44 ms·

The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

341 points by petethomas 9y ago

arkades 9y ago
I’d have liked this article if it had taken a more critical stance as to the resurgence of RPGs rather than hand-waving some ineffable bs about simpler times and half-allusions to political tensions. The more accurate answer is, IMO, two fold: (1) kids who grew up on RPGs are now old enough to want to want to play with their own kids, and funnel disposable cash into it (2) kids who are interested have less stigma to approaching it, so conversion rates from interest to player should be higher (3) a lot of technical advancements from the US indie scene and the Western European LARP scene have slowly diffused out into the more mainstream RPG community, resulting in play that’s a lot more fulfilling to various types of players
- acbabis 9y ago
  Another very important reason was left out: The 5th edition of the game was very well designed and received critical acclaim among veterans who were disappointed by the 4th edition. The article makes it sound like there's been a resurrection when in fact the game was just hibernating.
  - lotharbot 9y ago
    of particular note, D&D 5e accomplished many of the technical/balance things 4e was supposed to accomplish but failed at, while still retaining the excellent flavor and sense of power from 3.5e.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      5e did what I would have thought impossible: the people that preferred 4e to earlier editions largely liked it, the people who were repulsed by 4e but stayed with 3e/3.5e or forks of those liked it, and a lot of the “old school” crowd that preferred OD&D, B/X or BECMI D&D, or AD&D 1e or 2e also liked it.
      - forapurpose 9y ago
        Why would someone who already knows AD&D 1e switch to the new one? What does that person gain? Imagine this hypothetical person wants to spend as little time as possible learning and on details, and as much as possible on creative experiences.
        dmoy 9y ago
        Not having to use THAC0 ever again would be one thing they would gain. I'd make a silly wager that the net time saved by using 5e rules would outweigh the cost of learning them.
        klodolph 9y ago
        THAC0 didn't come around until 2e, 1e had hit tables. You can see them on p. 74 of the AD&D DMG, with some more notes on p. 82.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        That's true; it's easy to forget that THAC0 was a simplification from 1e. Though that kind of reinforces the point.
        Steko 9y ago
        Actually it was introduced before 2e but wasn't a core system in 1e.
        dmoy 9y ago
        Yea the salient point there was the second part - whether it be hit tables or THAC0, 5e rules would expedite play. Course some of us will sit there and say y'all should just be playing 3d6 instead, but I digress...
        racer-v 9y ago
        You can get rid of THAC0 if you just use this simple rule: roll d20, add the opponent's armor class (plus your own to-hit bonus if any), and a result of 20 or better is a hit.
  - Steko 9y ago
    That also struck me as odd. While the article says that "interest fell like an orc beneath a bastard sword", D&D seems to have been more popular in 3e than it is now (although it's certainly rebounding and more visible in pop culture than it was in the past): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F026q9,%2Fm%2F04dzk1_ https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0... (not sure why it's showing results for pathfinder before 2008)
  - gerdesj 9y ago
    What on earth are these edition things? I'll have to dig out my DMG, PH, MM, FF etc. Apparently, they might be cool. Then there is Traveller, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Car Wars (with Truck Stop etc) and rather a lot more.
    - curiousGambler 9y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Drago...
    - squeaky-clean 9y ago
      Every 8 or so years they revamp the rules and release it as a new edition. Aside from few exceptions, they're mostly incompatible with each other and offer different rules for combat, skill usage and training, etc, and quality-of-life improvements. 3e (more specifically 3.5e) was extremely popular. There's now a ruleset called Pathfinder made by another company, Paizo, that continues the style of 3.5e and is mostly compatible with it (though it has its own core rulebooks and most people I know don't mix 3e and PF). 4e wasn't as well liked but it still had mostly good reception. It was very polarizing to many players. This obviously isn't the space for a debate about it but I think the biggest cause of complaints are the way the combat system was overhauled. Many people compare it more to a modern RPG video game rather than a pen and paper one. 5e has had a great reception from old and new players. It's rules are definitely closer to 3rd edition than it is to 4th. Though it brought in a lot of quality of life improvements from 4. For example while it makes sense that 'Hide' and 'Move Silently' are two separate skills, it just means a rogue has to split their skill points between two things. There's not many scenarios outside of comedy where you give a character 'Hide' but not 'Move Silently' or vice versa. 5e has merged both of these into a single Stealth skill. All the editions are still considered Dungeons and Dragons though, and not separate games (of which there are many wonderful ones, some of which have their own 1e, 2e, 3e, an so on...)
      - gerdesj 9y ago
        Thanks for the run down. My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. To be honest as a DM/GM I generally threw out the rules as soon as they got in the way of a good narrative. I'm quite tempted to give it a dabble again ...
  - mhink 9y ago
    There was also a very interesting podcast [1] the other day with Mike Mearls, Adam Koebel, Matt Mercer, and Matt Colville discussing the design decisions in 5th edition. Specifically, one of the most interesting points Mearls made is that the 5e design team specifically set out to craft a game which "felt like" Dungeons and Dragons, and which explicitly recognized and created a place for the "culture" of D&D which has been around for years (certainly since I was futzing around with 3.5 statblocks in high school!) An example they brought up is the alignment system: it's one of the most criticized aspects of the game, especially with regards to mechanics. Nevertheless, it's baked into the culture of D&D by now ("What would Batman's alignment be?") and while getting rid of it might improve the gameplay, it would be removing something core to the game experience. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqjLO6YNKV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqjLO6YNKV0
  - samstave 9y ago
    Roll for pop-culture-perceptiveness The tighter your grip on the threat of D&D, the more mid-40s nerds slip through your fingers!
- rndmize 9y ago
  I would also throw in that board games have blown up in the last decade or so, especially with the advent of Kickstarter. There's a lot of crossover between between the communities (as the article illustrates) and, I think, a bit of a push-back against the lack of choice/flexibility + social disconnect in most electronic games.
tunesmith 9y ago
Are there any AR apps that let you set up dungeons/maps on your table (through the view of your phone or tablet)?
- nickthegreek 9y ago
  I just searched for something like this about a month ago and found nothing. I think both an ipad app to design 2d dungeons for print or use on sites like roll20 as well as an AR app could corner the market. The only good d&d mobile apps are on iOS only and have no real competition either (Fight Club 5 and Game Master 5).
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Deep integration with rules may have licensing issues, and as D&D Beyond expands, apps which lack such integration may have trouble competing with the growing first-party service.
    - tunesmith 9y ago
      What's the growing first-party service?
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        D&D Beyond.
        bpicolo 9y ago
        WotC is not exactly known for having overly usable digital services. Not to mention there are thousands of other RPGs you can make headway in
  - philsnow 9y ago
    http://berserk-games.com/tabletop-simulator/ http://berserk-games.com/tabletop-simulator/ ? > Now with VR Support! > Take your tabletop gaming to a whole new level in virtual reality with the HTC Vive! Tabletop Simulator is kind of like VASSAL [0], people do all kinds of things in it, even playing regular card games like poker with it (so that you can flip your cards dramatically onto the table). [0] http://www.vassalengine.org/ http://www.vassalengine.org/
Mizza 9y ago
It's because of Stranger Things. The article sees it as a symptom, but from a lot of people I know, it's actually a cause. Shameless plug: If any of you have ever wanted to try DnD but didn't know how to get started, or if you've played before and want to start again, try playing my fun-optimized rule set, _DnD: TL;DR_ - https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr
- pkroll 9y ago
  I'd give Critical Role a lot of the credit for the jump start a couple years back. Seeing how much fun a game can be had to inspire a lot of people, or remind the old timers. It's the reason I started looking for a pickup game on Meetup, and now play weekly.
  - throwawaylalala 9y ago
    Critical Role, 5e, Stranger Things, and the desire for “poker night” without the poker. Source- The lions share of my earnings come from running a company that sells accessories for D&D.
    - jwfxpr 9y ago
      Some shameless self-promotion, please. Link?
- Jtsummers 9y ago
