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

[Azzy]

We used death-at-minus-10 from very early on in 1e, I suspect the idea came from a Dragon article.

It could have come from a collective misunderstading/attempt to make sense of the following:

 

[AnotherGuy]

No.
I said 'you just admitted' and nothing you said mentioned previous editions. Instead, you talked about 3PP and DM's Guild. You know, the thing people always yell at me to use when I say I want something I like.

I'm having a conversation with you, my views are my own on the matter. Whatever yelling is or isn't occurring in the background has nothing to do with our conversation.
The DMs Guild is wonderful and props to WotC for that. But I'm allowed to lament that I wish more gears and levers existed within the published version of 5e to bring back further styles that seem to me to have been lost in the latest iteration.

And here is why I think it is a loss to the hobby.
Many new players may not necessarily see these so-called lost styles if they are not exposed to them in the core.

Based on pretty strong observation. The other guys either went to the OSR or hang around yelling at everyone else.

Look we can come to different conclusions about the market place. I do not know enough about the OSR community to be commenting on them, however like all subgroups within the hobby, I believe they add value. Diversity right?

There was none. And never will be.
And I deal with it instead of insulting all the non-steampunk folks.

I'm not sure why that last bit was added. I'm not aware of any insulting on either of our parts.
But despite that tangent on insults, my point still stands - a certain style of game has been lost/reduced within the published version of 5e.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Now, unless you do this level of play for every single pc death, how is this related to the idea of higher or lower character mortality?

Thinking about this a bit more.

Say we have a high lethality game. Say one pc death every three sessions. How often do you do scenes like this? Every time? Not too special after the third time. Only for high level characters? So not much point for the majority of pcs.

This scene only works if death in the game is fairly rare. Otherwise it’s got tons of problems.

I agree with this post.

To be clear, I advocate for old styles in that I see their value being included in the game.
In our campaign, the characters have several characters on various connected missions. The primary characters receive the kind of attention above but they know that it must make sense for our story. So it's limited. For instance I don't do - "this god resurrected you in order to fight for him". That would be seen as lame at our table.
The secondary and third characters we run at higher lethality, but still not death every three sessions. Character death affects the primary characters negatively in their ongoing in-game negotiations. So it is not like "pass me another character sheet" because these are not our A characters. The deaths have repercussions.

To give you an idea in terms of lethality, we finished 3 adventure league paths within the space of +/- a year (playing roughly once a week) - and out of the 12 characters that participated, 5 died.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Now, not so much. Also, the language of the game has been dumbed down. I needed to read the 1E DMG with a dictionary next to me and even then, you couldn't find some of the words (dweomer anyone?). Now, well you've read the 5E DMG I'm sure...

Yeah justified in my mind back then at least that it was educational entertainment

 

[Helldritch]

Goodness gracious. Of course we don't know if you're running something specific as a DM because this is a discussion that involved hypotheticals. If we were actually in your game you would have already told us about what you were intending to run. So it's really unfair to react to someone posting about a hypothetical as if a real-world situation wouldn't have more context to inform it.

And if the players lose interest in what you have to say about the game world, maybe it's because it's not an interesting game world. Why do you assume it must be a problem with the players? If every player at your table has no interest in your game world, that sounds like your game world just isn't interesting to them. Maybe try another game world.

Strange, I immediately assume that a DM is always specific first, generic second. Specific is way more common than generic. At least this is what I have seen because my Grey Hawk isn't the GH of any other DM.

I think this is a big part of it. I've been playing for 35 years or so (which is quite weird when I write it out like that, there's no way I'm that old, am I?), and at least 98% of that has been with my friends, for instance.

And again, this both the same and totally different experience for my part. I have played/introduce hundreds of players over the years. 39 years where I only slowed to 2 groups relatively recently. Not everyone in those groups were my friends. Some played a few months to get hang of it and went on, some stayed for longer period. My main group, have four of my friends that have been playing with me since 1983, and other for a bit less, 1987 and 1998 respectively. The other group are former students of mine and new players I met through them or at work.

The friday night dungeon is composed of anyone presenting themselves maximum of 6 players. It is not always the same players and the characters are never the same. In this case, background means nothing. This is an exhibition game to show how it is played. A dungeon with a few rooms and so on. Sometimes, like CoS, we play the full adventure with one of my group.

 

[Remathilis]

We used death-at-minus-10 from very early on in 1e, I suspect the idea came from a Dragon article.

Max h.p. at 1st level is something I had honestly never even heard of until 3e brought it in as its default.

Max HP at first is another house rule that seemed to get some traction after a while. It was definitely in 2e's Domains of Dread, and I'm pretty sure it might have been in one of the Player' s Options books. It was well known enough that Baldur's Gate used it and no one blinked an eye.

 

[Remathilis]

Strange, I immediately assume that a DM is always specific first, generic second. Specific is way more common than generic. At least this is what I have seen because my Grey Hawk isn't the GH of any other DM.

Yeah, but for the purpose of discussing the game on a message board, general trumps specific or else we'd never be able to discuss things. I could go into the Dragonlance UA thread and comment how in my game, kender are 7 foot tall anthropomorphic squirrels and thus the stats are all wrong and WotC should redo them, but that doesn't really help discuss if they fit the classic idea of the lore.

Which is why on a message board, I stick to the default assumptions when discussing ideas or examples. You could have answered my question "bold of you to assume I have dwarves (or dragons, or mountains) in my world" but short of being a mind-reader or requesting and reading whatever campaign guide you use for your game just to ask a hypothetical question, I had to assume the default just to ask my question.

