Sadras
Legend
Cool, no worries.
The Great D&D Schism: The End of an age and the scattering of gamers
Cool, no worries.
GrahamWills
Hero
The game was moving in the right direction and is now taking a step backwards and in a wrong direction. This is why I can't support it.
Isn't this fun?
And mine, and my wife's, but not my son's and his friends are about split evenly. My gaming groups mostly don't play D&D, but those who do have switched to 13th Age and Pathfinder about evenly.
It's almost like some ... Great D&D Schism! Maybe even The End of an age and the scattering of gamers.
Except that's uber-melodramatic. I don't see a lot of difference between this and the fragmenting of TV audiences. If Gilligan's Island is the only show in town, that's what everyone will watch. Even if most prefer other types of show. Once it becomes sufficiently cheap to let people watch something else, the market naturally fragments.
In the 80s/90s I had very little choice in fantasy games. Of the big 3-4 I liked MERP and Rolemaster the best, so that's what I played. Basically my list of "fantasy role-playing games I would play in order" ran: "Rolemaster, D&D." D&D was my second choice and I played it occasionally. Now there are dozens of systems with enough support so my list for fantasy would be "13th Age, Numenera, Savage Worlds, 4e, Pathfinder, 3.5, AD&D" and that competes with a list of non-fantasy games VASTLY larger than in so-called "golden ages". That boils down to the same game moving from second on my list of things I'd like to play to not making the top ten.
A golden age is simply lack of choice forcing everyone to enjoy the same thing a moderate amount, rather than a schism age where people enjoy different things much more. Lamenting the change is like lamenting a time when everyone ate vanilla ice-cream because chocolate ice-cream had not been invented.
Mecha.vs.Kaiju
Explorer
In my experience it has more to do with GMs than players. It's the GM who decides which system he wants to use. If you have a consistent group that has gamed together for years then they will most likely play anything that gets run. We've had both 3.5 and 4E games running concurrently, and nobody minded.
GreyLord
Legend
This talk about being in a counselor's office because of playing...is actually a pretty big sign of the golden age. It was so well known (or had so much notoriety about it) that it is possible that it may have caused something like this, simply from name recognition alone. The massive waves against it by some parents and conservative preachers probably helped the game to top selling status (the 1980s - imagine when Dragon and Dungeon had 4-8 times the number of subscribers and readers as it did in the 2000s).
The problem isn't when D&D had it's golden age, I think that's pretty clear cut, it's that people want ALL the ages to be golden ages. Comics had a golden age as well...and then later it had the silver age (which some consider a greater impact than the golden age). It also has had other ages of comics, though the golden and silver ages are the most well known. The silver age has more of the well known characters and their evolutions than the golden age I suppose.
Just because the golden age of D&D was in the 80s does NOT preclude other ages, such as a silver age or even another age.
The problem isn't when D&D had it's golden age, I think that's pretty clear cut, it's that people want ALL the ages to be golden ages. Comics had a golden age as well...and then later it had the silver age (which some consider a greater impact than the golden age). It also has had other ages of comics, though the golden and silver ages are the most well known. The silver age has more of the well known characters and their evolutions than the golden age I suppose.
Just because the golden age of D&D was in the 80s does NOT preclude other ages, such as a silver age or even another age.
That sounds right to me. The DMs investment (mostly in time, but also cash) is much greater, so they care more.
Remus Lupin
Adventurer
Following up on GreyLord's point, I think it's probably fruitless to attempt to gain a consensus on what was the Golden Age of D&D. Advocates for the main candidates can make a good case on very different grounds for their own preferred age and edition.
But to the point of the original post: I do think that there was something special going on in that initial 3.0 period, both in terms of renewal of the hobby and in terms of the kind of creative ferment caused by both the appearance of the new edition and the adoption of the OGL. It may have led, as some have argued, to a glut in the market, but it also led to the creation of some of the best D&D supplements by 3rd parties of any era. It led to variations in rules that were genuinely unique, and it all revolved around 3rd edition. Even the stuff that didn't directly depend on 3rd edition rules in some way, shape, or form took account of it (Call of Cthulhu d20, anyone?).
So yes, I do think something real was lost when WOTC moved on to 4th edition. Again, this is not to suggest that 4th edition isn't a fine game in its own right. But it definitely marked the end of an age when there was an increased unity within the gaming community, and a greater sense that we were all involved in a common project, even if that project took many and diverse forms.
And, if we are laying our credentials on the table, I started playing in 1982, so right there in the middle of that First Great Age of D&D, and I remember well the controversy and the Satanic Panic. But fortunately I was blessed with tolerant and easy going parents, who weren't the type to take that kind of thing seriously. And their general attitude was: "Well, they're sitting in our living room playing a game. We know where they are, and they're not doing drugs. What's the problem?"
But to the point of the original post: I do think that there was something special going on in that initial 3.0 period, both in terms of renewal of the hobby and in terms of the kind of creative ferment caused by both the appearance of the new edition and the adoption of the OGL. It may have led, as some have argued, to a glut in the market, but it also led to the creation of some of the best D&D supplements by 3rd parties of any era. It led to variations in rules that were genuinely unique, and it all revolved around 3rd edition. Even the stuff that didn't directly depend on 3rd edition rules in some way, shape, or form took account of it (Call of Cthulhu d20, anyone?).
So yes, I do think something real was lost when WOTC moved on to 4th edition. Again, this is not to suggest that 4th edition isn't a fine game in its own right. But it definitely marked the end of an age when there was an increased unity within the gaming community, and a greater sense that we were all involved in a common project, even if that project took many and diverse forms.
And, if we are laying our credentials on the table, I started playing in 1982, so right there in the middle of that First Great Age of D&D, and I remember well the controversy and the Satanic Panic. But fortunately I was blessed with tolerant and easy going parents, who weren't the type to take that kind of thing seriously. And their general attitude was: "Well, they're sitting in our living room playing a game. We know where they are, and they're not doing drugs. What's the problem?"
I think that depends very much what your perspective and context were.
During the 3E period I was GMing Rolemaster, as 3E held (and holds) little appeal for me. Since 2009, though, I've been GMing 4e. So my sense of unity in the RPGing community hasn't really changed at all!
Ulrick
First Post
Once Mike Mearls or somebody else high up in WotC starts excommunicating gamers, then we'll have a true schism.
Until then, its just a bunch of people either bickering over how to play the game, or just sitting down and playing it.
We really don't have to be one big happy family. In fact, I think the greatest strength of RPGs is that gamers don't get along and come at these games from different perspectives, argue about it, exchange ideas, and develop new things.
Until then, its just a bunch of people either bickering over how to play the game, or just sitting down and playing it.
We really don't have to be one big happy family. In fact, I think the greatest strength of RPGs is that gamers don't get along and come at these games from different perspectives, argue about it, exchange ideas, and develop new things.
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