  Tabletop and other Youtube channels, plus various podcasts, have been around a lot longer and spread the idea to a lot of people who are caught up in the current zeitgeist of nerd culture but hadn't grown up in it (and so largely had missed out on the RPG games the rest of us played as teens). There was also a strong movement away from heavy mechanics to narrative heavy games with lighter mechanics over the past decade which offered a lot more ways to introduce people to tabletop RPGs. Video games also helped. A ton of jocks and frat guys, folks who never would've played a tabletop RPG in the 80s or 90s (or not in large numbers) were won over with 4th edition last decade because it was like the video games they were playing (for better or worse, I never really took to the system). Kickstarter catching the public's attention has also helped, with lots of indie or otherwise smaller presses being able to publish their systems. Lots of factors involved. Stranger Things may be helping this year, but the trend in increasing popularity has been happening for several years.
crypticlizard 9y ago
Still waiting for that resurrection. Hard getting friends to devote the time, and playing online is meh.
- pkroll 9y ago
  Check comic book stores and Meetup.com for pick-up games in your area. Then, drag the friends in one by one till they're hooked.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- nickthegreek 9y ago
  I started to DM and in order to find people, my wife and I put out requests on Instagram and now we play with some extended acquaintances and old friends. It is going great and never would of happened if we didn't put out that open ended request. I also recommend watching Critical Role as a way to experience the game without being able to play.
- racer-v 9y ago
  The only site I know of for gamer matchmaking is NearbyGamers.com - my profile is http://nearbygamers.com/gamers/cugel http://nearbygamers.com/gamers/cugel if anyone is looking for a game between SF and San Mateo.
11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
>half a dozen paid Dungeon Masters... Still trying to process that. Do I need to polish my resume? What type of experience is required? How many applications did he get? How old were the applicants?
- thefalcon 9y ago
  Paid DMs can be a great experience for everyone, especially if all the people in your play group "just want to play."
  - 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
    Yeah. I won’t play DND because it’s too open ended. I simply don’t want to commit that much time to a campaign. But there are board games like Mansions of Madness that use an iPad as DM. You can play as many or as little of the scenarios you want. Then DM later if you get into it. There are also sandbox type board games. There is no DM but you get to decide what you want to do.
- pfooti 9y ago
  i thought about this at some point (i enjoy game mastering and have a lot of campaigns i've written up in notebooks and so on), but I can't see any way to make this actually work. Assume you can run one session a night, for five players each session. It's unlikely you'd be able to run more than one per day, just because your players only are really able to play in the evening. This puts your effective work week at around 20-25 hours. You would need to have a really high hourly rate to make this a primary source of income, and I'm not sure you can ask players to pay more than 20-30 bucks each per session. You could use this to supplement income from writing or whatever, but I just doubt the market would support an hourly rate that actually paid a GM a wage they could live on. In some real way, this is just like hand-knit socks. If you knit socks, you know how much time and effort goes into them, but you still give them as gifts. But if someone wanted to buy a pair, would they be willing to pay $150 for them? Probably not, despite the socks often taking five or six hours to make (if they're intricate or interesting). Similarly, I game master because I enjoy it. I get to play my favorite part of the game (storytelling). I will say: I'd pay to have someone else deal with the (rare, but still nonzero frequency) drama that happens when you bring six people together on the regular. As GM, it somehow ends up being me who has to referee.
gilbetron 9y ago
I'm shocked by the number of people popping out of the woodwork. I've been gaming consistently for the past 35 years, and while gaming was more popular overall in the early 80s and late 90s, I know more gamers right now personally than ever. I have a game group, of older people, on my fucking street!
- botverse 9y ago
  I did play some RPG when I was a kid (born 1981) and I’ve been thinking about how to get back to it for the las 5 years. I was probably difficult not so long ago, but my friends are starting to freeze their fb accounts and restrict mobile use, might give a try!
  - saalweachter 9y ago
    I'm in a similar demographic and recently got back into it (D&D 5e). The impetus for me was that (a) it had been "long enough" since I'd stopped playing (probably 15 years, Jesus) that I was craving it and (b) I wanted an excuse to drag a group of friends over to my house on a regular basis. Any resurgence is probably rooted in a number of factors, like the good design of 5e, but I wonder how much of it stems from the same cohort who played it in the 90's simply reaching some point in their life (spending less time at bars, looking for more of a break from work, wanting to spend time with friends "IRL", etc etc) that they fall back into it.
- Dowwie 9y ago
  I'm guessing.. Portland?
  - gilbetron 9y ago
    Close? Ann Arbor. Ok, so not close ... but close in spirit :) Seriously, I could have 3+ groups of 6 players, playing weekly, without a problem. I know at least a dozen people at my work that play, and that are people I'd like to play with. Crazy :)
    - 9y ago
Dowwie 9y ago
The New Yorker's editors seem to really like board games. Other related articles: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dungeons-dragons-saved-my-life https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dungeons-drag... https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/the-hottest-new-board-games https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/the-hottest-new...
nevster 9y ago
I think the main thing is 5th edition - it's really good. I briefly tried 4th edition and it just didn't feel right - way too combat heavy and video-gamey. Then 5th edition came out and it was immediately obvious that it had that 1st edition feel but with all the bugs worked out. I play it with my kids and it's awesome.
- Poiesis 9y ago
  If you have any, I’d love tips for running a game for kids. (I’ve never DM’ed or played but am pretty familiar from many podcasts)
  - thnmnt 9y ago
    I’ll point to an article I wrote on my blog if I may. I started my game audio website after lots of trial and error gaming with my kids. https://tabletopaudio.com/blog/2014/02/06/gaming-with-kids/ https://tabletopaudio.com/blog/2014/02/06/gaming-with-kids/
    - virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
      This is great, I'd love to post your site to Cooking With Sound (twitter.com/CookingWthSound) :D
      - thnmnt 9y ago
        sure, be my guest.
  - soapdog 9y ago
    If you're not married to the idea of D&D you can check other systems that are more focused on a "pick up and play" style such as "Fate Accelerated" from Evil Hat.
    - pspeter3 9y ago
      The FATE & FAE products are excellent
BillBohan 9y ago
I tried getting friends to play RPG's in the early 1980's but they didn't show much interest until I came across a supply of 6" (150 mm) square pieces of styrofoam (discarded packing material from work) which I painted with gray acrylic paint. I cut some in half and some in quarters and used them to depict the dungeons for use with metal miniatures. After that I had a group which showed up every month for 5 years. I wrote a program for my computer which generated dice rolls, monsters, treasures, and random names to assist me in my role as Dungeon Master but the critical element was my ability to ignore or re-roll any result which seemed too unfavorable. Good players really help the game but a good Dungeon Master is essential for an enjoyable game. Computers alone cannot exhibit the empathy necessary for a great game.
- azernik 9y ago
  Not just empathy - it's also a sense of drama that's required. A DM writes the story in (semi-)real-time, whereas in CRPGs the "DM" (the writers) have to predict player actions in advance and railroad the players a lot more in order to get a good story progression going.
  - taneq 9y ago
    This is the key insight which many new DMs seem to miss. D&D isn't a "game", it's a framework for telling an engaging story together.
    - digi_owl 9y ago
      Kinda. I would say that story is the least important bit when in the moment as a player. It is once the session is over that the story emerges.
    - MichaelGG 9y ago
      Exactly. I played DnD, asynchronously, over the phone. Hours at a time with the DM, rarely a die rolled.
    - arkh 9y ago
      It also goes both ways. The players have to engage and help build the story. I love the Feng Shui RPG for how they insist about the back and forth between player and DM. They also encourage the DM to pre-roll everything to make fights go smoother.
samstave 9y ago
You'd better be a level 7 necromancer with an hour to spare if you want to redirect your teen-age table-top golden-years!
trumpownsyou420 9y ago
i'll take video games, thanks.
macrael 9y ago
I know that my brother started running a game for us because the podcasts he'd be listening to other people play on had started to run out.
Stanleyc23 9y ago
harmonquest!
- thevardanian 9y ago
  CriticalRole!
Aron 9y ago
I cast magic missile at the darkness!
duncan_bayne 9y ago
I'll have to look into it again. Lost interest in AD&D at 3rd Edition; everything from the book artwork to the game mechanics made me feel like I was hand-executing a computer RPG game. I still use my old 2nd Edition manuals for the rare social games I play these days.
