D&D (2024) I think we are on the cusp of a sea change.

[Ruin Explorer]

Rifts is weird, but at this point is as old as TSR D&D was... it is holding and last time I was at Gen COn had equal foot print too WoD and ONLY D&D was bigger.

I don't think "presence at GenCon" has much to do with anything except the people who make the game. It's obvious from any FLGS that RIFTS isn't selling like it used to (and from the steep decline in production quality of RIFTS books). I'm pretty sure the reason they had a big footprint there is because the owners are still living in the '90s when GenCon was a much bigger deal.

Also, when was that? WotC skipped a number of GenCons, I dunno if they even still go at all. From the internet it looks like they've been skipping at least some back to 2008 or maybe even earlier. Looks like maybe the last time they were there was 2015?

 

[Thomas Shey]

I've made the argument already. Now you're just not bothering to read, is pretty sad stuff.

And if you'd rather have a fight than a discussion, do it with someone else.

 

[HammerMan]

I don't think "presence at GenCon" has much to do with anything except the people who make the game. It's obvious from any FLGS that RIFTS isn't selling like it used to (and from the steep decline in production quality of RIFTS books). I'm pretty sure the reason they had a big footprint there is because the owners are still living in the '90s when GenCon was a much bigger deal.

Also, when was that? WotC skipped a number of GenCons, I dunno if they even still go at all. From the internet it looks like they've been skipping at least some back to 2008 or maybe even earlier. Looks like maybe the last time they were there was 2015?

it was in the teens... I said D&D becuse i was counting the Adventure league and piazo

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know, there where quite a lot of RPGs coming out about then, and most of them didn't think they needed to tell you how to play. Traveller was particularly well supported with a wide variety of supplements though. Maybe it helped to have those small rulebooks?

...And I guess this illustrates the drawback. It didn't matter that character generation was random, because there didn't have to be combat so "sub-optimal characters" didn't matter. A Scientist with Computer-3, Admin-1 was just fine. But I guess not everyone realised that.

"Just fine" for some types of campaign, but not others, and it was pretty easy to get a character who really wasn't contributing to any sort of campaign very well. The advantage of the two campaign types I mentioned was that anyone could point a gun, and for a merchants campaign there were only a couple characters needed to actually make the campaign work; you could have four others who were either largely useless or all their skills looked like they fit in another kind of campaign and it wouldn't matter inordinately.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

And if you'd rather have a fight than a discussion, do it with someone else.

That's a pretty amazing thing to say when you demanded I argue something I'd already argued and merely pointed that out lol.

 

[Malmuria]

I guess my issue with it, is that in every edition of the game there is always a disclaimer that the game is yours, you are free to do whatever you want with it. Also, the hobby evolved out of hobbies like military modeling (and things like knitting clubs, quilting circles, etc) where people made stuff, and took it to their club members to show off. For D&D this was "look at my home made adventure everyone" or "check out at this new monster I made". So it was assumed that if there's a description in the monster manual, players have always been free to not use the vanilla description, and customize things. Customizing things is actually part of the fun.

For example, I've had orcs in a game who were just bad guy stormtroopers, existing to threaten the PCs. I've also had orcs who were cultured diplomats visiting from a rival kingdom, who the PCs were assigned to protect as bodyguards. I guess I just thought it was already understood that players have been free to customize things from day one.

I guess this has to do with newer players having less time to play, and wanting the content pre-made and ready to go per their preferences, and a move away from wanting to customize stuff.

I don't really see how the changes are about people wanting more pre-made content. If anything, they are moving away from over-defining each monster; the less specific lore they provide, the more that is left up to the imagination. For example, my ideal monster description looks something like this.

In terms of playable races, tons of people are out there happily making OC tieflings and orcs kobolds that bear little to no resemblance to the description of those races in the official books. As it has been since the beginning of the hobby, people are customizing the game and playing it the way they want. WOTC is just playing catch up.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

My feeling is that as time moves forward we are going to see D&D transition more and more from written for an adult audience to written for a young adult audience.

Basically less Watchmen and more Avengers.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

For example, my ideal monster description looks something like this.

I have to say, when I started running RPGs, indeed for the first few years, I found descriptions like that incredibly unhelpful, even counter-helpful.

A lot of monsters deserve a pretty thorough description, especially the weirder ones. You can't expect everybody to be on the same page from a couple of sentences, and you're kneecapping a lot of DMs with that kind of vagueness, even if you're empowering a few (mostly experienced) ones. And I don't think it's actually helpful to have people on entirely different pages about how monsters basically work, especially as in my experience it tends to promote some degree of strife.

My feeling is that as time moves forward we are going to see D&D transition more and more from written for an adult audience to written for a young adult audience.

Basically less Watchmen and more Avengers.

I'd say that's been very clearly going on since 2E. I don't see how you can suggest it's novel. 2E feels like it was very much aimed at teenagers. I admit 1E does not feel that way at all. 1E seems to be aimed at maybe mid-20-somethings, but it was barely "aimed" at all.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That's a pretty amazing thing to say when you demanded I argue something I'd already argued and merely pointed that out lol.

The difference is I at no point insulted you. If you don't get that, that's on you.

 

[embee]

Even a broken old school clocks that you remember fondly are right twice a day

That is demonstrably untrue. A broken clock, i.e. one that does not properly function, could be continuously incorrect due to losing or gaining time.

Now a stopped clock will be right twice daily.

Similarly, there are few things around that can be compared as easily as apples and oranges.