord of the Ring was the reference for high-fantasy as a literary genre, but D&D (and other media, let’s be fair) have pushed the boundaries of fantasy to a point that LotR sound a rather tame-fantasy by modern standard.

 

[Helldritch]

Lord of the Ring was the reference for high-fantasy as a literary genre, but D&D (and other media, let’s be fair) have pushed the boundaries of fantasy to a point that LotR sound a rather tame-fantasy by modern standard.

But it does not mean that it is a bad reference. The witcher isn't as high fantasy as many other reference and yet, it works quite well. In fact, it works wonderfully great!

 

[darkwillow]

Another thing that changed, at least for me, today people want to play their character with a personality and background. Sometimes emulating an actor or at least putting on an accent and playing to a certain predefined alignment or world view.

Back in 1e days all my friends just played their character with their personality. Sure the paladin played lawful good but in general everyone was just themselves transported into their characters bodies. There was nothing elven about their dual wielding longsword fighters out to carve up monsters.

The upside was that they CARED deeply about their character and they did everything in their power to make sure that character never died, and collected as much gold and magic items as possible.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Interesting thread - I remember Basic D&D was like, "you're just average guys, roll 3d6 for each stat" - it was AD&D that first pushed the "adventurers are special" vibe. Agree about players taking a much more active role in making the DMs world. I rad somewhere how Gygax played (with one player selected as "caller" etc.) we didn't play like that then. Class options meant that you had to have a cleric, fighter, magic user and thief whatever happened otherwise some aspect of adventuring was severely handicapped. PCs seemed to die more but players were often really upset when it happened. Devices like DnDbeyond have made the record-keeping so much easier than I'd have ever imagined. Being able to hop on google drive and edit my campaign I could have never imagined as a kid. Dunno about past time vs lifestyle. When yr a DM it takes up a huge amount of time, both now and then.

 

[Casimir Liber]

Another thing that changed, at least for me, today people want to play their character with a personality and background. Sometimes emulating an actor or at least putting on an accent and playing to a certain predefined alignment or world view.

Back in 1e days all my friends just played their character with their personality. Sure the paladin played lawful good but in general everyone was just themselves transported into their characters bodies. There was nothing elven about their dual wielding longsword fighters out to carve up monsters.

The upside was that they CARED deeply about their character and they did everything in their power to make sure that character never died, and collected as much gold and magic items as possible.

Hmmm - I do have memories of people trying different personas actually in the 1980s..but agree with much less flamboyance