- mpwoz 9y ago
  You should definitely give 5e a try! I only started at 3.5, but I love how much they streamlined the newest edition. It's much easier to DM and play, which leads to better stories imo
jimjimjim 9y ago
I got back into it because of the Acquisitions Inc podcasts and then the PAX shows.
sago 9y ago
I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play, it is a shame that DnD still gets all the focus. I'd love to see more love for 'Night Witches', 'Dogs in the Vineyard', 'My life with Master', 'The Beast', 'Hillfolk', 'The Clay that Woke' even 'Apocalypse World', or 'Fate'. It's like programming languages, sure you can do anything in D&D (≈ Java, perhaps?), but other games have different strengths. Sometimes, being into non D&D RPGs can feel like people saying "there's more than one programming language?"
- mikepurvis 9y ago
  As a total noob to all of this, where would I go to find helpful commentary on how these different games compare to each other and what they offer?
  - ceades 9y ago
    A good start would be the beginners guide on /rpg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/beginnersguide https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/beginnersguide If you've never seen how a particular game works and want to get a feel, search around and watch an episode or two of the game online. Rollplay on Youtube has a good channel that covers a lot of different types of games. You can also find games on Roll20's channel as well, and many more on Twitch and other channels. As for game types, many of the ones listed here are very tailored games meant to play a very specific kind of game. I'll try to give you a summary of some of the popular ones. Apocalypse World (AW) is a game, as you'd expect, about playing as a group of survivors in a post apocalyptic setting. Night Witches is a varient of AW about a female bomber squadron in WWII. Dogs in the Vineyard is a game about faithful 'God's Watchdogs' that go around Mormon-esque towns helping the community and enforcing the judgments of their religion. Fate Accelerated or Fate Core is a mostly generic system meant to tell a lot of different kinds of stories. Fate Accelerated specifically is a very short and very flexible rulebook for whatever you could imagine. D&D or Pathfinder are games about playing a group of adventurers in a tolkien-esque fantasy world, generally combat focused but you can play a lot of kinds of campaigns in D&D. Dungeon World is a 'rules-lite' version of D&D based on the AW ruleset, which basically means it has a lot less rules and is more focused on the collective narrative. Shadowrun is a game about telling cyberpunk heist stories in a fantasy/cyberpunk futuristic city run by megacorporations. Blades in the Dark is a game about a scoundrel crew building their gang up from scratch in a city roughly based on the Thief or Dishonored games. There's many more out there, it just depends on the kind of experience your group wants to have. Many of these rulesets are wildly different and the rules are tailored to create a specific kind of experience. Some of these rulesets are more generic and meant to be used to play a wide variety of games. Some are 'rules heavy/crunchy' which involve a lot more mechanics while some are 'rules light' and deliberately involve much less. D&D, Fate, Pathfinder are examples of more generic rulesets, whereas Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, Night Witches, or Dogs in the Vineyard are much more specific.
mathattack 9y ago
I played a lot through high school then got distracted in college. (Beer, girls, tougher classes, etc) I was pleasantly surprised when my last company started a D and D night!
thom 9y ago
I'm still hoping for a really good online platform for D&D. My play group has aged, sprogged, and struggles for a regular evening to play. We've used forum-based stuff in the past, which has actually led to some really good role-play heaving campaigns, but it's no good for real-time encounters or the beer & pizza fuelled camaraderie that really makes D&D great.
- ceades 9y ago
  Have you tried Roll20.net? I've used it for Pathfinder, D&D, 13th Age, and Blades in the Dark to great effect. The platforms always getting better.
  - lotharbot 9y ago
    I currently play with a group on roll20. It's not perfect, but it's adequate. (We pair it with a discord server for voice and secondary/out-of-character chat and logistics.)
mamurphy 9y ago
If you have tried getting your friends to play D&D and they say, "too many rules," try Dungeon World. It's designed to be in a similar setting but uses much simpler rules. It also allows you to be much more collaborative in story-building, requiring substantially less DM prep. https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonWorld/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonWorld/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/
- setr 9y ago
  Try ADnD.
- fulafel 9y ago
  There are also many RPGs don't have much mechanics and are more about playing the characters, if you're not hung up on dungeons.
SubiculumCode 9y ago
I always wanted to give it a go, but could never find a group. Now as a careered adult with kids, it is even harder to find time to try this kind of thing, especially since my spouse has few gaming tendencies. Last year or so though, I saw a Pathfinder Humble Bundle for a bunch of rule books and I decided to buy them for fun. And that got me thinking..I started poking around some forums and ended up joining a play-by-post (PbP) Pathfinder campaign over at paizo.com. I've really enjoyed myself! After a while I joined two more campaigns. A post or three a day is easy to fit in my schedule. It really gives me something to look forward to each morning as I sit down with some coffee. e.g. http://paizo.com/campaigns/GMNayrsCarrionCrownAP/gameplay&page=1 http://paizo.com/campaigns/GMNayrsCarrionCrownAP/gameplay&pa...
- pfooti 9y ago
  depending on where you live, you might have some luck via meetups. i'm a long-time rpg player, but I lost my group when I moved to esseph. Meetup started the networking process - there's a lot of D&D and other RPG meetup groups.
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    Many local game stores host RPG nights and welcome new or drop-in players.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- Illniyar 9y ago
  When I was doing PbP a while back the best site, hands down, was https://www.myth-weavers.com https://www.myth-weavers.com . I suggest you give it a try
  - SubiculumCode 9y ago
    What features in a PbP forum do you like?
- 9y ago
fulafel 9y ago
Why D&D and not one of the later RPGs? It seems the RPG world has degenerated since the 90s if adult/YA players are using it for more than an introduction to RPGs.
- watwut 9y ago
  Because it is simple and available without any effort. Everyone knows it exists, it is not obscure. So they start to play and have good fun, convert their friends by telling them how fun it is, but is there any reason to stop.playing and explore other often more complex rulesets?
- walshemj 9y ago
  I think they are using DnD as a short hand for RPGs in general as most "dnd" players now play Pathfinder or 5th Edition
dajohnson89 9y ago
not sure if mentioned in the article, but Vin Diesel is an outspoken fan of D&D :-)
zaroth 9y ago
A few months later, a parent stopped him on the street with tears in her eyes. “What are you guys doing?” she asked him. Her son was dyslexic and had been role-playing at Brooklyn Strategist for a couple of weeks. Before D. & D., he couldn’t focus on writing for more than a few seconds. Now he was staying up all night to draft stories about his character. “Whatever it is, bottle it and sell it to me,” the mother said. I mean, product endorsements don't get any stronger than that!
mderazon 9y ago
Does anyone remember the MUD [1] days ? It was a terminal text based D&D where you could connect to a server and create a character and play with other people. Every mud service was a completely different world you could explore and had different characters. You would team up with people and go slay monsters to gain experience and level up or just hang out and do stupid stuff. You could use a dedicated mud clients like zMud [2] that added some nice key mapping for going north/south/up/down etc. All interaction was text based in CLI. I was a teenager at that time, late nineties. I spent so many hours playing on a mud called "Merging of Fates" [3] [4] meeting great people day after day. They had occasional meetups in real life, but I didn't grow up in the US so I didn't attend. I think mud was the major factor for improving my English vocabulary as a kid. I miss those times. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD 2: http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zmud/zmudinfo.htm http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zmud/zmudinfo.htm 3: http://www.mudconnect.com/mud-bin/adv_search.cgi?Mode=MUD&mud=A+Merging+of+Fates http://www.mudconnect.com/mud-bin/adv_search.cgi?Mode=MUD&mu... 4: http://www.mudstats.com/World/AMergingofFates http://www.mudstats.com/World/AMergingofFates
- erikb 9y ago
  I think there's also a passionate little group of followers in a few reddits. Don't remember where, though. Maybe just try /r/MUD etc and you can find it.
- claudius 9y ago
  Just moved the MUD I used to play in around 2007 to "my" server because the old one was crashed. Absolutely tiny playerbase, but the content is still there :)
- davedx 9y ago
  Yes! :) I played Wheel of Time MUD for years. It was great fun. I've not played a video game since that managed to capture the atmosphere, danger and risk in the PlayerKilling system there. WoW and other MMO's never really came close. I heard DaoC was pretty good but was still busy MUDding when that was popular. Coincidentally I just started a sideproject making a browser based rogue-like game... with online multiplayer! Don't know if it's been done before but it's a fun little project...
