What happened to tabletop gaming? Every single new development in the hobby is entirely regressive

Now I wanna run a WoD Hunter game with the requirement that all player characters must be 55 or older.

>God damn vampire kids with their bangin'-screamin' music! This used to be a nice neighborhood!

The issue with a lot of the older TGs is that they started out somewhat easy on the rules but then got super fucking bloated with additions.

Having a solid framework is the most important thing in a game. Simple but you can add on to it if you want to.

PF and DnD 5e, objectively the only worthwhile systems that combine great rules with a large fanbase.

It became broader and more complex.

Me? I love crunchy games. I have preference for complex, interesting sets of mechanics that I can engage in and enjoy alongside roleplaying.

But other people feel differently, and you know what? That's fine.

Tabletop is bigger now than it has ever been. Which means more different people and different ways to play than ever more. For people who've been in the hobby a long time, it can easily seem like you're becoming isolated, that the things you enjoy are no longer supported.

But you know what? Regardless of what kind of thing you like to play, there are now more people and more options for it than ever before. It might have a smaller share of the market, but the market is so much goddamn bigger it is still a net gain, regardless of your niche.

So embrace it. Be happy that other people are able to enjoy a hobby you love, even if they don't do so in the same way. Be warm and welcoming and understanding and friendly, because that's the best way to tell people why you love what you love and to open them up to the idea of enjoying the kind of games you do.

And if they don't? That's fine. As long as they've having fun, why should you give a fuck?

It works a lot better than being an angry gatekeeper in my experience. You'd be surprised how many people who came into the hobby as part of the storygame wave find themselves enjoying a crunchier game with more meat on its bones.

>great rules
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

yeah, remember 3.pf? So many complex options that enhance my rollplaying tactics.

...

Honeslty I generally figure this is the case.

Besides, is right.

Plus, I'm always left wondering why any of this dern mulenyals griping actually matters. Like what, because BBT exists and the RPG.net forums are garbage this suddenly has an impact on your game?

Do it. I'm old already, I'll help with character dev and show you kids what ya can and can't when your past your prime...
Believe it or not, life is 10x better after 35 than before it, trust me

Beat me to it. Although being fair to it, 5e isn't bad. It's just an incredibly bland, safe as fuck system which takes no risk and makes no attempt to innovate. It's generic, simple and well executed. Which is a damn sight more than you can say for PF.

>[...] this suddenly has an impact on your game?
This, how people manage to, in the same breath, bitch about their hobby dwindling into obscurity and at the same time bitch about their hobby being invaded by "normies, reeee", still amuses me.
Play your game, kick problem players, and grow up.

I mean, that's kind of what I like about 5e. It's not crazy and new, it's polished, functional. I'll do the innovating myself, I just need a working baseline ruleset.

>5e
>not bad

everyone is the same
everything is the same
every monster is scaled to be fought forever
nobody makes any progress except in HP bloat
every spell sucks but melee characters are STILL fucking garbage

I'm glad I stopped being played after 2e... 3.pf garbage
4e garbage
5e is also apparently garbage
>inb4 implying 2e is shit too shill!
Not saying that, I'm just glad I stopped paying money for games 25years ago

It's backlash against 3.X, which was very complex and had serious issues.

You had similar games coming out for a while, largely under the concept of 3.X but better.

That's largely died down, so now things are swinging the other way into "maybe fewer rules is better."

In an edition or two of D&D things will be complex again, though not necessarily as complex as 3.X.

>nu d&d
>very complex
You are a fucking moron

Call it anecdotal, but I'm currently in college, surrounded by people at least ten years younger than me and from what I eavesdrop, nobody complains about millennials more than the millennials do.
But don't ever call them out on that. Heaven help you should you ever call one of them a millennial.

OD&D, the real lumberjack's RPG!

>new generation
>whine whine whine I'm getting old

>less roleplaying
this is actually why I don't like complex rulesets and prefer more open GM-priority games. Roleplaying is key for me, incredibly boring campaigns led by constrained GMs do not compare to giving me the freedom to find ways to problem-solve and riddle my way around whatever tricks they are planning (and vice versa for the GM).

Everyone is John is my best example of why rules do not need to be bloated and complex to create an interesting environment.

Of course not everyone wants to roleplay as much as I do. I appreciate that.

