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

[Minigiant]

There is a difference between rare in the world and rare in the story. Jedi are rare in the SW galaxy but ever present in the stories we see.

That's a major wayD&D changed.

In the beginning the 70sand 80s, the world and the storywas humanocentric. Elves and Dwarfs were on decline.

Around the 90s, fantasy was still humanocentric in setting but the parties and heroic/villainous groups were full of demihumans.

In 00s, settings stopped being centered around humans.

in 10s, the heroes might only have 1 human member.

In 20s, the humans might be the little guys and bit players.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Another solution is to simply say no. Or limit rare things to no more than one. Here's a list of ten rare things (races, classes, etc) and there can only be one from this list among the PCs in the entire campaign.

Its a viable solution, as long as you can deal with the stressors when more than one player wants Special Thing X.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Again, if you don't like the way the game is run, and no concensus can be reached, you walk away. I really don't understand why this is a question.

Note I'm specifically referring to how things worked when random die rolls were, effectively, the only game in town. Virtually everyone was forced into random die rolls, and even trying to come up with an alternative was super-fraught. So if your alternative was to deal with the nonsense of it or not play, they found their own way of "dealing" with it.

 

[Minigiant]

Another solution is to simply say no. Or limit rare things to no more than one. Here's a list of ten rare things (races, classes, etc) and there can only be one from this list among the PCs in the entire campaign.

What about a raity draft

Paladin
Ranger
Druid
Assassin
Monk
Wizard
Illusionist
Bladesinger
Necomancer
Mountain Dwarf
Hill Dwarf
High Elf
Wood Elf
Half Elf
Half Orc
Orc
Gnome

Pick and pass. You automatically get the scores to meet your classes prerequistes or a 15 in your race's adjustable score. Combine as you ish. If your PC dies or retires, you can't use your race and classes again.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Note I'm specifically referring to how things worked when random die rolls were, effectively, the only game in town. Virtually everyone was forced into random die rolls, and even trying to come up with an alternative was super-fraught. So if your alternative was to deal with the nonsense of it or not play, they found their own way of "dealing" with it.

I mentioned concensus. Plenty of groups ignored random rolls for stuff if they didn't like it. Nothing wrong with either way.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well, honestly, I've rarely seen a game with a variety of options where everyone, or often even two people wanted to play the same one. That doesn't mean they don't all want to play rare options though, which isn't all that much better (honestly, its less odd to have everyone playing Rare Race #3 than Rare Races #1-6. It tends, as others have mentioned, to be much easier to rationalize though its going to set the campaign tone in a rather specific way).

 

[Thomas Shey]

I mentioned concensus. Plenty of groups ignored random rolls for stuff if they didn't like it. Nothing wrong with either way.

Not everyone had access to an understanding group. Especially after people who disliked random rolls started moving on to games that didn't demand them.

Note the degree of resistance you get to this in parts of the OSR, and there were a lot more people who thought that was effectively the Gaming Laws of Nature back in the day.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's a major wayD&D changed.

In the beginning the 70sand 80s, the world and the storywas humanocentric. Elves and Dwarfs were on decline.

Around the 90s, fantasy was still humanocentric in setting but the parties and heroic/villainous groups were full of demihumans.

In 00s, settings stopped being centered around humans.

in 10s, the heroes might only have 1 human member.

In 20s, the humans might be the little guys and bit players.

Yeah, that's definitely a thing. There's a reason just about every fantasy and sci-fi story in fiction has at least one human. Its a grounding point that let's the nonhuman element shine by contrast. In D&D now, you're very likely to have entirely nonhuman parties, with every PC being a different "rare" being. It makes it difficult to tell certain kinds of stories very common in media that isn't D&D.

 

[David Howery]

There you would be mistaken, I remember the one time we legitimately rolled three fighters with 18/98 18/99 and 18/00 (at the table in sight) and then rolled 1s and 2s for hp. It was a very short but violent campaign. lmao

another common house rule was 'max hp at first level'. One reason I liked playing rangers in 1E....

 

[Azzy]

If I ask them not to have any I might as well take them off the PC-playable list. Which I've been tempted to do...

Well, at some point you'll have to make up your mind and choose to allow them, not allow them, or limit 1 per party (or something similar).

Asking them to self-limit is, IME, a breeding ground for arguments; but that's an in-house issue.

I was assuming all moderately mature players, but that isn't always an option I guess.

Already done. Most of the NPC commoners etc. they meet are Human, as are most of the adventuring NPCs they take in from time to time.

What I'm after is that the PC population at least vaguely reflect the overall setting population in the large-ish part of the world they run in - half-ish Human, the rest roughly split between PartElf, PartOrc, Hobbit, Dwarf and Elf, with a very few Gnomes and other things. I could achieve this by making them hard-roll for species every time, but IMO that's overkill. What I do instead is, based on where they are in the world at the time and what lives there, have it that you can choose from a short list of local species OR you can hard-roll on a longer list with more variety but no guarantee of getting anything specific.

Myself, I would just go with the short list (and possibly quotas) if I were interested in limiting things to such a degree. The hard roll option just seems like it's ripe for either or both players and the DM to find themselves "dissatified" with RNJ.