Wizards of the Coast Announces One D&D

[Scott Ruggels]

Oh... it wasn't just a British thing.  In the 7-s , we had a local Department store, that had a Hobby and toy section on the top floor. They sliced the monster packages open, and poured them into a box next to the register, and sold them for 25 cents each. Profit! Recognizing the Bullette, I , over time bought four of them.  The last one I saw was sometime after my move to Los Angeles in a box of random knick nacks and dice sometime around 2005 when I was unpacking.

[Old Man]

Four Bulettes is a hell of an encounter.  What kind of killer GM are you? 

[death tribble]

A kind one.

[Scott Ruggels]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

Four Bulettes is a hell of an encounter.  What kind of killer GM are you? 

 

 

The old School, Gygaxian kind. MWah hah hah hah haaaa! (At least when running D&D)

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

The old School, Gygaxian kind. MWah hah hah hah haaaa! (At least when running D&D)

 

"You hear some nasty rending noises and gobbling sounds, but they end quickly."

[Hermit]

I saw Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among thieves yesterday due to having a friend who is an amazon prime member. I had mixed feelings about going. On one hand, it would serve Hasbro right if it flopped or sucked so it got bad reviews. On the other hand, I love high fantasy and a good D&D movie is long overdue. Quick sum up, it was good (A lot of fun imo). And I couldn't help think THIS is how Hasbro/Wotc should cash in on D&D.. not trying to shut smaller creators out, or squeeze every dollar out of folks for the 'privilege' of using their imaginations. I think it's going to be a hit, it has an early Marvel Movie vibe and energy (And I mean that in a good way), I just hope Hasbro/Wotc learns the right lessons from that rather than deciding they now have the money and goodwill to double down on the evil cash grab on the TTRPG players again.

 

 

[Steve]

3 hours ago, Hermit said:

I saw Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among thieves yesterday due to having a friend who is an amazon prime member. I had mixed feelings about going. On one hand, it would serve Hasbro right if it flopped or sucked so it got bad reviews. On the other hand, I love high fantasy and a good D&D movie is long overdue. Quick sum up, it was good (A lot of fun imo). And I couldn't help think THIS is how Hasbro/Wotc should cash in on D&D.. not trying to shut smaller creators out, or squeeze every dollar out of folks for the 'privilege' of using their imaginations. I think it's going to be a hit, it has an early Marvel Movie vibe and energy (And I mean that in a good way), I just hope Hasbro/Wotc learns the right lessons from that rather than deciding they now have the money and goodwill to double down on the evil cash grab on the TTRPG players again.

 

 

It’s on Amazon Prime?

[Hermit]

2 minutes ago, Steve said:

It’s on Amazon Prime?

No. It was in some theaters on sunday, but tickets to those showings were available only to Amazon prime members

[Duke Bushido]

On 2/26/2023 at 4:02 PM, Scott Ruggels said:

 

 

The old School, Gygaxian kind. MWah hah hah hah haaaa! (At least when running D&D)

 

 

Hear!  Hear!

 

Seriously:  rpgs today are not what D and D was then.  I think it was Opal who referred to old school D and D as survival horror.  Best description I have ever heard.

 

It wasn't _quite_ adversarial, at least nor directly, but the DM's job (as generally confirmed though the earliest modules and through the convention modules for some years after role playing started to develope) was to design a situation that you _could_ kive through, but werent likely to.

 

Honestly, I can't remember ever hearing anyone under thirty spike a door open.....

 

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Old school players used to have our characters tap every surface as we moved, because it might reveal a trap.  I had a gnome thief character that would go in front with a rope tied around him so if he fell into a trap he wouldn't go far and could be hauled back.  You'd carefully, slowly go down every hall because that next 10x10 square could be death.

There was a kind of fun in that, but not a very enduring one; story and atmosphere is more lasting and interesting

[Duke Bushido]

Always,have one guy who's job was to carry a 10' pole and poke the xeiking in the next section of corridor before moving into it....

