Rules and adventures
A session of any pen & paper roleplaying game is mostly influenced by the players and the Dungeon Master. But as these aren't supplied by the company that made the pen & paper roleplaying game, this part can't be subject to reviews. What the game company provides is the rules, and in many cases also the adventure module that is being played. Online Dungeon Master has a post on D&D Next playtesting. It is balanced, and interesting in its own right. But the part I want to talk about is the map of the Caves of Chaos he also provides, because it tells us so much about the official adventure modules of D&D.
I have some regular commenters here which wax lyrically about how great previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons were with respect to roleplaying (/wave CF). I believe them. But I don't believe they played primarily these official adventure modules of which the Cave of Chaos map is such a prime example. And I don't believe their experience was in any way representative of how the average player experienced Dungeons & Dragons. They just had the luck to have a great DM and possibly a great group of players.
It is the DM who gets to decide what adventure is being played, and it is him who decides either to use a premade adventure module, or to invent his own adventure. If he invents his own, or heavily modifies the premade adventures, you can get great roleplaying, fascinating stories, fantastic worlds, and great entertainment. If you played the early D&D adventure modules as written, you get the Caves of Chaos: Pure dungeon crawl maps with short corridors connecting rooms full of monsters, traps, and treasures. That is basically the equivalent of playing Diablo, and has very little to do with great roleplaying. You need a great DM to turn these adventures into something even remotely interesting from a roleplaying point of view.
Having played D&D for over 30 years, I've met some fantastic roleplayers, and great DMs. But unsurprisingly the average DM and average player are, well, average. I've played my fair share of adventures that were just played more or less as written in the module, even if what was written didn't make much sense. I've played with lots of different players, and noticed that the average player is looking at his character sheet when looking for options on what to do. Thus if the only option printed on his character sheet is rolling a basic attack with a nice chance to hit and serious damage, the average player will do exactly that. It is *possible* to come up with great roleplaying in such a situation, aka swinging from a chandelier. But in the D&D adventure module as written, with its 60 combat encounters in a row for the Caves of Chaos, an average DM, and a group of average players, you simply won't see much of that.
This is where I think 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons was a huge step forward for the genre: It improves the game experience immensely for the average player. The kind of player who looks onto his character sheet for inspiration will find a whole lot more of that in 4th edition than in any previous edition, or in D&D Next playtest. And even the worst 4E module (which probably is Keep on Shadowfell) beats the Caves of Chaos hands down in providing an interesting story and roleplaying when played as written. As for the great DM and the great players, well, they probably can make a great game out of any rule system and any adventure.
I do think there is some survivor bias at work here: The people who played with the best DMs are those still playing 30 years later and remembering the old editions of D&D fondly. Many others gave up on D&D years ago, because they had some average DM leading them through a boring dungeon crawl like the Caves of Chaos. It wasn't the rules and the adventures that made previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons great, it was the players and DM. And as I said before, those aren't really good measures for reviewing a rule system.
I have some regular commenters here which wax lyrically about how great previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons were with respect to roleplaying (/wave CF). I believe them. But I don't believe they played primarily these official adventure modules of which the Cave of Chaos map is such a prime example. And I don't believe their experience was in any way representative of how the average player experienced Dungeons & Dragons. They just had the luck to have a great DM and possibly a great group of players.
It is the DM who gets to decide what adventure is being played, and it is him who decides either to use a premade adventure module, or to invent his own adventure. If he invents his own, or heavily modifies the premade adventures, you can get great roleplaying, fascinating stories, fantastic worlds, and great entertainment. If you played the early D&D adventure modules as written, you get the Caves of Chaos: Pure dungeon crawl maps with short corridors connecting rooms full of monsters, traps, and treasures. That is basically the equivalent of playing Diablo, and has very little to do with great roleplaying. You need a great DM to turn these adventures into something even remotely interesting from a roleplaying point of view.
Having played D&D for over 30 years, I've met some fantastic roleplayers, and great DMs. But unsurprisingly the average DM and average player are, well, average. I've played my fair share of adventures that were just played more or less as written in the module, even if what was written didn't make much sense. I've played with lots of different players, and noticed that the average player is looking at his character sheet when looking for options on what to do. Thus if the only option printed on his character sheet is rolling a basic attack with a nice chance to hit and serious damage, the average player will do exactly that. It is *possible* to come up with great roleplaying in such a situation, aka swinging from a chandelier. But in the D&D adventure module as written, with its 60 combat encounters in a row for the Caves of Chaos, an average DM, and a group of average players, you simply won't see much of that.
This is where I think 4th edition Dungeons & Dragons was a huge step forward for the genre: It improves the game experience immensely for the average player. The kind of player who looks onto his character sheet for inspiration will find a whole lot more of that in 4th edition than in any previous edition, or in D&D Next playtest. And even the worst 4E module (which probably is Keep on Shadowfell) beats the Caves of Chaos hands down in providing an interesting story and roleplaying when played as written. As for the great DM and the great players, well, they probably can make a great game out of any rule system and any adventure.
I do think there is some survivor bias at work here: The people who played with the best DMs are those still playing 30 years later and remembering the old editions of D&D fondly. Many others gave up on D&D years ago, because they had some average DM leading them through a boring dungeon crawl like the Caves of Chaos. It wasn't the rules and the adventures that made previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons great, it was the players and DM. And as I said before, those aren't really good measures for reviewing a rule system.
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