What is D&D?

What is D&D? I tend to agree with this post on YouTube by Professor DungeonMaster. I grabbed the appropriate section out of the transcript:

I don't think systems are game systems so much as they are languages. They're different dialects of the same language. And whether you play 5e, OSE, DCC, C&C, ICRPG, Pathfinder, or ShadowDark: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Armor Class, hit points, roll the D20, roll high, and then roll damage. If you're using those elements, it's just a different dialect of the same language.

So yeah; that's a pretty broad definition of D&D. But what's not to accept about it? This also tracks in a way with Simulacrum's definitions of the OSR: as long as material is useable without too much fiddliness in terms of conversion, they sure, it's basically the same thing.

I'd even go so far as to suggest that games that lack some of those elements, but which emulate the exact same heroic fantasy "space" as D&D are also dialects of the same language, albeit ones that are a little harder to understand (it's possible I'm pushing the analogy too far.) Why wouldn't RuneQuest, Rolemaster, Hackmaster, Harnmaster, Dragonbane, Symbaroum, Earthdawn or many other heroic fantasy games that—essentially—would take the place of D&D in being the same kind of game also count? I mean, I get it; if they aren't mechanically very compatible, then they're a little off the reservation, but a game doesn't have to be OGL based or OSR or otherwise very similar mechanically to D&D to occupy the same space. I prefer a broader, even almost casual, usage of the word "D&D" and I freely admit that I use D&D much like I use Kleenex; to refer to any fantasy adventure RPG—unless it's got something so significantly different than it really feels different.

Rob Schwalb said in some old post a while ago, that in his mind, as much as he liked playing Dark Sun during 2e, for instance, that he always subconsciously considered it a game of Dark Sun rather than D&D, because it felt significantly different to him. I'm not sure that I agree, but I do understand it, and to continue using the linguistic metaphor, the line at which mutual intelligibility between dialects is too poor to count varies by person. Maybe I'm more of a lumper than a splitter in this regard.

On a related note, Mike Mearls made this post on his substack a couple of weeks ago. A lot of "splitters" are getting their panties in a twist about pedantic, nitpicky details, but if you keep in mind that this post is specifically meant to be taken both generically and to be talking about design trends (regardless of how people were playing the game) and that of course it's mostly talking about D&D, because D&D has always been the large majority of the hobby. Although of course trends that started in other games can and did impact D&D's design choices too.

The first generation of TTRPGs is D&D and the games that came immediately after it. Design struggled to resolve the tension between playability and simulation. TTRPGs inherited the design concerns of hex-and-counter wargames. It ran from 1974 to about 1983.

The second generation focused on TTRPGs as storytelling mechanisms that supported heroic characters. It took them a while to shed their simulation roots and embraced the idea that these games took place in fictional worlds. In general designers tried to make games that assumed the “simulated” reality was that of a movie or novel. This generation ran from 1984 to about 1991.

I actually think simulation continued throughout this "second generation" and amounts to what James Maliszewski famously called "Gygaxian naturalism." It was so ingrained in the designer mindset that it remained the background noise in design up through the 3rd edition of the game, so mid 00s or so.

The third generation shifted from characters to settings. Genre emulation rose to prominence, whether a game supported a genre from other media (pulp adventures) or a specific TTRPG setting and its tropes (TORG, Shadowrun). This era ran from 1991 to 2000.

This was no doubt heavily influenced by the success of White Wolf during this period. Not just settings, but lore, meta-plots; all that stuff was the hallmark of most games during this generation, including D&D; although its influence in D&D was probably less than it was in many other games or franchises.

The fourth generation focused on the game of character creation. Computer RPGs, which to this point mainly took their cues from tabletop, pushed into their own direction and TTRPGs followed. The focus shifted to the player experience of creating and playing a bespoke character. The GM diminished in importance. This era ran from 2000 to today.

Sort of.

Fourth generation TTRPGs, taking their lead from video games, were the first generation to take a business model into account. The idea is simple. If you can get players to purchase expansions on the regular, you’ll make a lot more money. There are four or five players per GM, so your market just grew enormously.

This also aligns with the rise of digital culture, which triggered two things.

Fans and publishers could now connect at scale. That flow of information led to entrenchment of design and business thinking circa 2000. The culture of play and design slipped into stasis (kind of, as we’ll see).

TTRPGs also suffered a severe contraction starting around 2004 with the release of World of Warcraft. Suffocating industries have trouble innovating. Investment and talent flowed outward, making innovation difficult.

I'm not sure that 3e was initially focused on power-gamer builds from a design perspective, although I think it took root fairly quickly, and certainly continues into the Pathfinder games as well as others. Even though 3e always allowed such, it was seen as very bad form to encourage such. I dunno. I'm just noodling with my own perspective. He was actually designing stuff by then, so he probably had more insight into where his fellow designers heads were at than I do.

I find it curious that he talks about that big contraction in 2004. World of Warcraft no doubt contributed, but I wonder if it really was the cause. I also wonder—based on comments that he himself has made in other forums—if it didn't start even earlier, and suggested that in many ways Third Edition wasn't as popular as we've usually been led to believe. Possibly people kind of stopped playing it fairly quickly in many cases and continued with their 2e (or older) games instead. Possibly that explains the too-soon release of 3.5 in 2003; an attempt to juice flagging sales. I don't know, but I think there are a lot of questions that this quick interpretation begs. Like; what about all of the Player's Options books in 2e? If this was business model related, why was there such a big contraction in sales, etc.?

