D&D 5E The Next Generation

[Mallus]

Pern, when I last read, didn't have any magic to speak of, and was a more sci-fi setting that happened to include lizards they'd biologically trifled with to create a sort of dragon.

Glancing at AD&D's list of inspirational further-reading material, ie Appendix N:, you find quite a lot of science fiction (Anderson's The High Crusade, which mixes knights and alien spaceships, Farmer's World of Tiers, which also starts in the present-day world, Lanier's post-apocalyptic Hiero's Journey), science fantasy (Vance's Dying Earth, Burrough's planetary romances), and the works of Lovecraft (which are then-contemporary horror).

These were some of the things *Gary* thought belonged in D&D, at least in spirit.

 

[mudbunny]

At the risk of repeating myself - DO not allow keeping in touch with the past to blind oneself to the good influences of the present.

 

[Morrus]

At the risk of repeating myself - DO not allow keeping in touch with the past to blind oneself to the good influences of the present.

Or vice versa. "You old people: go away" gets one response:

"No."

 

[Incenjucar]

Harry Potter and Dresden are both set in modern times, and don't really have a place in a more fantastical past setting of D&D. Pern, when I last read, didn't have any magic to speak of, and was a more sci-fi setting that happened to include lizards they'd biologically trifled with to create a sort of dragon.

Harry Potter doesn't have anything that can't be replicated in a non-modern setting. Just change the magic cars into magic coaches and you're done.

Dresden is a magical investigator in a low-magic setting. Easy as pie to port to D&D.

The dragons of Pern had psionics, including teleportation, so yeah, they were wizard lizards.

As an older person, with lots and lots of disposable income, catering to the anime-WoW-Harry Potter crowd would be the surest way to not see a dime of my money.

For anyone who was baffled by the OP, this is exactly the attitude it is reacting to.

 

[Mallus]

Hey, old people.

Hello, GnomeWorks! (heh, I'm only 43)

I want a game that can give me things like what I've seen in the Redwall series, in Last Airbender, in anime like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. We've got to be able to follow the style of things like Harry Potter, because that is today's fiction, today's stories, the things my generation is familiar with.

Let me start by saying I agree with your basic point (once you strip out the hyperbole and provocation ): D&D would benefit from more recent influences.

I'm intrigued by your use of Cowboy Bebop as an example. Personally, I love it, consider it a masterpiece. I'd be fine with it informing the next D&D.

However, it's a work that never would have been made if it's creators took your advice about ignoring the "irrelevant" stories/art from the past.

Because Bebop is made out of them. Lots of them. And in it they're made new and "relevant" --note: I dislike that word in the this context, but whatevs.

How relevant were Westerns to you, prior to Cowboy Bebop? Or film noir? Or neo-noir? Or French New Wave cinema? Hong Kong Triad movies from the 1970s? Or any of the other references/tropes/stock characters/plots that Cowboy Bebop is fashioned out of?

Take Spike Spiegel. He's based on a previous anime character from the 1960s, Lupin the 3rd (if Lupin was also part Bruce Lee, and was drawn by John Woo and Jean-Luc Godard working together). Bebop may well be a "genre unto itself", but it relies on and refashions decades worth of previous works.

Speaking of Lupin... it's the 40th anniversary of the character. We've seen multiple series, multiple feature films, including Hayao Miyazaki's debut . One of the most acclaimed anime this season is, Lupin the 3rd: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. Still going strong.

And that's 40+ years of Lupin as anime. The character traces his roots back to Maurice LeBlanc's crime/detective stories first published in 1907 (Lupin III is the original's half-Japanese grandson). I wonder how relevant LeBlanc's stories were in 1960s Japan, at the time Monkey Punch found inspiration in them?

Have I belabored this point enough?

 

[mudbunny]

Or vice versa. "You old people: go away" gets one response:

"No."

I am not ascribing to abandon the past. If my posts came off that way I apologize for writing unclear. Keep the influences of the past as they are part of what made D&D what it is. But do not be afraid to allow modern culture to influence and guide the direction of Next as well.

 

[Incenjucar]

I am not ascribing to abandon the past. If my posts came off that way I apologize for writing unclear. Keep the influences of the past as they are part of what made D&D what it is. But do not be afraid to allow modern culture to influence and guide the direction of Next as well.

It's like a tree. The roots form a vital foundation, but it needs to grow more and more if it's to avoid suffocating under the canopy of its rivals.

 

[Morrus]

I am not ascribing to abandon the past. If my posts came off that way I apologize for writing unclear. Keep the influences of the past as they are part of what made D&D what it is. But do not be afraid to allow modern culture to influence and guide the direction of Next as well.

It was more a response to the OP prompted by your post than a response to your post directly.

The OP literally said (in those words) "Old people: go away".

Ironically, he was only able to post that here on EN World because one of the people he thinks should go away hasn't.

 

[Janaxstrus]

Harry Potter doesn't have anything that can't be replicated in a non-modern setting. Just change the magic cars into magic coaches and you're done.

Dresden is a magical investigator in a low-magic setting. Easy as pie to port to D&D.

The dragons of Pern had psionics, including teleportation, so yeah, they were wizard lizards.



For anyone who was baffled by the OP, this is exactly the attitude it is reacting to.

I think I freely admitted to being a grognard who doesn't want D&D to change to the latest fads.

I will freely admit to holding them hostage with my money.
If they want my money, they'll make a game I like. If they make a game full of oversized swords, WoW-style aggro, Psionic Dragon lizards from other worlds who've been genetically altered, tentacles, school girl ninjas, Sailor Moon, crochety detecives with .38s in Chicago or "wizards" who mainly run around holding their wands and getting into shenanigans with bad puns, I won't buy it.

If I went into a Warhammer 40K forum and told them they either needed to make a Harry Potter army and get with the times, and all you old people buying all those armies should sit down, shut up and like it or get out, what do you think my reception would be like?

"Yah, I know you've supported this game for 20+ years, and spent thousands and thousands of dollars, but you need to get with the times, or get out so I can pretend to be Pokemon in core"

No thanks, I think I'll stay and work to keep D&D like D&D.

 

[Mallus]

No thanks, I think I'll stay and work to keep D&D like D&D.

That's cool.

I'm going to do the same thing. Except I much prefer to keep to the spirit rather than the letter. Which means I'm going to "keep D&D like D&D" by mixing in whatever I think is cool at the time: new, old, incompatible, ill-advised, batsh*t insane, whatever.