 

The I'm murder carpet--  I mean, Lurker Above....

 

 

Any of you guys that still play- ia that still a routine need the, or sis they admit that it was just wandering damage and let it sie out?

 

 

 

[Old Man]

The best thing about D&D was just how ridiculous the dungeon aspect was.  Creatures that literally evolved to adapt to the ecological niche presented by these dungeons--the gelatinous cube, the trapper, the lurker above, the mimic.  (There are that many dungeons.)  Abandoned dungeons filled with elaborate traps that all these creatures somehow avoided setting off for years, sometimes centuries.

 

As the RPG hobby moved away from subterranean survival horror, we saw less and less of these creatures.  My GM did hit us with piercers and cave fishers in the recent 5e campaign though.

[Duke Bushido]

So is the Lurker Above still a thing?

 

 

[Hermit]

11 minutes ago, Duke Bushido said:

So is the Lurker Above still a thing?

 

 

Look up and find out

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Yes, I laughed a bit when I read the description of the Gelatinous Cube.  Its perfectly 10x10, just like dungeon hallways heh.

 

But since this is a magical world, it makes sense that wizards and alchemists would come up with special monsters to guard their greatest treasures -- perhaps a long-lost art.

 

What bothered me a lot more was the way there'd be a 20x20 room with a locked, trapped door containing like five displacer beasts.  What did they do all the time before you got there to open the door?  What did they eat?  How did they get in there?

 

Basically the entire place had to be in magical stasis before you got there.

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

So is the Lurker Above still a thing?

 

 

 

It's possible that they aren't; I can't find any mention of them from 5e sources.  Over the years they had evolved away from being square false ceilings into big floating manta rays with octopus-like camo.  Which is conceptually better, but it also means they can explicitly fly.

[Duke Bushido]

4 hours ago, Christopher R Taylor said:

Yes, I laughed a bit when I read the description of the Gelatinous Cube.  Its perfectly 10x10, just like dungeon hallways heh.

 

 

 

 

 

Dungeon Roomba.

 

 

 

[Opal]

On 3/20/2023 at 7:13 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Any of you guys that still play- ia that still a routine need the, or sis they admit that it was just wandering damage and let it sie out?

I still play, but I'm an edition behind.

 

The classic dungeon crawl with all the explicit poking and listening and such arguably died with 3.0 and skill checks that actually worked.  Your passive perception could spot traps & ambushes your disable device could actually disarm a trap.  Your knowledge skills can identify monsters and recall their special abilities.

Less of the incongruous "player knowledge" being all important.

[Scott Ruggels]

Thus the current rising popularity of OSR rules. 

[Opal]

I'm not sure I buy that OSR is gaining on the overwhelming popularity of current ed D&D (relative to all those other TTRPGs with 0 mainstream awareness), and even granting that, I see no reason it's anything beyond the obvious coattails effect from the same 80s comeback that's  propelling 5e D&D.

 

(And maybe the OGL scandal, if were talking very recently)

[Duke Bushido]

Thanks for the update, Opal.

 

I am kind of with Scott, though.  Even as much as I dont like DnD, the few fond memories I have of it revolve around "besting" the GM in the borderline adversarial think-traps of old school DnD.

 

Conversely, I have a few fond memories of being bested by the GM, but again- I enjoyed it more when it was more adversarial- when it was only a "role playing game" by virtue of rhe fact that it wasnt exactly a wargame.

 

Dont get me wrong: I love a good RPG, I just dont want that version if DnD.

 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Even as much as I dont like DnD, the few fond memories I have of it revolve around "besting" the GM in the borderline adversarial think-traps of old school DnD.

 

Yeah there was an element of that.  Even module design shows that.  Gygax got tired of everyone yelling at him for doing "low level" content so he put out Tomb of Horrors, which is basically a save or die festival.

