I exaggerate slightly. But not by much.
Since the World Cup is on at the moment, we can use football as an example. In case you're not familiar with the famous "Brazil/Zaire free kick incident" of 1974, watch this video:
At the time, it was widely believed that the player in question, Mwepu Ilunga, made this mistake because in Zairian football they didn't take free kicks as the "official rules" dictated. This story doesn't actually seem to be true: the player in question later said he did it hoping to get sent off, as a protest because he and his team mates weren't being paid properly by the Zairian footballing authorities. (There's also an apocryphal tale that gets bandied around holding that the Zairian players had been threatened with death by Mobuto Sese Soko if they lost the game by more than 3-0 and either the pressure got to Ilunga, or he was desperate to try to waste time and prevent the Brazilians scoring again.) But it illustrates a point: at that time, football was played quite differently in different parts of the world. It was rare for players to move overseas to play football, and there were radically different playing styles in England, Scotland, Italy, Brazil, and so on. It was only 20 years prior to the Ilunga free kick that Hungary had revolutionised international football by creating their new "WW" system and suddenly unleashing it on the unsuspecting English; it was possible for them to do this because nobody in England had a clue what was going on in Hungarian football. It was thus entirely possible for a viewing audience in 1974 to imagine that in Zaire they had different rules for free kicks: it's a reflection of how diverse the public understood international football to be.
It wouldn't be possible nowadays. Football has globalized, and as it has globalized it has homogenized. I sit here writing this blog entry watching Brazil v Switzerland. Most of the players on both teams play together or against each other regularly in English, Spanish, German or Italian club football. Their club teams and international teams use the same or very similar formations. The two sides both emphasise the same qualities in players. In 1974 a tie between Brazil and Switzerland would have showcased two very different styles. Now, they're basically the same.
The same will happen with D&D. It is happening now. When I was a kid, the only frames of reference you had for understanding what D&D was actually like were the people around you who introduced you to the game, the page long "example of play" in the PHB, what you could glean from various hints and asides in the text of the rules themselves, and maybe the little "choose your own adventure" style intro in Red Box Basic. That was it. Other than that, you were on your own: D&D was what you and your friends made of it.
Think of a new player nowadays. You can go online and watch Will Wheaton, or a thousand other people, actually play sessions of D&D right in front of your very eyes. You can read forums, blogs, and other online resources discussing different play styles in intricate detail. You can directly contact many RPG designers through social media. You can go on Tumblr or Twitter and heap abuse on people who don't conform to what you think D&D is about. The texture of your introduction to the game, as a neophyte, is utterly different to what it was in 1985.
D&D will become like football. It's not that all games will be the same, and it's not that there won't be innovations. It's that we'll end up with largely the same play styles dominating (some people will prefer "narrative" style games versus "OSR" style games, just like some football teams play a 4-2-3-1 versus a 3-4-3 or play an attacking game versus a counter-attacking style, but they will deploy those styles in homogenous ways) and there will be much, much, much less variety than there once was.
What happens when your touchstone for "what D&D is like" ends up being Will Wheaton and not, say, your friend's older brother and his mates (which was my introduction to the game)? A more significant question than can be dealt with in a blogpost, probably. Switzerland have just equalised and it's got interesting, so I'll leave it up to you to deal with in the comments.
A good argument well made.
ReplyDeleteI think I disagree. The comparison between football and d&d would be more appropriate if football referees individually "ran" their games according to their personal tastes, reference points in TV and books, political opinions etc.
You could say that part of the game, too, will homogenise with the mainstreaming of all culture, but I think the kind of personalities that are drawn to GMing are the kinds of personalities who will always want to tinker.
It's like they say - the only person truly satisfied with a setting or system is the creator. Everyone else, even if they love it with every fibre of their being, will tinker. The creator probably will too.
Your argument is pursuasive though. I need to think on this more.
Sure, but I'm not saying that all games will be the same. Just that play styles will tend to homogenize. There will be less variety than there used to be.
DeleteWasn't that a great game today? A day of giant killing.
ReplyDelete"What happens when your touchstone for "what D&D is like" ends up being Will Wheaton"
ReplyDeleteThen we burn it all down without mercy.
Ha.
DeleteI would buy that if it weren’t for the fact that said touchstones are all pretty different from one another.
