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General Tabletop Discussion
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Does D&D Have an Identity Crisis?
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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9108930" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>The issue is, contrary to this, that 5E is actually pushing in a particular direction - and it's a very G/PG-rated one.</p><p></p><p>Obviously you can be too all-over-the-place, TSR were - 2E was by far the largest church D&D has ever had, and ultimately the weight of putting out a million different things in different directions helped sink TSR (albeit Dragon Dice really got 'em).</p><p></p><p>But 3E represented a pretty broad church, and whilst 4E didn't mechanically, tonally it was certainly a lot broader than what seems to be happening now. Early 5E also wasn't particularly narrow, but as D&D has become this mega-hit, corporate have become interested, and as corporate often does, they've seemingly decreed that the large possible <em>single</em> audience be targeted, and corporate believes that's the G/PG-oriented one, which includes both kids and adults.</p><p></p><p>My issue is, I'm not sure they're right, and even if they are, I think it's a short-term plan, which will make a lot of kids grow up enjoying D&D, only to not the find kind of support edgier, more thoughtful or simply just darker stuff as they hit teens and twenties, and will thus see D&D as a "game for kids", and what's sad is, D&D is so dominant, they probably won't go to other RPGs, they'll probably just stop playing RPGs.</p><p></p><p>This isn't a doom for D&D in the longer arc of history of course. I suspect if this does happen there will be an EDGY AS HELL 7th or 8th edition in like 10-20 years.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 9108930, member: 18"] The issue is, contrary to this, that 5E is actually pushing in a particular direction - and it's a very G/PG-rated one. Obviously you can be too all-over-the-place, TSR were - 2E was by far the largest church D&D has ever had, and ultimately the weight of putting out a million different things in different directions helped sink TSR (albeit Dragon Dice really got 'em). But 3E represented a pretty broad church, and whilst 4E didn't mechanically, tonally it was certainly a lot broader than what seems to be happening now. Early 5E also wasn't particularly narrow, but as D&D has become this mega-hit, corporate have become interested, and as corporate often does, they've seemingly decreed that the large possible [I]single[/I] audience be targeted, and corporate believes that's the G/PG-oriented one, which includes both kids and adults. My issue is, I'm not sure they're right, and even if they are, I think it's a short-term plan, which will make a lot of kids grow up enjoying D&D, only to not the find kind of support edgier, more thoughtful or simply just darker stuff as they hit teens and twenties, and will thus see D&D as a "game for kids", and what's sad is, D&D is so dominant, they probably won't go to other RPGs, they'll probably just stop playing RPGs. This isn't a doom for D&D in the longer arc of history of course. I suspect if this does happen there will be an EDGY AS HELL 7th or 8th edition in like 10-20 years. [/QUOTE]
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