I came across this interesting blog post on the Trollsmyth blog: From One Generation to the Next (https://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2019/07/from-one-generation-to-next.html) where he clearly and succinctly breaks down some of the differences in the different generations of DnD players.
What do you think? Do you agree or not with the different definitions and where, if anywhere, do you think that you fall?
My personal timeline puts me in the Voyager camp but our early formative games were very much Grognard-like using our wits to "out smart" the game by dodging the monsters and stealing the treasure (and precious XPs) from behind their backs.
Hearing about D&D players always makes me happy to run non-D&D games.
Somehow, all of the D&D player neurosis don't show up when I run other RPGs with gamers of various ages.
The idea that OD&D/AD&D1e era players didn't name their PCs or care about their deaths is overhyped internet bullshit. From the earliest days, plenty of D&D groups were all about their PC's heroic tales with plenty of backstories for their 3D6 randomly generated characters. And there's never been a dearth of players who just treat their PC like a game pawn (blue meeple #3), regardless of edition.
Well thought out post! I think they clearly hit the nail on the head there.
I'm also of the Voyager generation, and everything he described is true to us. But I was enamored with the following generation and jumped in with complete abandon. Trying to reconcile the two goals was (frankly) exhausting. I still like my rules! Just not in a "this is how you can master the game" way, but more in the "here's cool ideas to customize powers and spells and items" kind of way. I wish I had a game engine that was HERO 6e at its roots but D&D 5e on its face. :-D I could have my Voyager play while secretly indulging my rules-mastery at home prepping settings and campaigns.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1099453Hearing about D&D players always makes me happy to run non-D&D games.
Somehow, all of the D&D player neurosis don't show up when I run other RPGs with gamers of various ages.
The idea that OD&D/AD&D1e era players didn't name their PCs or care about their deaths is overhyped internet bullshit. From the earliest days, plenty of D&D groups were all about their PC's heroic tales with plenty of backstories for their 3D6 randomly generated characters. And there's never been a dearth of players who just treat their PC like a game pawn (blue meeple #3), regardless of edition.
So I am guessing "Golden Age" for you then?
Quote from: Spinachcat;1099453Hearing about D&D players always makes me happy to run non-D&D games.
Somehow, all of the D&D player neurosis don't show up when I run other RPGs with gamers of various ages.
The idea that OD&D/AD&D1e era players didn't name their PCs or care about their deaths is overhyped internet bullshit. From the earliest days, plenty of D&D groups were all about their PC's heroic tales with plenty of backstories for their 3D6 randomly generated characters. And there's never been a dearth of players who just treat their PC like a game pawn (blue meeple #3), regardless of edition.
Gary notoriously had a bunch of "special" PCs. The one who wanted to play a Balrog because it was cool, the cowboy with "magic wand" 6 shooters, and numerous pet PCs that have all kinds of spells named after them.
The article writer does aknowledge that there is no clear demarkation, and the play styles blend into each other, but I don't find his classifications useful. I played a ton in the "Voyager" time frame, and none of my games resemble his description.
In fact, my Grognard phase (Basic, AD&D) was more like what he describes as Voyager, and my Voyager phase (2nd ed) was more like Rules Masters.
I'd say I'm a Grognard / Voyager. I'm definitely not in either of the camps which came afterward.
Age-wise, I'm a late Grognard/early Voyager
However looking at the descriptions, I tend to be a bastard hybrid
10% Grognard
50 % Voyager
40% Epic Stream
However D&D wasn't my first rpg, and it was a long way down the list from my favourites. So I think the influence of other rpgs didn't always mirror that of D&D
Its a great post.
I'm 100% old school. As a result, I'm the only person among my friends and play group that runs an old school style game.
Maybe it is a dying art. I sort of feel like high player agency games are dying out. Replaced by high story level adventures. Its a shame, really, because there is an untapped world of adventure waiting for those who want to let go of the shackles of story.
Interesting enough, I think 5e has a real effect on players. I run 5E and B/X weekly for the same group / in the same dungeon. There was a lot more faffing around in the 5E game with town stuff than in the B/X game. My B/X game is direct into the dungeon and into the action. 5E has brings a lot more non adventuring stuff (when I only have 3 hours to run, I want to get to the meat of the game).