Then a bunch of things happened to spark a shift.

D&D 4e, representing the peak of fourth generation design, nearly killed the D&D business. Paizo picked up the D&D baton with Pathfinder, but that game was a refinement of 3e and its very fourth generation approach. That disruption led to a lot of TTRPGers becoming gaming free agents. They were looking for something new.

4e, doubling down on an eight-year old design approach, helped spark a shift back to older generations of gaming. Slowly but surely, a chunk of the hobby began to question both third and fourth generation design approaches.

In other words, the rise of the OSR specifically. 

Then 5e came along. It triggered a surge of interest in TTRPGs with its more accessible design, but fundamentally it remained a fourth generation design. As digital culture made TTRPGs more accessible, new players and GMs piled in to the hobby. The COVID 19 lockdowns provided another boost of interest.

I think 5e sparked the desire for fifth generation games, but being wrapped in a fourth generation design it left the audience caught in limbo. Until now.

The attempt to revoke the OGL was a disruption on par with the release of D&D 4e. It caused a relationship reset between D&D and its audience. This time, rather than flock to Paizo the audience scattered to many different games.

Two years later, we’re seeing where the change stuck.

I think his interpretation may be just slightly self-serving, considering that he was the lead designer on 5e. Did 5e really change the game for gaming, or did it happen to hit a perfect storm of factors that drove its faddish popularity in ways not imagined since the early 80s, but which had little to do with the actual design of 5e itself? Even he kind of admits that 5e was the rearguard of the fourth generation, even as demand for a fifth generation was quietly building and waiting for a dambusting impact to draw it out.

I also think he overestimates the impact of the OGL debacle. It was a big deal to some people online, no doubt about it. But I think 5e was just tired by this point. It was releasing crappy, woke products that weren't selling all that well. Everything that was obvious was done, so they were doing the corporate slop move that all entertainment companies do when they're only allowing corporate slop to be made; rebooting and reheating leftovers from prior years when their popularity was greater. We see the same thing in movies and TV shows. Then, with the teasers and release of 5.5, it's obvious that it satisfied nobody. It changed too much to really be as compatible with older materials as it promised, yet it changed too little to satisfy people who were tired of the way 5e played and were looking for genuine improvements or differences. It landed with a big, gigantic ho-hum. It was clear that D&D was in the corporate slop phase, so people had already been looking around at creators that still had passion and energy for stuff that was going to be fresh and interesting. 

I think that's the real reason for people moving on. Not that the OGL thing didn't play a part, but it's a much smaller part than he makes it out to be.

I think the audience went to two basic categories of games. They either sought out games that double down on 5e’s fourth generation traits - bespoke character creation, lots of character options - or they settled into games that focused on ease of play and GMing, 5e’s shift away from the fourth generation.

Those later games, which look like they have done a better job of holding their growth, are fifth generation designs.

Fifth generation games are games made for GMs. They are designed for ease of play, with that consideration extending to UX and UI. If the dungeon crawl you’re running presents rooms in bullet points and puts map insets on each page spread, it’s a fifth generation design.

Fifth generation designs are designed to enable GM creativity. They realize that without a GM, nobody can play a TTRPG. They focus on playability and ease of use and are very aware of the context in which they take place.

Maybe. This is still in the indie department, not the mainstream design department, so him claiming that a new generation has already arrived is probably premature. And curiously, this new generation he's talking about mostly came out of the fracturing OSR playstyle; people who had already rejected at least his fourth generation, if not also his third and even many elements of his second. Although it also acknowledges yet again that the OSR isn't a recreation of anything old; it's something new that arose out of looking at stuff that was old, and finding new ways to build on that foundation other than what the mainstream had been doing for years.

The COVID lockdowns gave people time the time to play TTRPGs. That desire to play remains, but the audience found that fourth generation designs could not fit into their post-lockdown lives.

Crowdfunding enabled a generation of designers to build a player community first, rather than attempt to brute force it through a distribution and retail tier that expected the commercially-driven approach of fourth generation designs.

YouTube and streaming enabled actual play telemetry. We can now watch a group stumble through an overly elaborate combat sequence, or witness someone spend 10 minutes taking a turn with their bespoke character.

So, welcome to the fifth generation. Adjust your design sensibilities accordingly.

Again; I'm not so sure. I do think that the bespoke character super rulesy play was exposed as being kind of lame by actual plays, if you didn't already know that from your own experience. It's clunky and it takes a long time of boring stuff to get fairly minimal fun out of your hobby time. The traits of what he calls fourth generation appeal to people who play less than they read. Their hobby is buying books, reading them, building characters, and imagining what they would do with them, without the rubber actually hitting the road all that much. Because when it does, the actual reality of playing that way is that it isn't as much fun as it sounds like it would be, and large numbers of players get burned out by trying to do so, and start looking for easier and more efficient ways to use their hobby time.

So again, this is a pretty handwavy attempt to create these generations. It kinda works, but it leaves a lot unsaid, and cherry picks just a little bit just-so stories for root causes of change while ignoring other causes of change, I think. And his claim that we've entered a fifth generation which doesn't include D&D also seems a little bit self-serving, given that he no longer works for D&D. It probably is still a generation struggling to be born, and whether it will actually become the mainstream for design or not is TBD.

And, because I dislike posting walls of text without something of visual interest, here's a picture of a Conan-esque character that I found online, probably generated by AI—in spite of the signature.