Grumbledour 9y ago
For people who don't already know the game or the current edition, it might also be of interest that you can download the basic rules for free. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules These are actually all the rules needed to play, minus special classes, character options and spells found in the players guide. Best place for new players is probably the starter set, because it includes a rather good adventure in addition to premade characters and a rulebook. It is also available at a low price, but you can't beat free of course.
krylon 9y ago
> At the end of the 1982 TV movie “Mazes and Monsters,” a troubled gamer, played by a pre-fame Tom Hanks, loses touch and starts to believe that he really does live beside an evil wood in need of heroes. Man, I have seen that movie. Having spent a good part of my youth playing AD&D, I did not know whether to laugh at it or yell at it angrily. Either way, it sucked really, really hard.
SeanDav 9y ago
I actually shudder at the thought of playing D&D. The idea that I have to make up a story as I go along and am dependant on what the DM thinks about my decisions, just does not appeal to me. Considering I have never played D&D, I could very well be completely off the mark, however there is nothing that was said in the article that changed my mind, but (and this is important) this is a purely personal view of what I like to play. I can see the appeal to other people and salute a game (and genre) that brings people together and away from being glued to a screen or computer.
- colinhowe 9y ago
  Resurrected my old account just to reply to this. I just started playing 9 months ago or so. I was sceptical as I've always felt poor at acting/drama. Turns out, it's really fun. You're not making a story alone. You're in a group with 2-5 other 'heroes' and a DM. You're all making the story together and it's easy to go along with the flow until you think of something that pops into your head and you can then do whatever it is you want to. In my experience, good DMs aren't going to judge you for what you do or don't do. For me, D&D is way more lighthearted than I thought it would be. I guess this depends on the group, but, I've now bounced around a few and it seems to be a common thread. It sounds ridiculous, but, last night the group I DM'd 'invented' brunch before taking on a quest to save a girl that had been abducted by goblins (but, not before finishing their brunch and making a little picnic for themselves). It's surprisingly easy to try D&D - there are often people running 'one shots'. These are small stories designed to start and end in a few hours so that you get a feel for it without needing to invest a huge amount of time.
  - walshemj 9y ago
    if you want a fun game try the pathfinder "we be goblins" scenarios as our gm said it allows you to ply with moral compass of a toddler.
- simonh 9y ago
  It’s certainly not for everyone, but I honestly don’t think it’s possible to know for sure who it’s for and who it isn’t without them actually trying it. The reality of it can be very different to how people imagine it. Of course a huge amount also depends on who you play with and whether their style of play works with your personality.
hans0l074 9y ago
I've never played any DnD, but I've spent countless hours playing various video game RPG's from the Baldur's Gate series (based on the ADnD rules) all the way up to modern RPG's like Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity. A decade ago, when developers attempted to bring Dungeons & Dragons into the twenty-first century by stuffing it with rules so that it might better resemble a video game, the glue of the game, the narrative aspect that drew so many in, melted away. Players hacked monsters to death, picked up treasure, collected experience points, and coolly moved through preset challenges Baldur's gate is almost 2 decades old, and I disagree that it did not have the narrative impact that a good DnD game could have (or maybe I'm misunderstanding the authors words). I'm not sure you can even compare what "need" Baldurs Gate satisfies for a gamer compared to DnD. I know gamers who enjoy both. I for one, am glad that computer games like BG exist.
- 4ndr3vv 9y ago
  Your quote is referring to is the changes that DnD went though to keep up with modern DnD style videogames _like_ BG. Rather than saying those video games did not have a strong narrative impact, its saying DnD lost its own; As the DnD rules became more complex often the priorities of a party shifted to min-maxing over questing for the sake of it. Recently there has been a change in the core DnD rules away from heavy beardy / min-maxing play back to a DM running a narrative campaign.
Raphmedia 9y ago
The best advice I can give any DnD or aspiring DnD players is to invest in a 3D printer.
- ainiriand 9y ago
  I've been playing DnD for 22 years now and I don't see why. Figurines are completely accessory. I didn't even used maps until 5-6 years ago when we moved to Dnd4.
  - Raphmedia 9y ago
    But if you do use them, investing in a 3D printer will allow you to create your own and save a lot of money on the long run. You can even scale down regular models such as chests, barrels, etc. It's a fun toy that you can buy together as a group of players. It usually take a few hours to print a model, so you can start a print while you play a game and have a nice surprise when you are done playing. Printing the exact model of the boss your players are going to fight is priceless. (I'm talking about a $200-$400 price range printer and not a $2000+ one mind you.)
    - ainiriand 9y ago
      Hmmm yeah that would be nice... If we buy it together we can have it one week each. And you can even print coins, I guess.
      - Raphmedia 9y ago
        There's something special about breaking the fourth wall and having the players carry mementos in real life.
ddoran 9y ago
I live a couple of blocks from Brooklyn Strategist, the "game space" featured in the article. When it first opened I didn't expect it to last a year. Instead they've gone from strength to strength and more than doubled their size, moving into an adjoining space that had been an architect's office. They have approximately six large game tables which are constantly at capacity. They also have a wall with a library of hundreds of board games that I marvel at. I love that I live in a time and place where such an endeavor can succeed. I only wish I had something like this when I was a kid. Instead, I had our school D&D club which lasted a month before a parent complained that it was devil worshipping and had us shut down (circa 1982/3).
kazagistar 9y ago
Fantasy wasn't mainstream then, and now it is. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter kickstarted fantasy into the mainstream conciousness. It's no surprise that a growing acceptance of the genre in the large would also lead to a growing desire to participate in it, and the streamlined rules and whatnot are just a little boost to help in that direction.
pimmen 9y ago
I got into DnD in 3rd edition and played it every weekend throughout high school. However, once I started teaching this game to other people, even with the "fixed 3.5" Pathfinder, I realized it was super complicated. It requires such a big time investment from the players to figure out what they're doing, especially if they come from a video game background where they want to have "the best". Now, I use Savage Worlds since it's much quicker, less complicated and you can pick your theme. Only problem is that it requires a more invested GM if you want the same texture as in DnD.
loydb 9y ago
My campaign started in 1978. We're still playing. Over 60 players have come and gone, but the current crew has a half-dozen of the original players from the 70s and early 80s still going. We've outlasted at least 6 marriages, lots of moving (I currently Skype in, but will be moving back home next year), and all manner of turmoil. When I've been too busy or burnt out to DM, someone else in the group has stepped up to fill the gap. It's hard to schedule because of family and work obligations, but we are pretty close to monthly.
- dcw303 9y ago
  Wow, it's really Loyd Blankenship! Forgive the gushing fan reply, but I'll take any chance I can to tell you how grateful I am for the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook. Definitely one of my main inspirations (along with Gibson's books) for taking up a career in coding.
  - bradknowles 9y ago
    Ahh. The book that supposedly kicked off “Operation Sundevil”. What if I told you that there might have been a different GURPS book that was the real cause?
    - dcw303 9y ago
      Sounds interesting, Please do tell!
    - loydb 9y ago
      Cyberpunk didn't kick off the raid -- that happened because of the BBS I ran, the Phoenix Project. The book was merely a casualty of the war.
    - loydb 9y ago
      (Also, if I'm being pedantic, Sundevil had nothing to do with the the raid either. Sundevil was run by an idiot in Arizona. All of the Legion of Doom-related raids were run by an idiot in Chicago.)
  - 9y ago
jhallenworld 9y ago
Anyone interested in D&D should understand that it originates from Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels. I highly recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld
tekjenitalor 9y ago
D&D will fade away again but it kept me happy and occupied and distracted me from a terrible upbringing. Forever grateful to the idea makers (Tolkien/Vance) and the engineers (Gygax, etc...) for the work they did. The idea of creating an alternate world or being able to bring aspects of imagination and design to life concretely enabled my interest in programming and SA.

