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

[Mythos Enthusiast]

If it's meatgrinder 0e-2e on the furthest left pole, and pure narativist group story telling on the furthest right pole, I'd like to be half way between the middle and the furthest left pole.

 

[Cadence]

In 0e-2e the story was about the Area or Setting. Sam's often ran multiple parties or formed groups on the fly. That's why it was allowed to be so unfairly lethal and arbitrary.

Yoyr PC didn't have the plot armor. The setting had the plot armor.

I thing it changed with Dragonlance. Then it became about a consistent party. At this point players and DMs wanted to run narrative and story curves like the Hero's Journey and the Fairy Tale.

The one older, and old school, DM we had (ran 0e/1e and let us use B/X) certainly ran that way in the early 80s. It was hard to make it past first level... and you didn't plan on surviving forever.

But in our own games at the very same time we had much less lethality even in the early 80s.

It would be neat to have a viewer to go back and see how the split was.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm really not sure how to claim something isn't an RPG with X thing in it that isn't read as hostile to people who disagree. Its essentially an attempt to gatekeep them out of the hobby as you see it, and yeah, I think that's pretty hostile.

I have seen maybe one or two people say that an RPG isn’t an RPG because it has social mechanics.

What is vastly more common is saying that one would rather not see D&D changed to work like a given other game, because it would change how D&D plays in a way one doesn’t like.

 

[Minigiant]

The one older, and old school, DM we had (ran 0e/1e and let us use B/X) certainly ran that way in the early 80s. It was hard to make it past first level... and you didn't plan on surviving forever.

But in our own games at the very same time we had much less lethality even in the early 80s.

It would be neat to have a viewer to go back and see how the split was.

That's how an old DM of mine ran his 0e/1e hack. We rolled up like 10 PCs and plopped them in different cities and towns. Then on a given session, the DM chosen a town and we had to play with whichever of our PCs who were currently in that town. PCs also healed in realtime and could travel patrolled roads out of game..

So your best PC might be in another town or healing.

He ironically leveled us up fast and we feed our best PCs. But we couldn't play them half the time as they would often half dead or in separate towns.

"No not Greenport. The only characters who arent beat up in Greenport are HALFLINGS and GNOMES. Because they are all unplayed level 1! Let's do the capitol. My paladin is there."

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

Wow, some people played some strange campaigns back in the old days. I started in 1981 and for the entire run of the 80's and 90's, in both 1st and 2nd Ed AD&D, the only PC I had die and stay dead was a pregen in a tournament adventure. Maybe I just got lucky and was always in groups where everyone enjoyed the story more than the same old boring hack and slash dungeon crawl. That is something about D&D that is very good that it changed over the decades. Real adventures and stories being the focus over that tired old crap.

 

[Remathilis]

It's not about longer stories. It's about who was the subject of the story.

The Hungarian definition of a cosign was about a location or setting.

The Blackmoor Campaign
John"s Greyhawk Campaign
Lou Smith's Silver City campaign
John, Mary, Big Jim, and Baseball Jim's Westland Campaign.
Cotton, Stinky, Fatty, and Brooklyn's War of the World Campaign.

The story became about an area or Setting That's why the individual stories of PCd could be stupid, silly, boring, or anticlimactic. They weren't the subject. However it made PCs just be barely more important than NPCs in the story.



Incorrect.

In 0e-2e the story was about the Area or Setting. Sam's often ran multiple parties or formed groups on the fly. That's why it was allowed to be so unfairly lethal and arbitrary.

Yoyr PC didn't have the plot armor. The setting had the plot armor.

I thing it changed with Dragonlance. Then it became about a consistent party. At this point players and DMs wanted to run narrative and story curves like the Hero's Journey and the Fairy Tale.

So then mechanics move toward keeping PCs alive so they could both reach the climax and survive it.

I think a separate, but equal, element that ties into this and what @tetrasodium has been on about is that it wasn't just the setting that was important, it was that the DM was THE Most Important Player. It was HIS game, it was his vision that mattered, and it really didn't matter who the players are, what they did, or who they played; it was the DM that was the star of the show.

