D&D General On Grognardism...

[Krachek]

Because D&D then was challenging. Now everyone's Superman at level 1.

Simply use a less advantageous method to roll stat like 3d6 in order,
roll hit points rather than take max,
and don’t allow variant human or any feat at level 1.
Bang you just kill Superman!

 

[Gorg]

I think the number of people who genuinely think old (or OSR rules) are written better than 5E rules is very small. Because ...welll... they aren't.

But they do support a very different play process/experience. And some people enjoy that.

A typewriter will never be as efficient and versatile a writing tool as a laptop. But it will have an unmistakable tactility to it and produce hardcopy at the end. Is that better?

It depends on what you value.

TOTALLY off topic here, but your post reminded me of something I experienced a year or two ago.

My friends and I were in Buffalo, NY touring the museum ships there. Among other things, this museum has a WWII Destroyer, a WW II Submarine, and a WW II Cruiser that commissioned too late to see any actual combat, and ended up being rebuilt from the main deck up as one of the first guided missile cruisers ever.

While going through the submarine- the USS Croaker- I happened upon a fairly young father and his 9-10 yr old son. They were in the Bridge area, looking at all the controls for driving the boat. The young boy simply did not understand what he was looking at- analog dials, levers, and wheels, lol. I got a kick out of listening to his dad try to explain their purpose, and how they were used. The utter lack of the digital computer technology he grew up with just boggled his mind!

That's when it struck me: These ships were designed in the late 1930's- using nothing more than paper, pencils, protractors, slide rules, and solid engineering knowlege. And they were built in the very early 1940s using methods and machinery far older than that! These vessels are incredible feats of engineering, and building- and we built them way back then, and used them to do incredibly epic things with crews as young as 16 or 17!!

If you have the opportunity, go on one of these tours of a Museum ship. Worth every penny!

Anyhow, yeah, I know what you mean about the tactile feel thing vs modern digital feel. They are two very different experiences.

 

[DemoMonkey]

I have been on that tour! I loved going on the Croaker. I loved the sample doorway in the waiting line with the sign (paraphrased) "If you cannot move through this, do not go on this tour."

And "Space was so tight, nobody could take a shower until the food stored in the shower itself was eaten."

I can be impressed with the genius and inventiveness of something built - literally or metaphorically - with outdated tools, without thinking that the outdated tools themselves are necessarily better.

 

[Jack Daniel]

I don't really have a question, but more of an invitation for discussion. If you think RPG design peaked in the late 70s, what about that design speaks to you so strongly?

I do have a lot of nostalgia for that Basic rulebook I had in the early 80s, but having played the game compared to a modem design my admiration for that system is entirely based on the nostalgia it represents. Descending AC, wizards with one spell a day and 4hp, puzzles mixing real world knowledge with character problem solving and "beating the adventure" versus "telling a good story" all are things I avoid in 2021.

I've been pondering this question for years and I still don't know if I have a good answer for it.

For what it's worth: I started gaming in the 90s with Classic D&D and then AD&D 2nd edition, and of course my friends and I switched to 3rd and then 3.5 as soon as those came out. And the way we played was very story-driven, a bit railroady, lots of illusionism and making everything up on the fly, and very much all about play-acting a persona (with zero concern for player agency). As far as any of us knew or cared, that's what D&D was, and other ways of playing were for stuffy old grognards who didn't know any better. We were having a blast turning our LotR- and Final Fantasy-inspired unwritten fantasy novels into linear, tightly-plotted campaigns that (much like a Final Fantasy game) had a definite end-point where you saved the world from the BBEG once and for all, and then that setting was never revisited in a sequel campaign ever again. Because what would be the point? That world had already been saved by its Big Damn Heroes, so its story was over.

In college, I kept playing 3.5, but the complexity of the system eventually started to weigh on me. I never found a new group that naturally "gelled" into the same improv-heavy style as my high-school friends. All the new players I met seemed overly concerned with builds and char-op, and none of them cared about play-acting or in-character banter or even talking with an accent. So, I figured, the system must be getting in the way of the real role-playing. I sought simpler alternatives. I switched to Castles & Crusades, then went back to 2nd edition, and finally back to Classic D&D. (This was still a little bit before the OSR was gearing up to become a thing.) I stuck with Classic D&D because of a combination of nostalgia for the system that I'd started with and the sheer simplicity of the rules. They seemed to work for me. They got out of the way, which was good. Players couldn't "build" or "munchkin" anything, which was good. And on top of that, the OSR started happening, which meant that the rules I was using suddenly and conveniently had a lot of support again, which was straight-up awesome!

