D&D General Oh, the Humanity! Exotic Races, Anthropocentrism, Stereotypes & Roleplaying in D&D

[Mercurius]

I have also observed older folks making generalizations about younger folks... and being wrong. Very wrong. Often. So, maybe such things ought to be based on more than just, "I have observed," given that our individual observations are usually not statistically relevant random samples.

That being said, "in the old days," the marketplace was not flooded with options as it is now, and players had much less ability to find out about the ones that did exist. I have the sneaking suspicion that with the stagnation of RPG prices over the years, a new ruleset is proportionally a smaller amount of the younger player's disposable resources as well.

The internet has given us the whole wealth of possibilities at the lick of a mouse - there is no need to do lots of homebrew rules when you can just pick another game that does what you want instead.

No need to come to the valiant (if misplaced) defense of the younger folks, nor to make this into something it isn't. I'm not generalizing--in any sort of definitive, concrete way, at least--about them in terms of their character, but just in terms of what I have observed, specifically in relation to the degree that the rules are set in stone vs. malleability. Thus the "I have observed."

Of course your next two paragraphs provide another angle that supports the idea: which is that homebrewing is less common these days, for a multiple of reasons that I conjectured about and you added to.

. . . That says absolutely nothing about the younger generation.

What exactly do you think I'm trying to say about the younger generation that I didn't say in the paragraph that you quoted me as saying "absolutely nothing" about them? Maybe I wasn't making the kind of judgment you seem to think I was saying?

 

[zarionofarabel]

The only issue I have with your post is the implied idea of "just playing yourself" is somehow a bad idea. I learned how to DM without any mentors, or teachers, or YouTube videos to instruct me or even give me a hint on how to do it. My original players had no idea as well as they learned to play at the same time I was learning to DM. I got my original Red Box set as a Christmas present in 1988 because I thought the art on the front was neat so my aunt got it for me as a gift. It didn't take long before my original players figured out that they didn't need to just play themselves. The fact that there were no races (elf and dwarf and halfling are classes in Red Box) and very little lore driving players towards playing certain tropes seemed to have little effect. In fact, one of the first things I do if I have a player that is completely new to roleplaying and seems lost as to how to act in the game is tell them to just be themselves and do what they think they would do in such a situation. I have never found the restrictions that are put on people by the lore present in later editions to be very helpful as new players almost always just use it as an excuse to play up the tropes in a cliched way.

 

[Mercurius]

I think it's less that younger players are afraid to customize as much as the DM field is loaded with older DMs settled in a groove, forced forever DMs who may have already customized long ago, and new fresh DM with wavy confidence. So the number of customized worlds that could push the limits of race and class are few. But the young still push as players and go for the edges of the limitations given to them.

That may be the case, and is an interesting angle.

Another that comes to mind is that maybe the rules require less customization, as popular house rules have been (to some extent, at least) incorporated into later editions. No edition--except, perhaps, for OD&D--arose in a vacuum without reference and relationship to past editions (and even OD&D had a relationship to Chainmail), so--in theory, at least--mistakes were learned from, and some degree of evolution has occurred.

That said, it is still my sense that the D&D 5E player base is more centralized than in past editions, or at least TSR times. I think the internet has a lot to do with it, but also how 5E specifically is presented and published, and elements of the current internet-based cultural zeitgeist. For instance, 1-2 story arcs make it so that a large segment of the player base are playing the same thing. Yes, plenty of folks are playing older adventures, DM's Guild and 3PP modules, as well as homebrews, but there's a shared and collective awareness of the active story arc as a kind of center of gravity, the default of what "everyone is playing," even if that isn't actually the case. This, of course, comes from the Pathfinder adventure path model. And the internet allows us access into each other's worlds, at least to some degree--and far more so than in, say, 1990.

The point being, there's more of a hive mind, or perhaps multiple hiveminds that overlap and interact, vs. in the pre-internet days, the D&D community was mostly only united through Dragon Magazine and conventions. So perhaps this "shared world" or hivemind creates a strong gravitational pull towards a D&D canon.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

What exactly do you think I'm trying to say about the younger generation that I didn't say in the paragraph that you quoted me as saying "absolutely nothing" about them? Maybe I wasn't making the kind of judgment you seem to think I was saying?

Basically, in the least offensive way, that you think they can't/don't think outside of the box. My experience (which has also been with young-folk) has been the exact opposite.

Also, one of the first things asked in a new campaign is "what variant rules are we using", as there are quite a few provided in the core rules (Feats, Multiclassing, Flanking, All of TCoE, Encumbrance, and so on and so on).

