When was the "Lost Endgame" Lost? (1 Viewer)

[[Redacted Account]]

In the "what's so great about Basic D&D" thread, Old Geezer mentioned mourning the lost endgame of D&D where all the PCs (who survived that long) would settle down and become lords and ladies of their own strongholds/hideouts/temples and the game would shift to empire building and politicking. I'm currently trying to figure out when exactly that endgame got lost, because that thread caused me to go back and look at all my old (A)D&D books, and what I discovered was that the (2)Expert Rules booklet (Cook & Marsh, 1981) discusses stronghold/castle (and thieves' hideouts and magic-users' towers) building as an endgame, and even how to go about doing it (X7,X8,X52). It was also present in AD&D and AD&D 2nd Edition's rules when I checked them. Did 3rd Edition kill it? My D&D 3.0/3.5 stuff isn't complete by any stretch of the imagination because I had moved on to other systems by that point, so I don't know for sure.

So I guess the question is, does the "Settle down and rule from your own patch" end game die in 3rd edition D&D, or is it simply that those rules get ignored by play groups because it doesn't fit their ideas of what D&D should be?

 

[simontmn]

It was pretty much killed in 3e, relegated to some notes on 'Followers' in the optional Leadership feat in the DMG. Every iteration pre 3e assumed high level PCs would engage in rulership type activities, and had stuff in the core rules about doing so. 3e did not, and did not really support this play style in the core books. 3e had more of a '20 levels of dungeon-bashing' vibe, which 4e extends to 30 levels.

 

[JoshR]

My feeling is that 2nd Edition was the start of the decline, for 2 reasons. One was the loss of "Name Level". The rules are in there, but they're not as emphasized, and without the titles and Name Level, reaching the end game became obscured. The other reason was the proliferation of campaign settings. There might not be a good, logical reason for it, but it seems published campaign settings seem to de-emphasize the end game as it's suggested in the core rules. To the point that a special campaign setting, Birthright, was created just to cover that end game.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

3E was where the concept was dropped from the rules, but(and correct me if I'm wrong here) those rules had fallen into disuse long before then, I'd be more interested in determining when that happened.

 

[KingDobbs]

As far as I'm concerned it was never lost, it just fell out of favor as the default mode of play.

 

[ESkemp]

3E was where the concept was dropped from the rules, but(and correct me if I'm wrong here) those rules had fallen into disuse long before then, I'd be more interested in determining when that happened.

That part really depends on the group, and on the groups that their members would later initiate into gaming and influence. I remember 2nd edition groups where it was still a grand ambition, and 1e groups where it was deemed too boring to bother with.

I think it went out in the rules through the "Back to the dungeon!" push of 3e as a way to try fighting the fragmentation of the customer base. Same as cutting back on all the settings, really: the goal feels as though it was to get players under a more unified model of play, dungeoneering until the campaign ends instead of sitting back and relaxing once the XP gaps between levels are so large you don't really want to bother with chasing 9th-level spells and would rather play at politics instead. I would say the loss of an "endgame" (or "stronghold phase" as we called it locally) was inextricably tied to "back to the dungeon" and a more aggressive leveling system designed to get people to 20 within two years. Of course, I'm just an observer; an insider could probably confirm or verify.

 

[RobertEdwards]

This may be a little trite, but I think it was just that more people wanted to play the Roundtable than King Arthur.

It's easy to progress from playing a vagabond band of tomb robbing murder hobos to an elite team of Demon ass kicking, Devil smiting scourges of E-VILE in D&D.The difference is a matter of scale.

Settling down and running things takes a whole different set of skills and attitudes.

 

[simontmn]

My feeling is that 2nd Edition was the start of the decline, for 2 reasons. One was the loss of "Name Level". The rules are in there, but they're not as emphasized, and without the titles and Name Level, reaching the end game became obscured. The other reason was the proliferation of campaign settings. There might not be a good, logical reason for it, but it seems published campaign settings seem to de-emphasize the end game as it's suggested in the core rules. To the point that a special campaign setting, Birthright, was created just to cover that end game.

I think you're right that it was a fading concept in 2e. 2e seemed to see AD&D as more about a 'story' in the high fantasy trilogy style, less 'by this axe I rule!' swords & sorcery.

 

[simontmn]

[ I would say the loss of an "endgame" (or "stronghold phase" as we called it locally) was inextricably tied to "back to the dungeon" and a more aggressive leveling system designed to get people to 20 within two years.

That was definitely my impression also. In my first big 3e campaign, becoming rulers was what PCs did when they retired at high-teen level, it was no longer the core focus of extended play it had been in 1e, where PCs would often spend more real-time as a rulers than as wanderers. I think my experience was pretty common.

 

[(un)reason]

Went out of fashion in 1993, was killed off for good in 2000. Having gone through that period month by month, I can pretty clearly pinpoint where the company stopped catering to high level play in both basic and advanced D&D, keeping all of their adventures low/mid level and ignoring the domain aspects, before ending the regular D&D line as anything more than a basic set altogether until 3e merged the streams again.