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

[Ovinomancer]

On the flip side, in my last group, the players primarily fit with @Helldritch’s style. Characters were basically just empty vessels and the dm is expected to roll up the plot wagon.

It is a style of gaming. Has nothing to do with edition though. It’s always been a style regardless of edition.

Yeah, and one well served by current edition, whenever you happen to be playing.

 

[nevin]

Mod Note:

“Snowflakes” is really a judgmental, inflammatory and dismissive thing to call your fellow hobbyists. Perhaps don’t, going forward.

fair observation.

 

[Cadence]

Yeah... no.

I'll take my fantasy worlds over the boring retreads of 20th century fantasy thanks. Give me China Mieville, Stephen Erikson or Glen Cook or Terry Pratchett. "Worlds that are just like really piss poor historical reenactments with a thin veneer of magic that don't make any sense" is not what I'm interested anymore.

As much as I love Cook (have all his sci-fi and fantasy and read it multiple times - much from the 20th century) it feels like the Black Company, Dread Empire, and Instrumentalities series, and Tower of Fear novel all have parts that are not so veiled analogs of the real world (the south, everything, everything, and everything respectively). And the various magic power systems don't seem that well defined; from Tobo and the taken in the former, to the emperors in the middle, to the dwarves in the later, what are there limits or constraints? And there's a bunch of flying whales grabbed from one of his sci-fi stories and stuck in? The mages in some of the Bragi stories seem very close to ones in Fafhrd and Mouser? In spite of that they all seemed fun to me (although the later Instrumentalities didn't seem nearly as good to me as the others).

* Please disregard if you meant the Garrett books, those feel very different from the others.

 

[overgeeked]

If my background will never have bearing on the game, I simply won't have a background. I can play a murderhobo whose family was murdered just as easily as I can play a character with a fleshed-out genealogy. But I will return the favor: your world's history and lore will mean nothing to my PC. If you expect me to care about your world, I expect you to care about my character.

There it is.

Too late. And I already do DM 50% of the time.

Pretty sure you’re not Tolkien.

 

[Remathilis]

Pretty sure you’re not Tolkien.

Yeah, that's the joke. My character idea is Thorin Oakenshield, the most classic dwarf character in literature. We're not talking about a half-dragonborn/tiefling bloodhunter/hexblade here, about as normal, and safe as a PC can be. It's literally the trope-setter for many. Yet I just got denied for being an entitled Mary Sue for suggesting my PC might have a long-term goal beyond get XP and get gold. I can be as disinterested in working with you as you are working with me. You wanna meet me half-way? I'm all ears. But so far, I've heard a lot of ultimatums, a lot of accusations, and a lot of bloviating about how their way is perfect and everyone else is wrong and ruining modern D&D.

I'm eternally thankful I have a group of players who are invested enough to literally hand me quest ideas they want to play and trust me enough to give them a good experience. I'm equally glad I have a DM who does the same for me. And I'm eternally thankful the D&D game is giving me MORE tools to do it with and the trend is towards my style of gaming. Because if not, I'd have quit D&D decades ago.

 

[Hussar]

As much as I love Cook (have all his sci-fi and fantasy and read it multiple times - much from the 20th century) it feels like the Black Company, Dread Empire, and Instrumentalities series, and Tower of Fear novel all have parts that are not so veiled analogs of the real world (the south, everything, everything, and everything respectively). And the various magic power systems don't seem that well defined; from Tobo and the taken in the former, to the emperors in the middle, to the dwarves in the later, what are there limits or constraints? And there's a bunch of flying whales grabbed from one of his sci-fi stories and stuck in? The mages in some of the Bragi stories seem very close to ones in Fafhrd and Mouser? In spite of that they all seemed fun to me (although the later Instrumentalities didn't seem nearly as good to me as the others).

* Please disregard if you meant the Garrett books, those feel very different from the others.

Sorry, was more or less picking out my favorite fantasy authors at random. To be 100% perfectly honest, I read far more SF than I read fantasy, mostly because I really don't like most fantasy. I find most 20th century fantasy far too derivative with everyone and their mother competing to be the next Tolkien in how much setting wank they can cram into a book. I just recently picked up Lord Foul's Bane again after many decades and tried to reread it. Realized that I was about halfway through the book and the only thing that had actually happened was Thomas Covenant had been hit by a car and woke up in the Land and gave up after the umpteenth proper noun reference with no context. And I remember LOVING these books as a teen. It was really rather disappointing.

But, that's just my own personal hot take here. I understand that there are other opinions.

Like I said though, when people talk about Vance or Lieber should be the main inspiration for D&D, I just really don't want it. Retreading the same, tired old tropes that have been trod, retrod and then beaten into the ground over and over and over again is not what I want from my fantasy. Give me something new and interesting. Even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense or the magic system isn't "defined", I'm much, much happier. Just starting the Gentlemen Bastards series to see how that goes.

 

[overgeeked]

And I'm eternally thankful the D&D game is giving me MORE tools to do it with and the trend is towards my style of gaming. Because if not, I'd have quit D&D decades ago.

That must be great. Here's to hoping you don't have to deal with the hobby shifting under your feet and having people gloat about how they're being catered to while your preferred style is ignored.

 

[Fifth Element]

That must be great. Here's to hoping you don't have to deal with the hobby shifting under your feet and having people gloat about how they're being catered to while your preferred style is ignored.

So it has nothing to do with the game changing, and everything to do with your perception of how people talk about it.

This is not a change. People have whined and gloated since forever. Maybe just pay less attention to people you don't game with, and enjoy the game you do play? That's the sort of advice endemic to this thread - if you don't like how it is, just play it your way.

 

[MichaelSomething]

That must be great. Here's to hoping you don't have to deal with the hobby shifting under your feet and having people gloat about how they're being catered to while your preferred style is ignored.

 

[Hussar]

That must be great. Here's to hoping you don't have to deal with the hobby shifting under your feet and having people gloat about how they're being catered to while your preferred style is ignored.

Holy crap, seriously?

Any 4e fan got chucked entirely under the bus. Everything even remotely smelling like 4e had to be excised from the game. To the point where ten years later, we STILL can't even talk about adding anything from 4e to the game without hiding it under all sorts of waffling and sidestepping.

And you're going to complain about how the hobby is shifting under YOUR feet. Gimme a break.