D&D General Why is tradition (in D&D) important to you? [+]

[Snarf Zagyg]

Good to know. So where's the (-) thread in case someone has a different perspective and wants to have a grown up discussion about it?

See this post-

Threadcrapping, trolls, and “+” threads...

So that was fun. After opening what I’d hoped would be a helpful and constructive thread, the thread was taken over by one very insistent troll who threadcrapped the thread into oblivion. Long story short, the troll clearly did not want other people talking about the topic and he got his wish...

www.enworld.org

The "+" threads were created to allow certain topics to be advanced without the inevitable threadcrapping.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've noticed this come up in a number of discussions lately. Tradition in D&D is something I find really interesting. Sometimes, when changes are being made to D&D, one of the common arguments against change is the valuing of Tradition. For example, some folks may argue that Wizards of the Coast shouldn't change the name of something, stop using a rule, or publish a new setting instead of an old one because of Tradition.

For me, there are a few traditions that I think help define D&D, even if they don't make much sense. The six ability scores are a good example of this; if D&D were created now I doubt they would use such ambiguous names that can often define the same things, such as Intelligence and Wisdom. But without those six ability scores, D&D just doesn't feel like D&D.

On the other hand, tradition really doesn't hold much sway over me. Though I've been playing since 2e, I've really enjoyed seeing play restrictions (such as race/class restrictions, multiclass restrictions, etc) go by the wayside. I find changes really invigorating. And I've always used homebrewed campaign settings.

So I'm curious about those of you who really value Tradition in D&D. Why is it important to you? What value does it have?

Please keep in mind this is a + Thread. I honestly expect to disagree with a lot of folks who post here, but I'm not going to post those disagreements. Instead, I want to know more about perspectives that are different than mine!

The only extent to which I find any value in tradition is that cultural knowledge of a thing makes it easier to explain and teach, and that's easier to create and maintain if the thing being taught maintains a certain continuity.

 

[Hussar]

I have to admit, I am absolutely the wrong person to answer this question. I do not value tradition for itself at all. But, it is interesting to see why others do.

I think that so many times the conversations we try to have get tripped up because the basic assumptions that people are making are so different. For example, you see discussions about changes to the game being framed in terms of "Well, this is what we have done in the game in the past", and for the framer, that tradition has intrinsic value in and of itself. All the lore discussions generally fall into this sort of category.

Which is where run afoul because I just simply do not care about tradition. Like at all. If 6e comes out with a character sheet using ten percentile stats, I'll just shrug and move on. Ok. That's what D&D is now. I've gone from a D&D that fit into about 100 pages for rules - Basic/Expert is where I started, not even BECMI - to 5e now and every edition in between. The game then and the game now are really not the same games to me. All the addition of lore in the 2e days, the complete revision of mechanics in 3e and later, to me, claims of tradition might as well be made in Swahili for all that I'll understand.

But, it does behoove me to try to see things from the other point of view, where traditions are something to be upheld and a foundational connection to the game.

I wonder if there is any correlation between the feelings of tradition in the game and how long a given group of players has played together. See, for me, I've changed the make up of my groups a LOT. Granted I now have two players in my group that I've played with since 3e, but, prior to that, I had a new group every year, pretty much. Never minding new campaign, I sat down with a totally different group of people every year (more or less) pretty much from the tail end of 1e, all the way through 2e, into 3e and not really until after the release of 3.5 have I played with the same people for more than a year.

Might explain why I have zero attachment to tradition in the game.

 

[Ogre Mage]

Sudden, drastic change is jarring and uncomfortable. People have to immediately adjust to major changes and not everyone can. At the risk of starting the edition wars that is one reason why some past editions were poorly received.

That said, I do not subscribe to the notion that the D&D of the late 1980s that I began with must be preserved like a fly-in-amber. If something no longer fits with contemporary D&D culture it should be phased out. But I would phase it out incrementally.

 

[Lanefan]

3. Of course they were young when they made their contributions. They always are, that's the point. Younger people join the company and the older ones leave or are let go, allowing the younger people to then evolve the game from where it was. That's how this all works. If all the rules of AD&D were worth keeping, they would have been. But most of them were not so they weren't.

How much of the edition churn has really been driven by dissatisfaction with the rules, though, as opposed to a corporate need to turn a profit or some other not-rules-related reason?

1e came out in large part because Gygax wanted to cut Arneson out of the picture.
2e came out through a combination of TSR profit-seeking and a knee-jerk response to the Satanic panic.
3e was in large part due to dissatisfaction with what 2e had become, along with the new owners' desire to put their own stamp on the game.
3.5e was pure profit-seeking, and unnecessary.
4e was pure profit-seeking, and unnecessary.
5e was largely a corporate response to another corporation stealing a large chunk of the market.

And the whole idea of letting otherwise-competent people go from a company just because they are old is abhorrent.

 

[Hex08]

I value tradition in D&D (or in my case Pathfinder and Castles & Crusades since I no longer play D&D but did grow up on it) because certain elements need to exist for it to still be D&D to me, once it drifts to far away from it's roots it's D&D in name only. That said, I do acknowledge that those certain elements will vary from player to player. For example, I still do not allow dwarves to be wizards, or arcane spellcasters in general, in my D&D game but others probably don't feel the same. I see value in alignment and dislike the idea of it being removed. D&D is a class based system and if that were eliminated I would not consider the game D&D. Ability scores from 3 - 18 are D&D. On the other hand, I place no value on certain classes so if the monk, for example, were eliminated as a class I wouldn't bat an eye. If gnomes and warforged went away it wouldn't impact my feelings about the game one way or another. It's all arbitrary personal preference.

The thing is, different traditions matter to different people and they matter to varying degrees (or not at all).

 

[teitan]

How much of the edition churn has really been driven by dissatisfaction with the rules, though, as opposed to a corporate need to turn a profit or some other not-rules-related reason?

1e came out in large part because Gygax wanted to cut Arneson out of the picture.
2e came out through a combination of TSR profit-seeking and a knee-jerk response to the Satanic panic.
3e was in large part due to dissatisfaction with what 2e had become, along with the new owners' desire to put their own stamp on the game.
3.5e was pure profit-seeking, and unnecessary.
4e was pure profit-seeking, and unnecessary.
5e was largely a corporate response to another corporation stealing a large chunk of the market.

And the whole idea of letting otherwise-competent people go from a company just because they are old is abhorrent.

Gygax had announced and begun work on 2e before being ousted. Cook followed up and produced 2e cleaning up the game in much needed ways. What followed was a mess but core 2e was a nicely cleaned up 1e with clarified or simplified rules.

development of 3e started before WOTC purchased TSR. 3.5 was a cash grab but sincere effort by the design team to "fix" holes in the system that essentially expunged what was left of the TSR DNA in D&D.

5e was a response to 4e not meeting expected sales goals and the brand being put in the cooler for a couple years to drum up interest with anniversary releases and specialty products to trigger nostalgia. It was also designed to win back a lost audience that went to OSR systems. For the first handful of years had little impact on Pathfinder, probably about 2018 or so. 5e was also very classic, TSR inspired D&D.

 

[Hussar]

5e is "classic, TSR inspired D&D"?

How so? What AD&D elements do you see in 5e D&D?

 

[Li Shenron]

It's interesting comparing the idea of Tradition or consistency to a sports team, where the players and management change, but people stay loyal to the team.

It's difficult for me to compare the two. But I could maybe say, try to change the official colours of a sport team and see how the fans react.

 

[Li Shenron]

Maybe Wotc can make completely different games under the banner, "D&D Presents".

That wouldn't be a bad idea at all