ReplyDeleteLet’s contrast Critical Role and The Adventure Zone. CR is about as archetypical fantasy as you can get. It’s cast wouldn’t be out of place in a novel set in FR, and in fact the season 1 cast shows up in both the fantasy comic Maze Rats and the recent Pillars Of Eternity II. Meanwhile, you got TAZ, which after it’s first arc turned into this weird mash up of fantasy and sci-fi, with the characters having a home base on the moon and moving onto this multi-dimensional race against the clock.
Matt Mercer runs these vast sandbox campaigns where the players build a reputation and pick a faction. Griffin McElroy runs more of a railroad, but uses the railroad to introduce a wide variety of interesting scenarios for his characters to blunder through.
So no, I don’t see homogenized D&D, so much as the fact WotC won’t leave Faerun in their first party modules.
Yes, but I think I dealt with that in the entry. There are still different approaches to playing football - it's not that everyone literally plays in the same way. It's just that the number of different styles has reduced, and those styles have become more universal.
DeleteI have to agree. I watched this "What is D&D" video featuring some young hipster types, and while we didn't see a lot of play, the DM was strongly channeling Mercer.
ReplyDeleteMy teenage daughter has played with four different D&D 5e groups in the past two years, and is still playing with three of them. None of these teens watch live play or read gaming blogs. All of the games are apparently very different. They freely make up races and classes and whatever other houserules they feel like. None of them use a virtual tabletop or much of any electronic tools, or battlemaps, or minis.
ReplyDeleteThese kids don't have any more money than I did. They don't buy published modules, many don't even have the core books, let alone the splatbooks. At least one DM works exclusively from the free basic rules.
Most kids don't give a crap about how the old farts play the game, aren't going to watch us play, and certainty aren't going to read about how we play. Hell, in my group, I'm the only one who reads gaming blogs.
Chris Perkins only has 72k followers on twitter, which has to be a drop in the bucket. Mearls has less. Apparently there are around 380k who play D&D (and over 600k playing all games) just using the Fantasy Grounds virtual tabletop, and that just captures people playing online in a single VTT platform.
Don't be fooled by the odd young blogger or streamer. You only see them because they've chosen to join this world, and aren't necessarily representative. I expect that vast majority of gamers aren't going to put that much work into it.
The only homogenizing influence of any significance is published modules. But that only influences people who pick up the game **after** they have achieved a disposable income.
Kids may not give a crap about how old farts play the game but they care about how each other plays the game, and you're not going to convince me they don't talk about it on social media. That has its own homogenizing influence.
DeleteI have kids on social media. They talk with their friends about the same things teenagers have always talked about, which pretty much always relates to how they feel.
DeleteThey never talk about what they do, they don't have enough impulse control to have a meaningful conversation about "do", although they will occasionally have a conversation about what they are "going to do" after secondary school - which really is still a "feel" conversation.
When it comes to doing, they just do it. At least in my corner of the world. Naval-gazing over gaming techniques is a post-adolescent activity.
That's kind of the point. They don't really naval-gaze over gaming techniques. They copy each other and their role models and what they see on the internet and TV. Your kids may not show any interest in watching streamed games online, but some will, and they'll tend to reproduce what goes on in them.
DeleteI know at least three "young" bloggers who could easily be described as old-school or OSR. That may not represent much of the community, but it suggests to me that there are newcomers who recognize the benefits of playing older versions.
DeleteThe thing of it is...Will Wheaton doesn't play exactly the same way as Zak Smith, Jeff Rients, the gang at Critical Role, etc.
ReplyDeleteNot only is there more than one frame of reference, many will likely inspired by bits and pieces of each, and create their own thing.
For many, many years I ran Star Wars games with everyone having the same, clear picture of what Star Wars was. There were never tonal or atmospheric differences. There was also little to no expanded universe beyond the West End Games RPG and a handful of novels.
Now, with ten films, two animated series, dozens upon dozen of books and comics and no less than three separate RPGs, everyone seems to envision a different Star Wars.
When I run, only the original trilogy, much of West End's D6 material (though not all), Rogue One, Solo, the Clone Wars animated series, and the Rebels animated series are on my mind. Those are the only references that I can guarantee are going to be relevant. If one of my players wants to use something from the Prequels or a book I say OK, run it past me and I'll see if we can make it work.
For others it's all about the books. Lots of stuff from the Expanded Universe, things never seen on screen, are included and view are integral to their campaigns.
As long as there are different opinions on what a thing is, there will always be differences in peoples' games.
Sure, just like no two games of football are the same.
DeleteLooking at the 161 entries this year in the One Page Dungeon Contest I think it's clear that there are many different styles on display.
