tail wags dog: streamers want to say 'aaargh' so we are getting a pirate adventure

[Mistwell]

I am the OP's friend with the theory!

Context:
I own every published physical 5th edition product so far and l have them all on Beyond. I have played in or run every AP so far and am currently DMing DotMM (Level 14), run a 9 table Adventurers League night, co-host a D&D (not actual play) podcast and spend countless €€€€ on out of print and third party products every month. I am as hardcore a fan as it gets really!

What streamers represent is a rarified version of a playstyle that Wizards are trying to cater for. Witness the Season 8 AL modules, particulary Once in Waterdeep and the first two Tier 1 trilogies. They explicity push a type of slapstick, extra playstyle. The OP, I guess, is saying that this drive to cater for heavy RP doesn't suit everyone and is part of a move to cater to a wider audience. And again, while that particular playstyle isn't for me, if it means continued health and expansion of the game I will suffer the move to cater for it.


Any time you tell someone that they are playing the wrong game, even with your preface of 'I don't want to be a jerk but' I think you need to have a bit of a look at yourself.

The most recent big publication is a mega dungeon.

They're not catering to one type. They just put out stuff for all types. It has nothing to do with critical role. Some people have always (since the 1970s) emphasized RP over combat, and some have always emphasized combat over RP, and some have emphasized exploration to differing degrees as well, and none of this sources back to streaming stuff. I can point you to similar materials which were published before there was any streaming.

 

[Satyrn]

So, WotC is making stuff to cater to the people who play the game: oh, dear...?

I only saw the trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody, but it sure looked like Mike Myers was portrayed as a villainous record exec who dared to encourage Queen to make music that catered to radio listeners

The fabled story of 2112 has Rush ignoring their record execs' encouragement not to repeat the prog catastrophe that was Caress of Steel.

If D&D was a Rock band catering to the masses, they'd be sell outs.


(4e would be Innuendo or Hold Your Fire in these analogies)

 

[Parmandur]

I only saw the trailer for Bohemian Rhapsody, but it sure looked like Mike Myers was portrayed as a villainous record exec who dared to encourage Queen to make music that catered to radio listeners

The fabled story of 2112 has Rush ignoring their record execs' encouragement not to repeat the prog catastrophe that was Caress of Steel.

If D&D was a Rock band catering to the masses, they'd be sell outs.


(4e would be Innuendo or Hold Your Fire in these analogies)

It's a hard balance: but D&D is more Heavy Metal or Punk than Prog Rock. Very populist in style.

 

[Satyrn]

It's a hard balance: but D&D is more Heavy Metal or Punk than Prog Rock. Very populist in style.

I've never heard anyone suggest that Heavy Metal was populist before.

Well, unless you count Zeppelin as Metal, in which case I can't argue that Metal's not more D&D than anything else. I mean, when I first ripped their fourth album onto my computer I titled it The Elvish One for good reason.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't want to call anyone out here, so I'll just say that the OP's assessment does not match my own in any way. (And it smacks of gatekeeping, besides.)

I mean...why would anyone need to "pay a tax" in order to continue to enjoy your Greyhawk homebrew? That's bananas.

 

[Parmandur]

I've never heard anyone suggest that Heavy Metal was populist before.

Well, unless you count Zeppelin as Metal, in which case I can't argue that Metal's not more D&D than anything else. I mean, when I first ripped their fourth album onto my computer I titled it The Elvish One for good reason.

Led Zeppelin is one of the Trinity, man: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are the ur-Metal groups.

If you look at the big Metal guys, you see plenty about how they made music for the fans and for each other, and various populist sentiments. Results: albums full of hit singles (even if Zeppelin resisted albums being cut up).

 

[5ekyu]

Your "friend's" ("asking for a friend") theory is pretty ludicrous on a number of grounds, as people have pointed out, but it's particularly bad, because you haven't defined "Grognard".

I'm 40. I've been DMing D&D for 30 bloody years. I'm pretty sure I'm a "Grognard". I've not got any use for ghastly grindy trap-filled hellhole of a dungeon. I've got tons of use for a cool pirate adventure.

Plus it's ridiculous nonsense because now, in 2019, you have a ton of fairly-recently-produced, high-quality, old-school material across a number of D&D-likes (and D&D5E itself). The situation is far better now than it was in say, 1996 or 1998 or 2004 or whenever.

First, young-un, I gots me a decade and a half on you and almost a decade on GMing on you, so let me say "yup".

But I dont care who grognard is or aint, whipper-snapper, cuz the OP point was made clear when we saw the Nein's Waterdeep Heist to steal the macguffin to make the Ebberon trek to free Kiri from the Pokemon and escaped on the gnomish illuminati black gyrocopter.

 

[Immortal Sun]

Any time you tell someone that they are playing the wrong game, even with your preface of 'I don't want to be a jerk but' I think you need to have a bit of a look at yourself.

Pot, meet kettle.

 

[Charlaquin]

Any time you tell someone that they are playing the wrong game, even with your preface of 'I don't want to be a jerk but' I think you need to have a bit of a look at yourself.

Pot, meet kettle.

I know you are, but what am I?

 

[Umbran]

Your "friend's" ("asking for a friend") theory is pretty ludicrous on a number of grounds, as people have pointed out, but it's particularly bad, because you haven't defined "Grognard".

I'm 40. I've been DMing D&D for 30 bloody years. I'm pretty sure I'm a "Grognard".

In its original use in the RPG set, no, not really. It isn't just about how long you've been gaming (and, you're about a decade short, there, to qualify), but also about where you came from before that. The truest grognards are the ones who came at D&D like Gygax - from wargaming, back in the days of Basic and early 1e. And it is also about attitude. If you're not grumbling* about all the newfangled stuff in 2E, you're not a grognard.

But, you know, language weakens, generalizes, and loses meaning over time. Call yourself what you want.




*Grognard even more originally comes from the Napoleonic wars - "grognard" means "grumbler", and they were the soldiers who were in Napoleon's first Imperial Guard, and were in the final charge at Waterloo.