Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

inlander.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 292 posts

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#271

Post by naravara »

sudosteph wrote: post #8

Paradoxically, tech has actually made DnD much more accessible to the masses. When my friends and I first started playing 3.5 in middle school, we pooled our money for a single player's handbook (they were pricey back then!) and would constantly be passing it around any time anyone needed to do anything, which really slowed down the pace of the game and made it hard to get intimately familiar with the rules. Eventual…

>we could search the text super quickly

This is really the killer feature for me. As much as I love the nostalgia and imagery of leafing through a hefty tome, the practicality of it wasn't so good for new players. Having to keep pausing the narrative to be like "Hold up. leafs to index, leafs to page, scans page to figure out which die to roll" really just bogs everything down. Especially if you're playing with indecisive munchkins.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#272

Post by stcredzero »

kochikame wrote: post #128
stcredzero wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. A friend of mine used to say, "Sometimes you just have to get offline, get real, and face each other over a tabletop with some dice." Sh…

I mean, a haunted house is undeniably "real life" in the "IRL" sense, but it wasn't like she used her new skills to actually save a life, or find a way out of hostile territory, or uncover lost artworks or something. Not trying to be a downer, just saying that this is kinda stretching the definition of "real life application of game skills" for me. More like "applying a board game skill to a different kind of game"

It's one thing to apply such a skill in your imagination, looking down from a godlike top-down POV. It's another to do it in real-time, under an actual deadline, while being accosted in the flesh by people trying to scare you.

Also, those weren't "new skills." She was a veteran nerd's nerd.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#273

Post by naravara »

wenc wrote: post #254

I'm just wondering, are there many casual D&D groups for non-geeks? (like the Adrian family featured in the article) My only exposure to D&D was the episode of the "Community", and it looked pretty fun. I wonder if the demographics of that group is normal. I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going t…

>I only ask because most of my friends have this perception that D&D personalities are a little "awkward" and would not give it a chance, but have no issues going to board-game nights.

The game only has as much awkwardness as you bring with you. If they like each others' company playing Settlers of Catan or whatever, there's no reason that will change playing D&D.

That said, it does take a little commitment and pushing out of your comfort zone to really get into role-playing. But in that sense, your D&D group shouldn't be any more awkward than an Improv troupe, music jam session, or Toastmasters meeting. Any time you're asking people to "perform" in some way it can be uncomfortable, but it's the good kind of discomfort that helps you grow as a person.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#274

Post by eltoozero »

How funny, I just started picking up some GURPS material because I wanted some RPG action that wasn’t all dungeon crawling hack n’ slash.

Between Cyberpunk, Illuminati, Atomic Horror, and a little Cthulhupunk, should be some good times; if I can get a campaign together...

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#275

Post by dljsjr »

projectramo wrote: post #265
dljsjr wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of 5th edition adventure modules have started advocating "milestone levels" instead of XP levels. It requires a good DM to know when it's appropriate to award a level up but it's basically DM fiat leveling; XP is gone entirely and the DM decides when your party levels up typically based on the party achieving certain milestones -- find the McGuffin, defeat the boss, solve the mystery, etc. I'm running Curse of…

Nice idea as long as the milestones are laid out in advance.

It’s hard to do that without spoiling the plot. Milestones should also be flexible. Strahd has more milestones than you need to reach the stated end level of the campaign. It’s a sandbox so some of them won’t get done, some will be done after the party has outscaled the encounter, some are coupled to plot reveals. But it’s not hard to manage.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#276

Post by e12e »

SaulOfTheJungle wrote: post #256
mcv wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are way too many options to give a simple answer to that question. If you want to stick close to D&D, Pathfinder and 13th Age are obvious choices. If you prefer something a bit more raw, less polished maybe, deadlier, where survival is a goal in itself and combat may be better avoided, try one of the OSR systems, like DCC, LotFP, Labyrinth Lord, OSRIC, etc. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is weird horror and…

