Is it still D&D?

[Valiant]

Nothing out now not even the same game of D&D you started with will be the D&D you remember. I wouldn't chase down a phantom of your past you'll never catch and learn to enjoy the current games for what they are.

This AD&D experiance=nastalgia arguement is completely and utterly false . I have brought way too many people into AD&D over the last few years that experiance EXACTLY the same things as I experianced when I was introduced to the game way back in 1981.

How is such a thing possible you ask? Simple. I use the original PH and DMG, thus the rules and the setting are identical to what they were back then. I also use the same dungeons, new ones like those originals (see EXPR line) or my own stuff which is the same.

You see, AD&D is just a game. It is a rule book, objectively existing (like Monopoly) it wasn't some magical mystical phantom.

This "D&D is a nastalgic phantom" arguement I've heard before (during the Edition Wars mostly), and its IMHO a load of horse poop (a lame attempt to convince people what they experianced back then can't be recreated today. There is zero thats right ZERO truth to it, don't buy that can of spam.

For example, Just because you liked Mozart when you were 17 doesn't mean that your liking Mozart today is because its nastalgic (reminding you of how great it was when you were 17), nor does it mean that people just introduced to Mozart for the first time like it to experiance some time period. Sure, nastalgia exists for AD&D, but no more and no less then for any other game we played, or any other activity we did.

AD&D is "classic" it transends time periods (just like Mozart). It just so happens that it was written around the same time you got into the game. Hopefully, the AD&D game (the books themselves) will continue into the future (if only as a PDF or in a clone form like OSRIC), and it will be available to play.

Anyhow, the Nastalgic arguement presented here by Crothain is dead wrong (as a generality). Perhaps its just his personal experiance. Maybe he never liked the original AD&D or OD&D in the first place...I don't know. But anyone reading this should completely and utterly erase this "AD&D=Nastalgia" notion from your mind from this point on, because its simply and completely not true.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Valiant speech...you still realize that most truth is in the eye of the beholder, right? At least where stuff like RPGs are concerned.

 

[Valiant]

Valiant speech...you still realize that most truth is in the eye of the beholder, right? At least where stuff like RPGs are concerned.

No, art is in the eye of the beholder. RPGs are games (not art), games with rules that by definition reproduce the same experiance over and over. Think of Monopoly Geron. That is a game with a board and a rule book. People pick up that rule book and read it, then they move pieces around a board. The experiance is the same more or less from person to person and generation to generation.

AD&D is a rule book. Its game board is the default fantasy setting presented in the rules (and by example the early TSR modules). People pick up the AD&D rule book and read it, then they move around in this world (In this case the game board is the imaginary world presented by the DM, but based around the Hobbitish default setting presented in the rule books; a little different between each player and each DM no doubt).

The Nastalgia arguement is one presented by those who prefer the new rules over the old (for what ever reason). It is used to convince people to embrace their prefered version of D&D, rather then go back to a system they never liked in the first place, and it side steps any arguements about rules or setting.

"Ahh, its nastalgia"! You can describe how great something is till your blue in the face, and someone who really believes your simply bewitched by nastalgic feelings (be it 70s rock, clothing styles, gaming, you name it) and my friend, you will never get anyware.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

No, art is in the eye of the beholder. RPGs are games (not art), games with rules that by definition reproduce the same experiance over and over. Think of Monopoly Geron. That is a game with a board and a rule book. People pick up that rule book and read it, then they move pieces around a board. The experiance is the same.

AD&D is a rule book. Its game board is the default fantasy setting presented in the rules (and by example the early TSR modules). People pick up the AD&D rule book and read it, then they move around in this world (this game board is an imaginary world of course, so its going to vary between each player and the world is unique to each DM so there you vary again, but all still start at AD&Ds default setting and move on from there).

Sure, if you want to limit the "experience" of a game to applying the rules and rolling a few dice. And if you want to believe that people are all inherently the same, and thus get the same experience out of the same thing.

And no, not everybody will simply start at the default AD&D setting.

The similarity with Monopoly ends at the "it uses dice". Every person is different, and the same person 20 years later is different from its younger self. Different persons experience the game differently. There might be overlap in those experiences, but a 35 year old person will already react differently to playing AD&D for the first time than a 15 year old will. The emotional attachment you discard as "nostalgia" effect is a big part of the experience of playing D&D as a kid vs. as an adult.

