D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[doctorbadwolf]

Riight. People feel unwelcome and/or unsafe because they're emotionally frail.

You dont, at all, understand other people's experiences. That is a problem with you, not with them.

 

[Jester David]

Or, that I'm not emotionally frail. I'm willing to challenge 'conventional perceptions' and push through my own feelings of discomfort to get what I want, and wasn't raised expecting others to bow down to my me.

Okay.
So you're not emotional frail. You're okay being uncomfortable and unsafe. And you don't want people to do anything to make you feel accepted.
Fine.
But is it wrong that other people don't feel the same? That other people don't like feeling unsafe? That they might be more willing to frequent a store they feel welcome and engage in a hobey that accepts them?

 

[seebs]

I'd say someone who is addicted to feeling angry is a troll pretty much by definition. Certainly anyone who enjoys starting arguments simply for the rush of starting the argument is well into troll country.

I wouldn't say so. If they're sincere, they're not trolling, even if they're being really disruptive. Trolling has to be about other people's reactions, not about your own.

I think people vastly underestimate just how difficult it is when you do not feel welcome anywhere. Even when it's entirely unintentional.

I would definitely agree.

Again, I'm not trying to say that there is an equivalency here. Obviously. My first world problem is nowhere near the level of some poor schmuck getting assaulted in a bar. And, in my case, there is absolutely no malice to ascribe. They aren't carrying my size because it wouldn't make any sense to cater to me. Fair enough. But, you cannot imagine how relieving it is to actually find that one place where my size isn't a huge disadvantage. So, yeah, I can imagine and empathise just how important that one paragraph in the PHB is to people. How important it is that you get images in the books that isn't just hulking white dudes and skinny white chicks in chainmail bikinis.

It matters. It's important. If we actually care about being as welcoming into the hobby as we like to think we are, it HAS to matter.

Yup.

 

[seebs]

Riight. People feel unwelcome and/or unsafe because they're emotionally frail.

"Frail" is a relative term.

It's unreasonably hard to offend me. I can identify the occasions on which it's happened. There's been maybe three in the last five years. Hurting my feelings is significantly harder. And I absolutely would agree that, in general, people who are distressed by feeling unwelcome are "emotionally frail" compared to me. So are people who feel bad if they get gory and explicit death threats sent to them for things they've said. So are people who would feel bad about themselves if they accidentally hurt someone. Yup, all "frail" from here.

But I also realize that this is something in excess of 99% of the human species, and that probably companies and societies ought to cater to those people a bit, because there's a lot of them.

And I also realize that the people who have all those vulnerabilities, and push on anyway, are in some ways a heck of a lot stronger than I am, and I admire the heck out of them. I doubt I could do that.

 

[seebs]

Pointing out that the move from "he or she" in 1st ed AD&D to exclusively "he" in 2nd ed AD&D makes the book speak more to men than to women, likewise seems pretty obviousl.

I'm surprised that either is remotely controversial.

The second would have seemed controversial to me not that long ago. I grew up with, roughly, two words both spelled "he" in my lexicon, and one was gendered and the other was gender-neutral. But over time I became convinced that this wasn't really how the language worked. (I think the one that really convinced me was Hofstadter's Person Paper on Purity in Language, which does an incredible job of showing the linguistic issues.)

 

[doctorbadwolf]

"Frail" is a relative term.

It's unreasonably hard to offend me. I can identify the occasions on which it's happened. There's been maybe three in the last five years. Hurting my feelings is significantly harder. And I absolutely would agree that, in general, people who are distressed by feeling unwelcome are "emotionally frail" compared to me. So are people who feel bad if they get gory and explicit death threats sent to them for things they've said. So are people who would feel bad about themselves if they accidentally hurt someone. Yup, all "frail" from here.

But I also realize that this is something in excess of 99% of the human species, and that probably companies and societies ought to cater to those people a bit, because there's a lot of them.

And I also realize that the people who have all those vulnerabilities, and push on anyway, are in some ways a heck of a lot stronger than I am, and I admire the heck out of them. I doubt I could do that.

You don't think that maybe frail is the wrong word, when it has such a strong connotation of meaning less sturdy than the norm/baseline?

Also, it is only sometimes about sensitivity, in the sense of being "thin skinned". IME, it's much more often about emotions like anger/indignation, or about protecting others, or about a simple belief that spaces belong to the people who belong there, and that it isn't ok to force oneself into them.

There is nothing frail about having an ethical stance and sticking to it, or standing up for others, or responding assertively to being mistreated. Those are what is usually happening when someone calls out a space or person for excluding people, or point out and detail ways in which they, and other members of a group, are being mistreated on a large and broad scale.

It's not about people's oversensitive feelings being hurt. It's about not being silent in the face of something that is wrong, especially when that thing is the status quo. Because indifference and silence always, always, favor the status quo.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

This twitter thread explains why the gender paragraph matters, and why representation matter, and why purposeful inclusion matters.