Maybe OP you should appreciate that people play differently to you and wonder why you are so angry at what unrelated people to your campaigns are doing.

And you can't read.

What I've played since the mid 80ies:
AD&D 2e, heavily houseruled after 20+ years

>I play a retarded drama class teambuilding exercise that I learned about from watching wesley crusher's podcast and it's really all about roleplaying

Hate to break it to you retard but that isn't a game

College age will include mostly Generation Z, which is the group after the Millenials (aka Generation Y).

You yourself are a millenial.

>inb4 "but millenial means being born after 2000"

Nope. Google.

Can confirm, as I am a college student, and me and the people around me all complain frequently about our generation. There's probably some cultural reason for it, but I'm not really in a position to guess.

Also, obligatory since you mentioned it
>ree I'm not a millennial ackshually millennial refers to the generation ending 2 whole years before I was born ree

obligatory generations don't mean anything, and arbitrarily begin and end.

>PF and DnD 5e
>great rules

This. It's more like one of those courses you get sent on if you keep calling your coworkers 'cunts'.

You sound like a cool guy to hang out with.

No doubt, this 110%
As long as you're having fun, who cares?

>it's another edition of greentext + reaction image shitposting!

I'm cumming inside your ass, and you're enjoying it.

>I'm cramming dog shit off the street into my mouth with both hands and if you mention that I'm retarded then I'll scream AS LONG AS I'M HAVING FUN WHO CARES

>hyperbole

Get out.

'Fun' is a hollow concept because it simply denotes enjoyment. It doesn't contain any sense of quality or merit and can't be used as a comparative measure. Using 'fun' as the prime metric is merely retreating into limp post-modern relativism where sitting around blowing rasberries is held to be every bit as good as mastering a musical instrument, writing the great American novel, or collaborating with others in a tabletop RPG to create a narrative and solve complex problems. 'Fun' is the term people turn to when they've run out of arguments.

If someone says the most important factor in an RPG is to 'have fun', it's a surefire sign that they understand nothing deeper and won't be invested in anything game-related. Their PCs will be a shallow collection of 'quirky' traits, in-game they'll be on their phones half the time and spouting memes the rest. GMs who worship at the altar of 'fun' are those who never really challenge their players - encounters are never lost, quests are never failed, and PCs never die, all because the GM fudges the dice and handwaves away any flaws in the players' plans. Every retarded meme idea that the lolsorandumbs come up with will be pandered to. Every Mary Sueflake character concept will be allowed. There will be no coherent plan for the campaign because the GM just wants to provide 'fun' in some pathetic, desperate bid for approval.

I avoid playing with anyone who throws the term 'fun' around casually. I look for players who have a bit of depth. If they say things like "I enjoy a mathematical challenge" or "I take pleasure in exploring the setting lore from within and deconstructing its problematic binary-opposites" or "I like finding solutions to the fictional problems we come across in our game" then I know I'm talking to someone who is not an idiot, and they might be alright. If they just say "Lol i play 4 le fun XDDDDD" then I am talking to another retard from the Cult of Fun, and their influence will only be negative.

>i am neither harming myself, nor others, and am enjoying myself with a few friends
>what a faggot

AS LONG AS I'M HAVING FUN WHO CARES

there's an entire pathfinder general for that

>Every single new development in the hobby is entirely regressive.

It's a pendulum OP. It's constantly swinging from simplicity to complexity and back.

As RPGs get more and more complex, people start pining for simpler designs. Then, as RPGs more and more simpler, people start pining for more complex designs.

I've seen at least two full cycles in war gaming since the 70s.

Get. Out.

BUT AS LONG AS I'M HAVING FUN WHO CARES

Didn't old D&D have basically no rules to it?

>STOP LIKING WHAT I DON'T LIKE
Lay off the crack jamal

You utter retard. Nobody, not even your mother, takes you seriously. Screaming online about people doing things you don't like, making a complete fool of yourself. You don't even play tabletop, do you?

Get out.

>Stop saying that eating dogshit is bad! I like it! STOP DISLKING WHAT I LIKE!

>STOP DISLIKING WHAT I LIKE! I'M SUPER SERIOUS THIS TIME! STOP! STOP! PLEASE STOP!

Why so upset?

