D&D General On the Evolution of Fantasy and D&D

[Micah Sweet]

Yes, but this is also understandable - being put out. I mean, it isn't that different from loving a band and then being disappointed with a new album or shift in direction. But it is also part of life, and WotC can't cater to everyone.

That said, I'm not convinced that they're going to entirely say to the old fans, "Either get with the program, or go elsewhere." They've got two classic settings coming out, and presumably some future products will still be "classic D&D." Presumably they understand that 5E got popular playing it pretty close to classic form - by the time the so-called "shift" occurred around Tasha's, the player base had already exploded - and up until that point, it was still pretty "classic D&D."

That's kind of one of my points in the OP: there's no reason why they can't take an approach of building beyond classic D&D, but still nourishing the flame of classic D&D.

Of course if they come out with Dark Sun: Tales of Whimsical Woe, I'll be proven wrong.

I'd really like to believe that. But lately I've seen no indication that WotC remembers why 5e became popular in the first place.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

When I started reading through this post, I expected that I'd disagree with a lot of it after finishing it . . . but I really don't. There's not much to say, actually. This is pretty accurate, from what I can tell. No "genre" of fantasy ever dies, even if certain genres trend more than others at certain times. There's enough fantasy writers out there that there's probably an author out there right now writing to your specific tastes, even if they're not super popular and other styles of fantasy/sci-fi/horror are trending more right now. This even applies to what D&D 5e books are being made right now.

Even if there is more of a general trend to emphasize "lighter" parts of the game in a few official books right now (solving problems without violence, more social interaction and in-depth NPCs, a slight focus on more whimsical elements of the Multiverse, like Fey), there are undoubtedly lots of 3rd-party publishers of 5e making more "gritty"/"old-school"-style D&D products out there. And even the official books that contain these "lighter" elements also have some pretty dark content in them (the overall plot of Netherdeep, the child kidnapping and slavery in Witchlight, some of Strixhaven's monsters, the adventure about racism that's apparently going to be in the Radiant Citadel, etc), not to mention the official books that are completely built off of dark themes (Rime of the Frostmaiden, Descent into Avernus, Ravenloft, etc).

There are definitely general trends towards including some "lighter" themes in recent books (the friendship system in Strixhaven, Witchlight's carnival and Netherdeep's festival, the utopic planar hub of the Radiant Citadel), but that definitely doesn't mean that the grittier stuff is dying. It's just one of the many trends that D&D happens to be emphasizing at the moment.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yes, but this is also understandable - being put out. I mean, it isn't that different from loving a band and then being disappointed with a new album or shift in direction. But it is also part of life, and WotC can't cater to everyone.

That said, I'm not convinced that they're going to entirely say to the old fans, "Either get with the program, or go elsewhere." They've got two classic settings coming out, and presumably some future products will still be "classic D&D." Presumably they understand that 5E got popular playing it pretty close to classic form - by the time the so-called "shift" occurred around Tasha's, the player base had already exploded - and up until that point, it was still pretty "classic D&D."

That's kind of one of my points in the OP: there's no reason why they can't take an approach of building beyond classic D&D, but still nourishing the flame of classic D&D.

Of course if they come out with Dark Sun: Tales of Whimsical Woe, I'll be proven wrong.

I want to add something to this that I haven't seen mentioned elsewhere; 5e's approach to adventures is changing right now. For a long time, D&D 5e only had big adventure paths meant to span an entire campaign (Tyranny of Dragons, Curse of Strahd, Princes of the Apocalypse, Storm King's Thunder, Out of the Abyss). Early D&D adventures were mostly just short modules that you could mix-and-match to add to your campaign. 5e didn't really have these until when Tales from the Yawning Portal was released in 2017, reprinting a lot of classic adventures from older editions of D&D (unless you count the Lost Mines of Phandelver).

But since Tales from the Yawning Portal we've gotten Ghosts of Saltmarsh (another classic adventure anthology book), Candlekeep Mysteries, and now Journeys Beyond the Radiant Citadel. While they're not "modules" (because they're all printed in the same book instead of smaller pamphlets that can be bought individually), they are similar in being smaller adventures that can be inserted into an ongoing D&D campaign. So while D&D 5e is transitioning away from some older trends, it is also embracing some of them more than it did at its start.