[Opal]

Queen of the Denonweb Pits seemed plenty high-level to me, at the time...

[Opal]

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Even as much as I dont like DnD, the few fond memories I have of it revolve around "besting" the GM in the borderline adversarial think-traps of old school DnD.

 

I get the appeal, I just see it as a you had to be there kind of appeal.

 

I wouldn't want to inflict it on zoomers cause it was "good nuff for me when I was your age" or anything ;

2 hours ago, Duke Bushido said:

Dont get me wrong: I love a good RPG, I just dont want that version if DnD.

IDK if you meant to imply old-school dungeon crawling wasn't actually an RPG 

 

But, yeah, it kinda wasn't.  And for those reasons I pointed out,  that you weren't really playing a denizen of a fantasy world, but a 20th century nerd being clever.  

 

It was more of an immersive immaginary puzzle game.  With survival horror imaginary stakes

 

 

[Duke Bushido]

1 hour ago, Opal said:

I get the appeal, I just see it as a you had to be there kind of appeal.

 

I dont know... I mean, everyone has played full-contact Uno, right?  Same kind of vibe.

 

1 hour ago, Opal said:

I wouldn't want to inflict it on zoomers cause it was "good nuff for me when I was your age" or anything ;

 

Oh, don't get me started on that kind of nonsense.  I am extremely fortunate in that at the age of 63, I still have both of my parents, and that they are not just "still with us," but vibrant and thriving.  Realistically, given the relative levels of health and healthcare, they should both outlive me by at least a decade (I have CHF.  I can look forward to ten to twelve years of slowly drowning to death).

 

I would love to say that having them is all wonderful, biscuits-and-gravy kind of stuff (and it kind of is, seeing as I how I like neither of those things).  Don't get me wrong: I love my parents,  but I haven't been able to hold a lengthy conversation with them since I hit forty.

 

My old man is constantly "you are too soft on those kids.  They don't know what [whatever he is sputtering about at the moment- some completely unnecessary hardship, usually].  You should have raised them the way you grew up; the way I grew up.  We have both been cutting firewood since we were nine years old!  We both worked the fields since we were kids!  We went hungry many a night in the dead of winter-  me more than you ever thiught about having to!  You should have raised them like that!  That's how you grew up!  I grew up worse than that, and I turn a out okay!"

 

Yeah...,   

 

The fact that you wish your grandkids had to suffer hunger and unnecessary physical hardship  suggests that maybe- just _maybe_-- you did not turn out as "okay" as you think you did...

 

Yeah; I am afraid the "everyone should be subjected to this!" Mindset makes very little sense to me outside of rolling the windows down and blasting Baby Metal.  I would like everyone who games to have the opportunity to try it, with a full understanding going in of just what it is and is not, but certainly I dont want to force it on anyone any more than want to experience some other kind of DnD.  At least that kind never really pushed "fantasy" as much as it pushed "battle of wits!  The five (or eight or whatever) of us against his most devious traps....."  It was like full-contact Uno for the "oh! My brittle bones!" set.  If I could find some other old school players, I might even want to try another game or two as I approach the "oh! My hip!" era of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Opal said:

IDK if you meant to imply old-school dungeon crawling wasn't actually an RPG 

 

Correct.  More specifically, it wasn't what they would _become_ very shortly after.  I can't point to any one game and say that "this is when the games changed" (though, given the era and the palpable difference, I do tend to point to Traveller, which stressed throughout the cooperation of Playes and Referees while old DnD seemed to stress "the DM can easily kill you, so he should pull his punches enough that clever playing might allow you to live, maybe, at least every so often."

 

 

1 hour ago, Opal said:

But, yeah, it kinda wasn't.  And for those reasons I pointed out,  that you weren't really playing a denizen of a fantasy world, but a 20th century nerd being clever.  

 

It was more of an immersive immaginary puzzle game.  With survival horror imaginary stakes

 

 

 

 

Yep.  All that.   Nail on the head, right there.