EVERYTHING in 5E is orders of magnitudes slower to resolve than OSR. I appreciate the pervasiveness and reach of 5E, but man I just can't deal with it much longer.
I posted there:
Good post, but I think it misses out a big difference between the Original Grognards of 74-77 and the first mass-market gamers of ca 1981-1988. IME the two games were very different. In the Stranger Things Generation we weren't rolling 3d6 in order or interviewing henchmen, our PCs had names, they probably were Cavaliers or Rangers with Double Weapon Specialisation who could take on small armies at 3rd level. We were the Munchkins! But we were still exploring site-based dungeons like Keep on the Borderlands, not pre-written stories - it's just that we were slaughtering every MF'ing orc in the dungeon, and rarely running away.
I can't speak to the other categories, but his definition of grognard is ignorant. It bears little resemblance to my experience of OD&D play nor to what I read in the fanzines of the day about how other people played. Cases in point, PCs without names is just nonsense and while rolling 3D6 was the default, plenty of groups devised alternate rolling mechanisms e.g. roll 4D6 and keep the best 3. Roll 3D6 six times assigning each score to the attribute of your choice, and others. Alternate rolling mechanisms were pretty common after Greyhawk, with it's stat bonuses, was published.
Ivory tower theorizing is ivory tower theorizing. News at 11:00.
Quote from: Bren;1099498I can't speak to the other categories, but his definition of grognard is ignorant. It bears little resemblance to my experience of OD&D play nor to what I read in the fanzines of the day about how other people played. Cases in point, PCs without names is just nonsense and while rolling 3D6 was the default, plenty of groups devised alternate rolling mechanisms e.g. roll 4D6 and keep the best 3. Roll 3D6 six times assigning each score to the attribute of your choice, and others. Alternate rolling mechanisms were pretty common after Greyhawk, with it's stat bonuses, was published.
When I was a boy walking uphill in the snow both ways Names were a luxury. I did not get one until my brother was finished with it.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1099538Ivory tower theorizing is ivory tower theorizing. News at 11:00.
Sounds like something a 3e Rules Master would say?
Quote from: Shasarak;1099556Sounds like something a 3e Rules Master would say?
I don't know, but since the only D&D rules system I like less than 3E is 3.5 and its copies, probably not.
It's a very thought provoking article, to say the least and I liked it. Still, I'm not sure where I'd range myself? I started in the Voyager age (mid-late 90s with AD&D 2e and all the kits and THAC0 and yadda-yadda) and wasn't that much of a fan. A lot of that could be the DM's fault and maybe a bit of the rules though I was in HS and wanted to read a D&D book about as much as my Math book, lol. I'd say I would fall into the Rules Master group as I started to get heavy into D&D with 3.0 and then 3.5 but now....I really hate all the rules minutia of 3e/Pathfinder.
Maybe us 4E fans just don't fit into the categories well? A weird juxtaposition between the end of Rules Master (because 4e does put focus on Rules, but less so about mastering every single aspect as it wasn't nearly as needed) and the beginning of the Epic Stream players? I think maybe there's a micro-group there but I wouldn't know what to name it (at least, not something derogatory)?
I guess I don't think much of the article, mainly because it completely misses the most significant period in D&D's history: the point at which it was adopted as a mainstream party game, and became a a legit mainstream fad. This was maybe 1978-1982?
It's that brief period of mainstream exposure that accounts for nearly all of D&D's name recognition, IMHO. It was popular for a time, and then controversial. Televangelists condemned it on the national stage. There was the 1982 Mazes and Monsters TV movie, bad as it was.
Also, the game was sold in mainstream bookstores and toy stores at the time, not just in the hobby stores.
Personally, I remember a group of junior high kids convincing our English teacher to devote a class period to demoing the game, because it was seen as being educational. And this was not the nerds, it was the girls who would go on to be cheerleaders.
I was in grade school and junior high at the time, so I can't really speak to the full details of when and why it happened. I think the early boxed sets were a major factor. But I do know that it happened.
