Not everything that causes controversy is an attempt to troll.
I certainly do see youtube videos on the topic, but I was hearing about OSR from people I know before I ever read any of the books. However, I have been seeing those books on DriveThru RPG plenty before I started seeing them.
As to the person that said something like "Oh, the OP think people only play one system of RPG," don't be ridiculous. I never said anything of the like. However, I think people would tend to play one type of RPG generally, if it fills a certain niche. Why would I play half a dozen RPGs that are attempting to create the same thing? I should choose the one I like best and adapt features from others that I like. If I play a different system, it isn't going to be to play another heroic fantasy game. It will be to play... a cyberpunk adventure or whatever we classify Numenera as. Or, hell, Barbarians of Lemuria.
The other thing that needs to be considered when using data from such things as:
1. I often watch a video about other systems without seriously considering playing it.
2. I regularly support kickstarters for systems I have no intent in playing just because the idea is cool and I can mine it for ideas. This does include some DCC content.
3. I buy products for ideas as much as for system.
4. Reddit posts tend to favor the loud and opinionated. There are many many people who just quietly play what they want.
OP made a lot of assumptions with no real evidence and even the evidence they made seems forced.
Not everything that causes controversy is an attempt to troll.
But everything that starts off by insinuating a large group of players are “immature” can be safely assumed to be trolling.
The simple reality is that D&D is doing better than ever - design decisions by Wizards have made the game both more accessible to new players and easier to run for vets, so everyone gets to spend more time actually playing the game and less time on the mechanical aspects.
Do some of those design choices drive folks to older versions? Almost certainly, but those numbers are such a small minority of the fan base as to be rather irrelevant. As, backed up by plenty of sales data and other surveys, it is clear that 5e is the most well-received edition of the game to date - to the extent there are some folks disappointed with “management decisions”(which, far too often, is code for “I don’t like how the game is being more inclusive and excising it’s racist past”), losing them is a perfectly acceptable opportunity cost that otherwise expands the player base and overall satisfaction with the game.
I appreciate the civility of everyone in this thread. All too often I've seen an online discussion devolve into "waargh old-school D&D was better, these millennial snowflakes need to Man Up™".
Personally, I've never played any edition of D&D before 5e. That's obviously because I only started playing in 2018. D&D's history is so fascinating and I plan to try out the old editions at some point because the weird, disjointedness of the systems is strangely appealing to me.
As for the question at hand, I really don't know. I'm willing to bet that 5e's simplicity and apparent "political correctness" of it is likely what drove off older players, but the lack of old fans doesn't seem to have even a slight effect on the overall popularity of D&D.
I cut my teeth on OD&D and 1e. Still love them. Also a *huge* fan of multiple OSR games. I have so many that I sometimes have trouble deciding which one I want to run.
That said...
I've had a regular 5e game running for a year now. With my Gen-X wife, my Gen-X neighbor and childhood friend, and our Gen-Z children. I doubt that I could talk the group into switching systems now.
5e is the dialect of the Common Tongue of gaming spoken at the present moment.
Is 5e perfect? No. But neither are any of the others; I like elements of each. My "perfect version" of D&D would likely be a mash-up of rules ripped from 5e, several earlier versions, and several OSR games. I prefer the ability score bonus scale from OD&D, the Weapons vs. Armour Type mechanic from 1e, and the bounded accuracy from 5e.
The biggest turn-off in modern TTRPG culture for me is the way some people obsess over the perfect "build" for their character; this approach feels very soulless, sterile, and video game-y to me. But that has nothing to do with the way 5e is managed, I don't think. As pervasive as "build" culture seems to be in the TTRPG world, I don't really have the sense that WotC is catering to that demographic especially; the game is perfectly playable without that approach.
If I could criticize any aspect of WotC's management of the property, it would definitely be their emphasis on spellcasters; before them, back in the good ol' days of TSR, it never felt like spellcasters were as powerful as they are in the modern game, especially at low levels. That alone hasn't been enough to drive me back to exclusively playing an OSR game, however.