What Crothian describes are people that long for the "same (A)D&D" they experienced as kids. And that simply won't come back anymore. Nobody is able to tune out 20 or 30 years of adult life AND roleplaying experience. Some are able to push it aside a bit, but in most gamers' careers there's been so much changes happening that simply grabbing the books they started with won't give the same experience anymore. It WILL give a big shot of nostalgia, though, which can lead to a feeling of gaming enthusiasm being refreshed.

Your Mozart comparison is the best example. A kid might love Mozart for the pretty melodies, and carry that love into adulthood. But as an adult, it will most likely understand the underlying concepts of Mozart's music better, and experience the music on a completely different level. The fact that the music is great is still in the mix, of course, but it's not the only driving force anymore.

Most kids I know played D&D in a very haphazard, all-inclusive manner at first...then they started mastering the rules (spawning a lot of rules-competition on the way), then they started grasping the underlying principles of a roleplaying game (What is a character, how do I play him, WHY do I play him, etc...), and finally they grasp the underlying design principles of a roleplaying game (Why is that rule the way it is, what happens when I change it, what makes a working rule, etc...). That is a completely different experience from an adult, who will grasp the working of the rules relatively quickly (depending on how complex they are and how interested the adult in question is), and go from there to how they play the character. The nearly untainted ability to suspend disbelieve, though, is gone. There's 20 years of "reality filters" over the eyes and mind already. That will give a completely different experience from what a kid can get out of D&D.

I'd wager that, if you make a comparison experiment, introducing a group of adults to D&D and doing the same with a group of kids, you'll get two completely different sets of experiences (and expectations even before the game has started), as well as totally different behavioural patterns in-play and out-play.

Oh, and by the way...ask any police detective about "truth" and witnesses...I'm sure he'll have some interesting comments on that. Or a scientist. Judge or lawyer. Basically, the onnly ones that claim to have a "universal truth" are those guys who at the same time want to save your soul. For the rest of the world, truth is more relative than people would like to realize.

 

[Valiant]

Geron wrote -What Crothian describes are people that long for the "same (A)D&D" they experienced as kids. And that simply won't come back anymore. Nobody is able to tune out 20 or 30 years of adult life AND roleplaying experience.-

Geron the same thing can be said for anything. I will never experiance listening to Rush after 20+ years the same way, I'll also never experiance playing Risk or Chess the same way after30+ years either (not just my age, but my life experiance, my knowledge of the game etc. have all changed me) but So what? I think people that still play AD&D continue to experiance something similar to what they experianced as kids, or they wouldn't still be playing (even if they enjoy other points as well, the core reasons remain the same). Some people do loose their imaginations, grow out of AD&D but so what, the same thing goes for alot of stuff. The fact of the matter is, nobody can go back and experiance anything for the first time. But that doesn't mean what we remember from the first time (or from a time period) wasn't the result of rules.


The original poster was postulating wether the present forms of D&D (and the one in the works) are D&D? You and Croathan seem to believe what the poster experianced as a child had more to do with his embelishments and the freshness of his experiance, and not a better rules set (for him). But I disagree, I suggest it is from a better rules set (for him). If he tried it again, he'd likely discover that himself.


As for truth, sure people see (and experiance) things differently. That doesn't mean the thing they observe don't exist outside of their experiance (perhaps recordable in a more true form, such as a camera).

As for liking Mozart, not everyones background or education increases in classical music, and yet some people still like it for the exact same reasons they did at 17, age sometimes has little or nothing to do with why you like something. Infact, finding out the "rules" to classical music (in music appreciation class etc.) often turns people away from classical music (once consciously aware of just how mathematical and repetitive it is it sometimes looses its magic).

Bottom line, AD&D is a game with a rule book, just like any other game, following the rules will result in a similar experiance between different people (given the age and level of experiance) that was my point.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Bottom line, AD&D is a game with a rule book, just like any other game, following the rules will result in a similar experiance between different people (given the age and level of experiance) that was my point.

Yeah, and that's the point I disagree with, mainly because that'll only work if people are seen as similar as well. Take a look around here, and you'll find a LOT of different experiences from AD&D, even from people who played the game by following the "rules" written down in the book. One of the biggest differences in experience already starts with what constitutes a "rule" in AD&D. Being written in the book isn't enough, since a lot of what was written in the book was not written as a rule, but as a suggestion. Actually, one of the "rules" is that the rules themselves are there to be changed by the players (especially the DM). RPGs simply aren't just another iteration of tabletop family-style board games, or even war games, and that's why they will work different from other kinds of games.

Apart from that, I guess we'd sooner or later come to an understanding anyway, so I'll simply drop out of this part of the discussion, if you don't mind.