ReplyDeleteI run DCCRPG with my students who then play 5E at home. I think D&D has survived since 1974 BECAUSE no two games are exactly alike ... but we'll know for sure it it's non-existent in five years. That will tell us that everything became the same and once you try it you've seen all it has to offer.
I'm not saying two games will be exactly alike or that once you try it you'll have seen all it has to offer. No two football matches are exactly alike and I still enjoy watching it. The point is that approaches to playing it have become homogenized, and the same will likely happen to D&D.
DeleteSpeaking as someone who doesn't watch football, I'd argue that football matches are far more homogeneous than D&D games. Yes, there are differences, but you have to know football to recognize them. You don't really have to know D&D to tell that one table plays the game a certain way and another plays a vastly different way.
DeleteThe Poles, the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Austrians, the British, and more recently the Italians and the Bavarians suggest that homogenization is disgusting in the aesthetic sense. Multiculturalism was always something for the overeducated middle classes. Too many moron kids were allowed to get a university education, lowering standards, and disguising the fact there are not enough jobs for in the west for the middle class, never mind the working class which is treated like shit.
ReplyDeleteIt looks like Europe will collapse because Germany is about to collapse because Merkel is one of the last sick fuck politicians in the last four decades to encourage MULTICULTURALISM, and you have to be tone deaf to aesthetics, culture, and history to be indifferent to mass immigration which only benefits billionaires, who should all be assassinated.
I believe race is a matter of aesthetics like architecture, and it results in gigantic soulless barns for the benefit of barn managers unless people are asked what they want.
Why are western people not asked what immigration policy they want?
One doesnt ask questions with answers you dont want to hear.
DeleteThere's been a steady homogenisation of D&D through the growing homogeneity of its illustrations and 'fluff'. Take the humble kobold. In the first edition of D&D, it was a weaker breed of goblin (or at least you could infer as much from Chainmail). Then it became a sort of horned dog-man in BECMI and AD&D. And now EVERYONE KNOWS (apparently) that it's a little lizardman that has a winged variant, is good at traps and is connected with dragons.
ReplyDeleteThere's a similar path for most of the staple monsters of D&D. What's particularly odd is where you have D&D monsters being homogenised with those from other games. So, the D&D orc begins life as the Tolkien orc (pretty much - right down to the insignia used). Then it becomes the pig-man of the early supplements and the AD&D Monster Manual. By second-edition AD&D, though, it's showing the distinct influence of the scrawny Warhammer orc, as envisaged by the Perrys, Kev Adams and John Blanche.
Now it looks much like the newer, hulking Warhammer orc and the Warcraft orc (itself influenced by Warhammer). The stats have followed suit: without warning, orcs have become stronger than hobgoblins, which they weren't in the early editions of the game.
One effect of this is that players are often more resistant to reskinning ("Whaddaya mean the orc's not green?"), as there are many more things that EVERYONE KNOWS about D&D/RPGs/fantasy as a genre.
All the media trends you discuss above are certainly true. But I think they're only accelerating a trend that's been underway for a long time. At least the likes of Whitehack and the Black Hack stick defiantly to the traditional method of giving familiar creatures simply a name and a statline. I trust the latest edition of Tunnels and Trolls still does that.
Yes, those are all good points, especially on the orcs.
DeleteI think homogenization will happen, but because D&D reaches a smaller audience with less connection points, it'll take time. I'm ambivalent about that prospect because I'll always run my games how I want them to, with or without the influence of others.
ReplyDeleteIt's a good point you make. Using a snapshot of this community right now, I'd be interested in seeing how the OSR changes in the next 10 years.
I think OSR homogenization is as much about tone as it is play style. There is a predominantly "dark", somewhat ironic, horror-inflected vibe to most if not all OSR materials I would say.
DeleteIn part I think it's because most people in those spheres are either copying each others (doing the same homogenization that your post mention is so common in 'modern' circles) or because there's a desire to avoid Tolkien and to focus more on those earlier fantasy writers combined with a desire to create darker settings which do things no mass market, mass appeal game does.
DeleteSo you end up with this:
http://udan-adan.blogspot.com/2017/10/here-be-cannibals-mapping-generic-osr.html
There's nothing inherently wrong with the overly dark and horror-laden, depressing and nightmare-inducing Dark Fantasy worlds. There's a reason people love Dark Souls, after all but it isn't entirely wrong that there is a certain 'DNA' to the OSR blogosphere settings and publications.
