Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons | Hacker News Reader

Fifty Years of Dungeons and Dragons

lichvanwinkle.blogspot.com

17 pointsCharlesW10 comments

To me, D&D is the foundation of modern gaming. It has every aspect of history of gaming and the Human Condition wrapped within it.

Its a perfect hologram of our psyche. Chance, Skills, Identity, Idiology, Politics, Morality, Corruption, Evil, Good... all the sins and mythos and imaginations...

Its wonderful - and the world would not be the same without it and all its ilk.

I do wonder what Japanese equivalent may have predated or emerged in parallel? Or was their idea of a character sheet, skills etc already? Clearly their mythos was deep with spirits and magic etc (all cultures really) - just seeing if specifically they had incorporated this into games already?

> I do wonder what Japanese equivalent may have predated or emerged in parallel?

The combination of D&D and western RPGs with Japanese games/comics/animation has been amazingly fruitful.

I believe most of the familiar tropes (character sheets, experience points and leveling up, hit points, classic party composition, etc.) were originally imported from D&D, possibly with a parallel path through early PC RPGs and adventure games. Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy both had levels and HP (and I believe those games were influenced by Wizardry and Ultima, in turn also influenced by D&D.)

One thing I don't know is how popular D&D and other TTRPGs have been in Japan.

MUDs were definitely influenced by D&D (as well as early CRPGs and adventure games) and evolved into MMOs.

have been playing D&D since edition 2. i did try first edition with a few friends, and it was OK but a bit cumbersome compared to edition 2 which I played the most. i totally skipped editions 3 and 4. and i recently bought edition 5. and i really, really love it. i bought those before they started their woke bullshit about orcs (they see racism where there is NONE and want to show signals they are woke - fuck WoC). i bought the first edition printed of those 5th edition rules, and their PDFs. and seeing how WoC is going woke, thus broke soon, i don't care anymore about future editions. i will keep 5th and never move from it, and watch WoC burn and die from their woke stance.

All other opinions aside I object to the label "woke" applied to WotC, this term is thrown around without regard and it seems it's come to mean nothing at all.

WotC employed Pinkertons to confiscate cards from a person, they are not "woke" to anyone who earnestly uses that word.

I expect your comment to be deleted anyway, since it seems to me like an off-topic soap box on a non-issue, but still feel that you should get a reply before that happens.

So I ask you this: Do you really expect WotC to burn because their new stance is: "orcs and drow are just as morally and culturally complex as other peoples."? This seems a bit extreme, does it not?

Maybe because I'm coming from the dark eye, "the German DnD", which has always been a bit different for historical reasons, but I'm not sure why you are so offended. I'm genuinely curious in your viewpoint here, since it is so foreign to me.

D&D is an extensive and beloved cultural tradition, and WotC is trying to engineer changes to it. What if the publishers of The Lord of the Rings started selling a version that had been revised for political correctness. Tolkien fans would be upset. If that reaction would be confusing to you, I don't think any explanation could bridge the difference in perspective.

> D&D is an extensive and beloved cultural tradition, and WotC is trying to engineer changes to it

I am sure many Tolkien purists do hate Peter Jackson and/or Amazon.

Personally I'm kind of happy whenever we get to visit Middle Earth.

Why keep using 5th edition rather than 2nd edition?

I'm so glad that in 2024 everyone knows how fun D&D is. ;-)

I've been playing since 2nd edition. Friends and I from decades ago still tell stories about our adventures back in the day.

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