What do you consider to be the beginning and end of the different eras of D&D?I’ve always thought of it as basically>everything before 3e>the 20ish years of 3e/3.5/pathfinder>5eI understand people argue about what should be included in “osr” and what shouldn’t but I’m not talking about rules. I’m more talking about culture, which is why I don’t really include 4e as it doesn’t feel like it really had an “era” of its own. Many people just kept playing 3.5 or played pathfinder until 5e came out. So, how would you define the different eras of D&D over the decades? How many have there been? What makes them distinct from each other?
>>98854893I would consider the D20 boom and 4e/PF schism to be distinct eras. The GSL and comparative lack of interest in 3rd party D20 splats for PF1 resulted in a considerably wider slate of games played and published.
>>98854893It's completely insane to assume that it was entirely the same culture before the 3rd edition.
>>98854893>but I’m not talking about rules. I’m more talking about culture,I don't think it separates cleanly like that. They effect each other quite a bit, especially over time. But if you want a very broad over generalization that doesn't talk about rules at all you'll end up with something like >Proto, pre tsr figuring it out, wargaming nerds who like fantasy see even then its hard to not talk about rules. >Early tsr, Underground but gaining popularity >mid tsr. Edition rele... fuck see rules again. Let's start over. >boomercore, no internet yes I know gnx but fuck them they're not important, no one knows what they're doing but they're having fun. pervy. >millennialtrash, some internet, trying to build ideas and building too many of them, fun is a buzzword, closeted queermo revolution >zoomerwave, too much internet, doesn't want to know what they're doing, alphabet soup and reactionTake it or leave it.
>>98854961how would you separate them?
>>98854965then how would you categorize the different eras of the game? just by edition?
>>98854893Honestly I'd say it's a mixture of things.>Switch from Known World & Grey Hawk to Forgotten Realms That in and of itself selected for a much different type of audience.>Renaming of demons Concessions change culture.>3.5First crop of players who didn't personally remember the satanic panic.>PF split First true disunity rather than soft selection.
>>98854998The satanic panic around D&D was so retarded. It's just using your imagination with the dice. I have no idea what the christcucks got out of it beyond maybe fund raising but Im curious as to others opinions on that.
>>98854989>then what other arbitrary and nonsensical criteria would you try and organize it by? I don't know, color index constitution number of the cover page's ampersand? Its a roleplaying game that's existed for longer than either of us have been alive and gone though many different cultural shifts as well as rules and design changes and influences. You can't really talk about one part of it as the most important without including the other.
>>98855035similar to how every vietnam vet took a line from the movie rambo and grafted it into their own memory to create a persecution complex centered around being spat on upon their return to the states, in spite of there being no recorded incidents of it, the dnd satanic panic is largely a collective hallucination of 2nd hand anecdotes handed down by homosexuals. their parents didnt hate them because they played dnd they hated them because they were faggots
>>98854949I was asking about D&D not rpgs in general but I see your point
>>98855077When I first got interested in D&D my parents questioned it but after showing them the books they quickly realized that it's just a game that came out before computers were wide spread.
>>98854893I would break them up into The Proto era (1974-1976) Where D&D itself was a half formed thing and everyone was just kind doing their own thing. Not really a culture in of itself but still mainly a novelty offshoot of wargames.The Classic Era (1977-1984) Between Basic and AD&D this was D&D is it realized form, the version of the game that OSR players romanticize, and when TSR was at its cultural peak.The Adventure Years (1985-1997)Due to leadership changes the style of D&D and its materials began to pivot to a more narrative based adventures. This period is where most of the classic settings came from or were fleshed out massively. This is also where the "that's not how it is in the lore" arguments became common as the divide between older dungeon crawler players and younger big heroic adventure players took shape.The Wizards Years (1998-2013)This is when Wizards bought D&D and made 3e , loads of autistic buildcrafters and similationists came out of the woodwork, and enough time had passed since the Classic era bunch of people who were nostalgic started peeling off and formed shit like OSR and The Forge projects and later with the move to 4e the creation of Pathfinder. This is also when people started coming online a lot more and so the overall culture was a mishmash of all the different era's fans colliding. If you want a time capsule for this period you can go read the early Order of the Stick comics and the associated forum to this day is basically the most autistic parts of the at eras culture embodied.The Current Era (2014-now)With the boom of the game following the release of 5e, a huge wave of mainstream attention was brought on the game and we have been living through it. With the rapid success over the course of 2014 to 2016 the old D&D culture got buried by a wave of newcomers which are the people you engage with in general D&D locations right now.
>>98854981The original War gamer crowdThe intro of the wider scene, especially the San Francisco sceneDragonlance and the rise of more story focused modules2e, the setting glut and the fallow years Wotc buying tsr, 3rd edition and the ogl proliferationThe 4th edition split, pathfinder, and a little bit of an exodus, the beginnings of osr (although, arguably this occured earlier)5th edition precovid5th edition, COVID5th edition, constant train of WotC scandals, and 5.5e
>>98855077I was literally not allowed to play d&d when I was a kid because of the satanic panic, you're an idiot revisionist.