If I could criticize any aspect of WotC's management of the property, it would definitely be their emphasis on spellcasters; before them, back in the good ol' days of TSR, it never felt like spellcasters were as powerful as they are in the modern game, especially at low levels. That alone hasn't been enough to drive me back to exclusively playing an OSR game, however.
I think it's more they've always been powerful at low levels, it's just now they live much longer reliably at lower levels.
The saying of keeping the Wizard alive till 5 and then the Wizard will keep you alive has been a staple since AD&D 2nd, and honestly probably earlier but it's always been a thing that DMs have had to tread careful of with regards to spellcasting. It's VERY easy to throw multiple spellcasters to screw over a party, but the party doesn't have that luxury. Spellcasters in AD&D 2nd but spells were a lot more complicated to use, and because of that a lot of players didn't want to really do that.
On the thread itself:
I think its not the management of 5e, because the fact is you can look at the surveys being done in the community that the vast majority of people who are taking the surveys for One D&D love the changes and things being introduced. So the management is looking toward the community, and the community is giving a collective thumbs up. I say this referencing this Crawford video talking about survey feedback, and 100% completely agreeing with Caerwyn_Glyndwr in their assessment of the community feedback.
It's people waxing nostalgic, not liking the changes combined with the mass resurgence of the hobby. 5e sells more than any edition and it means more people are getting into TTRPG, and more people are picking it back up who haven't played in quite a bit. We're far removed from the days of 4th edition being so ******* bad(combined with a VERY restrictive OGL) that it caused a completey different system to be developed and now thrive. The absolute irony that the former creator of this website is now working on Paizos version in Pathfinder isn't lost on me there either. A lot of gamers who hated what management was doing in 4th fled to Pathfinder. The difference there was the community hated those changes and the dev teams doubled down for quite a bit before introducing D&D Next.
5th is the exact opposite of that, and One D&D is becoming increasingly more of that.
So sure, management of D&D 5th is absolutely driving people to old school games. They're doing it because the bigger portions of the community want these things to change and the smaller portions don't, and again to Caerwyns point? Regardless of WHY those people are leaving? It's a minor percentage and they are absolutely willing to take that hit.
If I could criticize any aspect of WotC's management of the property, it would definitely be their emphasis on spellcasters; before them, back in the good ol' days of TSR, it never felt like spellcasters were as powerful as they are in the modern game, especially at low levels. That alone hasn't been enough to drive me back to exclusively playing an OSR game, however.
No, casters have always dominated at high levels. If anything WotC has done a considerable amount to flatten the curve: spell users no longer suck for the first 1-4 levels and they're not as overwhelmingly dominant once they reach double digits. Gary Gygax was once quoted back in the OD&D era that "a 20th level fighter is Achilles, but a 20th level wizard is Zeus." Fifth Edition is actually the overall weakest that the wizard class has ever been.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
As far as I can tell, D&D is larger than it's ever been. So ... I don't know about 'pandering'. Now, if you call it 'marketing' instead, I'm all onboard. Wizards are selling people what they want to buy, and unsurprisingly, that sells. So if there's a market for harengon, Wizards will make harengon. Are harengon silly? Yes. But is there a market for it? Also yes.
In building a product with wide appeal, sometimes you push out certain niche clients. I hate all the new races with flaming fervor. But I still play 5e, I just don't use them. It'll be a while yet, before I feel forced to play a worse system with better fluff. Also, don't let the rosy tint of age fool you: AD&D, 3e, 4e? They were all junk. 5e is actually, literally better in almost every way imaginable - but populated by rediculous races. Also, they're bringing back Dragonlance. God, I hate Dragonlance.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The biggest turn-off in modern TTRPG culture for me is the way some people obsess over the perfect "build" for their character; this approach feels very soulless, sterile, and video game-y to me. But that has nothing to do with the way 5e is managed, I don't think. As pervasive as "build" culture seems to be in the TTRPG world, I don't really have the sense that WotC is catering to that demographic especially; the game is perfectly playable without that approach.