I'm not convinced.
>a person reaching young adulthood in the early 21st century.
We're not even a fifth of the way through the 21st century yet. As far as I can tell, these kids are millennials right along with me.

IDon'tHaveAJPGToAgreeWithYouWith.jpg

This problem is evident in all forms of gaming, from video to tabletop. Niche hobbies became mainstream and now the shareholders want to appeal to as many people as possible. Actually, this problem of appealing to the lowest common denominator is endemic of pretty much every form of entertainment. Happens with music, comics, movies and tv too.

Good post user

Why is that mans hair pink?

I like Dungeon World and it's really the only game I've played in last few years since it's what my groups likes, as well ('though I've been wanting to get back into other systems lately), but goddamn do I hate Adam Koebel and his shitty contributions to that game and gaming at large. The man(?) really is a fucking cuck and anyone with a discerning eye can tell that anything he wrote for DW are some of the weakest parts of the game overall.

A screaming monkey
Flinging shit wildly everywhere
Foolish to a fault.

BUT I THINK YOU WILL AGREE THAT ANYTHING I DO IS COMPLETELY FINE AND WARRANTED AS LONG AS I AM ENJOYING MYSELF

LITERALLY

AS LONG

AS I AM HAVING FUN

WHO CARES

I don't think there's actually much evidence that this is happening with tabletop games

This pasta is so stale I'm convinced the person posting it is sitting on his phone at an Olive Garden.

Tired of green text + reaction image? Here is a post without either of them:

Yeah, I will admit that DnD 5e has great rules. Great rules within the scope of of all the old and boring premises that DnD established thousand of years ago and simply cannot overcome. I mean, if you polish a pile of shit, you may end up with a very smooth ball of shit, but in the end of the day, shit is shit m8.

Past few years in DnD went like this: They did the 4e, which I honestly thought was a decent move because they decided something new for a fucking change. Then a bunch of butthurt 40 yo virgins whined and autistically screamed until they were compelled into making 5e which honestly is just a new and improved pile of the same shit.

Whoever think that DnD is "the best option" are often those who basically never looked for anything else. I bet if you were really open-minded, you would find at least 100 better options.

DnD 5e is far from being a good set of rules for roleplaying. The only thing DnD 5e achieves is being a good ruleset for DnD, which again, is not much really.

>eight syllables

2nd edition is best edition

I don't think there's a whole lot of evidence of it happening with other forms of media either.

I'm a total newfag. I stuck to 2nd edition.

>Adam Koebel
I searched to see why this guy might be considered a complete faggot, and I found this quote:

Hi! I'm Adam. My pronouns are "he / him / his" I was assigned male at birth and it's been a comfortable general gender identity so far so I'm sticking with it. I waffle about how to express my sexual identity a lot so usually I just go with "queer" as in not-straight. I used to use "bisexual" but I sometimes feel that, unquestioned, that label can reinforce a gender binary I don't like. Let's see, I'm white, I consider myself a relationship anarchist (maybe just an anarchist across the board) and that's probably enough to help answer your questions? I hope so!

Oh my god I want to kill him and I don't even know the fag... and I'm a literal faggot

This seems rather silly.

Presume, as seems reasonable, that there exists a hard wall of complexity to the mechanics of a roleplaying game, beyond which you generate an unplayable mess like HYBRID or FATAL. It is undeniably true that mechanically complex yet viable roleplaying systems continue to exist (GURPS) while less complex ones have been created; thus, the history of roleplaying has featured more diversification than replacement. Roleplaying games probably started out close to the complexity wall-- partially because of D&D's wargaming roots, but also, perhaps, because it's easier to come up with clunky but viable rules than it is to generate elegant rules which accomplish the same goals. If so, the subsequent diversification of roleplaying games would tend towards the addition of simpler systems. I suspect that this process probably accounts for whatever trend you perceive, but it's a silly thing to complain about whether the trend is real or not, because the more complex systems haven't gone anywhere.

What does "less roleplaying" mean, anyway? Does FATE feature "less roleplaying" than GURPS? There's an interminable, idiotic argument lurking behind that question, and anyone with sense knows it.

But WoD isn't exactly a rules-light system

>2e is beat edition
My Nubian

Forgive me sensei
I am yet a beginner
I will try harder.