But I was still trying to use those rules in service of stories and plots, and I continued to be baffled by (A) a lot of what I still considered to be useless old-school "cruft," like descending AC or racial level limits or awarding XP for treasure, and (B) the fact that most players still did not naturally slide into a pattern of in-character role-play where they would engage with each other, riff, banter, improvise dialog, and so forth. I kept up with all the OSR blogs, but I resisted implementing OSR ideas because I was still thoroughly immersed in a "trad gaming" culture and mindset. At the same time, I grew increasingly disheartened by the fact that the players around me appeared to have no real inclination to do any in-character improv unprompted. They'd talk in character to interact with NPCs, but that was the extent of it; otherwise, they would only engage with the game mechanically, mainly through combat. I started to feel that without having exactly the right group of players, all of whom were on board with the same style, RPGs were an exercise in pointless futility.

And then things changed.

Due to a confluence of circumstances, I wound up living in the same city as my younger brother, and out of the blue, he asked me to run a campaign for him and his college buddies. The only gaming book I had in my possession at the time was my D&D Rules Cyclopedia, so I used that. And I decided, what the hell, let's play it straight, by the book, RAW. Stock the dungeon according to the algorithms and monster tables and treasure tables, award XP for treasure, just make the game be about exploring the dungeon. I didn't want to put too much effort into the prep, so I just used to the tools in the book, you know?

And when we started playing, well, it was like a damn lightning-bolt of epiphany. I started to get it for the first time. The sandbox concept clicked. It was just one piece of the puzzle, but it was a key first step. In the years that followed, more and more bits and pieces slid into place and just made sense: thinks like "dead at 0 hp" and level drain make sense in context. The restrictive and random character creation rules of old D&D make sense in context. The TSR old guard being skeptical (or even outright dismissive) of characters with too much backstory, or players detracting from the game by indulging in "amateur thespianism" even started to make sense. The point was the adventure, not a story or an ensemble of characters. And when you grok a game like that, a lot of other stuff (player agency, not fudging the dice, having a fully prepared sandbox setting as a foundation for open-world play) naturally follows. (It also probably helps that around this time I grew terribly bored with the linearity of Final Fantasy but also discovered The Elder Scrolls.)

Hell, even descending AC is pretty damn slick and convenient most of the time. I'm never going back to ascending AC, because it's silly to make players add double-digit numbers all night long when they can add single-digit numbers instead.

These days, I don't have much to do with the OSR (though I am grateful to the movement as a whole for helping to snap me out of my formerly benighted condition). I just play TSR D&D, so I have zero interest in the stuff the modern OSR churns out (like rules-light indie games, art books, and shock schlock). And I remain skeptical of the OSR's romantic and dogmatic ideas about how old D&D "really worked." I don't care about "rulings-not-rules" or pixel-bitching the dungeon instead of just rolling a search check. But I am very keenly interested in how the designers of D&D set up their early campaigns: I think that system matters; D&D is at its level best—it sings—when it accords with its original design intent; and a vital piece of that intent is the way early campaigns were structured (namely open tables with lots of players running lots of characters, something a bit like what's today called West Marches, but not really). Basically, I've discovered for myself through personal experience that:

• It's okay to let D&D be D&D. The TSR rules run RAW are really, really fun—and I had more fun running a pure dungeon-crawl than I'd ever had before running a plot-heavy campaign.
• In fact, it would be fair to say that I "grew out of" the narrative play-style.
• Dungeon-crawls (and open-world sandboxes) are very easy to prep and run using the old D&D rules, because the old D&D rules have tools that make these things easy. TSR D&D is inherently geared toward this play-style in a way that none of the WotC editions are.
• Stressing myself out over "real" role-playing was just a manifestation of what's now called the "tyranny of fun," and letting go of the desire to have thespianism at my table was the best thing that ever happened to my gaming. I now consider it perfectly cromulent to define role-playing as whatever we do when we play an RPG, including the dice-chuckin' and number-crunchin' and pokin' at squares with a 10' pole. If I hold myself to that broad and all-inclusive definition of role-playing, then it means players who just want to treat their character as a pawn or avatar or vehicle for self-insert are doing nothing wrong, and in some cases are even better able to experience the feeling of "having an adventure" (as opposed to being partial collaborator in authoring a story, which is quite a different feeling). Plus, this has the salubrious side-effect of discouraging players from taking thespianism too far (as anyone who has ever become annoyed with That Guy's bad Scottish accent based dwarf voice will readily comprehend).
• Which all leads to this: if the "point" if play isn't for the players to inhabit characters and for the group as a whole to collaboratively spin a grand story, it must be about something else. For me—for old-school D&D—the point is better expressed as the players experiencing the thrill of adventure, and the group as a whole building a persistent milieu (comprised of the DM's worldbuilding + the ambitious projects of the players' higher-level characters). The "fun" comes from the moment-to-moment tension and excitement of the "dangerous" parts of play (dungeon-crawl, hex-crawl, and combat), but also from the big-picture satisfaction of having built the fictional world into what it is. TSR D&D is, once again, well-equipped for this sort of play in a way that WotC D&D simply isn't.