I don't think this playstyle is the dominant one; powergamers are in the minority.
There are, however, a lot of threads and online discussions about hypothetically optimal builds, but they're mostly about what's possible in 5e's system rather than actually playing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
[REDACTED]
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Not everything that causes controversy is an attempt to troll.
I certainly do see youtube videos on the topic, but I was hearing about OSR from people I know before I ever read any of the books. However, I have been seeing those books on DriveThru RPG plenty before I started seeing them.
As to the person that said something like "Oh, the OP think people only play one system of RPG," don't be ridiculous. I never said anything of the like. However, I think people would tend to play one type of RPG generally, if it fills a certain niche. Why would I play half a dozen RPGs that are attempting to create the same thing? I should choose the one I like best and adapt features from others that I like. If I play a different system, it isn't going to be to play another heroic fantasy game. It will be to play... a cyberpunk adventure or whatever we classify Numenera as. Or, hell, Barbarians of Lemuria.
The other thing that needs to be considered when using data from such things as:
1. I often watch a video about other systems without seriously considering playing it.
2. I regularly support kickstarters for systems I have no intent in playing just because the idea is cool and I can mine it for ideas. This does include some DCC content.
3. I buy products for ideas as much as for system.
4. Reddit posts tend to favor the loud and opinionated. There are many many people who just quietly play what they want.
OP made a lot of assumptions with no real evidence and even the evidence they made seems forced.
But everything that starts off by insinuating a large group of players are “immature” can be safely assumed to be trolling.
The simple reality is that D&D is doing better than ever - design decisions by Wizards have made the game both more accessible to new players and easier to run for vets, so everyone gets to spend more time actually playing the game and less time on the mechanical aspects.
Do some of those design choices drive folks to older versions? Almost certainly, but those numbers are such a small minority of the fan base as to be rather irrelevant. As, backed up by plenty of sales data and other surveys, it is clear that 5e is the most well-received edition of the game to date - to the extent there are some folks disappointed with “management decisions”(which, far too often, is code for “I don’t like how the game is being more inclusive and excising it’s racist past”), losing them is a perfectly acceptable opportunity cost that otherwise expands the player base and overall satisfaction with the game.
Considering that a large amount of the people into OSR have the same views about lore and mechanics or don't care, no.
I appreciate the civility of everyone in this thread. All too often I've seen an online discussion devolve into "waargh old-school D&D was better, these millennial snowflakes need to Man Up™".
Personally, I've never played any edition of D&D before 5e. That's obviously because I only started playing in 2018. D&D's history is so fascinating and I plan to try out the old editions at some point because the weird, disjointedness of the systems is strangely appealing to me.
As for the question at hand, I really don't know. I'm willing to bet that 5e's simplicity and apparent "political correctness" of it is likely what drove off older players, but the lack of old fans doesn't seem to have even a slight effect on the overall popularity of D&D.
[REDACTED]
Gen-Xer here.
I cut my teeth on OD&D and 1e. Still love them. Also a *huge* fan of multiple OSR games. I have so many that I sometimes have trouble deciding which one I want to run.
That said...
I've had a regular 5e game running for a year now. With my Gen-X wife, my Gen-X neighbor and childhood friend, and our Gen-Z children. I doubt that I could talk the group into switching systems now.
5e is the dialect of the Common Tongue of gaming spoken at the present moment.
Is 5e perfect? No. But neither are any of the others; I like elements of each. My "perfect version" of D&D would likely be a mash-up of rules ripped from 5e, several earlier versions, and several OSR games. I prefer the ability score bonus scale from OD&D, the Weapons vs. Armour Type mechanic from 1e, and the bounded accuracy from 5e.