 

[Desdichado]

I could take Valient's speech more seriously if he didn't keep calling nostalgia "nastalgia." Nasty!

I'd still completely disagree with it. AD&D 1e isn't a "classic." It's a difficult, frustrating, cumbersome and ugly system. I'm glad you're having fun with it: more power to you. Clearly some people like it. IMO, many, many more were only too happy to move on from it. So the claim that people will have the same experience with it across the board is very, very easy to prove false.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I don't want to get into a fruitless debate over preferences, but I do want to comment on nostalgia.

Rose-colored glasses only alter your perception when you're looking back. When you actually go back and experience whatever was prompting your nostaliga, the glasses stop working. At that point, the experience must stand on its own merit: it either lives up to your nostalgic expectation, or it falls flat. Nostaliga might prompt someone to re-experience something, but nostalgia won't keep them there for long. And often, nostalgic-driven experiences are disappointments; the book isn't as good as you remebered from your youth, the T.V. show isn't as great as you remembered, et cetera.

People who are currently playing and enjoying older editions are typically not doing it for nostalgia. Nostalgia might have started the ball rolling, but it's not enough to keep you playing. The experience has to stand on its own merit. For me, and for many others, the experience does stand on its own merit. I prefer it.

Another oft-heard comment is the idea that "you'll never be 13 again," implying that the experience will never be the same as it was. I agree that you'll never be 13 again. I agree that the experience will never be *exactly* the same as it was. However, that doesn't mean the experience won't be good...or even better than it was, before.

In my case, I enjoy the older editions more, now, than I did when I first played them. I'm a much better DM. I have a much better understanding of the older editions, of how to run a game, of what's fun and what works for me, et cetera.

My $0.02; take it or leave it.

 

[RFisher]

"This is not the D&D I remember"

Even back when I was a 3e advocate, I'd suggest that people approach it as a new game.

For myself, I am looking at 4e as being a new game.

It used to bother me though that the old game was automatically dismissed simply because it bore the same brand name as the new game. Must be obsolete then, right? OSRIC, Labyrinth Lord, & oD&D available as legal PDFs, however, have mitigated that.

Which brings up my next personal dilemma: If I am switching to a NEW game, which new game do I switch to? WD&D, or any of the myriad of other ones out there that I have not yet tried, but that is another topic.

For me, there's no "switching". I can't imagine not playing a variety of games.

Nothing out now not even the same game of D&D you started with will be the D&D you remember. I wouldn't chase down a phantom of your past you'll never catch and learn to enjoy the current games for what they are.

Right. Except that my group has had a blast with our recent classic Traveller & classic D&D campaigns.

What Crothian describes are people that long for the "same (A)D&D" they experienced as kids.

Well, yeah. There's a certain amount of truth to that. Arguably the experience I have playing the classic games today is better than the experience I had then.

Just because the experience won't be 100% exactly the same, however, shouldn't keep anyone from having fun with the old games today. Not only can they be equally or even more fun today, the nostalgia can be icing on the cake. Chasing the phantom doesn't mean that you won't catch anything. Catching "old man Smithers" can be more fun that catching an actual phantom. (^_^)

I could also argue that the difference between the AD&D I might play in 2007 v. the AD&D I played in 1995 wouldn't be greater than the difference between the AD&D I played in 1995 v. 1985. So, if the phantom is "the AD&D I played between 1985 & 1995", I don't think it's a phantom at all.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Well, yeah. There's a certain amount of truth to that. Arguably the experience I have playing the classic games today is better than the experience I had then.

Just because the experience won't be 100% exactly the same, however, shouldn't keep anyone from having fun with the old games today. Not only can they be equally or even more fun today, the nostalgia can be icing on the cake. Chasing the phantom doesn't mean that you won't catch anything. Catching "old man Smithers" can be more fun that catching an actual phantom. (^_^)

I could also argue that the difference between the AD&D I might play in 2007 v. the AD&D I played in 1995 wouldn't be greater than the difference between the AD&D I played in 1995 v. 1985. So, if the phantom is "the AD&D I played between 1985 & 1995", I don't think it's a phantom at all.

Brrrrrr, I never said people shouldn't play the older editions of D&D! Quite the contrary, I believe that the older editions have a lot going for them. Also, nostalgia is nothing bad, it means somebody has GOOD memories about those editions that he treasures instead of traumas and bad memories that make him loathe the game.

All the same, even if I'd find somebody around here to play BECMI D&D again, it wouldn't be the same. It might be tremendous fun, but it'd be new fun...heh, with an old game.