Of course, ironically Against The Wicked City itself is a massive contrast to the OSR trend.
DeleteThis is why i build my own classes and progressions. I pretty much rebuilt the game for these kinds of reasons. Its all Scoundrels and Martial Artists and Void Mages.
ReplyDeleteSuper funky races and settings too. Goblins, no hobbits. But still homogenous in basic systems, which is maybe a strength?
I'm not sure whether homogeneity of systems is good or bad. Good for portability and moving between groups, but bad for variety.
DeleteAD&D was supposed to homogenize D&D into a consitent tournament style game with it's publication. That didnkt actually happen.
ReplyDeleteIt would have if there was an internet back then, I think.
DeleteWhile I won't argue with your hypothesis that the internet/social media may be leading to homogenization of D&D playing styles, I do question the comparison to a sport. D&D lacks the singular, objective definition of success that is fundamental to sports: scoring more than the opposition. Therefore, if a particular style proves to be objectively successful, it will be widely adopted, until another style develops to counter it.
ReplyDeleteThe definition of success in D&D is far vaguer. The best I can think of is this: are you and your friends enjoying the game enough to want to play again? With this as the sole parameter of success, there is room for a wide variety of stylistic differences. There is no need for my gaming group to switch to tiki taka just because Will Wheaton or Mandy Morbid plays that way.
I think music might be a more relevant comparison for determining homogenization. D&D kids these days might very well watch Will Wheaton play and adjust their game accordingly, but it is entirely possible that they'll say "that looks lame" and ignore him. Just as a lot of people are grooving to Bruno Mars and thinking "I wanna be like him," while others are not interested.
Yes, music or art. The point isn't that everybody wants to be Bruno Mars. But a lot of people want to make contemporary pop music within its tropes. Just like not everybody is going to want to watch Will Wheaton but the tropes of that kind of play style will be an influence.
DeleteEh; I don't see it happening. D&D is a toy for creatives; it's like a pile of art supplies. When you pick such things up for the first time, you don't go looking around for what other people are doing with them, you immediately start doing your own thing and stay enthralled with doing that for a long, long time.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the reach of niche internet communities is (as always) vastly overestimated. Most gamers will never know about, care about, or join the forum/blog/social media gamer-sphere. I suspect the ratio of hardcore online gaming fans to casual players who just play is quite close to the ratio of forever!DMs to players-only.
I think art is an apt comparator. The tale of art is a tale of homogenization. Not around one style but around certain styles. People most decidedly do not just "start doing their own thing" when they pick up a pile of art supplies. They start reproducing what they think "art" is, which is informed by a huge weight of cultural expectation and personal experience of art which is itself informed by a huge weight of cultural expectation.
DeleteI've been running and playing with a few different groups over the past 9 years, and haven't really seen any signs of homogenization. Every DM (or Ref) has their own, fairly unique style of running. There's been cross-pollination; you run with the same people long enough, you pick up some of each others ideas, but the styles I've seen are as distinct as primary colors. This might be just my little corner of the hobby, but we were all around to start playing as 3rd ed was turning to 4th and you could go on the internet and get a sense of what people expected out of the game.
ReplyDeleteD&D has always been more of a private thing than sports; there's no "World Cup" for D&D that demands standardization. You have a comment about art being "a tale of homogenization", but I'm not sure that means all that much. When something as diverse as art is called "homogenized", the word is meaningless. Might as well call everything homogenized at that point.
You mention cross-pollination and picking up each others' ideas - that's homogenizing. It doesn't mean everybody is exactly the same.
DeleteIf you don't like the sport or art metaphors, how about music? Go to any major city in the world and people will be listening to similar music, by and large. Does that mean everybody just listens to The Beatles? Of course not. There are lots of different styles. But they're still homogenizing.
What do you mean by homogenization, then? If you're talking about ideas being traded around, then I agree with you. If you're talking about there being fewer styles in general, then I disagree.
DeleteWatching the world cup it struck me that your homogenization thought might be more analogous to RPGs when it comes to goal celebrations. There are no competitive reasons to homogenize, yet we see the same damn half-dozen things every time someone scores a goal.
ReplyDeleteIt's bizarre to me that players from Japan run to the corner and slide on their knees exactly like, say, Serbian players do.
I bet celebrations were a hell of a lot more diverse 50 years ago.
Another example is tattoos and general fashion sense. All football players basically look the same now.
Delete