D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[BrokenTwin]

i mean, 'the longest serving witchlight hand, a grumpy over-the-hill clown that works as a gatekeeper and who hates kids' named after one of the most recognizable mechanics of earlier DnD editions, it doesn't take that much inventiveness to fit the pieces together and see the insult.

Yeah, it's really not that much of a leap in logic to see how it could be considered personally insulting. The biggest difference is whether you consider it an in-joke (we're laughing at ourselves) or an out-joke (other people are mocking us). And considering that one of the biggest signifiers of the group in question is their opposition to the current management of D&D, it's pretty easy to see how they'd consider it an out-group insult.

 

[Bae'zel]

What BG3 and video gamers think is "mature content" is laughably puerile.

People usually refer to the gory violence, scenes of torture, abuse, swearing (F-bombs), full-on nudity (genitals visible) and delicate subject matter like trauma. I think you're being too harsh.

 

[KYRON45]

No one at WotC has attacked anyone for their preference in edition, age, or play style.

Someone at WotC DID attack the people who were attacking WotC for calling Gary's writing intentionally sexist. Which it is.

This line of inquiry was started by asking for examples of WotC attacking older fans for being older fans. The three examples given have been 1.) an NPC clown named after a much derided mechanic 2.) a video poking fun fun at gnomes and 3.) a guy at WotC saying that they aren't concerned about people complaining they called out Gary's sexism. Is that it? Is a that ALL the proof you have that WotC harbors ill will towards their older fans?

Because D&D isn't the only fandom I engage in that has been trying to "fire" it's older fans. I see in Star Wars, Doctor Who, and Marvel comics. It's the same story. Veiled threats. Mocking statement. Daggers in every word. And it's always a projection of the fandom wanting to be the oppressed minority.

So I'll ask again: does anyone have any real proof WotC hates older players and longtime fans, or just more innuendo and conspiracy theories?

I'm an older gamer and i couldn't care less what WotC thinks of me.

I'm middle aged and I approved this message.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yeah, it's really not that much of a leap in logic to see how it could be considered personally insulting. The biggest difference is whether you consider it an in-joke (we're laughing at ourselves) or an out-joke (other people are mocking us). And considering that one of the biggest signifiers of the group in question is their opposition to the current management of D&D, it's pretty easy to see how they'd consider it an out-group insult.

It doesn’t really matter. It the description of “a grumpy gatekeeping clown” fits you, then you need a good mocking. And if you are not a grumpy gatekeeping clown, then you are not the target.

 

[Remathilis]

i mean, 'the longest serving witchlight hand, a grumpy over-the-hill clown that works as a gatekeeper and who hates kids' named after one of the most recognizable mechanics of earlier DnD editions, it doesn't take that much inventiveness to fit the pieces together and see the insult.

I mean, Thac0 as a mechanic was considered confusing and counterintuitive when it was the default combat resolution. It was only used because it was less space intensive than full table matrixes. I've been in the gamer space for 30+ years and never heard anyone opine fondly for the mechanic. Well, not until WotC opted to make it's first jest about it but putting it in the 2014 PHB index. Then, mocking Thac0 started becoming an act of violence against the OS community. There was no great revelation about the mechanic, no hidden brilliance was discovered. Thac0 just became a bloody shirt people who disliked newer editions used to prove how oppressed they are.

 

[Imaro]

I don't consider myself a conservative gamer but I do consider myself a grognard of sorts with a D&D history going back 40 years. I consider myself inclusive and cosmopolitan in real life and in my gaming. However, I do find that in D&D (and role-playing in general) as well as modern society that doesn't sit well with me on some level.

So you're all about inclusion and being cosmopolitan... except in D&D and all other rpg's as well as in modern society it makes you uncomfortable... what? That doesn't sound like being ok with inclusion or being cosmopolitan at all.