Hopefully that wall of text goes at least some way to explaining where I'm coming from. It's not that game design "peaked" in the 70s. It's that the designers of 70s D&D knew what they wanted, built a game that did that, and if you want the same thing, 70s D&D will serve you well. If you want something else, a later edition was probably written precisely to cater to what you want, because early D&D lacked it.

Edit to add: I've been playing long enough to know that originally "grognard" referred to those that came to D&D through the wargame roots, but not long enough to actually be a grognard by that definition.

And "munchkin" originally meant anyone who didn't come to D&D through wargaming, so technically speaking, we're all just a buncha munchkins!

 

[Retreater]

I started in the late 80s with AD&D 2e, and I've played every edition since. I went "back" to B/X only this year (by way of Old School Essentials). It's definitely different compared to being thrown into the deep end with AD&D to try to learn a system without a boxed set, basic rules for levels 1-3, decent starter adventures, etc. Had I started with BECMI, I'd likely have had an easier time learning the game, but likely one that was less focused on simulation, expanded character options, and wild campaign settings while I was writing my own adventures.
Going back to B/X, without the same nostalgia as many others on this board, I just don't find that it does what I want it to do. I'm leaning much more to OSRIC or For Gold and Glory.

 

[Raith5]

I started playing D&D in 1982 but given that 4e is favorite of mine I cant say that I am a grognard. I liked the new ideas of 4e -even though it was far from perfect - and some of the these ideas have come through into 5e which I also enjoy.

While I fell the pull of nostalgia in D&D I dont think the past should determine its future. I think D&D is game that should continue to evolve and change with new ideas.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

So far lots of interesting stories from everyone on why they like what they like. Especially @Jack Daniel who had an interesting modern to old school path.

Thanks for the good reads!

 

[Blue]

I'm the last person anyone would accuse of being a grognard, but I do not think that's really true. I do not see a general trend of D&D design improving over time. I think 5e is a decent game and definitely a huge improvement over 3e and basically a side grade vis a vis 4e. I basically consider 3e and 2e downgrades over their predecessor. I think the B/X branch is probably the best designed iteration from either TSR or Wizards.

You are talking design, but you quoted me talking about mechanics. There is literally no room to say that mechanics have not improved over time. The ur-example would be moving from disparagate subsystems that did not agree on even if high or low was good with different modifers and dice ranges to a unified mechanic of d20+modifiers >= DC are clear improvements in terms of speed and understanding.

You can bring up something separate about design, but that is not what I was talking about.

 

[kenada]

Earlier editions of D&D may have had too many resolution mechanics, but DCs aren’t a clear improvement. DC-based checks take longer to adjudicate (even when played with open DCs). Players can make informed decisions about what they want to do when they know the chance of success (which admittedly is possible with open DCs provided that the DM reveals them before the PC attempts the action). Homebrew content requires more work when you have to make sure all the numbers are tuned appropriately. Other modern games (e.g., anything Powered by the Apocalypse or Forged in the Dark) don’t use them. D&D ought to do the same (but that doesn’t mean returning to disparate resolution mechanics).

 

[Ogre Mage]

High School turned to young adulthood and 3e rolled in. I was super excited to see something NEW. I recruited some work friends and started a group to play it. Since then we have been gaming with the same core group up until today. During that time we have no ed from 3, to 4, to 5e. We have tried other systems. My favorite RPG of all time, Torg, has seen a complete reboot. We dip our toes into what's new and keep an eye out for what's next.

I never played the original Torg, but I played Torg Eternity for the first time in November 2020 and I love it! It is the finest attempt I've seen at a cross-genre RPG. I always wanted to play a superhero/anti-hero character but never got the chance because none of the groups I played with were interested in that sort of game. Now I finally have a chance. Our party consists of my (relatively low power) superhero, a gun and bible toting cowboy with faith magic, a fighter pilot and a psionic samurai. And it works thematically because of the lore of the setting.