D&D 5E D&D and who it's aimed at

Yes, WoTC is attempting to appeal to a more diverse audience, which is good, but the game has also been around for a while now. WoTC brings out more adventure books than mechanics books for 5e. I think they've tapped the well of "traditional fare" and are looking for more unique ideas. We are getting Spelljammer and Dragon Lance, so not totally abandoning the old stuff.
 

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I wasn't making any point with respect to the prevalence of swords-and-sorcery content in 5e D&D or lack thereof, so, apropos of the point I was making (which had to do with art)... so... so what? Why would I even care to try to prove you wrong?

It's worth nothing that in the 5e DMG, there is discussion on pages 38-41 on the different "flavours of fantasy", including a description of swords-and-sorcery. That is basically all the treatment that swords-and-sorcery gets in the DMG, although I should note that most of the other genres discsussed have also been hitherto underserved, with so far only some getting new time in the limelight with the publication of various setting books - Theros for mythic fantasy (more or less) or Ravenloft for dark fantasy (more or less), for instance. Indeed, the DMG explicitly states: "Heroic fantasy is the baseline assumed by the D&D rules." (DMG 38)

(I should also note, apropos of the recent announcement of Spelljammer, that insofar as "gonzo fantasy" is "a thing" distinct from what the DMG calls "crossing the streams", such a subgenre didn't even rate a mention in the DMG as a "flavour of fantasy", although it's about to get its time in the limelight as well.)

The rules, then assume a heroic fantasy baseline. What is more, insofar as D&D 5e has a "default" setting, it's the Forgotten Realms, which for the most part falls squarely into the mold of heroic fantasy. Most adventures published thus far are therefore either set in the Realms or have been shorn of setting - the Yawning Portal anthology, for instance, or how Ghosts of Saltmarsh introduces such a tiny part of Oerth as to not really get across its distinctive qualities, or how Curse of Strahd has nothing in particular to do with the Ravenloft setting as such.

Little wonder that swords-and-sorcery has yet to have its day in the sun. It may well do so in the future, though - or not.

None of this is to attempt to prove you wrong, but that was never my goal. The closest I might get to such an attempt is to dispute that swords-and-sorcery was particularly prevalent or important to the "gameplay culture" of the past, except for serving as one of the inspirations of the game. In that it is similar to, say, Tolkeinesque fantasy. But I am not sure you are asserting that to begin with, and in any event the amount of swords-and-sorcery content in times past not particularly germane to the question of "D&D and who it's aimed at" in the present.
I guess what I'm saying is, there's very little sword and sorcery in D&D, there used to be more (or at least more room for it) and I wish it was included. The so-called "big tent" could stand to be a little bigger.
 


Oh, and no way Conan carefully assembles supplies before delving underground.
Back in 2019 I read one of Howard's Conan stories, and it struck me by how much the Cimmerian's behavior resembled dungeon delving back when AD&D was the thing to play with him methodically looking for hidden compartments and doors.

We had a girl in our group in 1982. I guess someone had to be the trend setter...
I think you mean that you had a g-g-g-g-g-g-girl!
 


We had a girl in our group in 1982. I guess someone had to be the trend setter...:)
First person who ran a game for me was a female high school student who was a sitter for me and my sisters in 1981.

One of my first DMs in the early 80s was a woman who had wargammed with the Rockford & Lake Geneva folks from the early days. That game had a female high school student too (playing with an older brother younger brother), but that was one out of two dozen players that rotated in and out.

Didn't particularly look to recruit people one way or the other, but that was it for female gamers in my groups until the early 90s. Since then there has usually been at least one or two.

No racial or ethnic minorities that I can remember in any ttrpg group I've been in. (Or my neighborhoods growing up, or schools... :-/ ). The MtG groups I've been in had more both in the mid-to-late 90s and last decade, but it had more people in general to run into.
 

The sword and sorcery elements you described above are not prevelant (to the point of not being present at all) in current D&D, so it seems that genre is being excluded.

Happy to be proven wrong.
Were they ever prevalent? The mechanics (esp. of clerics and magic-users), the settings, and the expected party structure of even early D&D don’t support the major S&S tropes.
 
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