D&D General On Grognardism...

[S'mon]

Given the individuals selected? ABSOLUTELY!!! Absolutely. Yes! If they'd selected different OSR people, it wouldn't be at all (and indeed the OSR movement in general has been "reclaimed" so is no longer like that), but one was so bad they literally disavowed him and removed him from the credits, the other has views so broadly unacceptable he'd be banned from ENworld (indeed, he may well be). These two weren't merely "grogs", they were the tip of the spear of what you might call RPG ultra-conservatism (talking design not politics here), that make conventional grogs look very moderate indeed. The latter didn't even really have enough experience to qualify him to advise on basic RPG design, let alone a new edition of D&D, which made it particularly shocking, given his name was next to RPG design titans like Robin D. Laws, for god's sake!

So yeah, they made an extremely serious unforced error there. And from the playtesting iterations it was very clear that they were discarding ideas which seemed popular, but also were non-groggy. We can never really know how popular they were, but the initial, closed playtesting stuff certainly largely or entirely went out to people on the groggy end of the scale too.

None of these mistakes are particularly likely to be made today, thankfully.

This seems to be more about RPG Pundit's politics and Zak S's personal behaviour than anything to do with game design.

Edit: And both are Gen Xers who came fairly late to the OSR.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The very first time I sat down and played through a combat encounter in D&D 4th edition I thought to myself, "That really reminded me of World of Warcraft." 4th edition had roles that directly corresponded to classes and/or player responsibilities in dungeons and raids in WoW including defenders (tanks), strikers (DPS), controller (crowd control), leaders (buffs), and healers. Whenever I used my attacks/abilities in 4th edition it felt very similar to smashing my 3 button to cast Thunderclap in WoW. 4th edition D&D really made me think of MMORPGs.

Is that necessarily bad? I don't think so. And one thing I really liked about 4th edition is that they made sure every character class had something to contribute during an encounter.

so your complaining that it leaned into the most common party possible fighter, mage, thief and cleric?
those roles are in wow because they sort of formed in how parties fight monsters in tabletop and that just got moved to another medium.

 

[loverdrive]

4E narrowed the band of power levels considerably. There were a lot less 'world shattering powerful magic spells' and more 'slightly upgraded or degraded fireball'. The powers were very similar between classes, giving everything a generic and non-iconic feel. That makes it hard to have a high fantasy adventure with the feel of Lord of the Rings ... everything felt like a slow moving World of Warcraft. This is all hashed out over and over and over in a decade of threads.

That's a... weird definition of high fantasy. Characters in LotR don't have any world-shattering powerful magic spells. Gandalf is a lvl 3 MU or so, after all.

 

[Lanefan]

Edit: I'm a mite sceptical of the "10% of players are 40+" thing - I see a lot of brand new players, and they are about 10% age 40+, with the majority teenage & early 20s. But there are lots of continuing players too, and they must surely be older on average.

As am I; and I wonder if the sample only included at-the-time 5e players/DMs. (players of previous editions would, naturally, skew older in age)

 

[Mind of tempest]

As am I; and I wonder if the sample only included at-the-time 5e players/DMs. (players of previous editions would, naturally, skew older in age)

that would be logically true.

 

[Lanefan]

Oh, boy. Then you've got orthodox grognards, new reformed grognards, and somehow Methodism. The big schism between orthodox grognards and new reformed grognoards is that they can't agree on how many Gygaxes can dance on the head of a pin.

Next thing you know we'll be electing our own bishops.

 

[Sithlord]

I have 10 years of threads that disagree.
Your characterization of the games of grognards is almost entirely opposite of my experience of 40 years of D&D - which has spanned a wide section of DMs, from those over 20 years younger than me, to ones 20 years older. There are some DMs that fit your description, but the majority are creative and open....and this is where our experiences differ. This is one of the key tests I have when talking to a new DM to determine what I want to play in their games. I ask them, "If I played a [XXX] warlock, how much would my patron impact the game?" Then I listen to how they describe the interaction. If they're excited and passionate about it, that is a great game to play a Warlock, Cleric, Paladin, or a PC with strong loyalties to an NPC. These are the DMs that see a warlock as RPG gold and give you a great story in addition to fun combats. These are the games where I dig out the character ideas with a 10 page outline of a backstory that we go over, tweak to fit their game, and then spend 2 years appreciating the narrative that grows from those seeds.

If they show no excitement about it, then I tend to play characters that are mechanically fun, but I don't waste the RPG gold there. I'll build a fun character, and I'll bring personality and drive to the game... but I won't expect the DM to be weaving my character into the story in the same fashion as those excited DMs would.

In my experience, I find more excitement and drive in older DMs than I do in younger DMs. I've met a few young DMs that are trying to emulate Mercer's style, and I always let them know that I highly appreciate what they're trying to do. However, I know a lot more older DMs that are very skilled at this style of game - and most of them are not emulating Mercer - they're practicing the art they've practiced for 30+ years (though I do encourage every DM to spend a little time listening to Critical Role and critically thinking about what Mercer does that works that the DM in question does not do - he is an amazing DM and being able to study his style is a blessing).

