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

[Umbran]

Oh my god, the opinions I posted on a forum are opinions! I had no idea!

Mod Note:
The issue isn't whether they are opinions - the issue is whether they are presented dismissively.

Take, for a moment, the idea that if what you wanted was to be respectful, what you said didn't come across as you wanted. Sarcasm is probably not a good tool for correcting that.

 

[LordEntrails]

I'm just going to say that for whatever role I played in this thread degenerating into... what ever it as become, I'm sorry.

None of this is important enough to me to continue with the emotional turmoil that this seems to have become. Happy gaming all.

 

[Helldritch]

I'm just going to say that for whatever role I played in this thread degenerating into... what ever it as become, I'm sorry.

None of this is important enough to me to continue with the emotional turmoil that this seems to have become. Happy gaming all.

But... you did nothing wrong at all. In fact you brought some good arguments and made us think about your position and the validity of some of your arguments. Making people think and ponder their own position is a good thing.

And yes, the thread has derailed a bit. But so are many on the forums.

One thing is for sure. Gaming as evolve in certain areas and devolved in others.

 

[Yaarel]

In the recent 5e character building format, every character starts off with two languages. One is Common. The other is, a language that both the DM and the player "agree is appropriate" for the character concept.

For me, this spirit of collaboration between DM and players is the ideal, and it seems to be where D&D is heading.

 

[Lanefan]

I think DCC hits on the nature of that style well: it's a deathmatch style game that requires you don't take it seriously until you get lucky enough to have a PC live to get a few levels. DCC takes it to an absurd endpoint. It's fun, but much like I don't hop on PUBG for in-depth storytelling in the vein of Final Fantasy or Elder Scrolls, I don't look at DCC for anything more than having a good time tossing 0 levels into a dungeon and laughing over beers when they triumph or die or both.

DCC dials it to eleven, to be sure, but at a not-quite-so-absurd level I've always seen D&D - particularly at low levels - as being first and foremost a game of luck or chance from char-gen right on through to the end-game. If it wasn't, the game wouldn't bake dice or other randomizers right into the core of its design.

Puit another way, the "game" side of it is a gambler's paradise. Sometimes you beat the odds, sometimes the odds beat you.

Modern design has tried in many ways to take the luck/gamble aspect out of the game - stat array or point-buy at char-gen, fixed hit points per level, average damage rather than rolled, etc. - and in so doing has made the whole thing far more bland, sterile, and predictable; all of which I see as negative outcomes.

Change the "0" to "low" in the bolded sentence and IMO you've distilled the purest essence of low-level D&D. If you're not frequently laughing at what the PCs get up to and-or what happens to them, be it for good or bad or neither, something's wrong.

But a long running campaign where my PC was the luckiest of the seven elves I rolled up to beat the first dungeon? Probably not.

It's very rare that I'll come right back with the same character or concept that just died; though I might file that concept away for revisiting down the road sometime.

 

[Lanefan]

What about the people who want to play awesome, special and amazing characters ...

Nothing's stopping those people from starting their D&D games at around level 13 and going on from there...

 

[Lanefan]

Who cares though? They did something in the past. How does that change the game happening at the table?

It changes the game at the table in that, if in-setting logic is to be maintained, whatever experience/levels/skills etc. the character earned in doing all those backstory things would still be with that character now. And, as the character is to be a PC it's already established by default that said character is capable of earning xp and gaining levels, so the "it couldn't gain experience for what it did earlier" argument goes out the window.

Which is fine if your game is starting at a level higher - perhaps way higher - than first: the backstory explains how the PC got to that higher level.

And which would also be fine if the game had mechanics around loss of skills/levels/etc. through decay or lack of use; but it doesn't, meaning that by RAW a character who achieves x-level and then stops adventuring remains that level for life.

What this means is that while Will Turner is for sure starting out as a 1st-level Rogue when we first meet him, he's already got a few self-taught levels of Fighter under his belt which he also improves as he goes along. Luke starts as a 1st (or 0th?) level Psionicist but is already an accomplished pilot and mechanic, which is fine for a PC. Harry Potter very neatly and with an astonishing amount of luck starts as 0th level (with his only true innate skill being broom-piloting) and then gains about a level per year at Hogwarts (2 levels in first-year), as do many of his contemporaries.

 

[tetrasodium]

Nothing's stopping those people from starting their D&D games at around level 13 and going on from there...

This is the most frustrating part of this particular area of shift. Back in 3.x* most of my games did not start at first level. Even the ones that did start at first were often "yea start at first but I'm giving everyone $coolshinything to help them fit the theme & tone I want for this campaign". By having the room to grant players "free" stuff like extra levels/starting feat/better stats/etc I had room that could be used to convince players to enthusiastically dial their own buy in up a few notches without going into superhero territory. Now I've got:

• One player who asks every campaign if I'm going to be starting them at level 3 or 5
• One player who is going to hand me a nine page backstory I didn't ask for. That backstory will make little if any effort to fit the world & almost certainly did not even attempt to get the gm's input on even a single thing in it.
• One player who is going to give me a paragraph or two of backstory (huzzah)... except they probably describe the favored scion of The God Emperor or well.... this nonsense.

* and maybe ad&d 2e but it's been a long time

 

[Minigiant]

Non-adventuring classes aren't fun for PCs, and only matter for worldbuilding. WotC doesn't care to put effort into stuff like that anymore.

Oh it would be a late book. Same like Tasha's. A gimmick book filler for Players an DMs.

Puit another way, the "game" side of it is a gambler's paradise. Sometimes you beat the odds, sometimes the odds beat you.

Modern design has tried in many ways to take the luck/gamble aspect out of the game - stat array or point-buy at char-gen, fixed hit points per level, average damage rather than rolled, etc. - and in so doing has made the whole thing far more bland, sterile, and predictable; all of which I see as negative outcomes.

I think isn't less about being bland and more about being stable.

Like I said, the growth of narrative campaigns over exploarative adventures and strategic dungeon crawls helped take the random out of D&D.

Basically at some point a bunch of players decided to DM. But instead of following the footsteps of their past DMs, they became hardcore world builders and story writers. And these new DMS wanted their story and world to challenge you and not the luck of the dice,

You seeit in 4e which went heavy on story and tactics and the harm of a few bad rolls was heavily mitigated. And when you TPKed, the DM can smugly point out your tactical error and poor choice of judgement.

"The dice didn't screw you. You screwed yourself" is a major change in D&D. You could always screw yourself before. Modern D&D just makes it a more common occurrence.

 

[Krachek]

This is the most frustrating part of this particular area of shift. Back in 3.x* most of my games did not start at first level. Even the ones that did start at first were often "yea start at first but I'm giving everyone $coolshinything to help them fit the theme & tone I want for this campaign". By having the room to grant players "free" stuff like extra levels/starting feat/better stats/etc I had room that could be used to convince players to enthusiastically dial their own buy in up a few notches without going into superhero territory. Now I've got:

• One player who asks every campaign if I'm going to be starting them at level 3 or 5
• One player who is going to hand me a nine page backstory I didn't ask for. That backstory will make little if any effort to fit the world & almost certainly did not even attempt to get the gm's input on even a single thing in it.
• One player who is going to give me a paragraph or two of backstory (huzzah)... except they probably describe the favored scion of The God Emperor or well.... this nonsense.

* and maybe ad&d 2e but it's been a long time

The three players situation you described can’t be helped by any DnD edition.
it’s a matter of agreement on game parameters, style and mood.
it can be very hard to play a game with a pc level 4, 11 and 20 With background from various fantasy. But if players don’t matter on challenge and performance it can be try.