I wouldn't say the wargamers got forced out of their own hobby. After all, you're all still here bitching about the players who don't want their characters to die.

But in broad terms, I think Brad is right. You can probably point to Dragons of Despair as the inflection point. Wargaming is a niche appeal. Elf game is much more popular for its storytelling aspects. As it turns out, most players don't really want to sit down and play a game where starting characters suck, can't do anything, and die on the first adventure. As a result, companies stopped designing their games that way. It sounded like a good idea back in the 70s when everyone was a wargamer, and a PC was based on a regular soldier who was probably going to die in his first battle. As time went by and the concept of a role-playing game matured, more and more people came to the realization that the things that work in a wargame are not the same as the things that work in a role-playing game.

2E, was wussed out; compared to 1E AD&D.

I played some 3rd and a very little 3.5.  I then switched to a different game.  I don't recall anything in the realm of "wussy" but I had just core books.

Well, lucky for us we have Condor DM who is able to explain Pundit's video. Enjoy, LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO4Pxid1C0

Pathetic......

If you can't die in character creation, then you are playing a wussified game.

/sarcasm

Quote from: jeff37923 on October 02, 2023, 08:18:18 PM
Pathetic......

If you can't die in character creation, then you are playing a wussified game.

/sarcasm

Real men play Traveller 1e.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 02, 2023, 07:20:16 PM
Well, lucky for us we have Condor DM who is able to explain Pundit's video. Enjoy, LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO4Pxid1C0

Uhhh, yeah.  Not sure a guy with 432 subscribers to his YouTube channel should be calling other people "irrelevant" to the hobby.  I wouldn't claim to be "relevant," either, but then again I'm just looking for a good game...

Just to double down: 2e art in general was garbage!  Those Monstrous Compendium volumes with the weird tones and the squishy figures, etc.  And yes, DiTerlizzi was the worst offender. 

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 02, 2023, 07:20:16 PM
Well, lucky for us we have Condor DM who is able to explain Pundit's video. Enjoy, LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO4Pxid1C0

That bitch thinks Pundit wants to put the Game Designer on top?

Pundit has spoken several times against the trend to play raw, to follow the dictates of the designer, from where does he get his "facts"?

Also, Pundit isn't an experienced GM?

I know where Condor BitchWanker gets his "facts" from the deepest receses of his arse!

The supreme art of earlier eras...


Contrasted with some samples of garbage...

Clyde Cladewell






Gerald Brom






Denis Beauvais

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 03, 2023, 12:07:38 AM

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on October 02, 2023, 07:20:16 PM
Well, lucky for us we have Condor DM who is able to explain Pundit's video. Enjoy, LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpO4Pxid1C0

That bitch thinks Pundit wants to put the Game Designer on top?

Pundit has spoken several times against the trend to play raw, to follow the dictates of the designer, from where does he get his "facts"?

Also, Pundit isn't an experienced GM?

I know where Condor BitchWanker gets his "facts" from the deepest receses of his arse!

He's obviously trying to capitalize and get a few clicks off the anti-punit crowd.
That wobble bottom is so utterly delusional. I mean, he claims that Pundit is attacking him because Pundit criticizes 2e (and therefore it was a no-named but direct attack on Walrus DM).
Then goes on to say, that Pundit isn't an experienced DM (yes, he actually said that). And that game designers are not credible compared to experienced GMs like him. Of course, talent, game design, and research mean nothing (apparently). LOL

So how experienced is Walrus GM? He's had over 10k public games (since he started in the 90s). Or so he claims. And I shit gold bars and unicorns or so I claim.

2nd edition was the end of D&D. It has all been downhill since. 3.5e was rock bottom, even compared to how bad 4e was (which wasn't even D&D).

5e is only good insomuch as it rekindled some of the spirit of 1e, with a modern twist. But WotC (pronounced w-atzi) is flushing all that down the toilet with Woke nonsense.

Ravenloft and DarkSun were the only TSR products to have any decent art direction.

Quote from: Thor's Nads on October 03, 2023, 06:34:00 AM

5e is only good insomuch as it rekindled some of the spirit of 1e, with a modern twist.

LOL!  Milk and coolie rest breaks, super tough hard to kill 1str level PCs, NO!  Not the spirit of 1st Edition at all.

Quote from: Brad on October 02, 2023, 01:52:24 PM
I'd say the game changed as soon as DMs started giving a fuck about an overarching plot instead of actual play. So like five seconds after D&D was published?

Sound premise, though the timing was way different for me. In my own experience, DMs started caring about overarching plot right around (checks watch) Dragonlance.

Quote from: Scooter on October 03, 2023, 08:20:56 AM

Quote from: Thor's Nads on October 03, 2023, 06:34:00 AM

5e is only good insomuch as it rekindled some of the spirit of 1e, with a modern twist.

LOL!  Milk and coolie rest breaks, super tough hard to kill 1str level PCs, NO!  Not the spirit of 1st Edition at all.

It's funny how the OSR crowd here had nothing but praise for 5e ... until they took away Pundit's credit in the front of the book. Then suddenly 5e was always bad and wicked and a betrayal of everything D&D stood for (not became that... was that from the start).

Now it's on to the purity spiraling phase as earlier and earlier editions "don't count" (used to just be 4E, then became 4-5e, then all WotC editions, Pundit is saying 2e, and a few here are even saying "Dragonlance"). Pretty soon anyone who doesn't play using the original house rules for Chainmail won't be doing it right.