Esteemed everybody I may have forgotten and
@Snarf Zagyg,
As we all know, the Snarfster here/you is/are absolutely, irrevocably, and above all,
objectively right in everything he/you states/state in the OP, including any seemingly contradictory statements—and I say “seemingly” here coz contradictions are solely in the eye of the beholder (um..., no pun intended). Wherefore his essay on POV DMs is law carved in stone, as is everything he says about… players.
But first, a point of order of paramount importance: I am currently 25 years old, not a day younger, not a day older (why, happy birthday to me!). Wherefore any references to myself in periods that I wasn’t even born yet are to be considered poetic license, and not references to myself, or, if u prefer, an indication that I am talking out of my… [oops, is that Granny E putting her glasses down and reaching for the broomstick?], um, lamp. Whereby, in my defense, and otherwise in no relation at all to what I’ve just said, I should point out that “ass” is a perfectly acceptable term for a specimen of a subspecies of
Equus africanus, or even as one of
Equus asinus if you like, aka, in layman’s terms, a donkey. Then again, I don’t suppose one can actually talk out of one’s donkey, so there’s that. Hmm… can one talk out of one’s lamp, then? Well, of course one can, for The World Is A Pizza, to which, by the way, the only acceptable response is: “That is correct. Question is, tho: who is the anchovy?”
So, yes, I was born in 2001... Wait, when is my birthday? Oh, yeah, I never celebrate my birthday and it isn’t today that’s for sure. 2000, 2001, 2002? Um… So, yes, I was born some time in the very early naughties, and, crucially, came into this world with full knowledge of what had transpired in the AD&D world up until then … um... (#reincarnationisrealbutveryconfusing)
But I digress (read: saved by the bell).
So. POV DMs. And players in that light. And do they actually matter in this light? Well, no. IMHO and coz Nothing Really Matters (after Friedrich Ciccone).
See, in my neck of the woods, AD&D
burst onto the stage trinkled onto very limited and small stage-like extensions of badly-lit backrooms of backwater libraries, only a couple of years after the PHB was published. And it did this on stages rented by the tabletop wargame simulation community, which comprised…, um, socially awkward…, um, old persons. Some of whom tried it on for a couple of times, until they decided it was for kids and not for serious people dressed up as Napoleon standing around tables discussing the intricacies of the conundrum of whether the dice were to determine when Blücher’d show up, or history, or this version of the (stenciled) rule-set or that, and, more importantly, whether any of that meant he’d actually show up at all before the library closed.
But, as today shows us, there was
something to the game, at least. So it refused to go, and from the backrooms, it found its way into the wafer-thin circle surrounding these wargamers, to boardgamers, to a select younger “crowd”, students mostly, who’d grown up reading 70s fantasy and sci-fi … younger people who suddenly saw their inner world spoken to in an utterly fascinating way. And it was these younger folk who started yelling about it to their contemporaries, visiting said backwater library backrooms stuffed full of Napoleons and Blüchers coz “that was were it was happening”, meeting others like them, and from there on started renting their own badly-lit backrooms in even further out of the way backwater libraries.
And to these secondary backwater library backrooms came other young folk, among whom even some… brads(?)! Who immediately took off the moment they saw there were absolutely NO girls within miles of said room, never to return. In short, this led to a small group of people younger than the elderly Napoleons with an
absolute, all-consuming fascination for the game, dedicated to it to the core, slowly (very slowly) expanding their numbers and getting more and more absorbed in the game to the point that only those of similar ilk could bear to be around them.
And if you were fortunate, you’d end up with a smallish, tight circle of friends with the same all-consuming fascination for the game, and then had a bloody brilliant time for many, many years—and more importantly, who were utterly and very gladly willing to accept
anything and everything a DM had on offer that Saturday, as long as that meant playing AD&D.
People who played AD&D because they all absolutely loved it to bits.
Players.
But during these many, many years, one thing had happened, which led to another thing. For AD&D had become a phenomenon, especially in the States, and TSR (or whatever you want to call it) had grown with it to become a mega-corp(ish) that had also run aground in a well-documented process and was then bought by some wizards on a coast (WhatSea, something like that). And the other thing it led to was 3E…, um 3.5E as it would soon be known coz, well, coz 1E was written in High-Gygaxian, not to be understood by mere mortals no matter how clever they were (and they were very clever, coz they played AD&D).
So, not griping about 3/3.5E (though I could, and very well-supported at that—but I won’t). Not griping about TSR, SayWot—in fact, not even griping about ANYTHING, including players of whatever “edition”. Oh, re editions: there’s only three, well, four, but that’s another story.
And from here, things only got better. “Gamers” were now a thing (I mean computers), and a game called D&D 4E even pandered to them to such an extent that it … wait, I wasn’t gonna go there. And now we have 5E, “a return to the D&D of old” as the marketing blurb would have you … a-a-a-a-a-a-nd I’m also not gonna go there.
What I
will register, is that the mass appeal of what we shall now have to call D&D, led to an influx of A LOT of people playing the game—I believe the number is, currently, in the millions, which is a far cry from the mere handful of fanatics in the early days. And among these, we shall certainly find “fanatics” like these players of the first hour, probably even a lot of them. Folk who simply cannot survive the weekend without a game, who spend the week hunkering for said weekend, consoling themselves with designing worlds, new characters, drawing maps, painting miniatures (if that’s still a thing), buying themselves silly on the gazillion “accessories” available these days, scouring the on-line for the incredible amount of D&D(-related) stuff available there, posting on forums, writing stories and session reports, even doing something I believe is called “apping” to their fellow players—
anything D&D to get them through the week.
But it also includes a huge number of kitchen-sink players. Folk who have normal lives and don’t mind doing a bit of D&D for a couple of hours on Friday night before soccer calls--and have a
bloody good time doing that. In fact, there may even be some brads(?) among them.
And that,
mes amis, along with changing perspectives on life and culture and things in general, and the “dinosaur ways of old” in particular, is a significant thing here, player-wise. And among these millions of players, the percentage of folk who will not accept anything and everything a DM presents them with will NOT be zero.
Which it was among those who emerged from the first hour and had a
bloody good time while it lasted.
Does any of this matter? Well, ignoring old Friedrich upstream, you decide whether it does. And how.
il kitten
P.S.: 2001! 2026 – 25 = 2001! Sheesh, how hard can it be? Must be an age thing.
