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

Inchoroi said:

I'm not even mad. My players begged me to run a pirate campaign, so this plays right into it.

Click to expand...

BMaC said:

A friend of mine has an interesting theory. Streamers such as Critical Role and the like are a tax that grognards like me pay. The play style of streamers is unrepresentative but for whatever inscrutable reason they attract younger players to the game. The grognard gets the benefits a large market brings: notability the presence of flourishing third party publishers (Kobold Press and Goodman Games ftw); access to a larger player base; continued expansion of the D&D IP and corporate support for the franchise. The theory continues: classic dungeon crawls and their ilk are of no use to streamers: they are heavy on encounters which streaming is not and it is harder to work in the one-liners and 'humorous' one-upmanship which is the streamer's bread and butter. To conclude, we are getting a pirate adventure because streamers want to say 'aaargh.' Grognards like me are free to ignore the pirate adventure just as we ignore the streamers, but this means we are ignoring a huge portion of the official release schedule. This is why the book can be though of as a tax: we 'pay' it so we can continue to enjoy our Greyhawk homebrew, the one crunch book per year, and outstanding 3rd party 5e products.

Click to expand...

BMaC said:

A friend of mine has an interesting theory. Streamers such as Critical Role and the like are a tax that grognards like me pay. The play style of streamers is unrepresentative but for whatever inscrutable reason they attract younger players to the game. The grognard gets the benefits a large market brings: notability the presence of flourishing third party publishers (Kobold Press and Goodman Games ftw); access to a larger player base; continued expansion of the D&D IP and corporate support for the franchise. The theory continues: classic dungeon crawls and their ilk are of no use to streamers: they are heavy on encounters which streaming is not and it is harder to work in the one-liners and 'humorous' one-upmanship which is the streamer's bread and butter. To conclude, we are getting a pirate adventure because streamers want to say 'aaargh.' Grognards like me are free to ignore the pirate adventure just as we ignore the streamers, but this means we are ignoring a huge portion of the official release schedule. This is why the book can be though of as a tax: we 'pay' it so we can continue to enjoy our Greyhawk homebrew, the one crunch book per year, and outstanding 3rd party 5e products.

Click to expand...

pogre said:

Disagree. D&D has often taken directions without regard to customer desire. Your statement is demonstrably untrue.

Click to expand...

Mistwell said:

Waaaa?

X1-The Isle of Dread. 1981. The adventure which came with Expert edition. Very popular. The characters find a fragment from a ship's log, describing a mysterious island on which many treasures can be found, and set out to explore it. Ring a bell?

Click to expand...

Immortal Sun said:

I mean, hasn't everyone wanted to do a pirate campaign? It's always been on my top 5.

Click to expand...

ccs said:

So let me get this straight.... When the pirate adventure (or whatever it turns out to be) is released you're going to spend your $ on it - even if you don't want it - just to participate in the release schedule?

I'm sorry, but that just means your stupid.

Click to expand...

Mercurius said:

Let's see, who should have a larger say in determining the direction of the game?

Streamers who are a major component in the unprecedented popularity of D&D, at least since the early 80s; or,

Grognards who aren't happy with anything unless the game is dialed back to the early 80s (if not 70s).

Hmm...

This has nothing to do with what I personally want to see published or what type of game I like to play (which is rather diverse, but aside from the issue). Let's step back from our own hopes and dreams for a minute, and understand and accept that WotC is doing a great job right now. The proof is in the pudding, after all.

Stop asking WotC to fulfill your hopes and dreams, especially when you know they are idiosyncratic and/or quite divergent from the current zeitgeist, and instead use your hopes and dreams as fuel for your own games - that's the point after all, no?

Click to expand...