>>98855077https://archive.org/details/dungeons_and_dragons-witchcraft_suicide_violence/mode/2upSatanic Panic made up, huh? Here. Have 43 pages of that thing that didn't happen.
>>98855235>a book of 2nd hand anecdotes >t-they spat on us man! i was there! i was a patriot, man!>>98855218maybe you were just a shitty kid and they were punishing you. my mom wouldnt let me listen to certain music because she hated having to hear it herself, thats not evidence of a widespread social upheaval
>>98855285You're trying to hard to make your theory fit the evidence.
>>98855288my theory is that most of the boomers still upset about the supposed panic have no first hand experience of it and rely on what amounts to gossip, which you backed up with a book of 2nd hand accounts. let me guess, you still think iraqi soldiers were eating babies in kuwait too? as for the other retard, parents controlling what their children do is not evidence of oppression nor is it unusual or, and this is perhaps the most important point, interesting to hear about decades later. grow up
>>98855285ntaThere were a bunch of things like this at the time. Here, this one's short. Its ny times but you get the idea. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATUpSPj0x-ca lot more of the focus was on heavy metal bands but it was enough of the cultural background in many areas there was overlap.
>>98855325I'm a /pol/lock, I know that stupid bitch wasn't even in the country when she claimed to have seen the Iraqis killing babies.
>>98855338and how did this impact you personally? in such a way that you cling to it 50 years later. People write book about hysterical nonsense every year. please give me primary evidence of your parents whipping you with chains because of your love for rpgs
>>98855374>it never happened >if it did happen it was only a little bit >if it did you deserved itetcetcetc For the most part I had to make sure there wasn't anything overtly involving demons or witches so my friend wouldn't get in trouble running games at his house when we were kids. His mom was a psycho but his dad was chill so she would be mad we were playing dnd but he talked her down. >50 years later >whippings You have a lot of weird ideas in your head of who you're talking with and what their up to for someone so set on calling others delusional.
>>98855423my original post said that it was largely a collective hallucination, which has been backed up by everyone attempting to argue to the contrary.>youre making it weird, it wasnt actually that big a dealyes, youve grasped the point.
>>98855077Me when I lie.
>we're unironically having people trying to deny one of the most well documented cultural contagions I can't wait until all these PACs and government shills fuck off.
>>98855487>multiple posts explaining how it happened, documentaries, books and evidence >those don't count because I want to be upset about people being upset about a thing I think is imaginary Nice.
>>98855035TA, because they have a curious habit of demonizing things that men enjoy.Doesn't matter if it's cards, liquor, jeans, Rock, DnD, TCGs or Pokemon.Protestants only stop opposing it once enough women have adopted it.
>>98855528>similar >largely these words have definitions, look them up and then rewrite your reply to me
>>98855528>I want to be upset about people being upset about a thing I think is imaginaryYou're giving him the benefit of the doubt despite the fact he hasn't earned it.He's not being autistic, he's actively trying to proselytize by trying to rehabilitate his Faith's history.It's ramped up in recent years. Exploit lonely people to by trying to make them forget how fucking much the organisation hates them.
>>98854893>2e and earlierThe "golden age" of D&D based directly on the golden age of pulp fantasy. The systems and settings and stories were derived from the absolute best of fantasy ever made blended with elements taken from some of the best movies ever made and a mature, loving, and intelligent understanding of real world history and politics and things like Greek and Japanese myth. It was a series of passion products made by and aimed at mature and intelligent men who had a closeted whimsy. >3e-4eThe video game era. The maturity and whimsy of earlier fantasy gave way to heartless immature stats chasing and concept focus as the new generation of gen x and millenial nerds (many of whom had never even consumed the most basic of classic fantasy works) who had grown up playing videogames and watching anime and and cartoons and blockbusterslop and reading comics replaced the older nerds. D&D was now beginning to recurve on itself as nothing new was being made and everything was just an updated remaking of things that already existed filtered through the cold cynical globalist lens of post-1975 generations. Fantasy ceased being an escapist hobby and the main focus of many people's lives, resulting in cultish behaviors around the product while D&D devolved into soulless stat chasing and builds as video gameification took over.>5e and beyondThe corporate era. The corpse of D&D is now a carefully cultivated product owned by soulless businessmen doing everything they can to shake money out of a soulless playerbase. No one cares about the setting on either side of the aisle. What little whimsy and escapism that was left in 3e/4e has been ground down under the mental illness of the millennials and zoomers as social justice issues and far left wing ideals warp the setting into a propagandized mirror of American liberal coastal city societies. The vast majority of players now use the game as defacto therapy sessions.