If I understand earlier editions correctly, when new books/official content was released, it was much less "this is something that you can allow in your games" and was more "this is official content available to all players unless the DM bans it". This shift from "what homebrew rules are we using?" to "what version are we playing" isn't with an age group of the community, it is with the hobby in general, as there are far more "pick-and-choose" parts of the game than there were before.

That doesn't show anything, and doesn't really support the "don't realize the game is customizable" claim from your first sentence of that paragraph, as they recognize that the game is customizable just by asking which optional parts of the official rules they are using. And, if you want to respond with "yes, but they don't realize that things don't have to be official" or something like that, I would rebut that by saying that I've seen a ton of homebrew from younger players, they just are yet to become good enough at homebrew to be comfortable with adding their stuff to their campaigns (IME, at least).

 

[Umbran]

No need to come to the valiant (if misplaced) defense of the younger folks

It is less a defense of the younger folks, and more a suggestion to not go down the road of discussion based on faulty generalization. For, while you said "I have observed" if that observation is not questioned the typical default is to continue as if that observation were true.

If your observation isn't true, and there's no real issue of calcification of rules among younger gamers? What then? Is there any there, there, to discuss?

 

[PsyzhranV2]

What I have observed is that younger generations of D&D players seem to not realize or actualize the idea that D&D is infinitely customizable, and each table and campaign can be different and unique. In the old days, one of the first questions players would ask when joining a campaign was, "What are the house rules?" Now it seems largely replaced by, "which version are we using?"

This is a meaningless statement in that it applies to every pen and paper tabletop RPG ever made. D&D is not unique in this regard. In order to perform an analysis of D&D, we need to consider D&D as it is presented to us in RAW form, as opposed to Call of Cthulhu or Warhammer Fantasy or Vampire, etc.

Also, your statement can be interpreted as a preemptive shutting down of discussions and analysis of the way mechanics shape play expectations. It basically amounts to saying "design is meaningless" and closes the door on discussing the way mechanics can be changed and refined.

 

[Mercurius]

Basically, in the least offensive way, that you think they can't/don't think outside of the box. My experience (which has also been with young-folk) has been the exact opposite.

Also, one of the first things asked in a new campaign is "what variant rules are we using", as there are quite a few provided in the core rules (Feats, Multiclassing, Flanking, All of TCoE, Encumbrance, and so on and so on).

If I understand earlier editions correctly, when new books/official content was released, it was much less "this is something that you can allow in your games" and was more "this is official content available to all players unless the DM bans it". This shift from "what homebrew rules are we using?" to "what version are we playing" isn't with an age group of the community, it is with the hobby in general, as there are far more "pick-and-choose" parts of the game than there were before.

That doesn't show anything, and doesn't really support the "don't realize the game is customizable" claim from your first sentence of that paragraph, as they recognize that the game is customizable just by asking which optional parts of the official rules they are using. And, if you want to respond with "yes, but they don't realize that things don't have to be official" or something like that, I would rebut that by saying that I've seen a ton of homebrew from younger players, they just are yet to become good enough at homebrew to be comfortable with adding their stuff to their campaigns (IME, at least).

Yeah, that is taking things further than what I said or meant (the idea that young people can't/don't think outside of the box).

Perhaps I should have written "newer" rather than "younger," as I'm mainly talking about the hobby itself and how it is played now vs. "back in the day," as well as how we interact as individuals and as a culture now vs in the past. "Hivemindism" and tribalism seems more...aggressive than it was a few decades ago, if only because it is more out there (through the internet and social media). There is a strong impetus to be part of one team/tribe or the other, and in the process what I think is often lost is the idea that one doesn't have to glom onto any ideology or group, but be radically self-creative and individualized. This is a wider cultural trend that infuses the D&D community, afaict.

I do think the toolbox approach is less explicit in the WotC era than it was in TSR, especially 1E AD&D and before, for reasons I stated in my first post. I could be misremembering.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Thus the "I have observed."

You stated this in such a way that it makes it sound like you are shutting down any other viewpoint. "I have observed" should have been "From what I have observed/experienced", instead of wording it in such a way that comes off as a blanket statement.

 

[Mercurius]

It is less a defense of the younger folks, and more a suggestion to not go down the road of discussion based on faulty generalization. For, while you said "I have observed" if that observation is not questioned the typical default is to continue as if that observation were true.

If your observation isn't true, and there's no real issue of calcification of rules among younger gamers? What then? Is there any there, there, to discuss?

How do you know that I don't question my observations? Why make that assumption or turn this into a logical debate?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yeah, that is taking things further than what I said or meant (the idea that young people can't/don't think outside of the box).

Do you not see how this. . .

Younger generations of D&D players seem to not realize or actualize the idea that D&D is infinitely customizable, and each table and campaign can be different and unique.

would be interpreted as "younger/newer players don't think outside of the box [in terms of roleplaying games]"?