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

[Jefe Bergenstein]

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.

"Back in my day we grinded 14 sessions before we had a lick of fun!"

Yeah, pass. I don't want to waste any more of my short life working in a game.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Or the fact your game has selected for people that have that taste, and its coloring your view. The fact its not a popular take outside the OSR doesn't suggest that in terms of overall numbers there's that many.

So much this. People who have a naughty word 1st session with their dirt farmer on a team with Hercules aren't likely to come back for a second helping of getting their teeth kicked in by a system that continuously punishes them for daring to have a bad roll in character creation. So in a sense it acted as a player funnel, where those who enjoyed that style remained while others noped out.

 

[tetrasodium]

"Back in my day we grinded 14 sessions before we had a lick of fun!"

Yeah, pass. I don't want to waste any more of my short life working in a game.

So coordinate with the gm for some starting point they feel is enough buyin on the game they want to run to start at 2 3 5 or whatever. Time & again people have said things along the lines of "you/that gm needs to find some other player instead of trying to unreasonably force them into playing a given style" in this thread as if every gm was making significant income being a gm rather than maybe being treated to pepsi or pizza by the players on occasion.

Why is it that players must never be expected to work with their gm on a mutually desired starting point or find a gm that is willing to run a game that fits their unreasonable pc idea? I'm sure I've seen Lanefan say that at least some percentage of his games start above first level.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

So coordinate with the gm for some starting point they feel is enough buyin on the game they want to run to start at 2 3 5 or whatever. Time & again people have said things along the lines of "you/that gm needs to find some other player instead of trying to unreasonably force them into playing a given style" in this thread as if every gm was making significant income being a gm rather than maybe being treated to pepsi or pizza by the players on occasion.

Why is it that players must never be expected to work with their gm on a mutually desired starting point or find a gm that is willing to run a game that fits their unreasonable pc idea? I'm sure I've seen Lanefan say that at least some percentage of his games start above first level.

Pretty sure you get your OSR Chest Thumping He-Man DM card revoked if you ever give an inch of ground to a player!

 

[teitan]

To be honest, my experience with DCC as a ruleset is limited, except to know that it took my least favorite part of B/AD&D and cranked it to 11 in an attempt to parody it. I'm sure DCC is fun at mid level. D&D is a blast when you're in the sweet spot between "dies to a kobold sneeze" and "can't be harmed by Orcus."

My point is that D&D "funnel" play (that is, generating super-weak 1st level PC per RAW, the 3d6 in order, roll for HP, spells determined randomly) tends to generate a lot of dead PCs before one got lucky or good enough to stick can be fun if what you want is a bunch of amusing anecdotes about triumphs and deaths, but that style itself doesn't do anything in terms of character development or story. Bob the henchmen becoming a PC after Knuckles the Thief failed his Move Silent roll isn't a character. It's a toon. A respawn point. Maybe after a few successful adventures and levels, Bob the henchmen becomes Sir Robert the Gallant and starts to get more character development, but for me, I'd rather skip the character roulette and just play the character idea I want from the beginning.

So I absolutely see why modern D&D (and modern RPGs) moving away from "dies at character creation" for a style that allows for interesting character design from first level on.

It didn't parody anything, it's a straight game. It's not Hackmaster.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So much this. People who have a naughty word 1st session with their dirt farmer on a team with Hercules aren't likely to come back for a second helping of getting their teeth kicked in by a system that continuously punishes them for daring to have a bad roll in character creation. So in a sense it acted as a player funnel, where those who enjoyed that style remained while others noped out.

Its also easy to talk about how it was years ago and forget that early on, people effectively didn't have a choice. If you were going to play an RPG you were playing something that would saddle you with random rolls in character generation. To the best of my knowledge the first pure build-point character gen system didn't come along until The Fantasy Trip in 1977, and of course a lot of people never heard about it. D&D? Random. Traveller? Semi-Random. Runequest? Semi-Random. DragonQuest? Semi-Random. Gamma World? Random.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It didn't parody anything, it's a straight game. It's not Hackmaster.

I suspect that's a matter of perspective. It very much looked like an exaggeration of certain old school things for effect to me.

 

[theCourier]

It's not so much parody as it is setting a specific tone, really.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

I spent a lot of years rolling up PCs, both in 3d6 Basic and 4d6 AD&D.

I don't agree that playing a concept I want to play is entitlement. RPGs are a type of entertainment and the player should have a say in it. Would you watch a Netflix like service where you have no control on what show you watch? You turn it on to watch the next episode of Stranger Things and it decides you can only watch Gilmore Girls? No. You want to watch what you want to watch. Time is too short to let dice determine if you're going to be a paladin or not.

Besides: the longer I played the more me and my DMs cheated the chargen rules anyway, either the DM allowing a player to raise his highest score to the minimum anyway or the player "magically" rolling the exact scores they needed for the class and race they wanted to play.

If you want to pick a fight over players wanting options not normally allowed in a setting or but the DM, you might have a conversation worth exploring. But "you didn't roll a 16 dex, so no gnome illusionist for you!" is a relic of the game that can rot with level limits and strength capped by gender.

 

[Fifth Element]

Stop focusing on the generality and focus on what was being pointed out. And pointing out the one non-literature reference as 'proof' is just jaded.

LOL. Who's focused on being literal? Conan is just one example of many. Appendix N is FULL of pulp fiction and sci-fi novels. Which, at the time, were in no way considered "literature" by people who studied literature. They were pop culture, just pop culture in a different form. A form you were used to.

The overarching point, since I have to be literal, is that the 'type' of pop culture focus altered the 'style' of play. And if you can't acknowledge that, that's on you.

The point is that your post, while ending with "things are just different, not necessarily better", was full of very dismissive language describing exactly how things have changed. You claim that it's not necessarily bad, just bad for you, but when you describe current characters as "loud-mouthed punks" and recent fantasy worlds as "homogenized" as opposed to the older "unique fantasy worlds", it belies any claim of neutrality.

I think it was Umbran who used to challenge people to tell us why they love a particular edition without shitting on other editions (paraphrased). That's a laudable goal. If you're going to claim that it's just change, not necessarily for the better or worse, don't use language that shits on the games that other people enjoy.