Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 8862374" data-attributes="member: 85555">I've been in a number of Moldvay campaigns that made for exceptional dungeon crawls. And basic was pretty popular through AD&D's run (I don't know the numbers but it always struck me as much more palatable for mainstream audiences than AD&D: and I was more of an AD&D person personally). I don't think any of this is about the game having to go back to some version of the game from 1982, but there is such a thing as going back and examining periods where the game did things well, asking why, asking if things have been added that have taken away from the game, or if things have been taken away that made the game better. That doesn't mean you can't be forward looking but with RPGs especially it is easy for design decisions to compound over time and start to introduce problems. Personally I don't know where D&D needs to be mechanically. I am not the target audience at this point and I doubt my preferences reflect the preferences of what most D&D players want. But when asked the question what can D&D do to bring back the dungeon, my instinct is what I posted earlier: simplify, make character creation faster and easier. Now maybe that kind of simplification would take away other important elements they want to preserve (because the game isn't only about dungeons). I would also say its worth going back and looking at the successful dungeon adventures and dungeon advice over the years and trying to learn what can be learned from that (again if the aim is to bring back the dungeon). In terms of old school stuff. I don't know there is a bit of old school inspiration I can discern in 5E and I think that seemed to have some appeal to people. I don't think everything in old school gaming is going to appeal to mainstream players but as a mainstream RPG, with a very broad kind of appeal, WOTC probably is going to want to examine the different style incubators in the hobby and draw on tools that help GMs achieve what they want. That might include old school exploration techniques but also could involve more of the story driven stuff coming from some of the indie games. I do agree their aim shouldn't be to make a niche product, so any of these ideas need to be incorporated into One D&D in a way that feels organic and adds to play (not in a way that imposes on the game or takes away from it). One thing I will add: simplification is probably good for having more mass appeal. D&D is very challenging, and I think the difficulty of the game, its complexity can be a hurdle to reading a wider audience (and even if that wider audience is reached, it can be a hurdle to retaining them). So the more user friendly the system the less niche I think it will be.</blockquote>

Verification