D&D General Matt Colville: "50 years later we're still arguing about what D&D even is!"

[Clint_L]

1e had the to hit charts in the DMG so a player knew they wanted to roll high and have bigger bonuses to attack but generally not the numbers they needed to hit specific ACs in core AD&D until 2e in 89.

The 1e DMG talked about keeping rules knowledge from players separate specifically.

Yeah, but no one I know did that. We all traded books freely, as well as Dragon magazine and every other resource, and virtually everyone had at least their own MM as well as PHB, because the MM was cool! All the players knew exactly what they needed to roll in most situations. They also knew exactly what magic items they were seeking for their character, and so on. None of this was top secret information, and we were just kids.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Aha interesting example - I've never read that! I kind of assumed from the era it was more open, but I guess not!

I only read it because I was wondering what Vecna themed stuff was out there that could be recycled into low level adventures to lead up to Venca Eve of Run. I was astonished by it. In all the key boss fights the pcs have no agency.

 

[Staffan]

Which TSR 2E adventures/campaigns would you point to as being particularly bad here? I can't off-hand think of any. I can think of some 3E one I personally think were (but wouldn't want to get into an argument over it lol!). I can also think of settings getting changed to account for bad novels a lot, but that's kind of different (primarily FR and Dark Sun).

I've seen people criticize Freedom, the first published Dark Sun adventure for this. I don't really agree with the criticism, but I can see where they're coming from.

The adventure takes place at mostly the same time as the novel The Verdant Passage, and has the players being enslaved due to flimsy pretexts to work on the ziggurat being built by Tyr's sorcerer-king Kalak. The adventure is kind of a multi-track railroad: depending on how each PC was enslaved, the PCs will be put in different situations and interact with various NPCs.
The adventure recommends using different scenarios for different character types – e.g. recommending using the scenario that puts the PC in touch with the Veiled Alliance if playing a preserver (wizard), or the one that gets you an in with the templars if you're more morally flexible, and so on.

Meanwhile, the novel in question is about a group consisting of two gladiator slaves, a preserver, and a nobleman templar learning that the ziggurat is a key component in a ritual Kalak is planning to ascend to becoming a full dragon, which in Dark Sun is an extremely powerful creature with 30th level wizard casting and 30th level psionic use (secretly, all the sorcerer-monarchs are 21st to 24th level defilers/psionicists working their way toward dragonhood, but Kalak wanted to take a shortcut) and going on a quest to find a thingamajig to stop him. The book's finale takes place after the ziggurat is completed, and the completion is celebrated by massive gladiatorial games. The group uses the games to attack Kalak, who initiates the ritual and starts draining the life energy from every inhabitant of the city. Being the heroes they are, they manage to interrupt the ritual, and kill Kalak, after which they pronounce the former chief templar (who helped them) the new king, with his first act or rulership being the abolishment of slavery in Tyr.

The climax of the adventure takes place at the same gladiatorial games. The PCs are doing various stuff on the sidelines, or taking part in the "warm-up" gladiatorial matches... until the attack on Kalak. This sets off a whole lot of chaos in the arena, and the PCs have to try to get out while ideally also rescuing others, all while having their life energy drained by Kalak's foul ritual. As they manage to get out, the announcement is made that the King is dead, long live the King, and that slavery is ended.

Some would argue that this is a bunch of NPCs taking center stage and doing the important stuff while the PCs are sidelined, but I disagree. I see this as more of a disaster movie situation. It's not about fighting the source of the problem, it's about surviving it and helping others survive. In light of that, the PCs are doing level-appropriate heroics, and ones that will get them noticed by higher-ups.

 

[TiQuinn]

Which TSR 2E adventures/campaigns would you point to as being particularly bad here? I can't off-hand think of any. I can think of some 3E one I personally think were (but wouldn't want to get into an argument over it lol!). I can also think of settings getting changed to account for bad novels a lot, but that's kind of different (primarily FR and Dark Sun).

A lot of the Ravenloft line were railroads where the PCs “die” at the beginning in order to set up a scenario where they are rescued by a villain who also acts as quest giver, and are locked into finding a particular Macguffin.