Quote from: S'mon;1099471I posted there:
Good post, but I think it misses out a big difference between the Original Grognards of 74-77 and the first mass-market gamers of ca 1981-1988. IME the two games were very different. In the Stranger Things Generation we weren't rolling 3d6 in order or interviewing henchmen, our PCs had names, they probably were Cavaliers or Rangers with Double Weapon Specialisation who could take on small armies at 3rd level. We were the Munchkins! But we were still exploring site-based dungeons like Keep on the Borderlands, not pre-written stories - it's just that we were slaughtering every MF'ing orc in the dungeon, and rarely running away.
Agreed, I'm from the Stranger Things generation, and my experience was different than the OG's. We didn't roll 3d6 in order. If we created a character with a backstory, it (probably) wouldn't die. We did a few dungeon crawls as newbs, but the games quickly shifted into LOTR style quests. The "ten foot pole" and "tossing flasks" style of play was not our thing.
I started with D&D 3.5 but my Dad was firmly of the AD&D generation with Second Edition being his all-time favorite edition of the game.
Since Dad was also my first DM, a lot of our 3.5 games were heavily house ruled and focused more on story and role-play similar to what AD&D 2E was trying to go for.
I guess chronologically, I'm in the 3.X generation but in terms of how I actually view the game it's closer to the 2E view.
I've always thought that the whole combat as war or sport was utter BS, and mostly as a sort of elitism from those who want their dumb ideas to sway the DM and get mad at players who actually have effective characters.
I fall squarely in the initial Grognard stage...but play with many from each of those stages, they have their strengths and weaknesses. The only ones I can't stand is those that think the players should control all aspects of the game, that meta-control by players gets shot down right away.
Huh, I am a Voyaging Grognard... :D That explains why I am at home with AD&D 2e! Yay!
Ooooh, do my D&D birthstone and horoscope next! :)
Quote from: Shasarak;1099456So I am guessing "Golden Age" for you then?
LOL.
In regards to publishing, now is the Golden Age.
I use different styles of play for different campaigns. I love lethal dungeoncrawl campaigns where you're nothing but a tomb robbing reaver, but I also love epic hero quests across Planescape and Dark Sun. I'm happy to run using OD&D or 4e and have a great time with both.
Quote from: Spinachcat;1099608LOL.
In regards to publishing, now is the Golden Age.
I use different styles of play for different campaigns. I love lethal dungeoncrawl campaigns where you're nothing but a tomb robbing reaver, but I also love epic hero quests across Planescape and Dark Sun. I'm happy to run using OD&D or 4e and have a great time with both.
Yes. If someone GMs long enough, they develop their own style that will defy such categorizations. I certainly went through a phase where I was fudge all the rolls all the time and lead the players by the nose to tell a story (though not quite as extreme as that sounds, because of prior killer GM phase), but what came out of that as a reaction to how it didn't work was more blended, and then evolved as I picked things from different styles that worked for me and my groups.
Seems pretty accurate to me. I came up in the transition between 1st and 2nd edition. My friends and I were in the "Voyager" camp, but I played with older kids and adults that were from the more Grognard-y generation.
I think S'mon is also correct in distinguishing between the originating Grognards of the White Box era and the first "mass market" D&D players.
I wonder to what extent the age you were when you started playing is also a factor. Adults coming to the game have different expectations than kids and teenagers. Adults playing with other adults behave differently than adults playing with a mixed age group, or a group of young heathens left to their own devices.
Quote from: Brendan;1099660I think S'mon is also correct in distinguishing between the originating Grognards of the White Box era and the first "mass market" D&D players.
The original 1974 box was brown, not white. I think the white box was a second printing or something.
Quote from: Bren;1099920The original 1974 box was brown, not white. I think the white box was a second printing or something.
Ah, yes. I knew that but I always think of OG D&D as "white box D&D". Maybe that's because my exposure to OD&D was through the S&W "white box" edition and then the Wizards pamphlet reprints.
The first copy of D&D I ever owned was the Holmes basic set. My aunt gave me a copy when I was really young. My brother and I couldn't figure out how to actually DO this D&D thing until an older friend of mine gave me his Mentzer red box, which I think his group had traded out for AD&D. I was born in 77 so you can do the math on that.