341 points by petethomas 9y ago

I’d have liked this article if it had taken a more critical stance as to the resurgence of RPGs rather than hand-waving some ineffable bs about simpler times and half-allusions to political tensions. The more accurate answer is, IMO, two fold: (1) kids who grew up on RPGs are now old enough to want to want to play with their own kids, and funnel disposable cash into it (2) kids who are interested have less stigma to approaching it, so conversion rates from interest to player should be higher (3) a lot of technical advancements from the US indie scene and the Western European LARP scene have slowly diffused out into the more mainstream RPG community, resulting in play that’s a lot more fulfilling to various types of players

acbabis 9y ago
Another very important reason was left out: The 5th edition of the game was very well designed and received critical acclaim among veterans who were disappointed by the 4th edition. The article makes it sound like there's been a resurrection when in fact the game was just hibernating.
- lotharbot 9y ago
  of particular note, D&D 5e accomplished many of the technical/balance things 4e was supposed to accomplish but failed at, while still retaining the excellent flavor and sense of power from 3.5e.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    5e did what I would have thought impossible: the people that preferred 4e to earlier editions largely liked it, the people who were repulsed by 4e but stayed with 3e/3.5e or forks of those liked it, and a lot of the “old school” crowd that preferred OD&D, B/X or BECMI D&D, or AD&D 1e or 2e also liked it.
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      Why would someone who already knows AD&D 1e switch to the new one? What does that person gain? Imagine this hypothetical person wants to spend as little time as possible learning and on details, and as much as possible on creative experiences.
      - dmoy 9y ago
        Not having to use THAC0 ever again would be one thing they would gain. I'd make a silly wager that the net time saved by using 5e rules would outweigh the cost of learning them.
        klodolph 9y ago
        THAC0 didn't come around until 2e, 1e had hit tables. You can see them on p. 74 of the AD&D DMG, with some more notes on p. 82.
        dragonwriter 9y ago
        That's true; it's easy to forget that THAC0 was a simplification from 1e. Though that kind of reinforces the point.
        Steko 9y ago
        Actually it was introduced before 2e but wasn't a core system in 1e.
        dmoy 9y ago
        Yea the salient point there was the second part - whether it be hit tables or THAC0, 5e rules would expedite play. Course some of us will sit there and say y'all should just be playing 3d6 instead, but I digress...
        racer-v 9y ago
        You can get rid of THAC0 if you just use this simple rule: roll d20, add the opponent's armor class (plus your own to-hit bonus if any), and a result of 20 or better is a hit.
- Steko 9y ago
  That also struck me as odd. While the article says that "interest fell like an orc beneath a bastard sword", D&D seems to have been more popular in 3e than it is now (although it's certainly rebounding and more visible in pop culture than it was in the past): https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F026q9,%2Fm%2F04dzk1_ https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F0... (not sure why it's showing results for pathfinder before 2008)
- gerdesj 9y ago
  What on earth are these edition things? I'll have to dig out my DMG, PH, MM, FF etc. Apparently, they might be cool. Then there is Traveller, Runequest, Tunnels and Trolls, Car Wars (with Truck Stop etc) and rather a lot more.
  - curiousGambler 9y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Editions_of_Dungeons_%26_Drago...
  - squeaky-clean 9y ago
    Every 8 or so years they revamp the rules and release it as a new edition. Aside from few exceptions, they're mostly incompatible with each other and offer different rules for combat, skill usage and training, etc, and quality-of-life improvements. 3e (more specifically 3.5e) was extremely popular. There's now a ruleset called Pathfinder made by another company, Paizo, that continues the style of 3.5e and is mostly compatible with it (though it has its own core rulebooks and most people I know don't mix 3e and PF). 4e wasn't as well liked but it still had mostly good reception. It was very polarizing to many players. This obviously isn't the space for a debate about it but I think the biggest cause of complaints are the way the combat system was overhauled. Many people compare it more to a modern RPG video game rather than a pen and paper one. 5e has had a great reception from old and new players. It's rules are definitely closer to 3rd edition than it is to 4th. Though it brought in a lot of quality of life improvements from 4. For example while it makes sense that 'Hide' and 'Move Silently' are two separate skills, it just means a rogue has to split their skill points between two things. There's not many scenarios outside of comedy where you give a character 'Hide' but not 'Move Silently' or vice versa. 5e has merged both of these into a single Stealth skill. All the editions are still considered Dungeons and Dragons though, and not separate games (of which there are many wonderful ones, some of which have their own 1e, 2e, 3e, an so on...)
    - gerdesj 9y ago
      Thanks for the run down. My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. To be honest as a DM/GM I generally threw out the rules as soon as they got in the way of a good narrative. I'm quite tempted to give it a dabble again ...
- mhink 9y ago
  There was also a very interesting podcast [1] the other day with Mike Mearls, Adam Koebel, Matt Mercer, and Matt Colville discussing the design decisions in 5th edition. Specifically, one of the most interesting points Mearls made is that the 5e design team specifically set out to craft a game which "felt like" Dungeons and Dragons, and which explicitly recognized and created a place for the "culture" of D&D which has been around for years (certainly since I was futzing around with 3.5 statblocks in high school!) An example they brought up is the alignment system: it's one of the most criticized aspects of the game, especially with regards to mechanics. Nevertheless, it's baked into the culture of D&D by now ("What would Batman's alignment be?") and while getting rid of it might improve the gameplay, it would be removing something core to the game experience. 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqjLO6YNKV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqjLO6YNKV0
- samstave 9y ago
  Roll for pop-culture-perceptiveness The tighter your grip on the threat of D&D, the more mid-40s nerds slip through your fingers!
rndmize 9y ago
I would also throw in that board games have blown up in the last decade or so, especially with the advent of Kickstarter. There's a lot of crossover between between the communities (as the article illustrates) and, I think, a bit of a push-back against the lack of choice/flexibility + social disconnect in most electronic games.

tunesmith 9y ago

Are there any AR apps that let you set up dungeons/maps on your table (through the view of your phone or tablet)?

nickthegreek 9y ago
I just searched for something like this about a month ago and found nothing. I think both an ipad app to design 2d dungeons for print or use on sites like roll20 as well as an AR app could corner the market. The only good d&d mobile apps are on iOS only and have no real competition either (Fight Club 5 and Game Master 5).
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Deep integration with rules may have licensing issues, and as D&D Beyond expands, apps which lack such integration may have trouble competing with the growing first-party service.
  - tunesmith 9y ago
    What's the growing first-party service?
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      D&D Beyond.
      - bpicolo 9y ago
        WotC is not exactly known for having overly usable digital services. Not to mention there are thousands of other RPGs you can make headway in
- philsnow 9y ago
  http://berserk-games.com/tabletop-simulator/ http://berserk-games.com/tabletop-simulator/ ? > Now with VR Support! > Take your tabletop gaming to a whole new level in virtual reality with the HTC Vive! Tabletop Simulator is kind of like VASSAL [0], people do all kinds of things in it, even playing regular card games like poker with it (so that you can flip your cards dramatically onto the table). [0] http://www.vassalengine.org/ http://www.vassalengine.org/

Mizza 9y ago

It's because of Stranger Things. The article sees it as a symptom, but from a lot of people I know, it's actually a cause. Shameless plug: If any of you have ever wanted to try DnD but didn't know how to get started, or if you've played before and want to start again, try playing my fun-optimized rule set, _DnD: TL;DR_ - https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr https://github.com/Miserlou/dnd-tldr

pkroll 9y ago
I'd give Critical Role a lot of the credit for the jump start a couple years back. Seeing how much fun a game can be had to inspire a lot of people, or remind the old timers. It's the reason I started looking for a pickup game on Meetup, and now play weekly.
- throwawaylalala 9y ago
  Critical Role, 5e, Stranger Things, and the desire for “poker night” without the poker. Source- The lions share of my earnings come from running a company that sells accessories for D&D.
  - jwfxpr 9y ago
    Some shameless self-promotion, please. Link?
Jtsummers 9y ago
Tabletop and other Youtube channels, plus various podcasts, have been around a lot longer and spread the idea to a lot of people who are caught up in the current zeitgeist of nerd culture but hadn't grown up in it (and so largely had missed out on the RPG games the rest of us played as teens). There was also a strong movement away from heavy mechanics to narrative heavy games with lighter mechanics over the past decade which offered a lot more ways to introduce people to tabletop RPGs. Video games also helped. A ton of jocks and frat guys, folks who never would've played a tabletop RPG in the 80s or 90s (or not in large numbers) were won over with 4th edition last decade because it was like the video games they were playing (for better or worse, I never really took to the system). Kickstarter catching the public's attention has also helped, with lots of indie or otherwise smaller presses being able to publish their systems. Lots of factors involved. Stranger Things may be helping this year, but the trend in increasing popularity has been happening for several years.

