D&D General What D&D reflects today, media wise...

[Reynard]

You have Dave A to thank for the sci-fi additions, I believe.

Or Robert E Howard, considering Conan had a conversation with a straight up alien in Tower of the Elephant. Or Clark Ashton Smith and Jack Vance, whose stories were explicitly science fantasy. Or any number of the authors and creators of the things that influenced them.

Neither Arneson nor Gygax invented the idea of mixing sci-fi and fantasy. They borrowed it, like everything else, from the books and other media they loved.

 

[TerraDave]

So, there is this thread. Very funny to read this in light of it.

There was never any purity in D&D. Its certainly never been either a LoTR or a swords and sorcery RPG. There is a cycle of periodically going back to basics every few years and stripping out whatever weirdness has crept in....B/X, 1e, late 1e, 2e (especially), 3e, 4e only kinda, but then 4e essentials, and certainly 5e. But at each step it really keeps being its own thing. And now many of its supposed "influences" are its offshoots.

There have also been people online--D&D has been discussed online for 30+ years now--kvetching about all this anime influence (for 30 years) or whatever the fantasy flavor of the month is. Remember how GOT was supposed to make players OK with their characters dying?

 

[DarkCrisis]

I'm of the opinion D&D no longer really "reflects" anything. It's become a source in its own right. We're approaching the 50th anniversary, after all. When Gygax and Arneson and the other luminaries were putting D&D together in the 70s, that was around the 50th anniversary of many of their sources. The 30s gave us the initial writing for Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, the start of Conan's adventures, and The Hobbit. The fuller depiction from The Lord of the Rings was even newer--less than twenty years old.

At this point, D&D has spawned literally entire genres of video games, created archetypes of its own almost from whole cloth, and cemented itself as THE tabletop game in the public consciousness. Just as LotR was big enough to spawn some generally quite excellent films (the Hobbit films...more debatable, shall we say) fifty years after its publication, so is D&D still able to drive Big Stuff as we approach its 50th anniversary.

But, unlike LotR and a lot of those other things, D&D is still a living thing in many respects, it can still grow and change and do new things. In that sense, what we're seeing is less imitation of other things, and more players finding what they like and running with it. You see this most strongly in the shifting demographics of characters on D&D Beyond (and the rise of good art you can find via Google, too!) Dragonborn art used to be precious rare, the majority of it actually commissioned by WotC itself or other professional outlets. The past five years, though, have seen an absolute EXPLOSION of individual fans getting dragonborn art, and I couldn't be happier; we're seeing so much more variety and character as a result. Fat ones, skinny ones, really really dragony ones, nearly humanoid ones, women, men, wizards, thieves, nobles, necromancers, all sorts. As a dragonborn fan, this is lovely, as it means I have far more art to steal employ for helping demonstrate what my characters may look like.

D&D having elves standing next to dragon-men and devil-people, because players genuinely think those things are just fun to do. Perhaps some will call that "anime" (though anime that feature humanoid dragons, even lizardfolk, are relatively rare; usually you have catgirls or fox-/wolf-people or the like). Perhaps some will call it "supers." Personally, I think that's putting the cart before the horse, thinking D&D is chasing after these trends, when in actuality it's being driven by the same forces that caused those trends to come about.

I’d say it’s more of catgirls, cutesy goblins, and hot orcs than edgy demon people.

 

[Kurotowa]

I think it's a question with an answer in layers.

At a base level, D&D is basing itself off earlier versions of D&D. We're talking fundamental things like what the classes are and how spellcasting works. At a second layer, D&D in definitely taking influences from other sources, but it's mixing them together and putting them through a D&D lens. Like, Witchlight and Strixhaven have a lot of familiar beats without being a direct copy of any one thing, and while the promo interview about the Psi Knight referenced Darth Vader as an influence it still puts that in a D&D context. And then you've got what the players bring to the table, like the time where a player just wanted to play Baby Groot and didn't care what mechanical frame we kitbashed together to make that happen for them.

We're not in the days where Dragon Magazine would have articles with new classes that were transparent copies of famous fictional characters. D&D has a much stronger identity now and the official devs do a good job of transforming inspirations to match that. But those inspirations are still there, and unofficial material can still be a much more direct insertion.

 

[Divine2021]

Dnd has always been a corny pastiche of other stuff, derivative to the very core. This is especially apparent in 5th edition. Once you embrace this, you’ll begin to enjoy the product more. Picasso it ain’t.

 

[Seramus]

I can't take DOTA seriously, but see it, LoL and similar franchises as part of the Superhero genre. We have loved superheroes and villains beating each other up for a very long time.

 

[Mercurius]

People continually try to define what flavor of ice cream D&D is (or worse, should be), when in reality it is a sundae bar. Which is great, because it means we can mix and match whatever ingredients we want, and your game will be different from mine.

But there's a reason that vanilla is the usual base flavor for a sundae. It doesn't have to be, but it is the most customizable. Meaning, there's a reason that elves, dwarves, and dragons don't go away.

 

[Malmuria]

I’d say it’s more of catgirls, cutesy goblins, and hot orcs than edgy demon people.

based on what exactly?

You have Dave A to thank for the sci-fi additions, I believe.

...you mean, the person who invented the game?

 

[Seramus]

based on what exactly?

Probably all the cat girls, cutesy goblins, hot orcs, and Critical Role (that went 2/3). But I feel like edgy demons were also a thing. Especially in the 90s, with trench coats and katanas.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I’d say it’s more of catgirls, cutesy goblins, and hot orcs than edgy demon people.

Oh, but edgy is quite in for a significant group of people these days. The whole "Draco In Leather Pants" crowd.