Quote from: Brendan;1099660Seems pretty accurate to me. I came up in the transition between 1st and 2nd edition. My friends and I were in the "Voyager" camp, but I played with older kids and adults that were from the more Grognard-y generation.
I think S'mon is also correct in distinguishing between the originating Grognards of the White Box era and the first "mass market" D&D players.
I wonder to what extent the age you were when you started playing is also a factor. Adults coming to the game have different expectations than kids and teenagers. Adults playing with other adults behave differently than adults playing with a mixed age group, or a group of young heathens left to their own devices.
This definitely has some merit, as I was unique in my group in that I not only played with my friends at school (started in 1978) but I also was invited into an adult group by a friend of my mother's husband, who had an established adult play group. So I got a taste of both, and I am pretty sure it both influenced my tastes in and my style of play.
Quote from: Brendan;1100051Ah, yes. I knew that but I always think of OG D&D as "white box D&D".
It's easier to remember if you bought that box. :)
QuoteI was born in 77 so you can do the math on that.
I have dice that are older than you. :p
Came along late 70s, but mainly played mid-80s through the 90s. Hiatus, then back on and off (more on) since 2007 or so. I'd say I'm not one thing or the other. There's great satisfaction in the problem solving aspect mentioned under Grognards. Immersive storytelling can be great, as well. I've played lvling systems using both XP and Milestones, and enjoy both. My main criteria these days has to do with crunch. I'm not into spending a great deal of time optimizing in the character building phase*, so I stay away from widgety systems (which includes 5E, which isn't near as heavy as other systems). So, honestly, I'm not sure where I fit in, categorically speaking. I'd wager that includes most of us, though.
*I being a bit specific here, because I think there's always some level of optimization attempted, be it CharGen, tactics, simple planning, etc.
Quote from: cranebump;1100853Came along late 70s, but mainly played mid-80s through the 90s. Hiatus, then back on and off (more on) since 2007 or so. I'd say I'm not one thing or the other. There's great satisfaction in the problem solving aspect mentioned under Grognards. Immersive storytelling can be great, as well. I've played lvling systems using both XP and Milestones, and enjoy both. My main criteria these days has to do with crunch. I'm not into spending a great deal of time optimizing in the character building phase*, so I stay away from widgety systems (which includes 5E, which isn't near as heavy as other systems). So, honestly, I'm not sure where I fit in, categorically speaking. I'd wager that includes most of us, though.
*I being a bit specific here, because I think there's always some level of optimization attempted, be it CharGen, tactics, simple planning, etc.
I imagine for most players, they went through phases reminicent of the described "Generations" and players incorporated aspects of each into their own gaming style as they saw fit.
Quote from: Ratman_tf;1100857I imagine for most players, they went through phases reminicent of the described "Generations" and players incorporated aspects of each into their own gaming style as they saw fit.
That's the big issue with coming back to gaming. I got the Moldvay edition right after it came out (it was my first RPG purchase) From there it was AD&D and beyond. Through the 80s and early 90s my group of friends played darn near every RPG by a major publisher (from
Traveller to
TMNT, from
GURPS to
Rolemaster to
Mechwarrior, et al.). D&D, as it was introduced to me, was a game of logistics. We still had individual characters (which we named, and cared about... though less than half survived to 10th level or beyond, it seemed to me), but the game was more about tilting the odds in your favor and thinking your way to wealth and victory. By the time that we played games like
Beyond the Supernatural, it was more about free-wheeling fun and story and less about "fantasy Vietnam." I took a hiatus about the time of late D&D 3e/early 4e, and my friends moved around the country. With the advent of Skype, Roll20, and other electronic methods of gaming together, we started to play again 5 or so years ago (mainly D&D 5e, with some OSR). I think we are trying to recapture the "feeling" we had in the 80s, but as the culture of gaming changed (and our lives changed), that original feeling is hard to find. We would have never considered running a pre-written module for most of our youth (except when first learning a game), but now most of us don't have time to prep anything but. It's hard to accept that we have changed as much as the games have...
I started during the dragonlance era, but DM'd for my older brothers and their friends who came in during the late 70s. And they wanted none of the mid-80s style of play. So I was lucky (IMO) to have been grounded early on in the more free-form style of early gaming. Taught me early on how to run a table with strong personalities too.