>>98855580Might be. I think they're a low level pseudointellectual who thinks >I can abstract to any point to make whatever this other person is talking about seem insignificant is a power move so they can say >this thing you think is actually this thing I think! as if its special. Look at >>98855556 and >>98855487Note they don't have a number where it would become a significant enough portion of the population or experience for them to say it happened or mattered. They've already had to backpedal to it happening at all so they have to get vague about it to keep dismissing it as irrelevant rather than any specific faith oriented thing. Could be though, some of them have obligations to proselytize.
>>98855549Even more of a reason to disregard them.
>>98855580>descending into conspiracy rather than refuting with evidence i accept your concession
>>98855633We've already seen you don't care about evidence. Its just nou and hopefully some fun images at this point.
>>98855728no, your tactic has been akin to someone using the existence of the anti-war movement against the war in vietnam as proof of being personally spat on at the airport after being rotated home from their deployment. my original claim remains uncontested. this is collective hallucination, claims of me being a government agent or the pope would seem to be in my favor on that point as well.
>>98854893I'd say the "eras" are:>Beginning Era - D&D and 1e up until the release of Dragonlance>Campaign Era - Starting with Dragonlance. Campaign setting take the focus>Recovery Era - After WotC buys TSR until 3e releases>d20 Era - 3.X dominates as the primary RPG with large amounts of d20 products>4e Tumult - Starting with the lead up to 4e's release. Ends with the "year of no products">5e Fallow period - 5e release with few products release every year for several years>Fad Surge - D&D becomes a fad due to the popularity of things like Stranger Things and Critical Role. "Heavy Modern" audience pandering.>Fad Decline - Current Era.>>98855175I don't think there was much difference between your Proto Era and the Classic Era and your Wizard Years your Current Era has sub eras within them.
>>98855777Sad you can't laugh with people in a shared hobby space even if you disagree about some things in life you don't even think are important.
>>98855620great write up anon.
>>98855777Nah, you are just a bitter, little faggot throwing a hissy fit cause someone said the word "christcuck".
>>98854981Gygax (OD&D, Holmes, AD&D 1e, B/X, BECMI) vs post-Gygax (AD&D 2e).
>>98855077Are you so afraid of the backslash against puritanism and general conservativism in culture that you're going to lie about well recorded events that happened... 20 years ago?You're an idiot.
>>98855620Dumping AD&D 2e in the game bucket as what came out while Gygax was at the helm makes very little sense.
>>98855580Is truly disgusting how these types have been trying to turn every single anon and every autistic nerd in his 20s or 30s into some sort of moron who supports whatever ideological bullshit they're peddling, but most likely is a certain flavor of authoritarian bullshit. Especially now that the same people who persecuted grognards in the past have come again and want to persecute people who enjoy videogames, anime RPGs or anything fun. Fuck this propaganda shit.
>>9885594040 years ago, anon.
I love 1e. I went back and started playing it and gixes almost everything I found to be a flaw in later editions(and bx). Its got rules bro. Real fucking reals on how to run an actual nail biting balls to the walls adventure. And whats great is that only i, the dm needs to memorize all these rules. No passive fucking perception, no annoying builds ruining the fun, just people using their own ingenuity to solve whatever problem I give them. Players never have enough money, level ups feel meaningful, exploration feels structured, everything feels tight. Only problem is got is the gender and some of the race rules but those can easily be changed.
>>98855620You are retarded.
>>98855934>>98855951>>98855985AD&D 1st Edition is the culmination of Gygax’s work and the best version of the game.
>>98856404AD&D was Gygax attempting to reinforce copywrite by creating a "complete" version of D&D that didn't need 3rd party materials to fill in blanks, only to privately treat it as bullshit and never use it in his own games.And if the man himself treated it mainly as a business necessity I don't see how it can be a real culmination even it it is the best version of D&D.
>>98856464that gygax was playing his own personal set of homebrew rules is a testament to how flexible and individual the game is, and always has been, but it’s not a repudiation of any particular set of rules, especially not the one that is basically the most complete set of rules ever published in one place, at least by gygax.
>>98856005If you feel called out reexamine who are you are instead of seething.
>>98854893>pre-adndThe ancient era, of interest to historians and autists.>adnd 1e and 2eThe classic era, fascinating but outdated >3eThe golden age, with probably the best rules and content overall, if only the future improvements were less radical...>4eThe revolution era, like the French Revolution, necessary novelties but also a lot of stupidity and senseless bloodshed.>5eThe nice dark ages. It's like half the good inventions and ideas were forgotten, but at least some of them remained and the new dumbed down rules managed to pull in a lot of new players, though it might as well have been a coincidence.>5.5eThe extinction era. Here's hoping to somebody competent buys the brand once it croaks.