As time progressed though, the game (first in the culture of it, and progressively in the rules of it) started to give the player's more agency. They had a say in the game too, beyond what thier dice rolls could affect. They wanted narratives that mattered, to grow attached to PCs (and more say in what that PC was). They wanted to be important too.

Which of course has created the issues presented: the DM has increasingly had to share power and narrative vision with his players like a first among equals rather than the Rainmaker. His vision is compromised. He has lost narrative control. He had become a tour guide rather than a benevolent dictator. It's not about the DM and his world and the events of the player interacting with it, it's about the collaboration of players (the DM being one of them) to create a experience that benefits all.

In essence, the notion that it's the DM's game and he is the only important player is fading, and it is being replaced by the idea that every player, DM included, has a collective stake in the game.

I can see why that's a hard transition to make.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think a separate, but equal, element that ties into this and what @tetrasodium has been on about is that it wasn't just the setting that was important, it was that the DM was THE Most Important Player. It was HIS game, it was his vision that mattered, and it really didn't matter who the players are, what they did, or who they played; it was the DM that was the star of the show.

As time progressed though, the game (first in the culture of it, and progressively in the rules of it) started to give the player's more agency. They had a say in the game too, beyond what thier dice rolls could affect. They wanted narratives that mattered, to grow attached to PCs (and more say in what that PC was). They wanted to be important too.

Which of course has created the issues presented: the DM has increasingly had to share power and narrative vision with his players like a first among equals rather than the Rainmaker. His vision is compromised. He has lost narrative control. He had become a tour guide rather than a benevolent dictator. It's not about the DM and his world and the events of the player interacting with it, it's about the collaboration of players (the DM being one of them) to create a experience that benefits all.

In essence, the notion that it's the DM's game and he is the only important player is fading, and it is being replaced by the idea that every player, DM included, has a collective stake in the game.

I can see why that's a hard transition to make.

All true. The problem is, as far as the rules go, the DM still has the lion's share of the work, and the degree of responsibility assigned by the rules for both sides has not changed. Essentially, this means the GM has to do the same amount of work, but has less control of the result.

 

[Cadence]

That's how an old DM of mine ran his 0e/1e hack. We rolled up like 10 PCs and plopped them in different cities and towns. Then on a given session, the DM chosen a town and we had to play with whichever of our PCs who were currently in that town. PCs also healed in realtime and could travel patrolled roads out of game..

So your best PC might be in another town or healing.

He ironically leveled us up fast and we feed our best PCs. But we couldn't play them half the time as they would often half dead or in separate towns.

"No not Greenport. The only characters who arent beat up in Greenport are HALFLINGS and GNOMES. Because they are all unplayed level 1! Let's do the capitol. My paladin is there."

I might have implied something we didn't do We didn't change dungeons from week to week in ours, but which of the eight to dozen-and-a-half that showed each night was random. And half the first level characters died each night.

 

[Minigiant]

All true. The problem is, as far as the rules go, the DM still has the lion's share of the work, and the degree of responsibility assigned by the rules for both sides has not changed. Essentially, this means the GM has to do the same amount of work, but has less control of the result.

Perhaps thats why 4e and 5e focused so heavilyon making the load of the DM easier and easier via tools. Thus creating a bcklash of DMS who didn'twant to be told shortcuts of what to do AND having to do more work with less power.

 

[Minigiant]

I might have implied something we didn't do We didn't change dungeons from week to week in ours, but which of the eight to dozen-and-a-half that showed each night was random. And half the first level characters died each night.

When we played the 0e/1e hack, each town had 1 or 2 dungeons. We had to delve and leave by the end of the session or our PCs rolled to escape or die. We could only add new PCs when one of our PCs or henchmen died. Which was often and mostly thieves and magic users.

That's how Greenport got flooded with halflings, gnomes, and human thieves.