D&D 5E When generational differences become apparent

[Patrick McGill]

My, quite anecdotal, experience doesn't match this in any degree, really. In my experience, role players come in what I think of as "pods". These pods are multi-generational. Older players teach younger players, and they tend to stick with the same groups of people in a sort of relationship tree that might connect to other pods, thus having some go between. You also get these groups mixed up and together by the few individuals that play organized play or PUGs in stores, etc.

You do have the occasional group of young folks who are learning for the first time with each other, but I don't think this is nearly as common as the apprentice/journeyman scenario I laid out above, and they seem to get involved with the older players when spending time with them at an FLGS or when getting invited over to play.

Most of the time these pods or groups share similar tastes in how they do their games. Even more often, within these groups, you have people who do it differently. You have the guy that min/maxes, you have the guy who's character bio is longer than his character sheet, you have the guy who likes playing the fighter and saying "I attack" over and over again between mouthfuls of pretzels and beer. I've never ran across a group of exclusively one "type" of player, and certainly not to the degree that everyone in that group rolled as much as possible or as little. It was always a mixed bag, with the DM sort of influencing the tone and style as well as she/he could.

I haven't ever thought to attempt to ascertain how younger players play versus older players. I think it entirely depends on how the younger player was taught, and also what sort of things that younger person liked to do individually. I do feel like throughout time immemorial, older people tend to like lumping younger people into an "not the way we do things" category. Maybe younger people are guilty of this too.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I don't know if it it is a generational issue, but it does seem that AL and other pick up games seem to have a lot of rolling. The other day I made a perfectly reasonable attempt to comfort a volatile npc by pointing out an obvious fact. The Dm made me roll. I rolled poorly. The Dm took control of my character and made him talk like an oaf and make it worse. Everybody laughed. The game also featured an Orc that called everybody George. I won't be going back.

Man I would have walked out at that point. DM took control of your character? Without magic/fear/etc?

As 'Old Geezer' (who has gamed since the beginning) says. No gaming is better than bad gaming, that's awful.

But I don't see this as a generational thing but a editional or nurture thing (nurture, in this case, not nature). My boys don't play 'roll the dice first' style, 'cos that's not how I taught them. Same with the kids that Bill Webb plays with, that regularly clean up dungeons like Rappan Athuk using S&W! 5E covers both bases well tho.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

I'm also not seeing it. I think that its more likely partly an edition-based thing, but also more importantly an experience-based thing.

Most of the people I roleplay with are in their 20s. You get people who are just there to roll dice and rack up XP, and you get people who are more into roleplaying their character and interaction with others. What seems to generally correlate between the two broad types is their previous experience of gaming and roleplaying.

People new to roleplaying often tend to stick to rules and rolls because that is something they can understand, and they haven't got used to the more freewheeling options that having a real DM to interact with allows. This particularly seems to be the case with many who have started trying roleplaying after playing computer RPGs and MMOs.
As they learn more, people tend to spread out more along the spectrum. Some stay as very mechanical players. Others shift into much more story-oriented gamers.

Ironically, the only time I've actually run into the "Roll first, ask second." attitude you mention as a regular thing was when dipping my toes into AL play, and from probable Gen X gamers.

 

[Rod Staffwand]

Wha~~~~? People who've been doing something for 30+ years are generally better at it than people who are just starting out? Pshaw, I say, pshaw!

 

[Psikerlord#]

I'm somewhere in the middle. You can roll the dice to look for things but you have to be a bit more specific as a single roll will only work for the smallest rooms. Using a 10' pole to tap the floor to find pit traps, marbles to find slopes and flour to find invisible things for example will often grant you advantage.

My current group including the 3.x type players have also played AD&D and/or the clones recently and they kind of like the everyone searches aspect of those games (1 in 3 chance) in 5E it is highest perception skill+aid another and guidance.

Yeah one of my pet peeves with passive anything is the same person is best at that thing all the time.

That is an interesting point though, in older editions there was the 1-2/6 chance of finding a secret door. Is that really much different to having a perception skill. There is still a roll, although the odds of success might be better or worse than a set 33%.

