D&D General On gatekeeping and the 'live-streaming edition wars'

[generic]

There's only two things I hate in this world. Gatekeepers who are intolerant of other people's playing choices and Paladins.

You said the same thing twice.

 

[Bardic Dave]

This is amazingly and stunningly... completely nonsensical.

Greyhawk. The most "traditional" setting there is... was Gygax's own game. Forgotten Realms... was Greenwood's game. The absolute, most traditional mode of RPG publishing is publishing a setting that has actually been played!

So, Critical Role played it where you could see. With Dragonlance we were able to read books and see the world presented in a fictional form before picking it up and playing in it. So even being given a presentation of a story in the world before playing it is not new!

What, exactly, is non-tradtional here - just that it wasn't a setting the made decades ago?

That's a pretty severe misreading of their post, and needlessly confrontational considering the conciliatory tone of the post to which you are responding.

D&D has built up numerous worlds over its long history. The entire corpus of these previously established worlds is the "tradition" to which the poster is referring. In this context, any new setting is "not traditional", because it isn't part of a previously established setting.

Can the word "tradition" also be used to refer to the mechanism by which settings come into existence, as you are doing? Of course! And looked at through this lens, Wildemounte is indeed a "traditional" setting because it came into being in the same manner as all those other "traditional" settings.

It's pretty clear what the OP meant, so I really don't understand what you're taking issue with. Why you gatekeeping the word tradition, bruh?

 

[prabe]

I don't enjoy watching streamed TRPGs. My inevitable reaction after less than ten minutes is along the lines of "Turn that off. Let's get the books out and play." OTOH, people at all my game tables love the streams, and some of the players wouldn't be playing if not for the streams.

I'd rather see more content that wasn't setting books, but I'd rather see the game do well than meet my admittedly idiosyncratic preferences.

 

[DemoMonkey]

very tentatively puts hand up

Question?

Everyone can be a D&D fan. You don't have to play, or watch a livestream, or cosplay, or buy the books, or any one particular thing to be a fan. It's a big tent and everyone is equally welcome.

But are the fans who don't - and have never - actually played, considered D&D players? Is it ok to make that distinction, or is that also gatekeeping?

This is a genuine question from someone who may be out of touch with the modern consensus.

 

[Umbran]

The answer to your question is both yes, and no. Yes, because a campaign setting made 20, 30 or 40 years ago is obviously "more traditional" than one made a few years ago, because seniority and tradition go hand in hand.

Here's an interesting point - "old" does not mean "traditional". I went to see a movie on X-mas day, once, a decade ago. That does not make it my X-mas tradition. Traditional is the thing I usually do, not the thing I used to do.

I'm not saying we should go back to the old days of millions of splatbooks, I'm just saying that's it's been more than 2 years since the excellent Xanathar's guide.

Honest, and possibly rhetorical question - how many characters have you played in fullness in those two years? How many of the options of Xanathar's Guide have you really explored?

Heck, I haven't even played all of the neat Player's Handbook characters I'd like to try, much less fully explored Xanathars!

Do I need new, for the sake of new? No. I only need new for the sake of using the material. And, by admission... until someone invites me to a game that calls for it, I don't really need new material to use. A friend just started up a game, and literally asked me to play an artificer. I didn't buy the new Eberron to do that - I'm using his, because I only need one class.

Meanwhile, we got 5 cross-promotion products, which I have no reason to buy.

Rick and Morty and Stranger Things are starter sets. Nobody who isn't starting has a real reason to buy them. Meanwhile, crossing with a popular property seems an excellent way to start people.

That leaves Eberron (hardly cross-promotional, is it?), Ravnica, Acquisitions Incorporated, and now Wildemount. All setting books. The fact that they are cross-promotional... isn't relevant. It is a setting book, and you have as much reason to buy it as any other setting book (either lots, or none, depending).

 

[Krachek]

Something similar happened in videogaming for decades. Then, a few years ago, came the Dark Souls series, and the balance started shifting again. It's an interesting parallel.

Over the years the gaming culture have become more and more accessible and universal. Father, children and sometime grandfather play the same games and share the same reference on fantasy movies, tv show and books.
the access to gaming of all sort is more easy, less scary and more cool and shareable experience.
So dnd has lost is fringe and elitist status to become a cool and easy game to play.
that is the revolution.

 

[Maggan]

But are the fans who don't - and have never - actually played, considered D&D players?

Well technically I guess not. But then again I don't play with people who don't play the game so I don't really care what they call themselves.

Are you a D&D player if you never played the game? Nah.

But then we could ask if you are a D&D player if your last session playing D&D was a year ago? Two years ago? Thirty years ago?

I dunno. What is the risk we're running with people calling themselves "D&D players" even if they've never played the game?

 

[TwoSix]

But are the fans who don't - and have never - actually played, considered D&D players? Is it ok to make that distinction, or is that also gatekeeping?

This is a genuine question from someone who may be out of touch with the modern consensus.

I'm not going to claim be an expert here, but I would argue it's a gatekeeping distinction if and only if it's being used to invalidate someone else's opinion.

If you say "I'm a big D&D player, I love watching Critical Role" then that's probably poor phrasing.

If you say "You're not a real D&D player, you only watch that streaming show", then you're gatekeeping.

It's not really about the word, it's about your intent in using the word.

 

[Morrus]

very tentatively puts hand up

Question?

Everyone can be a D&D fan. You don't have to play, or watch a livestream, or cosplay, or buy the books, or any one particular thing to be a fan. It's a big tent and everyone is equally welcome.

But are the fans who don't - and have never - actually played, considered D&D players? Is it ok to make that distinction, or is that also gatekeeping?

This is a genuine question from someone who may be out of touch with the modern consensus.

The counter-question is: why do you feel the need to make that distinction? Who does it benefit? Is it vital that this be repeated over and over again, just in case somebody didn't realise it? As I said, "technically correct: the very best kind of correct." It's the thin edge of "you're not a true fan", and has no benefit that I can discern.

 

[Fenris-77]

There's a big difference between calling yourself a "D&D player" and a "D&D fan". The OP specifically references 'fan' not 'player'. Someone who says they are a big player of D&D when they haven't even played is being disingenuous.