crypticlizard 9y ago

Still waiting for that resurrection. Hard getting friends to devote the time, and playing online is meh.

pkroll 9y ago
Check comic book stores and Meetup.com for pick-up games in your area. Then, drag the friends in one by one till they're hooked.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
nickthegreek 9y ago
I started to DM and in order to find people, my wife and I put out requests on Instagram and now we play with some extended acquaintances and old friends. It is going great and never would of happened if we didn't put out that open ended request. I also recommend watching Critical Role as a way to experience the game without being able to play.
racer-v 9y ago
The only site I know of for gamer matchmaking is NearbyGamers.com - my profile is http://nearbygamers.com/gamers/cugel http://nearbygamers.com/gamers/cugel if anyone is looking for a game between SF and San Mateo.

11thEarlOfMar 9y ago

>half a dozen paid Dungeon Masters... Still trying to process that. Do I need to polish my resume? What type of experience is required? How many applications did he get? How old were the applicants?

thefalcon 9y ago
Paid DMs can be a great experience for everyone, especially if all the people in your play group "just want to play."
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y ago
  Yeah. I won’t play DND because it’s too open ended. I simply don’t want to commit that much time to a campaign. But there are board games like Mansions of Madness that use an iPad as DM. You can play as many or as little of the scenarios you want. Then DM later if you get into it. There are also sandbox type board games. There is no DM but you get to decide what you want to do.
pfooti 9y ago
i thought about this at some point (i enjoy game mastering and have a lot of campaigns i've written up in notebooks and so on), but I can't see any way to make this actually work. Assume you can run one session a night, for five players each session. It's unlikely you'd be able to run more than one per day, just because your players only are really able to play in the evening. This puts your effective work week at around 20-25 hours. You would need to have a really high hourly rate to make this a primary source of income, and I'm not sure you can ask players to pay more than 20-30 bucks each per session. You could use this to supplement income from writing or whatever, but I just doubt the market would support an hourly rate that actually paid a GM a wage they could live on. In some real way, this is just like hand-knit socks. If you knit socks, you know how much time and effort goes into them, but you still give them as gifts. But if someone wanted to buy a pair, would they be willing to pay $150 for them? Probably not, despite the socks often taking five or six hours to make (if they're intricate or interesting). Similarly, I game master because I enjoy it. I get to play my favorite part of the game (storytelling). I will say: I'd pay to have someone else deal with the (rare, but still nonzero frequency) drama that happens when you bring six people together on the regular. As GM, it somehow ends up being me who has to referee.

gilbetron 9y ago

I'm shocked by the number of people popping out of the woodwork. I've been gaming consistently for the past 35 years, and while gaming was more popular overall in the early 80s and late 90s, I know more gamers right now personally than ever. I have a game group, of older people, on my fucking street!

botverse 9y ago
I did play some RPG when I was a kid (born 1981) and I’ve been thinking about how to get back to it for the las 5 years. I was probably difficult not so long ago, but my friends are starting to freeze their fb accounts and restrict mobile use, might give a try!
- saalweachter 9y ago
  I'm in a similar demographic and recently got back into it (D&D 5e). The impetus for me was that (a) it had been "long enough" since I'd stopped playing (probably 15 years, Jesus) that I was craving it and (b) I wanted an excuse to drag a group of friends over to my house on a regular basis. Any resurgence is probably rooted in a number of factors, like the good design of 5e, but I wonder how much of it stems from the same cohort who played it in the 90's simply reaching some point in their life (spending less time at bars, looking for more of a break from work, wanting to spend time with friends "IRL", etc etc) that they fall back into it.
Dowwie 9y ago
I'm guessing.. Portland?
- gilbetron 9y ago
  Close? Ann Arbor. Ok, so not close ... but close in spirit :) Seriously, I could have 3+ groups of 6 players, playing weekly, without a problem. I know at least a dozen people at my work that play, and that are people I'd like to play with. Crazy :)
  - 9y ago

Dowwie 9y ago

The New Yorker's editors seem to really like board games. Other related articles: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dungeons-dragons-saved-my-life https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/dungeons-drag... https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/the-hottest-new-board-games https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/the-hottest-new...

nevster 9y ago

I think the main thing is 5th edition - it's really good. I briefly tried 4th edition and it just didn't feel right - way too combat heavy and video-gamey. Then 5th edition came out and it was immediately obvious that it had that 1st edition feel but with all the bugs worked out. I play it with my kids and it's awesome.

Poiesis 9y ago
If you have any, I’d love tips for running a game for kids. (I’ve never DM’ed or played but am pretty familiar from many podcasts)
- thnmnt 9y ago
  I’ll point to an article I wrote on my blog if I may. I started my game audio website after lots of trial and error gaming with my kids. https://tabletopaudio.com/blog/2014/02/06/gaming-with-kids/ https://tabletopaudio.com/blog/2014/02/06/gaming-with-kids/
  - virgil_disgr4ce 9y ago
    This is great, I'd love to post your site to Cooking With Sound (twitter.com/CookingWthSound) :D
    - thnmnt 9y ago
      sure, be my guest.
- soapdog 9y ago
  If you're not married to the idea of D&D you can check other systems that are more focused on a "pick up and play" style such as "Fate Accelerated" from Evil Hat.
  - pspeter3 9y ago
    The FATE & FAE products are excellent

BillBohan 9y ago

I tried getting friends to play RPG's in the early 1980's but they didn't show much interest until I came across a supply of 6" (150 mm) square pieces of styrofoam (discarded packing material from work) which I painted with gray acrylic paint. I cut some in half and some in quarters and used them to depict the dungeons for use with metal miniatures. After that I had a group which showed up every month for 5 years. I wrote a program for my computer which generated dice rolls, monsters, treasures, and random names to assist me in my role as Dungeon Master but the critical element was my ability to ignore or re-roll any result which seemed too unfavorable. Good players really help the game but a good Dungeon Master is essential for an enjoyable game. Computers alone cannot exhibit the empathy necessary for a great game.

azernik 9y ago
Not just empathy - it's also a sense of drama that's required. A DM writes the story in (semi-)real-time, whereas in CRPGs the "DM" (the writers) have to predict player actions in advance and railroad the players a lot more in order to get a good story progression going.
- taneq 9y ago
  This is the key insight which many new DMs seem to miss. D&D isn't a "game", it's a framework for telling an engaging story together.
  - digi_owl 9y ago
    Kinda. I would say that story is the least important bit when in the moment as a player. It is once the session is over that the story emerges.
  - MichaelGG 9y ago
    Exactly. I played DnD, asynchronously, over the phone. Hours at a time with the DM, rarely a die rolled.
  - arkh 9y ago
    It also goes both ways. The players have to engage and help build the story. I love the Feng Shui RPG for how they insist about the back and forth between player and DM. They also encourage the DM to pre-roll everything to make fights go smoother.

samstave 9y ago

You'd better be a level 7 necromancer with an hour to spare if you want to redirect your teen-age table-top golden-years!

trumpownsyou420 9y ago

i'll take video games, thanks.

macrael 9y ago

I know that my brother started running a game for us because the podcasts he'd be listening to other people play on had started to run out.

Stanleyc23 9y ago

harmonquest!

thevardanian 9y ago
CriticalRole!