> If you want to get further away from D&D, well, what direction do you want? SF or Cyberpunk

R Talsorian Games' Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 is a nice retro (think William Gibson Neuromancer) game.

https://talsorianstore.com/collections/cyberpunk

But if I were to recommend a single (set of) games, it would be the classic World of Darkness games, like Mage: the Ascension 20th anniversary Ed:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/149562

For a game with some interesting mechanics, you might enjoy Underground:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/2873

And for something... Different, we've had a lot of fun with Microscope:

http://www.lamemage.com/microscope/

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#277

Post by e12e »

dragonwriter wrote: post #12
trynewideas wrote: post #5

Is it unlikely? Board games were already growing fast. Even CCGs were growing fast, not only through video games but still as physical games too. People want to sit down and get offline and spend time with each other, _and_ people who used to do that want to get online and hang out with each other. All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to discard a big chunk of…

> All the RPG market needed was one publisher with good production values and broad distribution to . Wizards was happy to oblige... I think you can make a very good case that D&D 4e in 2008 was where they decided to “discard a big chunk of its worst, thorniest rules”, and that the big innovation in 5e, released in 2014, was less about discarding thorny rules and more about reconnecting the streamlined rules with the…

Wasn't 4th Ed when they did an Oracle move, and walked away from d20/open gaming license too?

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#278

Post by e12e »

projectramo wrote: post #248

There are two reasons to pick other game systems over D&D: 1. You don't want the medieval + magic world and want to explore other timelines. Maybe futuristic, Star Wars etc. 2. You don't like the mechanics. Maybe the game system complexity slows you down or else there is some weird arbitrage opportunity that messes up the incentives. (Let's spend the whole game killing orc babies to build up XP instead of solving the…

If you play dnd like #2, the solution is a new gm/group, not a new rule system... that said, I'm not a great fan of level based games, and really do like White Wolf's Storyteller-system. (vampire the masquerade, mage the Ascension).

But like with any other rules I've seen - it requires some discipline and agreement to not stray too far into the rules part. Rules are just guidelines that help avoid the worst of: "Bang! Bang! You're dead!" ; "No, I'm not! You missed!"...

No rpg rules are complete enough to form a full simulation - any attempt to do so will likely sap fun out of the game. They're just a helpful frame of reference.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#279

Post by Pxtl »

tomc1985 wrote: post #80
Pxtl wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know. I ran a campaign of RIFTs and globetrotting in that setting was awesome... But the rules were so very boring. Palladium crashed catastrophically, sadly. There was some kind of theft problem, and then they had a disastrous Kickstarter.... Such a shame they couldn't find a way to modernize.

What was it about the rules you found to be boring? Rifts was my first RPG and I remember the rules being complicated AF but I think we all sort of accepted that as the price of entry or something

No customizing characters beyond rolling stats and picking skills/spells (and just picking them, not saying how good they are at them) and weapons.

Fighting was mostly attack/parry/dodge. Not much variety in combat actions, particularly with massive health values on everything.

Your stats hardly mattered unless they were above like 16 and got the skill or combat bonus.

Most of the rules for non-combat actions were just simple skill-tests.

Re: The unlikely resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons

#280

Post by brandoncordell »

adamredwoods wrote: post #126
nouveaux wrote: post #18

Not only Dungeons and Dragons, board games are making huge waves around the world. As a game store owner, I have observed a huge growth in tabletop games, including board games. So it's probably not a coincidence that the most highly rated board game (at least according to Board Game Geek) is an RPG based board game. At the time of its kickstarter, I think it raised the most money as well. https://boardgamegeek.com/b…

I've found Gloomhaven, Pathfinder The Card Game, or other "hybrid RPGs" to be the better experience because it doesn't take up a full day.

Maybe my group is doing something wrong because Gloomhaven takes up at the VERY least 3-5 hours each time we play. That's only with 1-2 dungeons.
Post reply on HN