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

[Micah Sweet]

I took it, because the game was fun and I don't mind absorbing lore info. But I'm also happy that they stopped doing the behaviors I found annoying.

And you're well within your rights to feel that way. I never got into WoD, so I really don't have an opinion on it specifically, but it sounded cool from what I heard.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Is it so hard to say, "I don't like this" instead of "this is bad"? Really?

Because it is actually bad, false advertising at best. If one is buying what one thought is an adventure module but it is really a lore dump and the key plot event are all in the hands of NPCs then it would be better as a novel or a lore book with all the adventure bits stripped out and much easier to digest and read.
I am buying an adventure module to save me time creating adventures. The fact that you have never done that is beside the point.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Because it is actually bad, false advertising at best. If one is buying what one thought is an adventure module but it is really a lore dump and the key plot event are all in the hands of NPCs then it would be better as a novel or a lore book with all the adventure bits stripped out and much easier to digest and read.
I am buying an adventure module to save me time creating adventures. The fact that you have never done that is beside the point.

It isn't beside the point. It is proof that your opinions on the matter are not shared by everyone, so presenting them otherwise is IMO a problem, particularly if you double down on it.

The false advertising claim may have some legs on it though. It just doesn't matter to me because of why I buy modules.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It isn't beside the point. It is proof that your opinions on the matter are not shared by everyone, so presenting them otherwise is IMO a problem, particularly if you double down on it.

The false advertising claim may have some legs on it though. It just doesn't matter to me because of why I buy modules.

It is not a module, if it is mostly a lore dump or there to showcase an NPC, especially if it encourages the DM to fool the players that their characters might have agency and then just pull that agency away to NPCs.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It is not a module, if it is mostly a lore dump or there to showcase an NPC, especially if it encourages the DM to fool the players that their characters might have agency and then just pull that agency away to NPCs.

Ok. Did you spend money or time on it? If not, why is this a big deal?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I think early in the '90s that was absolutely true. I dunno about running it at the table, but buying it? People were buying it!

By the end of the '90s? My impression, and one certainly supported by comments from various game designers of the era and I suspect by reviews from that era, if we go dig into them, people were pretty damn sick of it!

Also the Dark Sun adventure mentioned, Freedom made people mad even back in the day, I know that, but it might be because it was novel-based rather than the metaplot appearing through game products, which I think for some reason was better-accepted.

I think for certain by the end of the 90s people were ready for a lot of changes. Like I said it was fashionable (like if you go back to 2003, certain types of adventure and setting design were fashionable). I don't recall the reviews off hand (are you thinking of ones in magazines like Dragon?). What I remember was people being pretty on board in my local gaming area with metaplot for some time. And I know I was super into it. Though some changes I disliked (for example I never really liked the way they reconfigured the core in Ravenloft: I felt the nightmare lands and other domains (like Bluetspur) should have remained there). However Ravenloft is pretty malleable so it was not the end of the world. Where I recall really becoming disatisfied wasn't metaplot but the gradual decline of production value and quality control (especially towards the end of the 90s). Also the 2E aesthetic changed with the black core books, and I just wasn't into the art (which is superficial, but does impact how excited you are about the material).

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Doesn't mean I'm not using the car and aren't happy it was manufactured. What difference does it make what I'm using it for in regards to how valid my opinion is? I like, you don't. There's nothing more to it than that.

LOL obviously it makes a huge difference. You don't care how the car drives, how the seats are, and no, you're not "using it". you're using a part of it, separated from the rest.

It is basic common sense, the lowest possible most obvious sense that if you only use a part of thing your opinion differ from those who use the whole.

It just doesn't matter to me because of why I buy modules.

So you know perfectly well and were just sealioning? Is that what you're saying? Jeez.

Ok. Did you spend money or time on it? If not, why is this a big deal?

A lot of the time? Yeah that was exactly the problem. A lot of these were advertised as X, then were essentially Y. You can say "Your dumb ass should have wised up sooner", but I was a teenager man, you're meant to be dumb when you're a teen!

It also means products are less useful, which is very disappointing even if you don't buy them, and I know you don't even disagree, because you've complained about setting books having wasted space on stuff, or not putting enough time and effort into certain bits - and settings/adventures obsessing about metaplot did the same.

It's also notable ones that were consciously and obviously metaplot were way less annoying, even cool sometimes, like The Time of Thin Blood - it wasted a little too much time on fixing what the metaplot was going to be, but at least it was up front and had useful/different stuff in it. It was metaplot focused openly, not just "SURPRISE! A THIRD OF THIS IS METAPLOT JUNK!".

 

[Bedrockgames]

You're not required to buy anything, especially if the older stuff worked better for you. The story was the story and the game was the game.

Yeah I used to buy all the stuff. Now that everything has played out, my preferred approach is to use the black box for ravenloft (so no real metaplot elements). But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't on board fully when it first was happening (I might disagree with something the DoD book does, or the red Box, but I was primarily a happy GM ready to adopt what they put out)

 

[tetrasodium]

I can't remember playing an RPG with total player ignorance of the rules, but I've certainly seem quite a few where parts of the rules are obscured. This can go all the way from the relatively common "What are the stats of this monster?" to the less common "What is the penalty for doing X in situation Y?". But I can't recall playing an RPG obscuring basic task resolution.

I've seen quite a few 5e games where the players seem to express total ignorance of the rules when it's convenient. Apparently it's bad form for a gm to expect players to meet a higher standard.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Ok. Did you spend money or time on it? If not, why is this a big deal?

Yes