>>98856464AD&D 1e is the best version of the game. Your partial and mostly inaccurate of the history of how and why it came about does not change this fact.
>>98857111>adnd 1e and 2eDon't be retarded. Those have nothing to do with one another.
>>98854893>beginning and end of the differentup to and including 2e all fun yet flawed3e.3.5 a mixed bag4e and beyond is sewage
>>98857252>>98857111>>adnd 1e and 2e>Don't be retarded. Those have nothing to do with one anotherthey are the closest and adventures can be played with little to almost no changes, keep your psychopathic osr disease between yourself and your padded room
>>988548932016-2018 The D&D Era2019-2023 The 'have you tried not' era2024-Today The gameless era
I'd delineate by methods of play/game mechanics and what they lean towards;>OD&D/OSR Games: Intended to emulate wargames and old Swords & Sorcery pulp series>AD&D/Hickmann era: Intended to emulate epic fantasy with Mormon morality mixed in>3.5 era: Intended to sell splatbooks>4e: Intended to emulate MMORPGers>5e: Intended to emulate D&D
Pre-2014>ancient era, entirely mythical and anecdotal, made-up fairy tale, 99% of current players haven't experienced it, most people discussing it weren't even alive back then, and those who collect the old materials didn't have anyone to play with2014-2016>rough start, nerds became cool for the first time, this era made DMs look into old sourcebooks since there were only a few written for 5e2017-2022>golden age, Stranger Things made D&D popular all over the world, tons of settings new and old get revived, everyone wants to try the game out, Covid makes VTTs popular2023-2024>OGL debacle, shovelware producers start splitting off from 5e and invent their own little games like Draw Steel and Daggerheart2024-2026>the search for identity, new edition lacked the balls to be a proper edition, just overrides the 5e rules, uncertain future, trying to revive Greyhawk and Dark Sun
>>98857771> 2014> Most people discussing it weren't alive.If you're too young to be here just say so man
>>98857825I'm 30 and I only know 3 people who've ever played 3.5e. People old enough to play 1e, 2e must have been born in the 70s and D&D wasn't really popular before 5e. Sure it had its market, but it wasn't popular as in everyone knows someone who DMs unless you had some really hip hippie parents who used to hang around with nerds before it was cool.
>>98857582I said don't be retarded.
>>98854893If we call 1e/2e AD&D the golden age, then 3.5e would be the silver age, and the modern era would be the gilded age. This is the gilded age because D&D is now more popular and successful than ever, but is slowly rotting from within. The game has become commodified in a way never seen before.
>>98854893>Literally everything that happened before the year 2000: all the same, one single era, nothing to talk aboutThere are a lot of retards in this thread.
>>98857911I'm in my (mid) thirties and I was playing 2e in '03 and then later 3.5 in '04 when the DM bought the new books.I don't know what backwards ass place you were in but DnD was popular enough in the UK that my (boarding) school had a society for it.I didn't go to university until '13 and people were still playing 3.5 then (cause of the skub around 4e).
>>98858691I mean okay you're older and 3e was only out for a few years so it was understandable you've played much more complete 2e in 2003.Where I'm from D&D was unheard of before B'sG and NWN, it was always seen as a video game first and tabletop second. Still, previous editions' popularity is uncomparable to 5e.I went to uni in 2016 and ironically nobody there wanted to play. I've only played with people unrelated to uni and mates from school. Only people during that period playing 3.5e were those 3 who never moved on to 5e. Understandable. I doubt many people bother learning a new system. I've never bothered reading 5.5e.
>>98855035Actual Christcuck here, it's part of the larger repeated effect of older generations demonizing something younger generations enjoy. My parents (dad mostly) demonized DnD, yet he would tell me about the church he was raised in and how he found it ridiculous that they demonized television. It kinda told me of how this shit is just a cycle like any other.That and also it's just them blaming other things that shouldn't hold that much water to begin with, like the whole videogames causing violence panic that happened in the 2000s. Plausibly maybe some edgelord who hated his religious parents played DnD just to larp as a satanist, only for him to get caught and then suddenly start this whole game of telephone.
0E up to AD&D 1E 1984. Actual D&D era under Gygax.1985-1997 the shit freelancer period with a few neat setting "concepts" that didn't translate to actually good games for the most part.1998 - 2007 the first cargo cult era.2008 - ongoing the extra gay cargo cult era.As for the OSR I don't care. Redditors are unironically using it to mean whatever shit they can slop out with AI and sell on drivethroughrpg. Totally worthless term when expanded beyond it's original use.
3e is and will always be the best onealso the one that invented all the systems the inferior editions copiedcope and seethe mathlet
>>98858443There is a clear difference between nerds before and after the millenium. You're a newfag
>>98854893>Consider to be the beginning and end of the different eras of D&DWhat are editions?Like holy fucking shit, how much of a never-game thread one can make and then farm replies for 3 days?