The experience and advice of long time role-players is often ignored by the newer generation. Here on these very forums twenty years ago I tried to offer advice to new players who came here asking for it, and I was repeatedly told that (and I quote) "Your experience is not relevant". At the time 3rd edition had brought in a lot of new blood to the hobby which was great but my intuition was that it brought in people from the growing MMO community where optimisation and being the best of the best was how you played. They weren't interested in how the game was played or advice from that those who played before. They played the way they wanted and D&D has changed because of it. How people play now has changed and it does feel like us older player have been somewhat left behind and forgotten. I'm pleased that the hobby continues to draw in more and more new players paving the way to the future but it's obvious why us older role-players can get grumpy over what can be perceived as unnecessary changes in direction.

So you tried to convince them to play the fame the way you wanted and they decided not to... Unless there is more to this story, I can see why...play like I do as opposed to what's fun for you... would be discarded as irrelevant advice. Because it's not advice, it's trying to force your way of playing on others... the opposite of diversifying or including others.

As shown in a recent thread on here, art is subjective too. Like all of us, I know what I like and what I don't. I used to like the old B&W artwork because it felt like it captured the essence of D&D perfectly. Aesthetics have changed now and D&D doesn't resemble a faux medieval world any more. It's more like World of Warcraft or League of Legends. I know players who really don't like the art direction now and how it doesn't fit their view of D&D (I hated the Dungeonpunk of 3rd edition for example). For myself, I'll take the artwork as a guideline and my setting will look like how I want it to - which for reference has changed, and in recent years has been influenced by Arcane and the LoL art style. Even I've changed.

To be fair D&D was never faux medieval world... it was barely faux medieval Europe. But to be clear there were places other than Europe that existed in the world during the medieval time period...

Then you get the (and I hate this term) the "Woke" factor. Species instead of race. Male mariliths, hag's, dryads, banshees...etc. Vistani are apparently racist despite being an archetype within a game setting (I never saw the old WoD Gypsies book as racist either for the same reason). Concepts that don't always sit right with those of us from an older generation. Society is changing for the better but does it need to impact D&D? In some places yes, and in others no. Despite what is in the Monster Manual, my games will continue to showcase things as we always have done but then my games are not public so it has no effect on others. But again, I can see where the more conservative players might feel these changes being forced unnecessarily out there.

So you get diversification and cosmopolitan changes... with an utterly non-surprising reaction from you ( Not in my D&D) given your apparent desire for these things to exist just not in ttrpg's or the modern world... got it.

I see both sides and rather than heated discussions where neither side seems willing to understand the other's view point, I think that we need to understand that the blessing and curse of role-playing games is that we all play them different and we desire different things from it.

Nope because one side's premise for having a game they enjoy seems to be based on the other side not being allowed to change anything in the game to acomodate them...

Hopefully this came across in a positive way.

It was a take.

 

[BrokenTwin]

It doesn’t really matter. It the description of “a grumpy gatekeeping clown” fits you, then you need a good mocking. And if you are not a grumpy gatekeeping clown, then you are not the target.

I'm not saying I agree with them, I'm saying I understand where they're coming from (in this specific instance). I've already stated in this thread that I like Thaco the clown. And while mechanically modern D&D doesn't interest me (though I will still play with family or a specific GM I like), I do appreciate WotC's efforts to provide a more diverse and inclusive experience.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Yeah, it's really not that much of a leap in logic to see how it could be considered personally insulting. The biggest difference is whether you consider it an in-joke (we're laughing at ourselves) or an out-joke (other people are mocking us). And considering that one of the biggest signifiers of the group in question is their opposition to the current management of D&D, it's pretty easy to see how they'd consider it an out-group insult.

In the same way I'd like newer generations not to take offense to a shirt that reads You haven't D&D until you played with THACO the older generations should really laugh off Thaco the Clown.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

To be fair D&D was never faux medieval world... it was barely faux medieval Europe. But to be clear there were places other than Europe that existed in the world during the medieval time period...

Focusing just on this one specific thing: You aren't going nearly far enough (though I'm sure you know this).

