D&D 5E Toward a new D&D aesthetics

[beancounter]

Your complaint is that the art isn’t bleak and grim? It’s been over a decade since it was!

Nice attempt at diversion/moving the goal post/ and putting words in my mouth.

My god, can't some of you debate in good faith?

 

[BookTenTiger]

These are examples of 1E modrons. Simple drawings, but not goofy or overly cartoony as far as anthropomorphic shapes go.
View attachment 154169

If they've been cartoony since 2e, then it's not a modern trend.

 

[Kurotowa]

Okay. That's...pretty much impossible to meaningfully discuss though.

Well, not impossible. But it does take people learning to identify what's an emotional reaction. Those sort of personal takes aren't invalid, but they shouldn't be confused with objective fact.

I do my best to try and judge things on a two axis grid, like alignment. One axis goes This Is Well Made <-> This Is Not Well Made, the other goes This Matches My Tastes <-> This Does Not Match My Tastes. Framing things that way helps me decide if things I don't like are flat out bad or if they're just not for me. Because that's the other thing for everyone to recognize. Not everything is about you, and not everything is designed to suit your tastes. It's okay not to like something and still admit that it's well made and suitable for other people to like.

The good news for the complainers, though, is that it's a big world and the Internet brings it all to your front door. There's definitely people out there who share their tastes, and they're going to be producing things that match them. That's how things like OSR work. People who shared a specific taste and felt they were being underserved banded together to create the thing they wanted.

 

[beancounter]

If they've been cartoony since 2e, then it's not a modern trend.

The picture you posted was from a CRPG, not a 2E book.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Compared to the one I posted, the "newer" ones are extremely goofy.

I strongly disagree. The only difference is that one is in color and the other isn’t.

Nice attempt at diversion/moving the goal post/ and putting words in my mouth.

My god, can't some of you debate in good faith?

Nonsense. No one is doing any of that, we just don’t find your arguments or examples compelling or especially illustrative.

For every example of something “kid-friendly”, the last half-dozen or so books have at least one example of something dark, foreboding, or outright disturbing.

If “it isn’t bleak and grim” doesn’t summarize your argument, then please explain the difference between it and your argument because from here the venn diagram is a circle. You’ve shown no evidence of any new trend toward a “softer, gentler” D&D .

 

[Umbran]

"While both can be enjoyed by kids, they aren’t the target demographic. That’s why Wizards of the Coast recently launched a new studio aimed to design new projects targeted directly at kids."

Well, well, well, the dreaded "D" word associated with a WoTC exec... OMG

Creative storytelling has been the focus of Hoyer’s career. She spent eight years at Disney overseeing the creation and production of kids’ television programming including popular shows Kim Possible and Phineas and Ferb.

She's in charge of a separate studio for separate projects aimed at kids, not for inserting kid friendliness into non-kid-related projects. These books did not come out of her studio, did they?

 

[MGibster]

2e literally scrubbed out a whole bunch of actual demon names and such because of the satanic panic.

2nd edition didn't even have a random table with harlots! It was practically designed for infants!

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

Nonsense. No one is doing any of that, we just don’t find your arguments or examples compelling or especially illustrative.

You don't really have a leg to stand on here. Your reply literally had nothing to do with the post you quoted. @beancounter posted a link to an article about the hiring of Leah Hoyer. He (she?) included some quotes from the article that perhaps implied a kid-oriented direction to D&D offerings. Am I convinced by that? I don't think so. But I recognise that this is a compelling and topical argument at least. Your response was... I don't even know what to make of it.

 

[MGibster]

I think there's a lot of room in D&D for different art styles. As @Morrus pointed out in post #4, a number of illustrations of creatures aren't particularly Disneyfied. I'm not really convinced the direction is going towards a cuter aesthetic even if some illustrations might be on the cute side. I still think the golden age of D&D art was during 2nd edition though. But I like the art in 5th edition better than I did 3rd edition.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

She's in charge of a separate studio for separate projects aimed at kids, not for inserting kid friendliness into non-kid-related projects. These books did not come out of her studio, did they?

@doctorbadwolf Here's an example of a reasonable counter to the post you quoted.