I'm a mass market bloke but, despite starting in 1981, I've found 4E to be my favourite set of D&D rules. However, my DMing style is most heavily influenced by my time with 2E.
Quote from: Bren;1100821It's easier to remember if you bought that box. :)
I have dice that are older than you. :p
:D Well, as I'm in my 40s with kids that's saying something. I bow to your elder wisdom, oh grey one!
Given my love for lore hunting in Dark Souls I say I am more of a...
[video=youtube;NomBovF5gPk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NomBovF5gPk[/youtube]
Quote from: cranebump;1100853Came along late 70s, but mainly played mid-80s through the 90s. Hiatus, then back on and off (more on) since 2007 or so. I'd say I'm not one thing or the other. There's great satisfaction in the problem solving aspect mentioned under Grognards. Immersive storytelling can be great, as well. I've played lvling systems using both XP and Milestones, and enjoy both. My main criteria these days has to do with crunch. I'm not into spending a great deal of time optimizing in the character building phase*, so I stay away from widgety systems (which includes 5E, which isn't near as heavy as other systems). So, honestly, I'm not sure where I fit in, categorically speaking. I'd wager that includes most of us, though.
Yeah, the OP blog post on generations seems overly reductionist to me. It claims that 1e D&D was
about exploration in some essential way, and that many players failed to understand that truth. But D&D has never been about one thing, even in the first generation. It was a flexible game that people played in different ways. Having small armies of henchmen was never a feature of my D&D play, for example.
The post cites Ravenloft and the Hickmans with 2e, but Ravenloft came out in 1983, which is squarely in the 1e era.
There has always been world-exploration play, story-creation play, and system-optimization play. And people would vary between them. I did more story-ish games like Ravenloft along with non-D&D games. But when I went back to 1e D&D in the late 80s just after high school, we played it as heavy system optimization - methodically taking apart the dungeon, getting the maximum out of every spell and ability. We went for every optional rule that we could - I remember taking a half-ogre character from Dragon Magazine.
Quote from: jhkim;1100934Yeah, the OP blog post on generations seems overly reductionist to me. It claims that 1e D&D was about exploration in some essential way, and that many players failed to understand that truth. But D&D has never been about one thing, even in the first generation. It was a flexible game that people played in different ways. Having small armies of henchmen was never a feature of my D&D play, for example.
The post cites Ravenloft and the Hickmans with 2e, but Ravenloft came out in 1983, which is squarely in the 1e era.
The Ravenloft campaign setting came out in 1990 based off the idea from I6 Ravenloft (1983)
Quote from: Shasarak;1100940The Ravenloft campaign setting came out in 1990 based off the idea from I6 Ravenloft (1983)
Yes, agreed. In the post, it was talking about the Ravenloft adventure. The specific quote is:
Quote2e muddied these waters. The advancement mechanic moved to class-specific criteria: wizards and clerics earned EXP for casting spells, thieves earned EXP for acquiring treasure, fighters earned EXP for slaying things. Even more transformative was the stuff coming out of DUNGEON magazine. Gone were the funhouse dungeons like Castle Greyhawk or thematic ruins that were all about place. The adventures crafted by the Hickmans like Ravenloft and the Dragonlace series, already described as classics, were seen as the model. Everything had to be about story.
Looking closely, this isn't strictly speaking wrong - it doesn't literally say that Ravenloft and Dragonlance were 2e. But it only brings them up when talking about 2e, which is deceptive. They were popular and influential modules during the 1e era. My point is that the 1e era had a variety, including both story dungeons and funhouse dungeons.
I think there is a kernel of truth here. There were many more 2e era modules that had linear plotlines, with a prescribed sequence of scenes, which was an unfortunate tendency of many modules in the 1990s. But it's not nearly the sea change implied in the post.
"I didn't use it that way" isn't the point though. It's an anti-point because nothing ever released into the world has been used in exactly the same way for the same reasons by all people; it's the rhetorical equivalent of "I breathed". This sort of argument is used to prevent any definition from arising that excludes anyone who'd prefer inclusion.
Of course what defined 2E in its early life cycle started in late 1E. Just like what defined early 1E started in late OE. Any release is the collection and codification of different directions already chosen and taken. 3E was in large part taking all the experimentation in the player option books, pushing it further, and making further mechanical changes. Edit - But we still classify those according to when they are collected and codified.
