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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 8947557" data-attributes="member: 29398">I think you might want to fine-tune your definition of "early days" a bit. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />There's a rather vast difference between play* in the 70s and play* in the 79-81 era and play* in the 82-84 era and play* 1985-forward.Play in the 70s was, from what I can gather, a fair bit like you say; but others who know more can speak to that.In the 79-81 era when things were new to many (and the fad was gathering steam) then other than the dungeons always being generated randomly (many DMs starting writing homebrew adventures right off the hop, to supplement the few modules there were) what you say holds largely true - little if any consideration was given to downtime or between-adventure activities other than treasure division and training up.  Most important was that little if any of it was taken all that seriously.  Gonzo was often king.By the 82-84 era there were, as you say, loads of modules including non-dungeon ones; and DMs started stringing them together into proto-adventure paths.  Story, while still not foremost, gained in importance...and both players and DMs started taking it all seriously.  DMs and players also started viewing the setting as something bigger than just a string of dungeons and a few towns.  There was also the beginnings of a defensive mindest among gamers, courtesy of the budding Satanic Panic, which made them (us) take it even more seriously.  Gonzo became a bad thing.1985 was a turning point for two reasons: UA came out and broke the game, and Dragonlance took off in popularity.* - ignoring outliers, of which there were always some.</blockquote>

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