Side note: Critical Role has a series called 'Between the Sheets' where the cast give their origin stories and get a little tipsy. Matt Mercer's is interesting for many reasons - and one of those reasons is to hear his story of how he came to D&D and how he thinks about the game and what it can offer. That is highly relevant to this topic. I think every DM out there can get some real benefit from listening to that interview.
This is your brain. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?If your point was that younger DMs tend to rely more upon the railroad, it is my experience that railroading exists in all generations of players. DMs that are very good at running true sandbox games, like Matt Mercer on Critical Role does, are rare. My own preference is a bookend approach - levels 1 to 4 are generally a railroad that brings the party to the sandbox. Then they play in the sandbox from levels 5 to 16 that lays the foundation as they build up to a railroad finish that ties up all the loose threads to give them that sense of completion when the PCs retire between levels 17 and 20.

Also, I have a series of house rules. The idea of house rules seems to be disparaged quite a bit in this thread. My house rules reintroduce more types of vision into the game (infravision, etc...) They give a benefit to flanking that is less useful than advantage, and strategically reintroduces the idea of lock down maneuvers (without making it overpowered). They give some light mechanics to certain elements of lore from the setting that has existed for 30 years. I have a section describing "THE" textbook on magic and monsters (which essentially has everything in the monster manual, the spells section of the PHB, and the magic item section of the DMG in it).

However, many players in my group never even read those rules and that is perfectly ok as they're all fringe.

However, when they go out into the world, they find monsters that are not in any 5E book, they encounter spells that they've never seen and are excited to learn about, and they never know what to expect. They have to look for context clues to figure out if they're fighting a monstrosity that uses brute force, an aberration with supernatural abilities, or a few creature with trickery and magic. They don't just hear half of the description and say, "Ah, grells. I know how to fight them." I find that players really enjoy the experience of the unknown when it is dynamically introduced. I always evaluate the extent to which it is enjoyed and adjust accordingly in my planning, but adjustments are usually tweaks to avoid approaches that are not as well appreciated (some gamers do not like cute, others do not like scary, others do not like moral ambiguity).

As a player, I always ask a DM about the games they run before I play with them because none of these generalizations are universally true, and each person needs to be evaluated for who they are, not the generation from which they come. I encourage all players to do the same - get to know the DM rather than having a preconceived notion of who they are based upon their age.

I like your style. And I believe in homebrewing monsters and spells.

 

[transmission89]

To get this thread back on track (so it doesn’t become yet another discussion on 5e, a future 6e, why 4e wasn’t wow /oh yes it was/oh no it wasn’t/he’s behind you...)

Another thing i like about the older games (along with their lighter rules sets) is how they empower the GM and players with the lack of prescriptiveness.

A player doesn’t need a feat, or power or skill to do something (aside from thieves picking locks and treasure traps). They want to do something, they can negotiate with the GM.

Less charitable viewpoints will label this as constantly playing “mother may I?” But that misses the point. It’s part of the game structure and an older form of “yes and or yes but”.

“I want to swing my sword in a wild arc to try to hit all of these goblins around me..”
”you can, but theres a fair few and it may leave you exposed to some counter attacks?”
”sure, I’ll take that risk”

It’s the purest form of player/GM collaboration in story telling without constantly referencing rulebooks or worrying about invalidating other player’s abilities. If you codify a skill and feat allowing somebody to do something, you are implicitly saying those that do not take that option cannot do it.

Those that decry it as “mother may I?” amuse me as arbitrarily set DCs are pretty much the same thing. If you choose to do something that doesn’t have an explicit dc attached, it’s still down to GM Fiat as to what the DC is...

 

[Ancalagon]

I am amazed that I have become a grognard - I think? - based on my 3 decades of play, starting with 2nd ed. I really liked the feel of that edition (well, maybe not skills and powers...). But man where those rules wonky.

So when 3e came out in my early 20s, it was a god send. A unified d20 system! DCs! Saves that made sense! Skills! Uberclerics!

But then I stepped away from D&D for a while, and played and ran other games. Lots of Warhammer frpg 2nd ed. Did Star Wars Saga (loved it), played in a 3e eberon game with a PF alchemist (good times!) but that was the only d20 stuff I did for a solid decade, I missed late stage 3.5e, PF, and I skipped 4e (dabbled a little bit but not enough to "count").

I got into 5e maybe 2 years after it was released. I remember making a comment here about barbarians that was ridiculously wrong (in 3e it would have been totally valid though). And... in many ways, I think 5e is the best edition of the game I've played. It has some issues - HP bloat, weird pacing, perhaps a tiny bit too simple? - but overall, it felt great.

I also started playing a PF 1e game maybe a year after that and... oof. The complexity is just... it's too much. I give example from our games and people think I'm lying, the math required to do an attack... I think those games would be so much better if we played them in 5e. And that's what I think I also like about the older rule set - the simplicity.

I've also been exploring some "OSR" stuff - the GLOG has been very entertaining (it's like B/x and 5e had a child who was secretly replaced by a goblin...), and so has been Troika! (which is based on the first RPG I ever played!). I also think that the setting work done in the OSR sphere are extremely good - I encourage everyone to check out Yoon-Suin or UVG.

 

[S'mon]

And... in many ways, I think 5e is the best edition of the game I've played. It has some issues - HP bloat, weird pacing

Weird pacing?