> The actual adventure was mostly determined by the setting (often premade)
Hmm. I disagree. Greyhawk and Blackmoor were published fairly early in D&D's history, but the majority of games falling into premade settings didn't really take off until Dragonlance and then the Forgotten Realms in the mid to late 80s.
It's true that DM responsibilities have changed over time - in a way that I am not particularly a fan of - but I think it's the farthest thing from the truth to suggest that DMs weren't supposed to do worldbuilding in the days of OD&D and AD&D 1E/BECMI. If anything, they had to do more - the DM's job was to create a believable living world for the players to exist in. There were very few published "campaigns" back in those days - Dragonlance is really what changed all of this - so most modules were locales you could more or less plop down wherever. Keep on the Borderlands just needed to be in a borderland, the Caverns of Thracia could be anywhere, etc.
Players being fully in control of what their goals were and where the narrative was to head meant that the GM had to build a convincing and interesting world for the players to adventure around. It was quite rare for there to be something akin to a "big bad evil guy" in the early days of D&D, or even for there to be some overarching plot to drive the whole campaign.
> In modern D&D, by contrast, the DM is often expected to do worldbuilding, write adventures, and do NPC voices.
I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority of D&D played these days happens with the published modules. There's a lot more people playing so I'm sure the absolute number of people writing their own adventures is higher than ever, but I would be willing to wager that the ratio of people running almost exclusively published modules and campaigns vs. their self-written adventures has shifted in the opposite direction.
Hmm. I disagree. Greyhawk and Blackmoor were published fairly early in D&D's history, but the majority of games falling into premade settings didn't really take off until Dragonlance and then the Forgotten Realms in the mid to late 80s.
It's true that DM responsibilities have changed over time - in a way that I am not particularly a fan of - but I think it's the farthest thing from the truth to suggest that DMs weren't supposed to do worldbuilding in the days of OD&D and AD&D 1E/BECMI. If anything, they had to do more - the DM's job was to create a believable living world for the players to exist in. There were very few published "campaigns" back in those days - Dragonlance is really what changed all of this - so most modules were locales you could more or less plop down wherever. Keep on the Borderlands just needed to be in a borderland, the Caverns of Thracia could be anywhere, etc.
Players being fully in control of what their goals were and where the narrative was to head meant that the GM had to build a convincing and interesting world for the players to adventure around. It was quite rare for there to be something akin to a "big bad evil guy" in the early days of D&D, or even for there to be some overarching plot to drive the whole campaign.
> In modern D&D, by contrast, the DM is often expected to do worldbuilding, write adventures, and do NPC voices.
I'm fairly certain the overwhelming majority of D&D played these days happens with the published modules. There's a lot more people playing so I'm sure the absolute number of people writing their own adventures is higher than ever, but I would be willing to wager that the ratio of people running almost exclusively published modules and campaigns vs. their self-written adventures has shifted in the opposite direction.