It's not only never been a faux-medieval world, it has been almost exclusively driven by provably, objectively false narratives about medieval European culture, art, knowledge/science/tech, social expectations, etc., etc. Very, very little of D&D actually resembles anything at all in human history even if you completely screen out 100% of the fantasy elements.

The idea that most people were deeply, fanatically racist and that torches-and-pitchforks would be pulled out the moment they saw something unusual? Absolutely the hell not. Plenty of medieval Europeans did trade with "Moors" (read: black Africans), Arabs, all sorts of things. One of King Arthur's knights, Feirefiz, was canonically bi-racial (albeit in a way that...reflected the rather flawed understanding of biology of medieval Europe, making a black man with a dramatic case of vitiligo, not...y'know, what an actual biracial person would look like.)

The idea that medieval Europe was drab, depressing, and almost exclusively oppressive to anyone who wasn't nobility, is equally ridiculous. Medieval Europe used all sorts of bright, colorful dyes; while being a serf wasn't great, it wasn't uniformly terrible; plenty of people weren't even serfs or nobles, but something else (e.g. guild members); trade and economics were quite important.

Huge one is simply the types of armor and weapons, which are completely, utterly ridiculous and anti-historical. Europe had cannon and handguns before it had plate armor. King Arthur would never have worn plate armor--if he ever lived, he certainly lived at least 800 years too early. The kinds of heavy armor we talk about were only popular in Renaissance Europe. Rapiers and bucklers and all that stuff is also Renaissance, as superior metallurgy enabled such gear. Etc., etc., etc.

The "medieval" world of D&D is, and has always been, an almost-totally-constructed thing, full of completely made-up elements, actively anti-historical elements, and a patchwork of historical bits that came from across over a thousand years of IRL history. Even if you deleted every single supernatural element, it would still resemble literally no part of Earth history ever.

Folks defending the "traditional" way D&D has done things aren't even remotely defending historical accuracy. At all. They're defending one particular fantastical approach, which is as full of completely-invented, completely-false, and ridiculously mish-mashed elements as any other approach.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

In the same way I'd like newer generations not to take offense to a shirt that reads You haven't D&D until you played with THACO the older generations should really laugh off Thaco the Clown.

If I may, allow me to give one of the prime examples of the position I referred to above, the kinds of jokes folks made at the expense of anyone who prefers certain kinds of things (and, being one such person, I was thus being made fun of).

There was an official "D&D Next" blog post (long since deleted because they've nuked their own website like two or three times since then) talking about dragonborn. I'm a big fan of dragonborn, if you didn't already know this. (You almost certainly already knew this.)

The post....basically spent the entire first half talking about how the author (Robert Schwalb) had had a pretty fixed idea of what D&D was...and that dragonborn and tieflings and warlords were so obviously unfit to such a thing, he couldn't conceive of how people could do that. He made multiple cracks about these things, and implied that it was youth that made people interested in such things.

It wasn't meant to be mean--he referenced without using a sticking-out-tongue emoji to "soften" the preceding statements--but it was quite clearly coming from a position of "I don't understand you, I can't understand you, I don't think I ever will understand you, but I have learned to put up with you being so weird."

And this was then 100% seriously used to justify ghettoizing some races as "uncommon" or "rare". Something I outright hate. Mr. Schwalb used "these weren't around when I started playing, so they're obviously weird" as a justification for actively reifying the idea that traditional things are just more important, more worthy, than non-traditional ones.

And if you think I'm exaggerating, you can read the post yourself (I finally dug it up via the Internet Archive). It's from the account "evil_reverend", but that username was used by Robert Schwalb.

I can tell you right now, this was NOT well-received by people who were fans of dragonborn--it presented denigration as "compromise", and active support for people who passionately hate dragonborn as some kind of fairness.

This is precisely the sort of mockery, with the disingenuous "well I don't really MEAN it like that", that I will never get any form of apology about. Because the people who fervently hate my preferences even being allowed in D&D were a critical demographic that couldn't be antagonized.