It's a staple assumption which predates the generation drawing OP's ire. Go to basically any generation and you'll find people complaining about poseurs or normies ruining what they like.

RPGs started very complex and difficult to learn.
This led to many people not getting into them due to either requiring too much investment to learn, or just being not to their tastes.

Now, games are being created to fulfill the niche of those who wanted simpler games, as well as games for beginners to the hobby who don't want to become super invested right off the bat, or just remain casual.

It's not some grand conspiracy to ruin your hobby, or an insult, or a threat. It's just nature (and markets) abhorring a vacuum. None existed. There was demand. It was supplied. Now if you want complicated you can play old things or new things made at a similar complexity, but if those don't fit your needs things that fit your needs are also available.

Hackmaster

thac0 is just too difficult for many.

Sadly.

GURPS. Eating nails for breakfast still wasn't crunchy enough.

Nerdy shit is in vogue right now, so there's money to be made with, for lack of a better term, more casual rulesets. Most people don't have the stomach or desire to read hundreds of pages of rules before sitting down to a game of Advanced Squad Leader, but it's easy enough to look at an Age of Sigmar card and see that you have roll a bunch of 4+'s.

Hell, nobody in my current gaming group other than myself has purchased or read through the rules for the game we're playing. Even I only skimmed through them and mostly rely on my knowledge of the other games in the line (FFG 40k RPG's).

More hyperbole
Unequal comparison
Please end this, monkey.

>fulfill the niche

friggen casuals.....omg. Cancer.

>Not understanding sarcasm

>since the mid 80ies:
>AD&D 2e
Hmm.

I mean, there are for casters.

Try to do Bubba Ho-tep as a campaign setting. Retirement home full of wheelchair-bound, senile monster slayers. Make it happen.

>relationship anarchist
This is basically just a fancy word for acknowledging that traditional dating is dead, right?

For every shitty PbtA game there are an equal number of OSR ones coming out. You've lost nothing and gained more variety. This is a good thing. Yes, we're being assailed by SJW virtue signaling in our community and their petulant nebulous demands for 'inclusion', but that's just a sign of the cultural trends in our age group infecting the hobby. Ignore it and it will extinguish itself.

It's a way of saying he's never been in a relationship offline IRL so he just ascribes random words that sound cultured and evocative to the activity.

He's a liberal cuck. It's the english major, gender studies minor haircut.

Yeah sorry, I started in the 80ies with 1e, then on to 2e. My bad duder

Its even dumber. Its when people want to pretend their sexual desires are politically radical.

It doesn't matter if you're convinced or not. It's fact. Generation Y aka Millenials starts at 1980. Generation Z starts in the very late 90s. Those are the definitions.

You can flap and squawk all you like but it won't change that you're talking shit.

They're basically the same thing anyway, so who cares?
>this annoys the OSR

>play games with elves and wizards and dragons
>get upset by pink hair

There's also the fact these "assailings" are basically limited to a few specific online communities and a handful of blurbs in recent WotC/Paizo products and newer White Wolf stuff (which was always pretty far down the cultural leftism track).

None of it has any real bearing on your games.

Smooth peanut butter. Crunchy peanut butter. There's a market for both.

Being mad that they started also making smooth when you were perfectly fine with just crunchy is silly.

>Then a bunch of butthurt 40 yo virgins whined and autistically screamed until they were compelled into making 5e which honestly is just a new and improved pile of the same shit.
Nice delusion. 4e was universally derided. But keep on implying

I know that there's apparently a crowd surrounding PbtA stuff that Veeky Forums hates but honestly I've gotten a lot of good mileage out of it with my groups

Prettymuch this. I don't even see what the OP is complaining about. If you're deliberately limiting yourself to only the most dumbed-down mass appeal products mainly, mayyybe.

More generally, I feel like there have been more brilliant innovations in tabletop in the past 10 years than any since the initial '75 - '85ish "oh hey guys look at this thing we discovered" era. Fuckin narrative RPG's? Using a character's plot significance as a quanitifiable resource? That's crazy. Then you've got non-linear systems like Microscope, a whole new wave of diceless systems and alternate resolution mechanics of varying complexity, and minis games and wargames going through a downright renaissance... it's a deep well, user. Just gotta get out there.