Aron 9y ago

I cast magic missile at the darkness!

duncan_bayne 9y ago

I'll have to look into it again. Lost interest in AD&D at 3rd Edition; everything from the book artwork to the game mechanics made me feel like I was hand-executing a computer RPG game. I still use my old 2nd Edition manuals for the rare social games I play these days.

mpwoz 9y ago
You should definitely give 5e a try! I only started at 3.5, but I love how much they streamlined the newest edition. It's much easier to DM and play, which leads to better stories imo

jimjimjim 9y ago

I got back into it because of the Acquisitions Inc podcasts and then the PAX shows.

sago 9y ago

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play, it is a shame that DnD still gets all the focus. I'd love to see more love for 'Night Witches', 'Dogs in the Vineyard', 'My life with Master', 'The Beast', 'Hillfolk', 'The Clay that Woke' even 'Apocalypse World', or 'Fate'. It's like programming languages, sure you can do anything in D&D (≈ Java, perhaps?), but other games have different strengths. Sometimes, being into non D&D RPGs can feel like people saying "there's more than one programming language?"

mikepurvis 9y ago
As a total noob to all of this, where would I go to find helpful commentary on how these different games compare to each other and what they offer?
- ceades 9y ago
  A good start would be the beginners guide on /rpg/ https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/beginnersguide https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/wiki/beginnersguide If you've never seen how a particular game works and want to get a feel, search around and watch an episode or two of the game online. Rollplay on Youtube has a good channel that covers a lot of different types of games. You can also find games on Roll20's channel as well, and many more on Twitch and other channels. As for game types, many of the ones listed here are very tailored games meant to play a very specific kind of game. I'll try to give you a summary of some of the popular ones. Apocalypse World (AW) is a game, as you'd expect, about playing as a group of survivors in a post apocalyptic setting. Night Witches is a varient of AW about a female bomber squadron in WWII. Dogs in the Vineyard is a game about faithful 'God's Watchdogs' that go around Mormon-esque towns helping the community and enforcing the judgments of their religion. Fate Accelerated or Fate Core is a mostly generic system meant to tell a lot of different kinds of stories. Fate Accelerated specifically is a very short and very flexible rulebook for whatever you could imagine. D&D or Pathfinder are games about playing a group of adventurers in a tolkien-esque fantasy world, generally combat focused but you can play a lot of kinds of campaigns in D&D. Dungeon World is a 'rules-lite' version of D&D based on the AW ruleset, which basically means it has a lot less rules and is more focused on the collective narrative. Shadowrun is a game about telling cyberpunk heist stories in a fantasy/cyberpunk futuristic city run by megacorporations. Blades in the Dark is a game about a scoundrel crew building their gang up from scratch in a city roughly based on the Thief or Dishonored games. There's many more out there, it just depends on the kind of experience your group wants to have. Many of these rulesets are wildly different and the rules are tailored to create a specific kind of experience. Some of these rulesets are more generic and meant to be used to play a wide variety of games. Some are 'rules heavy/crunchy' which involve a lot more mechanics while some are 'rules light' and deliberately involve much less. D&D, Fate, Pathfinder are examples of more generic rulesets, whereas Blades in the Dark, Apocalypse World, Night Witches, or Dogs in the Vineyard are much more specific.

mathattack 9y ago

I played a lot through high school then got distracted in college. (Beer, girls, tougher classes, etc) I was pleasantly surprised when my last company started a D and D night!

thom 9y ago

I'm still hoping for a really good online platform for D&D. My play group has aged, sprogged, and struggles for a regular evening to play. We've used forum-based stuff in the past, which has actually led to some really good role-play heaving campaigns, but it's no good for real-time encounters or the beer & pizza fuelled camaraderie that really makes D&D great.

ceades 9y ago
Have you tried Roll20.net? I've used it for Pathfinder, D&D, 13th Age, and Blades in the Dark to great effect. The platforms always getting better.
- lotharbot 9y ago
  I currently play with a group on roll20. It's not perfect, but it's adequate. (We pair it with a discord server for voice and secondary/out-of-character chat and logistics.)

mamurphy 9y ago

If you have tried getting your friends to play D&D and they say, "too many rules," try Dungeon World. It's designed to be in a similar setting but uses much simpler rules. It also allows you to be much more collaborative in story-building, requiring substantially less DM prep. https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonWorld/ https://www.reddit.com/r/DungeonWorld/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/ http://www.dungeon-world.com/

setr 9y ago
Try ADnD.
fulafel 9y ago
There are also many RPGs don't have much mechanics and are more about playing the characters, if you're not hung up on dungeons.

SubiculumCode 9y ago

I always wanted to give it a go, but could never find a group. Now as a careered adult with kids, it is even harder to find time to try this kind of thing, especially since my spouse has few gaming tendencies. Last year or so though, I saw a Pathfinder Humble Bundle for a bunch of rule books and I decided to buy them for fun. And that got me thinking..I started poking around some forums and ended up joining a play-by-post (PbP) Pathfinder campaign over at paizo.com. I've really enjoyed myself! After a while I joined two more campaigns. A post or three a day is easy to fit in my schedule. It really gives me something to look forward to each morning as I sit down with some coffee. e.g. http://paizo.com/campaigns/GMNayrsCarrionCrownAP/gameplay&page=1 http://paizo.com/campaigns/GMNayrsCarrionCrownAP/gameplay&pa...

pfooti 9y ago
depending on where you live, you might have some luck via meetups. i'm a long-time rpg player, but I lost my group when I moved to esseph. Meetup started the networking process - there's a lot of D&D and other RPG meetup groups.
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Many local game stores host RPG nights and welcome new or drop-in players.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
Illniyar 9y ago
When I was doing PbP a while back the best site, hands down, was https://www.myth-weavers.com https://www.myth-weavers.com . I suggest you give it a try
- SubiculumCode 9y ago
  What features in a PbP forum do you like?
9y ago

fulafel 9y ago

Why D&D and not one of the later RPGs? It seems the RPG world has degenerated since the 90s if adult/YA players are using it for more than an introduction to RPGs.

watwut 9y ago
Because it is simple and available without any effort. Everyone knows it exists, it is not obscure. So they start to play and have good fun, convert their friends by telling them how fun it is, but is there any reason to stop.playing and explore other often more complex rulesets?
walshemj 9y ago
I think they are using DnD as a short hand for RPGs in general as most "dnd" players now play Pathfinder or 5th Edition

dajohnson89 9y ago

not sure if mentioned in the article, but Vin Diesel is an outspoken fan of D&D :-)

zaroth 9y ago

A few months later, a parent stopped him on the street with tears in her eyes. “What are you guys doing?” she asked him. Her son was dyslexic and had been role-playing at Brooklyn Strategist for a couple of weeks. Before D. & D., he couldn’t focus on writing for more than a few seconds. Now he was staying up all night to draft stories about his character. “Whatever it is, bottle it and sell it to me,” the mother said. I mean, product endorsements don't get any stronger than that!

mderazon 9y ago

Does anyone remember the MUD [1] days ? It was a terminal text based D&D where you could connect to a server and create a character and play with other people. Every mud service was a completely different world you could explore and had different characters. You would team up with people and go slay monsters to gain experience and level up or just hang out and do stupid stuff. You could use a dedicated mud clients like zMud [2] that added some nice key mapping for going north/south/up/down etc. All interaction was text based in CLI. I was a teenager at that time, late nineties. I spent so many hours playing on a mud called "Merging of Fates" [3] [4] meeting great people day after day. They had occasional meetups in real life, but I didn't grow up in the US so I didn't attend. I think mud was the major factor for improving my English vocabulary as a kid. I miss those times. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD 2: http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zmud/zmudinfo.htm http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zmud/zmudinfo.htm 3: http://www.mudconnect.com/mud-bin/adv_search.cgi?Mode=MUD&mud=A+Merging+of+Fates http://www.mudconnect.com/mud-bin/adv_search.cgi?Mode=MUD&mu... 4: http://www.mudstats.com/World/AMergingofFates http://www.mudstats.com/World/AMergingofFates

erikb 9y ago
I think there's also a passionate little group of followers in a few reddits. Don't remember where, though. Maybe just try /r/MUD etc and you can find it.
claudius 9y ago
Just moved the MUD I used to play in around 2007 to "my" server because the old one was crashed. Absolutely tiny playerbase, but the content is still there :)
davedx 9y ago
Yes! :) I played Wheel of Time MUD for years. It was great fun. I've not played a video game since that managed to capture the atmosphere, danger and risk in the PlayerKilling system there. WoW and other MMO's never really came close. I heard DaoC was pretty good but was still busy MUDding when that was popular. Coincidentally I just started a sideproject making a browser based rogue-like game... with online multiplayer! Don't know if it's been done before but it's a fun little project...

