Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
There were several "no wave" styles listed, with no examples. How about starting with those (the ones I've been talking about this whole time) and drop the Slippery Slope argument?
D&D General Mike Mearls' blog post about RPG generations
- Thread starter TheAlkaizer
- Start date
Thomas Shey
Legend
How about taking that up with the person who listed those and not me? Given I've already argued about two of them with them.
Yeah... Character generation focus is a 4th generation 2000s thing!
Certainly not the focus of AD&D 2e's Complete series of:
Book of Elves
Book of Humanoids
Fighter's Handbook
Thief's Handbook
Wizard's Handbook
Psionics Handbook
Priest's Handbook
Book of Necromancers
Bard's Handbook
Paladin's Handbook
Barbarian's Handbook
Druid's Handbook
Ninja's Handbook
Book of Dwarves
Book of Gnomes and Halflings
Book of Villains
It really wasn't until 2000 that we got the focus on character generation, or the idea of "Expansions" full of content to purchase... Right?
That is to say: I find his generational structure flimsy.
Certainly not the focus of AD&D 2e's Complete series of:
Book of Elves
Book of Humanoids
Fighter's Handbook
Thief's Handbook
Wizard's Handbook
Psionics Handbook
Priest's Handbook
Book of Necromancers
Bard's Handbook
Paladin's Handbook
Barbarian's Handbook
Druid's Handbook
Ninja's Handbook
Book of Dwarves
Book of Gnomes and Halflings
Book of Villains
It really wasn't until 2000 that we got the focus on character generation, or the idea of "Expansions" full of content to purchase... Right?
That is to say: I find his generational structure flimsy.
The point was that those genre didn't have games popular or well known enough to cause a wave of popularity within the total FRPG community. Can't be a wave if you don't make a splash.
Feel free to name RPGs that made waves in genres not represented.
----+
So with recent examples
- Sword and Sorcery (1E & early 2E) 1974-
- Horror Fantasy (CoC) 1981-
- Epic Fantasy (Mid 2E) 1984-
- Dark Fantasy (Late 2E, WOD) 1991-
- Urban Fantasy (WOD) 1991-
- Dungeon Fantasy (3E) 2000-
- Mythic Fantasy (Exalted, Scion) 2001-
- Adventure Fantasy (3.5E, PF 1&2) 2003-
- "Paragon" Fantasy (4E, 13A, Draw Steel) 2008-
- Heroic Fantasy (5E) 2014+
- Grim & Gritty Fantasy (OSR, DCC Shadowdark) 2024-
- Superheroic Fantasy (Daggerheart) 2025-
Any more?
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
So we're just dropping the "no wave" genres? I should forget they were there?
Hussar
Legend
To be entirely fair though, prior to 3e, there just wasn't a whole lot of ways to focus on character generation. Look at those books you listed. They have options at chargen and then... nothing. You made a couple of decisions before the first session - race/class - and that was it.
Then look post 3e where you have decision points in chargen nearly every level. So, it is a significant change in the D&D classed realm. Of course, in any proficiency based skill system, like pretty much every other game in existence, it was par for the course. But, because D&D is so big, the idea of "character build" being an invention of 3e has gained so much traction.
Genre is messy.
You picked your race, class, kit, etc. And then you had specialty classes like Ninjas, Shaman, and Psions. Then there was Multiclassing and Dualclassing as separate concepts. Then there was 2e Gestalts and other rulesets. And don't forget that class kits tended to get stuff at various levels, which sometimes interacted spectacularly with multiclassing depending on your DM.
Skills and Powers, Combat and Tactics, Spells and Magic,m High Level Campaigns, the aforementioned Complete series, Encyclopedia Magica volumes 1 through 4, Wizard's Spell Compendiums 1 through 4, Priests Spell Compendium 1 through 4. Fighter, Wizard, Priest, and Thief's Player Pack. And then there were all the settings which introduced new character options and design structures and narrative settings to be genre-specific... and also Planescape/Spelljammer so you could take your Dark Sun character to various other worlds. (Not recommended due to power levels, but lots of people did it, anyhow!) Don't forget Diablo 2 introducing new mechanics and the various secondary-progression mechanics designed around fealty to a given organization that you gained as you leveled.
There was a TON of stuff you could get over the course of leveling depending on your specific build. And that was -inside- the lines. That's not including the homebrew stuff that kept getting piled on over the years.
Certainly more toward the end of the AD&D 2e Revised period... but that's just how snowfall works.
And hey. Don't forget WotC making "The Compleat Artificer" for 2e as a 3rd party product. Because 3rd party publishing was a thing at the time. Though mainly it was Mayfair Games, I'll grant you.
Character-Creation-Heavy D&D games were a thing well before 3e.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
One more reason to love 2e.
Scribe
Legend
If they both
Didn't make a big splash in the wider TTRPG design space.
OR
Influence another game which did?
Yes, hard to say said example was part of a trend at that point no?
That information is on the website.
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