 

[Voadam]

A lot of 2e modules in general were heavily railroads with big story beats to hit.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Vecna Lives and the follow up ones were not as bad but still had stuff being done by NPCs with little input or impact by the PCs.

I always liked D&D's metaplots. I read a lot of the novels during the 2e era, and many were cool and fun stories I was happy to see translated to game products of the time. To me, ending all that was like someone deciding we're not making more Star Trek. Official D&D had a narrative just like Trek, Star Wars, or Marvel, and I was an still am sad to see it go.

The thing is, none of that affects my play of the game. Not one tiny iota of metaplot has to enter play at the table if I don't want it to. Games and stories are different, even when both are made by the same company, and IMO the former should affect the latter in the form of inspiration. Any influence from story to game is up to the table and no one else.

I love being inspired by the worlds of D&D (or at least I did), but I always played in a homebrewed world.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Some would argue that this is a bunch of NPCs taking center stage and doing the important stuff while the PCs are sidelined, but I disagree.

Definitionally that is a perfect example of the PCs being sidelined for the sake of NPCs from a novel. You're not going to find a more perfect example.

There's absolutely no reason for that adventure to exist as it did except because someone wanted to make the NPCs from the truly appalling Prism Pentad series of novels be Big Damn Heroes who the PCs have to get see be super-cool. That's literally it.

I agree that after the cutscene the writers did try and give the PCs a bit more to do, but it's a very strong example of this kind of thing, as the PCs have to stand around whilst a cutscene they're not allowed to be in any way involved in plays out in front of them. I dragged the adventure out of check - I'd forgotten it existed - and the whole thing is a pretty massive railroad with the PCs being repeatedly deprotagonised, told by the DM how they feel, and so on, for the sake of forcing them into a very particular situation, and they only need to be in that situation so they can stand around and admire the heroes from a terrible novel series. That's the real killer - the Prism Pentad were so bad even a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds were like "Wow this is way worse than the other D&D books!". I see it also has many pages of Allen Varney-written text which is not needed or helpful and is essentially just "Dark Sun fanfiction".

If such an adventure was written today they'd make the whole thing more chaotic and less cut-scene-y and might well not have the PCs see the assassination take place at all, and the assassins certainly wouldn't be Big Damn Hero Adventurers, they'd be something more complex and less in competition with the entire concept of the PCs.

Cool Brom cover though!

A lot of the Ravenloft line were railroads where the PCs “die” at the beginning in order to set up a scenario where they are rescued by a villain who also acts as quest giver, and are locked into finding a particular Macguffin.

That's just a fairly typical railroad though right? The issue with the oWoD ones and apparently at least some TSR ones was much worse than that - the most dramatic scenes in the adventure would essentially be about the PCs keeping their hands inside the cart as they watch some dramatic scene with Big Important NPCs play out, who are far too Big and Powerful to be intervened in. Or do they have that too?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I love being inspired by the worlds of D&D (or at least I did), but I always played in a homebrewed world.

You might want to consider the connection between these two things.

I strongly suspect that if you were playing a setting that was a victim of significant metaplot-ery, especially if it permanently changed the setting, you might be less sanguine about it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

However, nearly every adventure for the main settings was a railroad

That definitely isn't true for the 2E FR adventures I have, nor the Planescape ones, but yeah re: Dark Sun I recall that now, and evidently it was true for Greyhawk too. Can believe it re: Birthright, and that would be particularly awful because the PCs are literally meant to be movers and shakers there.

 

[Voadam]

That's just a fairly typical railroad though right? The issue with the oWoD ones and apparently at least some TSR ones was much worse than that - the most dramatic scenes in the adventure would essentially be about the PCs keeping their hands inside the cart as they watch some dramatic scene with Big Important NPCs play out, who are far too Big and Powerful to be intervened in. Or do they have that too?

Some Ravenloft ended with watch villain versus Darklord fight and PCs try to escape.

Watch big NPCs fight was a big TSR 2e plot story point for modules across product lines. 1e Dragonlance had this as well with dragon fights and such at points.