(Not to mention the fact that we literally only had the Forgotten Realms as an official supported setting for the longest time, and we're now getting more and more reprinted older settings. Or that a lot of older monsters keep reappearing in new monster books like Mordenkainen's and Fizbans. Or how they're bringing back the D&D Multiverse.)

tl;dr - While 5e is definitely transitioning away from some older trends/themes/content (even ones that it focused on more towards the start of the edition), it is also transitioning towards some older ones.

 

[Umbran]

Any time we see the word "evolution" in this context, we ought to be aware of the meaning.

"Evolution" is not movement "forward". Direction is a thing game design can have, that evolution does not. Game designers make choices, while random changes in DNA do not. Evolution does not have will.

If evolution is movement at all, it is a drunkards walk that, if a line survives, turns out to have been, out of sheer luck, toward being more effectively adapted to a niche in an ecosystem. If the ecosystem changes, or if niches become available, the species available will, through random changes, either meet the new needs, or not.

Meanwhile, game design and fiction writing can be aimed at a niche. The author's vision of the viability of the niche may be hazy, but it

 

[Micah Sweet]

Any time we see the word "evolution" in this context, we ought to be aware of the meaning.

"Evolution" is not movement "forward". Direction is a thing game design can have, that evolution does not. Game designers make choices, while random changes in DNA do not. Evolution does not have will.

If evolution is movement at all, it is a drunkards walk that, if a line survives, turns out to have been, out of sheer luck, toward being more effectively adapted to a niche in an ecosystem. If the ecosystem changes, or if niches become available, the species available will, through random changes, either meet the new needs, or not.

Meanwhile, game design and fiction writing can be aimed at a niche. The author's vision of the viability of the niche may be hazy, but it

That's very important to remember. I think too many people use "evolution" to mean movement toward an inherently better form, when they really mean movement toward a form they prefer. Of course, neither is correct.

 

[Hussar]

@AcererakTriple6 - I think that's a very good point to remember too.

How much support does something need? Like you said, there are now three full anthology modules by WtoC with a fourth to come. That means we have about 30-40 small adventures for 5e, covering a range of play from straight up dungeon crawl to more hippy dippy pass the story stick types.

If WotC stops banging out books catering to a specific playstyle, that doesn't necessarily mean they are ignoring or abandoning that play style. It might simply be that that particular play style is pretty fully serviced and now is a time to shift focus towards including other play styles.

I guess my question becomes, how much support does a play style need? If you already have multiple products that cater to your particular tastes (and I mean this as a general "you"), is it reasonable to think that there will be more coming down the pipe?

 

[Umbran]

I'd really like to believe that. But lately I've seen no indication that WotC remembers why 5e became popular in the first place.

Well, I expect it didn't become popular for one simple single reason.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well, I expect it didn't become popular for one simple single reason.

Of course not, but they clearly designed it based on classic ideas suggested by folks in the public playtest, to help bring in fans of previous editions. Their actions and plans in recent years suggest that they are refocusing their efforts away from those fans. If they did this with a new edition, that would be one thing. But this time, they decided to make their changes midstream and retroactively alter the core books from 2014 to suit their current plans. As I've said elsewhere, I'm not a fan of rewriting history.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

If they did this with a new edition, that would be one thing. But this time, they decided to make their changes midstream and retroactively alter the core books from 2014 to suit their current plans.

If they did this with another edition, we would have another 4e Edition Wars on our hands. Doing a "soft edition change" like this one allows them to update the ruleset to a more modern audience and lets them fix mechanical quirks/problems with the base game without losing a huge chunk of their fanbase. "Revising history" would be if they used errata to get rid of the older versions of the Core Rulebooks. And since that's almost definitely not going to happen, this is not "revising history" anymore than the release of 3.5e was.

 

[Umbran]

Of course not, but they clearly designed it based on classic ideas suggested by folks in the public playtest, to help bring in fans of previous editions. Their actions and plans in recent years suggest that they are refocusing their efforts away from those fans.

1) The current demographics do not say "fans of older editions". They say, "Broad age range".

2) Saying that going with the classic ideas was "to help bring in fans of previous editions" is likely an oversimplification.

2a) You seem a little vague on which "classic ideas" you think brought those supposed fans in, and are currently being violated.

In the end, the past will not sustain them forever - those fans of older editions will age out of the market, and must be replaced with new players if the game is to have a long future. Thus a focus on things relevant to a younger market is called for.