Grumbledour 9y ago

For people who don't already know the game or the current edition, it might also be of interest that you can download the basic rules for free. http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules http://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/basicrules These are actually all the rules needed to play, minus special classes, character options and spells found in the players guide. Best place for new players is probably the starter set, because it includes a rather good adventure in addition to premade characters and a rulebook. It is also available at a low price, but you can't beat free of course.

krylon 9y ago

> At the end of the 1982 TV movie “Mazes and Monsters,” a troubled gamer, played by a pre-fame Tom Hanks, loses touch and starts to believe that he really does live beside an evil wood in need of heroes. Man, I have seen that movie. Having spent a good part of my youth playing AD&D, I did not know whether to laugh at it or yell at it angrily. Either way, it sucked really, really hard.

SeanDav 9y ago

I actually shudder at the thought of playing D&D. The idea that I have to make up a story as I go along and am dependant on what the DM thinks about my decisions, just does not appeal to me. Considering I have never played D&D, I could very well be completely off the mark, however there is nothing that was said in the article that changed my mind, but (and this is important) this is a purely personal view of what I like to play. I can see the appeal to other people and salute a game (and genre) that brings people together and away from being glued to a screen or computer.

colinhowe 9y ago
Resurrected my old account just to reply to this. I just started playing 9 months ago or so. I was sceptical as I've always felt poor at acting/drama. Turns out, it's really fun. You're not making a story alone. You're in a group with 2-5 other 'heroes' and a DM. You're all making the story together and it's easy to go along with the flow until you think of something that pops into your head and you can then do whatever it is you want to. In my experience, good DMs aren't going to judge you for what you do or don't do. For me, D&D is way more lighthearted than I thought it would be. I guess this depends on the group, but, I've now bounced around a few and it seems to be a common thread. It sounds ridiculous, but, last night the group I DM'd 'invented' brunch before taking on a quest to save a girl that had been abducted by goblins (but, not before finishing their brunch and making a little picnic for themselves). It's surprisingly easy to try D&D - there are often people running 'one shots'. These are small stories designed to start and end in a few hours so that you get a feel for it without needing to invest a huge amount of time.
- walshemj 9y ago
  if you want a fun game try the pathfinder "we be goblins" scenarios as our gm said it allows you to ply with moral compass of a toddler.
simonh 9y ago
It’s certainly not for everyone, but I honestly don’t think it’s possible to know for sure who it’s for and who it isn’t without them actually trying it. The reality of it can be very different to how people imagine it. Of course a huge amount also depends on who you play with and whether their style of play works with your personality.

hans0l074 9y ago

I've never played any DnD, but I've spent countless hours playing various video game RPG's from the Baldur's Gate series (based on the ADnD rules) all the way up to modern RPG's like Dragon Age and Pillars of Eternity. A decade ago, when developers attempted to bring Dungeons & Dragons into the twenty-first century by stuffing it with rules so that it might better resemble a video game, the glue of the game, the narrative aspect that drew so many in, melted away. Players hacked monsters to death, picked up treasure, collected experience points, and coolly moved through preset challenges Baldur's gate is almost 2 decades old, and I disagree that it did not have the narrative impact that a good DnD game could have (or maybe I'm misunderstanding the authors words). I'm not sure you can even compare what "need" Baldurs Gate satisfies for a gamer compared to DnD. I know gamers who enjoy both. I for one, am glad that computer games like BG exist.

4ndr3vv 9y ago
Your quote is referring to is the changes that DnD went though to keep up with modern DnD style videogames _like_ BG. Rather than saying those video games did not have a strong narrative impact, its saying DnD lost its own; As the DnD rules became more complex often the priorities of a party shifted to min-maxing over questing for the sake of it. Recently there has been a change in the core DnD rules away from heavy beardy / min-maxing play back to a DM running a narrative campaign.

Raphmedia 9y ago

The best advice I can give any DnD or aspiring DnD players is to invest in a 3D printer.

ainiriand 9y ago
I've been playing DnD for 22 years now and I don't see why. Figurines are completely accessory. I didn't even used maps until 5-6 years ago when we moved to Dnd4.
- Raphmedia 9y ago
  But if you do use them, investing in a 3D printer will allow you to create your own and save a lot of money on the long run. You can even scale down regular models such as chests, barrels, etc. It's a fun toy that you can buy together as a group of players. It usually take a few hours to print a model, so you can start a print while you play a game and have a nice surprise when you are done playing. Printing the exact model of the boss your players are going to fight is priceless. (I'm talking about a $200-$400 price range printer and not a $2000+ one mind you.)
  - ainiriand 9y ago
    Hmmm yeah that would be nice... If we buy it together we can have it one week each. And you can even print coins, I guess.
    - Raphmedia 9y ago
      There's something special about breaking the fourth wall and having the players carry mementos in real life.

ddoran 9y ago

I live a couple of blocks from Brooklyn Strategist, the "game space" featured in the article. When it first opened I didn't expect it to last a year. Instead they've gone from strength to strength and more than doubled their size, moving into an adjoining space that had been an architect's office. They have approximately six large game tables which are constantly at capacity. They also have a wall with a library of hundreds of board games that I marvel at. I love that I live in a time and place where such an endeavor can succeed. I only wish I had something like this when I was a kid. Instead, I had our school D&D club which lasted a month before a parent complained that it was devil worshipping and had us shut down (circa 1982/3).

kazagistar 9y ago

Fantasy wasn't mainstream then, and now it is. Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Harry Potter kickstarted fantasy into the mainstream conciousness. It's no surprise that a growing acceptance of the genre in the large would also lead to a growing desire to participate in it, and the streamlined rules and whatnot are just a little boost to help in that direction.

pimmen 9y ago

I got into DnD in 3rd edition and played it every weekend throughout high school. However, once I started teaching this game to other people, even with the "fixed 3.5" Pathfinder, I realized it was super complicated. It requires such a big time investment from the players to figure out what they're doing, especially if they come from a video game background where they want to have "the best". Now, I use Savage Worlds since it's much quicker, less complicated and you can pick your theme. Only problem is that it requires a more invested GM if you want the same texture as in DnD.

loydb 9y ago

My campaign started in 1978. We're still playing. Over 60 players have come and gone, but the current crew has a half-dozen of the original players from the 70s and early 80s still going. We've outlasted at least 6 marriages, lots of moving (I currently Skype in, but will be moving back home next year), and all manner of turmoil. When I've been too busy or burnt out to DM, someone else in the group has stepped up to fill the gap. It's hard to schedule because of family and work obligations, but we are pretty close to monthly.

dcw303 9y ago
Wow, it's really Loyd Blankenship! Forgive the gushing fan reply, but I'll take any chance I can to tell you how grateful I am for the GURPS Cyberpunk sourcebook. Definitely one of my main inspirations (along with Gibson's books) for taking up a career in coding.
- bradknowles 9y ago
  Ahh. The book that supposedly kicked off “Operation Sundevil”. What if I told you that there might have been a different GURPS book that was the real cause?
  - dcw303 9y ago
    Sounds interesting, Please do tell!
  - loydb 9y ago
    Cyberpunk didn't kick off the raid -- that happened because of the BBS I ran, the Phoenix Project. The book was merely a casualty of the war.
  - loydb 9y ago
    (Also, if I'm being pedantic, Sundevil had nothing to do with the the raid either. Sundevil was run by an idiot in Arizona. All of the Legion of Doom-related raids were run by an idiot in Chicago.)
- 9y ago

jhallenworld 9y ago

Anyone interested in D&D should understand that it originates from Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels. I highly recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eyes_of_the_Overworld

tekjenitalor 9y ago

D&D will fade away again but it kept me happy and occupied and distracted me from a terrible upbringing. Forever grateful to the idea makers (Tolkien/Vance) and the engineers (Gygax, etc...) for the work they did. The idea of creating an alternate world or being able to bring aspects of imagination and design to life concretely enabled my interest in programming and SA.