Its rough, because it's a response to the news that a trans kid killed himself after the nurses caring for him refused to stop referring to him as a girl, while he was on suicide watch...because being a teenager sucks enough, and being a trans teen sucks a lot more. The language isn't safe for work, fair warning.

https://twitter.com/magsvisaggs/status/783864318253273088

 

[Parmandur]

I think these are some of the major factors in prolonged sales of 5e on Amazon, in no particular order. It's not an exhaustive list, but I think these were all material factors in success:



1) Involving a lot of "Bellwether" people during pre-production as consultants. These people, who may not themselves be designers, are opinion leaders for a meaningful subset of players/buyers of RPG games, and getting their buy-in early on led to large followings from groups that had previously been paying less or no attention to a new edition of D&D;



2) An extensive closed, and then even more extensive open playtest of the rules, gave an even larger segment of people a sense of buy-in to the edition during production;



3) A large scale marketing effort (including solicited reviews) at key online magazine-like sources with high levels of readership by people who tend to buy games caused some viral marketing to spread through social media and create a lot more awareness of the upcoming game;



4) Outreach and ongoing communication with various celebrities and television shows increased acceptance of D&D and brand recognition as a "key" nerd product in an era of nerd products being highly popular;



5) Increased focus on retail store benefits caused those retails stores to feel more connected to the product line and more willing to carry it and support it;



6) Increased focus on in-store playing of the game increased word of mouth on the game and actual play experience with it;



7) Making 5e "feel" more in-line with old-school play got the attention of players who had lapsed from the game;



8) Making 5e a solid, fairly good and flexible game attracted more players/buyers;



9) A significantly reduced release schedule decreased the sense that there was a "wall of books" entry barrier to the game, and focused much more press and player attention on each new product for longer periods of time to build anticipation rather than spreading attention out over many products;



10) Releasing a solid starter set at a relatively low price carried in big box stores attracted more people to try the game out for the first time.

In the interests of steering back on topic, it seems that the discussion raging falls entirely under point 1 of [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] analysis here: WotC got some feedback, put a couple innocuous paragraphs in that don't force a particular viewpoint but verify our make believe Elf Wizards can be girls, boys or whatever we deel like may have had some effect. But not so much as to be pushing an agenda; kudos to WotC for walking the line, this is a decent example of how they handled the edition in general.

 

[Mistwell]

In the interests of steering back on topic, it seems that the discussion raging falls entirely under point 1 of [MENTION=2525]Mistwell[/MENTION] analysis here: WotC got some feedback, put a couple innocuous paragraphs in that don't force a particular viewpoint but verify our make believe Elf Wizards can be girls, boys or whatever we deel like may have had some effect. But not so much as to be pushing an agenda; kudos to WotC for walking the line, this is a decent example of how they handled the edition in general.

Though I believe there were more (like on the closed playtest list), this is the initial list of consultants some of whom I think are bellweather types with substantial followings by RPG players. This from Rob Monroe at Charm Monster.

5e D&D Consultants: Who they are and what they've done.
The D&D 5e Basic Rules PDF includes a list of eight consultants whose opinions and expertise on RPGs were valued enough by Wizards of the Coast to get them involved in the development of the newest edition. This list displays a wide range of approaches to the hobby and many different philosophies towards game design. Some are more obscure than others, but each has proven their RPG design chops.

Jeff Grubb - An RPG veteran, his credits includes Marvel Super Heroes (FASERIP), Spelljammer and The Manual of the Planes. He's also an accomplished author of novels, short fiction and comic books.

Kenneth Hite - The RPG hobby's high priest of horror and the occult. His many writing credits include Nephilim, GURPS, Vampire: The Dark Ages, and Trail of Cthulhu.

Kevin Kulp - A game designer whose newest project is TimeWatch, an investigative time travel RPG using the GUMSHOE system.

Robin Laws - A game designer and novelist who has had a hand in developing some of the most innovative games on the market. He has designed games such as Feng Shui, Hillfolk, Over The Edge, and many of the games using the GUMSHOE system.

S. John Ross - The designer of Risus and Uresia: Grave of Heaven, among many other games. One of those games is the Pokethulhu Adventure Game, which is probably the greatest accomplishment on this list.

RPGPundit - The designer of Arrows of Indra, Lords of Olympus and the Dark Albion fantasy setting. He created the theRPGsite.com forum and regularly blogs with his opinions on RPGs and other subjects.

Vincent Venturella - Founder of Venture Land Games and the creator of the Narrative Game System.

Zak S. - A vocal proponent of DIY D&D. He is the author of Vornheim, a sourcebook for running urban crawls and building cities. His forthcoming A Red and Pleasant Land is his take on adventuring in Wonderland. He actively blogs at Playing D&D With Pornstars.

I have no idea if any of these folks spoke directly to the various topics we've been discussing, but I suppose it's noteworthy to mention RPGPundit's "Arrows of Indra" game was (as far as I know) the first RPG game cover to feature a transgendered person on the cover.

 

[evileeyore]

How important it is that you get images in the books that isn't just hulking white dudes and skinny white chicks in chainmail bikinis.

Totes important. But not for some ever moving goal post of inclusivity, but because those 'old school' images are boring (or just glaringly wrong, which is what I despise).

But is it wrong that other people don't feel the same? That other people don't like feeling unsafe? That they might be more willing to frequent a store they feel welcome and engage in a hobey that accepts them?

Nope, not wrong. Wrong to expect others to change for them though.

Don't like the way your FLGS treats you or others? Start your own store, or find and support one that one that acts in a manner you approve of.

You know, that thing that's been going on forever.

"Frail" is a relative term.

Yup.

But I also realize that this is something in excess of 99% of the human species, and that probably companies and societies ought to cater to those people a bit, because there's a lot of them.

Nope. They're just louder than the rest. And a large majority don't care to push back, because either push-back would be inappropriate (frequently) or because it's not in an area that directly affects them (more frequently).

I know you've heard ye olde "They came for X's and I did not speak, they came for the Y's and I did not speak, they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me"?