5e operates on the presumption that players don't need inherent game motivations or personal ambitions, in fact, it kind of discourages it.
5e operates on the presumption that it's not the job of the game system to create game motivations or personal ambitions, it's the job of the DM and players.
As it happens, most 5e adventures are built on the theory of "bad stuff is happening and the PCs want to stop it" rather than "dungeon here, go loot it", but that's not a feature of the game system, and the core reason for the change is that "dungeon here, go loot it" is ... a kinda stupid adventure (also, the worst railroad I ever played was the Dragonlance module series, which was hardly 5e).
In the end, D&D is still a game, old school or new school and players are going to do the thing in the game for which they are rewarded and avoid doing the things for which there are no rewards. It's why most 5e games feel like railroads, because ultimately, the motivation for which you are rewarded is to follow along the DM's story as this is how you earn milestone XP, by progressing through the pre-written series of events the DM has laid out before the game started.
Some adventures are built pretty much that way, but this has to do with the difficulties of adventure design when you have have NPCs that are doing things instead of just sitting in place waiting to be killed. DMs running their own campaigns instead of prewritten stuff have a wide range of ways of handling xp and leveling.
All modules both old school and new school work under the presumption that players will bite on the story hook that gets them involved in the adventure. That hasn't changed.. pretty much ever. It was like that in 1e and it's still like that in 5e.
The main difference is how players approach adventure modules (from the player perspective), how they see the game. In 1e AD&D, there was a lot more meta conversations based on in story - In Game information.
Prepping to go on an adventure was a group strategy. What characters do we bring? What do we know about where we are going. What gear do we prep, what spells do we prep. How long is the journey, what supplies do we need? Are there towns nearby, what factions are there, what sort of trouble can we expect. These conversations were between players, trying to find the best strategy and approach as players to the coming adventure.
So yeah, its a bit different but this largely stems from the fact that the players earned rewards, they weren't "awarded rewards" for participation. In 1e you could have a game session, walk away with 2 dead characters, no XP or treasure and have the whole night be a total failure. That could happen, alternatively, you could have an amazing night where a group of 1st level characters gains enough XP to level up to level 3 in one go because you found a big treasure horde. There was no premise of balance, stuff was in dungeons and if you found it, you got it. There are no guarantees, your success or failure is entirely up to the player's decisions and how things play out.
Above and beyond that, the game was pretty much as it is now from a story/narrative and role-playing perspective. Characters despite all the meta-conversation still had in character personalities, goals, motivations, side plots, ambitions and developing backstories. I think the main difference in approaches here is regarding the acknowledgment that this was still a game and though you didn't exactly win or lose, there was a meta-difference that was very calculable between succeeding and failing. The fact that the players were driven by the acquisition of wealth, gear and XP wasn't a bad thing, that was a point of tension in the game, a goal each player had above and beyond those in story character development stuff.
I think modern gamers want this but somehow feel guilty about acknowledging that D&D is still very much a game. It's almost a kind of a shame players have when they see D&D as a game rather than just this purely story and narrative-driven in-character theatre.
All modules both old school and new school work under the presumption that players will bite on the story hook that gets them involved in the adventure. That hasn't changed.. pretty much ever. It was like that in 1e and it's still like that in 5e.
The main difference is how players approach adventure modules (from the player perspective), how they see the game. In 1e AD&D, there was a lot more meta conversations based on in story - In Game information.
Prepping to go on an adventure was a group strategy. What characters do we bring? What do we know about where we are going. What gear do we prep, what spells do we prep. How long is the journey, what supplies do we need? Are there towns nearby, what factions are there, what sort of trouble can we expect. These conversations were between players, trying to find the best strategy and approach as players to the coming adventure.
So yeah, its a bit different but this largely stems from the fact that the players earned rewards, they weren't "awarded rewards" for participation. In 1e you could have a game session, walk away with 2 dead characters, no XP or treasure and have the whole night be a total failure. That could happen, alternatively, you could have an amazing night where a group of 1st level characters gains enough XP to level up to level 3 in one go because you found a big treasure horde. There was no premise of balance, stuff was in dungeons and if you found it, you got it. There are no guarantees, your success or failure is entirely up to the player's decisions and how things play out.
Above and beyond that, the game was pretty much as it is now from a story/narrative and role-playing perspective. Characters despite all the meta-conversation still had in character personalities, goals, motivations, side plots, ambitions and developing backstories. I think the main difference in approaches here is regarding the acknowledgment that this was still a game and though you didn't exactly win or lose, there was a meta-difference that was very calculable between succeeding and failing. The fact that the players were driven by the acquisition of wealth, gear and XP wasn't a bad thing, that was a point of tension in the game, a goal each player had above and beyond those in story character development stuff.
I think modern gamers want this but somehow feel guilty about acknowledging that D&D is still very much a game. It's almost a kind of a shame players have when they see D&D as a game rather than just this purely story and narrative-driven in-character theatre.