Ravenloft and Dragonlance are fine examples that the generations blend slowly into each other, and trying to fit the game into distinct "generations" breaks down on close examination.
Quote from: EOTB;1100965"I didn't use it that way" isn't the point though. It's an anti-point because nothing ever released into the world has been used in exactly the same way for the same reasons by all people; it's the rhetorical equivalent of "I breathed". This sort of argument is used to prevent any definition from arising that excludes anyone who'd prefer inclusion.
I agree that there are always exceptions -- but sometimes there are so many exceptions that it makes the generalization largely meaningless. If there are just 5% exceptions, then the generalization is reasonable, but if there are more like 50% or more exceptions, then maybe not.
For D&D, my impression is that the exceptions outweigh the norms of what the article calls the generations. I don't have any special knowledge in this, but I don't think others do either. I was just a kid in most of the 1e era, but a lot of the players then were kids. Among people I know who played then, a majority of them didn't at all fit how he describes the generation. Most D&D players weren't the hard-core adults who knew first-hand how Gygax ran his games. D&D had a huge surge of popularity, and it spanned a lot of different kinds of people.
IMO there's nothing in Ravenloft (or Rahasia) to make it part of the "Post Dragonlance Generation".
Quote from: jhkim;1100969I agree that there are always exceptions -- but sometimes there are so many exceptions that it makes the generalization largely meaningless. If there are just 5% exceptions, then the generalization is reasonable, but if there are more like 50% or more exceptions, then maybe not.
For D&D, my impression is that the exceptions outweigh the norms of what the article calls the generations. I don't have any special knowledge in this, but I don't think others do either. I was just a kid in most of the 1e era, but a lot of the players then were kids. Among people I know who played then, a majority of them didn't at all fit how he describes the generation. Most D&D players weren't the hard-core adults who knew first-hand how Gygax ran his games. D&D had a huge surge of popularity, and it spanned a lot of different kinds of people.
Yes, and if you go back and look at period letters in Dragon, White Dwarf, and such, some people did loudly complain that the rules didn't really support how they wanted to use it, were using in spite of, and they wished it would be re-written to do so while others wrote in saying the opposite to the idea of change. I think we have to look at what the rules were trying to guide people into rather than what some percentage did anyway. But then solipsism bugs the hell out of me. I certainly never played D&D as the later "generations" are described during their respective period, and neither did a lot of people I knew, but I don't contest that those descriptions represent the D&D of that era, generally.
I think 2nd generations+ have an inordinate need to place themselves at the beginning, in everything. Being what something changed into or came later just isn't of the same psychological legitimacy; also why people hate any definition of "old-school" which doesn't include their preferences.
Quote from: EOTB;1100994I think 2nd generations+ have an inordinate need to place themselves at the beginning, in everything. Being what something changed into or came later just isn't of the same psychological legitimacy; also why people hate any definition of "old-school" which doesn't include their preferences.
Personally I'm ok with 'Old School D&D' being the sort of 'fantasy effin Vietnam' thing described in late-'70s White Dwarf articles, even though it bears almost no resemblance to the 1e AD&D-with-UA I began with in the mid-'80s (1985-86).
"D & D" is a flexible game, which people play in many different ways; because a lot of people make their own changes to the rules, and play the game differently than it is laid out in the rulebooks.
I just drop the name D & D, and call it "Adventure". Now it's whatever I say it is.
Quote from: jhkimFor D&D, my impression is that the exceptions outweigh the norms of what the article calls the generations. I don't have any special knowledge in this, but I don't think others do either. I was just a kid in most of the 1e era, but a lot of the players then were kids. Among people I know who played then, a majority of them didn't at all fit how he describes the generation. Most D&D players weren't the hard-core adults who knew first-hand how Gygax ran his games. D&D had a huge surge of popularity, and it spanned a lot of different kinds of people.
Quote from: EOTB;1100994Yes, and if you go back and look at period letters in Dragon, White Dwarf, and such, some people did loudly complain that the rules didn't really support how they wanted to use it, were using in spite of, and they wished it would be re-written to do so while others wrote in saying the opposite to the idea of change. I think we have to look at what the rules were trying to guide people into rather than what some percentage did anyway.