The biggest turn-off in modern TTRPG culture for me is the way some people obsess over the perfect "build" for their character; this approach feels very soulless, sterile, and video game-y to me.
But that has nothing to do with the way 5e is managed, I don't think. As pervasive as "build" culture seems to be in the TTRPG world, I don't really have the sense that WotC is catering to that demographic especially; the game is perfectly playable without that approach.
If I could criticize any aspect of WotC's management of the property, it would definitely be their emphasis on spellcasters; before them, back in the good ol' days of TSR, it never felt like spellcasters were as powerful as they are in the modern game, especially at low levels. That alone hasn't been enough to drive me back to exclusively playing an OSR game, however.
I think it's more they've always been powerful at low levels, it's just now they live much longer reliably at lower levels.
The saying of keeping the Wizard alive till 5 and then the Wizard will keep you alive has been a staple since AD&D 2nd, and honestly probably earlier but it's always been a thing that DMs have had to tread careful of with regards to spellcasting. It's VERY easy to throw multiple spellcasters to screw over a party, but the party doesn't have that luxury. Spellcasters in AD&D 2nd but spells were a lot more complicated to use, and because of that a lot of players didn't want to really do that.
On the thread itself:
I think its not the management of 5e, because the fact is you can look at the surveys being done in the community that the vast majority of people who are taking the surveys for One D&D love the changes and things being introduced. So the management is looking toward the community, and the community is giving a collective thumbs up. I say this referencing this Crawford video talking about survey feedback, and 100% completely agreeing with Caerwyn_Glyndwr in their assessment of the community feedback.
It's people waxing nostalgic, not liking the changes combined with the mass resurgence of the hobby. 5e sells more than any edition and it means more people are getting into TTRPG, and more people are picking it back up who haven't played in quite a bit. We're far removed from the days of 4th edition being so ******* bad(combined with a VERY restrictive OGL) that it caused a completey different system to be developed and now thrive. The absolute irony that the former creator of this website is now working on Paizos version in Pathfinder isn't lost on me there either. A lot of gamers who hated what management was doing in 4th fled to Pathfinder. The difference there was the community hated those changes and the dev teams doubled down for quite a bit before introducing D&D Next.
5th is the exact opposite of that, and One D&D is becoming increasingly more of that.
So sure, management of D&D 5th is absolutely driving people to old school games. They're doing it because the bigger portions of the community want these things to change and the smaller portions don't, and again to Caerwyns point? Regardless of WHY those people are leaving? It's a minor percentage and they are absolutely willing to take that hit.
No, casters have always dominated at high levels. If anything WotC has done a considerable amount to flatten the curve: spell users no longer suck for the first 1-4 levels and they're not as overwhelmingly dominant once they reach double digits. Gary Gygax was once quoted back in the OD&D era that "a 20th level fighter is Achilles, but a 20th level wizard is Zeus." Fifth Edition is actually the overall weakest that the wizard class has ever been.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
As far as I can tell, D&D is larger than it's ever been. So ... I don't know about 'pandering'. Now, if you call it 'marketing' instead, I'm all onboard. Wizards are selling people what they want to buy, and unsurprisingly, that sells. So if there's a market for harengon, Wizards will make harengon. Are harengon silly? Yes. But is there a market for it? Also yes.
In building a product with wide appeal, sometimes you push out certain niche clients. I hate all the new races with flaming fervor. But I still play 5e, I just don't use them. It'll be a while yet, before I feel forced to play a worse system with better fluff. Also, don't let the rosy tint of age fool you: AD&D, 3e, 4e? They were all junk. 5e is actually, literally better in almost every way imaginable - but populated by rediculous races. Also, they're bringing back Dragonlance. God, I hate Dragonlance.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I don't think this playstyle is the dominant one; powergamers are in the minority.
There are, however, a lot of threads and online discussions about hypothetically optimal builds, but they're mostly about what's possible in 5e's system rather than actually playing.
[REDACTED]