D&D 5E D&D and who it's aimed at

[Stormonu]

Wow. Just out of curiosity, where do you live?

"If there's a bright side of the universe, you're on the planet it's farthest from"
i.e., Mississippi

And, as for "uncluttered", I'm talking like Y2K, end of the Mayan Calendar, return of Haley's Comet - in other words, a definate date someone's predicted the world's gonna end that is on everyone's mind.

 

[Maxperson]

The specific claim is that there is evidence that wotc products are aimed at younger audiences:

That's not even debatable. They have a Young Adventurer's Collection geared at younger players, and a few of their other products are aimed at young folks.

The debatable claims are those saying that all of 5e is aimed at younger folks.

 

[Minigiant]

Is it really the twist being revealed, or people pivoting to provide a new argument they think will do the trick?

Oh it's Law and Order. So the lover of the argument is totally framing the first suspect or setting up a second suspect.

A lot of D&D fans gladly switch up targets to keep the heat of their favorite mechanic, setting, or philosophy.

Like Save or Die wasn't bad. It just should have been Save or (Save or Die). 2-3 rolls over 1. And DCs shouldn't grow faster than Saving throws bonuses.

 

[Maxperson]

Oh it's Law and Order. So the lover of the argument is totally framing the first suspect or setting up a second suspect.

A lot of D&D fans gladly switch up targets to keep the heat of their favorite mechanic, setting, or philosophy.

Like Save or Die wasn't bad. It just should have been Save or (Save or Die). 2-3 rolls over 1. And DCs shouldn't grow faster than Saving throws bonuses.

Yeah. I think two rolls over say two rounds would have been fine, with something bad happening if you fail one, and death if you fail two.

 

[BrokenTwin]

I've never played the original Ravenloft module, but I immediately saw Curse of Strahd as some deliciously hammy Hammer Horror (we've got witches and vampires and Frankenstien's bride and werewolves and ghosts and...), which made playing and running it a blast. For me, D&D has always contained elements of silliness and camp, even in its more serious settings (like Dark Sun). A lot of early monsters were based on dollar store toys. I think the biggest source of change is the thematic sources influencing the presentation of the content. Earlier stuff was inspired by a lot of sword and sorcery books, while modern stuff is inspired more by things like Guardians of the Galaxy, which can still tell serious stories, but tend to do so with more vivid colours and style.

Yeah. I think two rolls over say two rounds would have been fine, with something bad happening if you fail one, and death if you fail two.

If memory served the Medusa in 4E worked similar to this. Her glare didn't immediately turn you to stone, but set off a series of saving throws that would eventually turn you to stone, with progressively bad effects on each failed save.

 

[Greg Benage]

If memory served the Medusa in 4E worked similar to this. Her glare didn't immediately turn you to stone, but set off a series of saving throws that would eventually turn you to stone, with progressively bad effects on each failed save.

In 5e, she instantly petrifies if you fail by 5 or more; if you merely fail, you're restrained as you begin to stiffen up and you get another save at the end of your next turn.

 

[BRayne]

My opinion as an outsider ... Critical Role is a humorous setting run by comedic voice actors. The scenes I have heard about include a player thinking it would be HILARIOUS to wild shape into a goldfish and jump off a cliff.

Keyfish is a scene that is funny in retrospect because what actually happens is a player misinterprets what the DM says the theater of the mind looks like, makes a poor decision because of that, then smashes into the rocks taking 363 points of damage and dies instantly.

 

[Hussar]

Thanks for this! I'd wanted to use the Ravenloft book for a while and wished there were some more published 5E adventures to go with it. Transporting these adventures to the Domains of Dread is a great idea.

I've only played in Curse of Strahd, not DM'd or read it, but, from what I can see, adding in at least half a dozen of the Candlekeep adventures to Ravenloft would be very, very easy. You might need to drop the whole "book intro" thing to the adventures, or not, depending, but, yeah, adding them in wouldn't take much of anything. Granted, there are a couple that wouldn't work - the one where you meet Larue, FR goddess of nature would be a problem, maybe... although, with a bit of tweaking it might work thinking about it. The one where the gnomes are trying to launch a tower into space OTOH, really doesn't fit very well.

But most of them? Yeah, no problem at all.

 

[Hussar]

For the last year or more these forums have seen endless debates arguments over one clear and undeniable example of sanitization: the de-Evil-ing of Orcs and some other species.

Whether one agrees with these changes or not, that they are a form of sanitization is pretty much a fact.

Not sure I would characterize it as "sanitizing" but, certainly you do have a point that there is a definite push to reexamine some of the unspoken assumptions with the idea of making some changes so that we're no longer directly insulting large swaths of people and playing into racist narratives. But, sure, if you want to call that sanitization, I guess?

 

[Hussar]

I mean, this thread was setup for people to come in and explain why they felt D&D is losing its way.

Feels like:
Person 1:"Hey,there's a lot of people cranky about D&D right now, I don't understand why, seems okay to me?"
Person 2: "Well, I (and everyone gamer I know) haven't bought anything in the last 4 years because the tone is too soft, sleek, and silly."
Person 1: "Wow, how about just shutting up and just talking about the things you DO like."
Person 2: "Okay..."

It's more like:

Person 1: "Really? 4 years? Last year we had an adventure that is filled with darkness and all sorts of really, really grim stuff. How are depictions of child murder 'too soft, sleek and silly'?"
Person 2: No, it's all nothing but fluffy bunnies and cutesy displacer beasts on covers!
Person 1: Really? There's no displacer beast on the cover of my Witchlight copy. Maybe it's different from yours? There is an image of a cute displacer beast inside the book. True. But, then again, there's all sort of really dark and grim stuff there too.
Person 2: NO It's all fluffy bunnies!
Person 1: okay?