 

[Fifth Element]

Strange, I immediately assume that a DM is always specific first, generic second. Specific is way more common than generic. At least this is what I have seen because my Grey Hawk isn't the GH of any other DM.

Not when you're having a discussion about the game as a whole on the internet with people you don't actually play with and are not actually planning characters for an actual campaign but discussions character design in broad strokes. In that context, it makes zero sense to assume people are talking about a specific campaign you may or may not run in your own game.

In this case, background means nothing.

Agreed.

Irrelevant, of course, because we're talking about the modern game as a whole and how it has allegedly changed.

 

[Helldritch]

Yeah, but for the purpose of discussing the game on a message board, general trumps specific or else we'd never be able to discuss things. I could go into the Dragonlance UA thread and comment how in my game, kender are 7 foot tall anthropomorphic squirrels and thus the stats are all wrong and WotC should redo them, but that doesn't really help discuss if they fit the classic idea of the lore.

Which is why on a message board, I stick to the default assumptions when discussing ideas or examples. You could have answered my question "bold of you to assume I have dwarves (or dragons, or mountains) in my world" but short of being a mind-reader or requesting and reading whatever campaign guide you use for your game just to ask a hypothetical question, I had to assume the default just to ask my question.

Not when you're having a discussion about the game as a whole on the internet with people you don't actually play with and are not actually planning characters for an actual campaign but discussions character design in broad strokes. In that context, it makes zero sense to assume people are talking about a specific campaign you may or may not run in your own game.


Agreed.

Irrelevant, of course, because we're talking about the modern game as a whole and how it has allegedly changed.

And when I say that on the rules, we should stick to the core books, I get washed for saying that. If it ain't in the core books it does not exists as we have no common ground with splat books as you can never be sure if the person you're talking too has it.

This is a discussion about how the game has change. Tables are very specific and we can't really make any generalizations. Unlike a discussion about rules, the changes in D&D are heavily influenced by each table. The basic rules have an influence, but the campaigns, players and DMs' habits and views even more so.

We can have a bit of generalization, but it can not be assumed that it will be immediately so. In fact, when talking about the broad changes of D&D, we have to talk about the players and DMs. And each one are very specifics but some behaviours are more prominent than others.

The players' agencies have been pushed more and more to prevalence over the years. The tools to control these that were in previous editions have been toned down while claiming to empower the DM. But the very tools that a DM had to use that control in soft ways have now been integrated into character's levels.

3ed codified D&D and PF crystallized the player's agency mindset more than any other edition. If we fusion 3ed with PF, we are looking at almost 15 years in which players could rule as much as the DM by citing codified rules. But at least, the DM had some control over the power level of magic items, their availability (restraining construction or buying places). Thus limiting a bit the power a player could obtained. Yes magic items were assumed. But by adjusting them, the DM could manage their players' power to be above or a bit lower than what they could normally pull.

5ed removed the need of magic items. With BA, they are now so powerful that even a simple +1 plate can become OP in the right hands and circumstances. +1 plate, +1 shield, Shield of faith + warding bond and haste makes for an AC of 26 and it is not counting the possibility of having +1 ring... Previously, these were not bad as their prevalence would decay over time and players would be looking for better magical items. Now with BA, these are OP in low levels, and quite relevant at top tier level of play. So controlling the player's power is reached by not giving these items. But D&D has always been about loot, rewards (treasure or other like recognition) but very much loot. With PC power built in directly into the classes this control of power from the DM is simply gone. And with the Artificer and his infusions, not giving magical items simply went down the drain... Say hello to the artificer with +1 plate and shield at a very early level.

Then there is also the shift in players expectations and mentality. In previous years, a two page background was laughed at. Now... well we already had this discussion. Today's player pretty much assume that he has a say to what will happen to his character. Be it through background or consequence (or should I say lack of) coming from the actions of his character. Well, it ain't so. A player is the only that has a say in any actions his character is attempting. The results of his actions are solely in the hands of the DM and the result of the dice.

Read the forum(s). How many times is the DM assumed to be a bad control/adversarial freak whenever in a thread the DM dare say no to a background? In this very thread, I said very early that I would restrict one background and got flamed. Yet, as more and more was asked, one of the poster found it reasonable. In previous editions, it would simply have been assumed that the background was not accepted for campaign reason and we would have gone forward. It took how many pages to finally move forward? We're still at it right now. Unlike some other thread, at least we kept polite and friendly.

 

[Remathilis]

This is a discussion about how the game has change. Tables are very specific and we can't really make any generalizations. Unlike a discussion about rules, the changes in D&D are heavily influenced by each table. The basic rules have an influence, but the campaigns, players and DMs' habits and views even more so.

We can have a bit of generalization, but it can not be assumed that it will be immediately so. In fact, when talking about the broad changes of D&D, we have to talk about the players and DMs. And each one are very specifics but some behaviours are more prominent than others.

Then this discussion is actually pointless because no discernable trend can be determined. You say modern D&D has changed the nature of the game, I say the rules have caught up to how I've played since the 2e. Ergo since this is highly specific, I argue there has been no real change to the game culture since I'm running my game the same way I always have, except a lot of things I used house rules to do are now part of the core rules.

So now it's nothing but dueling anecdotes. You say "nu-uh" and I say "ya-ha" infinitely.