It depends what you're trying to do. I think as far as defining a
generation of gamers, which was the topic from the OP, it should be defined by how the game was actually played by most of those players - not by the rules as written.
So, for example, if gamers often made their own rulings that contradicted the rules as written, that's a feature of that generation of gamer. I don't think the generation should be defined as only the gamers who followed the rules as written if that isn't what most of them did.
I'm fine to also talk about the rules as written, but that's different than what the generation of gamers is like.
A lot of kids and adults played D & D without the input of magazines, or newsletters. The game was what they held in their hands when they got home from the store, and if the rules were difficult to understand; many people just made something up that made sense to them, and played on.
Quote from: Razor 007;1101279A lot of kids and adults played D & D without the input of magazines, or newsletters. The game was what they held in their hands when they got home from the store, and if the rules were difficult to understand; many people just made something up that made sense to them, and played on.
Granted my first RPG wasn't D&D, but yeah, this was exactly my experience growing up with RPGs.
And even in 2019, I have never compared what is printed in my books, with current online errata. They should get it right before they send it to the printer, in a rush to market. I paid for a good book, not a bunch of mistakes.
Quote from: Razor 007;1101291And even in 2019, I have never compared what is printed in my books, with current online errata. They should get it right before they send it to the printer, in a rush to market. I paid for a good book, not a bunch of mistakes.
Me either. If I somehow acquired errata'd/updated versions of any of the print books or PDFs I have, then it's entirely incidental.
Quote from: Razor 007;1101291And even in 2019, I have never compared what is printed in my books, with current online errata. They should get it right before they send it to the printer, in a rush to market. I paid for a good book, not a bunch of mistakes.
You paid for a good book, not a perfect book.
Quote from: Bren;1100821I have dice that are older than you. :p
I love throwing that at younger people. "I have pencils in my junk drawer older than you." :p It tends to remind them about the scope of time and how much bigger things can be than their latest zealotry.
Unfortunately you can also throw that back at me, too. :D Which I think is a hoot! I somehow need to incorporate this into a Vampire game... "I have clothes that are older than your country. :cool:"
Quote from: jhkim;1101271It depends what you're trying to do. I think as far as defining a generation of gamers, which was the topic from the OP, it should be defined by how the game was actually played by most of those players - not by the rules as written.
So, for example, if gamers often made their own rulings that contradicted the rules as written, that's a feature of that generation of gamer. I don't think the generation should be defined as only the gamers who followed the rules as written if that isn't what most of them did.
I'm fine to also talk about the rules as written, but that's different than what the generation of gamers is like.
OK jhkim, which was the generation of gamers that matches the early description. Are you saying there was never one that did? It was just like you played it, all the way back, by most people?
Quote from: EOTB;1101524OK jhkim, which was the generation of gamers that matches the early description. Are you saying there was never one that did? It was just like you played it, all the way back, by most people?
I don't think that the differences in groups of players are adequately described by calling them different generations, because they're overlapping in time. Also, if we break up generation by just a few years difference, then there would be over a dozen generations rather than a handful.
Once D&D went mass market, there were tens of thousands of people who bought and played it who had no connection to the Gary Gygax's personal games, and only had the rulebooks to go by. D&D was a runaway mass market hit from around 1977 to 1980 particularly, verging on mainstream. Both my sisters played it in high school around that time, who would never consider an RPG later in life. These mass market players vastly outnumbered those in Gygax's circles.
I was introduced to D&D in 1975, which is close to the start of its mass market penetration. I doubt that I'm typical of people introduced in that time - but I also don't think that a direct friend of Gygax is necessarily typical of the mass-market period either.
The 1e AD&D game described in early, pre-1980 copies of White Dwarf was definitely very different from the game I started playing ca 1984-85. I think a lot of this was due to the 1e AD&D DMG's complete failure to explain the megadungeon (OD&D 'Underworld') concept as the central pillar of play, so in the early '80s it seemed everyone went over to a Mentzer style approach of wilderness + small dungeons, very often published module dungeons like Keep on the Borderlands and Castle Amber.