Trend in Editions

(Originally written months ago but I didn't get around to posting until now...)

Taken from a comment on an old post:

Well said! I distinguish play between "gameplay", as defined by mechanics, rules and character maxing, and "Roleplay", which involves gameworld exploration, storyline and character development (in the more literary sense). The later editions of D&D appear to place more emphasis on Gameplay than on Roleplay. I also agree that this is neither good nor bad, inherently. It simply is.

Personally, I find that Gameplay focus works extremely well when translated into computer based gaming systems such as the various Baldur's Gate titles and spinoffs, Neverwinter Nights, etc. But for me to enjoy face-to-face paper and pen gaming, I much prefer either a more balanced Roleplay to Gameplay emphasis or even slightly towards Roleplay (meaning less complex rulesets and leaving more to the imagination). I run a 1st Edition AD&D campaign for my friends because that is what we started with.

As to "Old School Rennaissance", I never left the old rule sets, so it is hard for me to think of myself as "Old School", other than in a self-mocking sort of way. But I do find it refreshing to hear that I am not the only one who finds the idea of the newer rulesets to be somewhat lacking for pen and paper face-to-face gaming.

I think I would have to disagree with your statement that "...later editions of D&D appear to place more emphasis on Gameplay than on Roleplay". I know that's a common meme these days, but the idea that the rules for AD&D (1st/2nd Edition) focused on role-playing seems to be a more recent idea. I say this in part from defending the old editions years ago (pre-3rd Edition) against the constant accusations that AD&D was nothing more than a game of hack-and-slash, and that you couldn't possibly use it for role-playing. AD&D was considered a "gateway" game, and it was said more sophisticated gamers would simply move past it to more mature systems like GURPS or White Wolf's RPGs. Granted, the arguments were silly and ridiculous, but I find that's the case with "edition wars" these days as well.

One argument I used in those days, and which I believe is just as applicable today, is that a good role-player doesn't need rules for "role-playing" - it's just something you do. Rules are for things like conflict resolution, equipment tables, or magic systems. Everything else is emergent from a character concept (this is one reason why I have no issues with the changes in the skill system in 4E - for instance, you want your PC to have been a blacksmith before adventuring? You don't need a "Profession - Blacksmith" skill; just work that into your character's backstory).

"Back in the day" there were just as many number-crunching loot-hungry munchkins as there are today. Or at least there were; I think the people who were solely in it for getting "the most pluses" have moved on to on-line games like WoW, which are perfectly suited for that style of play.

That said, I imagine the perception that "modern" editions focus on gameplay rather than role-play is due in part to the larger number of rulebooks and sourcebooks available these days. And for some reason, people seem to think that so much optional material is required to play. For instance, in a 3.5 game I play in, one of the players (who has little love for D&D post-2nd edition), was looking at a stack of 3.5 books and complaining how you didn't need all those books back in "the old days". My wife pointed out to him how much material was published for 2nd Edition - from the "Complete Fighter's Handbook" to the "Players Options" books and everything in-between. His response was "yeah, but those were all optional!" Um...yeah, so are all the non-core 3.5 books (or non-core 4E books). I don't know where people get this idea that, say, "Wilderness Survival Guide" was an optional accessory for 1st Edition but "Adventurer's Vault 2" is required to play 4E.

Having said that, I think that imagination played a bigger role back in the Olden Times simply because, as I mentioned, there wasn't as much material available. Considering just what TSR released for 1st Edition, there were only eleven rulebooks published if I recall correctly: PHB, DMG, MM, MM2, FF, D&D/L&L, OA, DSG, WSG, UA, MotP. Nowadays, WotC publishes about that many in a year. I think people get overwhelmed by the options available, even though they're just that - options. Plus, it isn't as necessary to come up with your own material since there's so much available either from the official books, Dragon and Dungeon (old and new), third party publishers (both OGL and GSL), or the on-line gaming community. Given all that, one could even see the "Old School Renaissance" as a sort of "primitivist" movement, like someone who decides to flee a materialistic, busy/loud/aggressive urban lifestyle for a more laidback, peaceful, rural existence.

On Magic Items and a Sense of Wonder

An old post at d20 Source talks about "bringing back the magic" to D&D. Essentially, it laments that the "magic" of magic items has been lost since magic items are treated little better than beefed-up mundane equipment and offers some suggestions for making magic items more "magical".

While I don't disagree with anything in the article, it seems to overlook the fact that magic items in D&D are treated the way they are because that's one of the memes of the game - namely, a plethora of magic items is part of the expected norm of the game. This started well before WoW made it standard that all your gear was at least "green" even at very low levels. It was common in 3.x, and quite common in previous editions, despite grognard arguments to the contrary. 3.x even codified it with the "Wealth by Level" table (granted, all wealth doesn't have to be in magic items, but it's an easy way to distribute treasure and players have come to expect it).

I would prefer D&D be more like Warhammer FRP or Tekumel, where magic is rare, unique, and always has a story as well. But if you want to stay within the bounds of the expected rules, that's not really an option with 3.x. 4E, at least, shrinks how many items you can wear, but (based off the character creation options), it still assumes a character is going to have at least three if they're higher than first level. There are some alternate suggestions in the DMG2, so that's an option...

One area where there's more of a "sense of wonder" is artifacts. Now, prior to 4E this wasn't much of an option - artifacts belonged to the realm of those of very high level, and even then it was generous to call them "extremely rare". In fact, I can't think of any game I've been a player in where we encountered an artifact, and I can count on one hand - and have fingers left over - the number of games I've put them in (not counting the deck of many things*, which I try to drop in once to each campaign I run). With 4E, you can finally get some mileage out of artifacts due to their "tiered" nature and the concordance mechanic. That's not to say they are or should be common - I haven't used any in my game yet, actually. But now they can be a little something more than an ultra-powerful magic item that a player reads about and thinks "well, there's something we'll never see."


*: So, where's the 4E version of the deck?