D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Maxperson]

I wouldn’t disagree with that. If we really boil it down, I don’t even really get the need for elves and dwarves and all that. They really never seem all that different from humans.

But my point is that it’s the same with sci fi. We have more in common with the humans in sci-fi, most of the protagonists are human, their culture and society is in some way familiar to ours, if not actually ours.

I can see where they are coming from.

When I read a fantasy book, play an RPG or watch a fantasy show, the vast majority have humans as the large race that's everywhere. The demihumans are less populous and out of the way. Dwarves in their mountains. Elves hidden away in the forest. Halflings in the fields. They may even be dying out, depending on the game/story. The trope is that fantasy is human centric.

When I read sci-fi, play it or watch a sci-fi show, the vast majority of them have humanity branching out into the galaxy and finding that we are just one race among a multitude of others, many having gotten to space first and are way beyond us. As one small race among hundreds or thousands, the trope is not human centric.

You can play a non-human centric fantasy or a human centric sci-fi, but those run against the grain.

 

[Umbran]

I'm just trying to push back against the "newest is best" mentality that I run into all too often here and elsewhere.

I understand that.

This isn't "newest is best because it is new". It is the simple fact that Gygax, et al, were quite visionary, but... they were newbs. We have learned a whole lot about RPGs since their work, and their original game contains none of the learning of the following years. That's not a failing on their part, any more than it is was Henry Ford's fault that he couldn't produce a 21st century automobile, or Newton's that he didn't figure out Relativity.

Nor does this mean their games aren't fun - I got years of enjoyment out of them. But... we do better now.

 

[Anoth]

I am watching more and more sci-fi in space without aliens. Lots of stories about that galaxy being devoid of intelligent life until humans colonize it. Firefly and dune were like that.

 

[Anoth]

I understand that.

This isn't "newest is best because it is new". It is the simple fact that Gygax, et al, were quite visionary, but... they were newbs. We have learned a whole lot about RPGs since their work, and their original game contains none of the learning of the following years. That's not a failing on their part, any more than it is was Henry Ford's fault that he couldn't produce a 21st century automobile, or Newton's that he didn't figure out Relativity.

Nor does this mean their games aren't fun - I got years of enjoyment out of them. But... we do better now.

i really don’t think they have become better mechanically. That’s my opinion anyway. And I have several thousand rpg books in one room of my house alone. I read a lot of them. But that’s my opinion that is mainly based on my rejection of the universal mechanic being a better way to design a rpg. I will also say. I like lots of games. And I think all the editions and systems have good things for everyone to enjoy.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

The distinction between fantasy and science fiction comes down to a combination of how much technobabble the author indulges in and which side of the bed their editor woke up on that morning. Anything else is slavishly adhering to arbitrary conventions that, while useful for creating a shared understanding of the world, can deal with being turned on their heads once in a while. It's all speculative fiction at the end of the day.

 

[Umbran]

And I have several thousand rpg books in one room of my house alone.

Dude, so do we all. Around here, you can't wave a stick around without hitting someone with a library as large, who has been playing since the 1970s. There is no authority to be gained by such a statement.

 

[Anoth]

Dude, so do we all. Around here, you can't wave a stick around without hitting someone with a library as large, who has been playing since the 1970s. There is no authority to be gained by such a statement.

I wasn’t stating an authority. Just what I like and what I do jerk. Notice how I said I think all the games are good in there own way with good things in them. What a jerk. Insert middle finger.

 

[HarbingerX]

While I agree the current edition is a good game, it don't think it's entirely because 'we do RPGs better now' compared to the oldest editions. Because they were early in the design life of RPGs, they had a few clunky areas, but they also were easy to understand and play because they hadn't yet become complex.

Each edition from 1e, 2e, 3e, 3.5e added more and more complexity and sometimes smoothed out the clunky bits. 3e thought it was simpler by going to a 'universal mechanic', but layered so many special cases with feats and abilities as well as rules sub-systems that it was unwieldy. 4e took those lessons and tried to simplify, but scrubbed away a lot of the flavour and really made combat too long with bad math choices.

I find 5e a throw-back to the approach of OD&D, B/X, 1e and 2e in that it is the class abilities alone that determine progression in PC capability, and they are added sparingly as the PC levels up. Ignoring of course the optional feats that were dropped in to keep the min/maxers from dismissing 5e as too simple.

For me, at least, 5e showed Wizards had learned what made the early editions so much fun and how to keep a game simple and constrain the complexity while also retaining a richness in feel that 4e dropped the ball on.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I can see where they are coming from.

When I read a fantasy book, play an RPG or watch a fantasy show, the vast majority have humans as the large race that's everywhere. The demihumans are less populous and out of the way. Dwarves in their mountains. Elves hidden away in the forest. Halflings in the fields. They may even be dying out, depending on the game/story. The trope is that fantasy is human centric.

When I read sci-fi, play it or watch a sci-fi show, the vast majority of them have humanity branching out into the galaxy and finding that we are just one race among a multitude of others, many having gotten to space first and are way beyond us. As one small race among hundreds or thousands, the trope is not human centric.

You can play a non-human centric fantasy or a human centric sci-fi, but those run against the grain.

Okay....that distinction makes more sense to me. Perhaps the place of humankind in the order of things is different.

I don’t know if I agree that most sci-fi is not also human centric....most of it is, I think...we are almost always seeing the POV of humans or the role/impact of mankind on the galaxy. It’s still very centered on humankind.

 

[Maxperson]

Okay....that distinction makes more sense to me. Perhaps the place of humankind in the order of things is different.

I don’t know if I agree that most sci-fi is not also human centric....most of it is, I think...we are almost always seeing the POV of humans or the role/impact of mankind on the galaxy. It’s still very centered on humankind.

That's true. It's from a human point of view, but it's generally a small group of humans moving among the alien races. Centered around humans, but not humanity. Human centric as it's being used here is more about humanity, than a human point of view.