Was the 1-2/6 roll made by the player? I seem to recall we had the DM make those rolls. That is a significant difference, as the player never knew if there was nothing to be found or the roll failed.

 

[Sunseeker]

Typically with a little encouraging I don't find it that hard for most people to "adapt" to different playstyles. I'm not saying they'll go full bore in the opposite direction, but you can typically train rollers to role more often just as you can train rolers to roll more and role less. There's a happy medium here somewhere for most people, but I think these are more expectational differences than generational ones. You don't do a lot of role-ing in a dungeon crawl. You do less rolling in a intrigue and mystery adventure. I think the divide falls more along the lines of what people are used to playing, than what edition they grew up in.

 

[mlund]

I've played in both modes a fair share.

I really enjoy the D&D/AD&D tradition of role-playing searches and social interactions for effect - but a lot of aspects of that style of game rewarded you for failing to separate in-character and out-of-character knowledge. After a player learned about trolls the hard way once, all their subsequent characters would burn trolls to keep them from regenerating - no checking to see if this character had ever heard about trolls regenerating before. Low-int characters played by much craftier players were solving puzzles. Charisma-as-a-dump-stat was no match for a drama major. Trying to enforce the difference between player knowledge and abilities and character knowledge and abilities would often come across as arbitrary and spiteful. Some dungeons and adventurers relied heavily on the players picking up on things that would go right over their character's heads. That sort of thing rewarded good game skills but often punished playing the character role.

The 3.X skill-systems era swung the other way. DCs and challenge ratings relied a whole lot on what your character was capable of on-paper. It was up to the DM to adjudicate whether an elaborate plan or work-around would bypass a dice roll, provide a modest circumstance bonus, or be completely disregarded. Now you have the whole "arbitrary" problem again, just this time it could come across as treating some players with favoritism or "nerfing" challenges.

Frankly, the first place where I found a truly happy medium between these two extremes was when I started playing 13th Age. The background system was set up in such a way that the players had an incentive to describe why they were likely to have applicable experience, skill, or knowledge to succeed in a task and thereby apply their background bonus to a test. These brief justifications tend to include that little bit of the what and how of their character's actions, which is enough to scratch that itch that's been nagging me for the last decade or so.

I think you can accomplish the same sort of "show, don't tell" problem-solving behavior in 5th Edition D&D with granting advantage.

Sometimes making the right decision just solves the problem without rolling dice. Sometimes there's no chance of solving the problem with dice. There's a huge area in-between where I want to be incentivized by the game mechanics themselves to take character-appropriate role-playing opportunities while solving problems.

 

[Ancalagon]

But never, ever roll first!

This! Definitely a pet peeve of mine.

 

[BoldItalic]

It struck me, watching the first episode of Dice, Camera, Action with Chris Perkins as DM, that the players were sometimes asking to make checks rather than narrating their actions. Not saying that was right or wrong, but the fact that it struck me as odd told me which camp I am in.

I'm not sure which generation I am, possibly generation W, but let's put it this way: I'm three decades older than D&D.

Player: I make a perception check. I've rolled 17. What do I see?
DM (Me): You see a table with a number of small multi-faceted crystals on it.
Player: I make a lore check. I've rolled an 8. What do I know about the crystals?
DM (Me): You know that they are called polyhedral dice and they are used for making perception and lore checks.
*player picks up his dice and walks out*

 

[Zardnaar]

It struck me, watching the first episode of Dice, Camera, Action with Chris Perkins as DM, that the players were sometimes asking to make checks rather than narrating their actions. Not saying that was right or wrong, but the fact that it struck me as odd told me which camp I am in.

I'm not sure which generation I am, possibly generation W, but let's put it this way: I'm three decades older than D&D.

Player: I make a perception check. I've rolled 17. What do I see?
DM (Me): You see a table with a number of small multi-faceted crystals on it.
Player: I make a lore check. I've rolled an 8. What do I know about the crystals?
DM (Me): You know that they are called polyhedral dice and they are used for making perception and lore checks.
*player picks up his dice and walks out*

For 5E I owuld be a bit peeved, for AD&D I would be perfectly fine. I would try and make a bit more of an effort than just a dice roll.