D&D 5E After 2 years the 5E PHB remains one of the best selling books on Amazon

[Hussar]

[MENTION=94143]Shasarak[/MENTION] - I think you're missing the forest for the trees a bit.

Is or was D&D excluding groups of people? Nope. It wasn't. Not deliberately. It certainly doesn't mention them much or at all, but, there's nothing in the game that says you can't be whatever you want to be.

But, that's not the point. Look, if I want my character to have a demonic heritage, I have a mountain of material to inspire me. Images, text, NPC's in adventures, whatever. Tons of stuff. Even if I don't want to be specifically demonic, but, instead, simply extra planar in nature, I'm still spoiled for choice. I have tons of stuff to draw from.

But, I want to play a black character? Something that should be pretty basic in a LOT of games, and I have what to inspire me? A couple of bit characters in a thirty year old book? A single example in the PHB? Ooo, be still my beating heart.

It's not deliberately exclusionary, but, it still has an impact. Look, the demographics of D&D players isn't exactly a secret here. Overwhelmingly white dudes. It's been that way for most of the history of the game. Making efforts to try to draw from other demographics is just good business sense, even if we want to ignore the morality of the issue. There's a reason that, say, Vampire The Masquerade had a much better balance of men to women playing. They actually made a significant effort to go out and try to get women to play and to have female characters be front and centre in pretty much every single book and supplement.

D&D has finally caught up here, but, catching up to something published in the 90's is hardly a milestone.

 

[Shasarak]

While compatible, Paizo is still it's own game. Just because something is compatible doesn't mean they're the same. That's like saying someone who publishes games playable on a PlayStation is the same as Sony.
Sure, Pathfinder is largely the same. But you could make similar claims regarding the d20 Castles & Crusades. Or Iron Heroes, which has the added wrinkle that Mike Mearls worked on it.

I love the mental gymnastics that people go through trying to claim Pathfinder is not DnD even though it uses the same rules and is made by the same people. At this stage I can tell you that I am going to play DnD and you would still have to ask me which one to find out what I was actually playing.

So yeah all those DnD clones are DnD because you know it is in the name: DnD clone.

Now I have no idea if Lamentation is a DnD clone or not, I know that 13th age is not.

I think it's valid to almost discuss TSR and WotC separately. Completely different management. And TSR was a much more conservative company.

Yes, but if you want to talk about them then you should say that you want to talk about them

It probably wouldn't be hard.

You would imagine not and yet here we are.

Bel Akash seems to be secondary character in Azure Bonds. The sidekick to the protagonist. Daryth isn't mentioned in either the Wikipedia or FRwiki entry on Darkwalker on Moonshae. Both seem to be a stretch to be called "iconic". Can't find a decent picture of either one.

You know the funny thing about novels? They dont have very many pictures.

 

[Shasarak]

D&D has finally caught up here, but, catching up to something published in the 90's is hardly a milestone.

There is a proverbial truck load of "coloured" people in DnD. Not my problem you want examples older then ten years ago.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I still don't get the pathfinder thing. I can't see the posts that brought it up, though bc that poster has me blocked. (I see what ppl quote)
Am I missing some relevatory thing? Is there an explanation as to how PF is remotely relevant?

like...even MTG would only be relevant in the context of camparing DnD to another thing wotc makes. It isn't relevant as a "DnD is inclusive, check out these magic characters". Paizo's DnD based game is even less relevant, because it isn't even the same company making it!

Paizo having strongly inclusive iconics, while a good thing, has nothing to do with how inclusive DnD is, because pathfinder is not DnD!

WhT mental gymnastics could possibly lead anyone to thinking PF is relevant here?

 

[Jester David]

I love the mental gymnastics that people go through trying to claim Pathfinder is not DnD even though it uses the same rules and is made by the same people. At this stage I can tell you that I am going to play DnD and you would still have to ask me which one to find out what I was actually playing.

So yeah all those DnD clones are DnD because you know it is in the name: DnD clone.

Now I have no idea if Lamentation is a DnD clone or not, I know that 13th age is not.

It's not *really* the same people. The main staff at Paizo didn't work for WotC, and rest only worked in the periodical department.
Yes, the Paizo staff freelanced, but so did staff from lots of different companies. Green Ronin for one. That doesn't make Mutants & Masterminds into D&D.

Compare this with 13th Age that was designed by the lead designers for 3e and 4e, who were on staff and designed editions. Is 13th Age D&D just because former WotC staff worked on it? Not compatible, but very much D&D in flavour.
How about Numenera, designed by Monte Cook? It's not even really a D&D clone, but former WotC staff?
How about Star Wars? As d20 games, each of those was pretty much compatible with D&D. And they were actually published by WotC. Were they also D&D?

 

[Hussar]

I still don't get the pathfinder thing. I can't see the posts that brought it up, though bc that poster has me blocked. (I see what ppl quote)
Am I missing some relevatory thing? Is there an explanation as to how PF is remotely relevant?

like...even MTG would only be relevant in the context of camparing DnD to another thing wotc makes. It isn't relevant as a "DnD is inclusive, check out these magic characters". Paizo's DnD based game is even less relevant, because it isn't even the same company making it!

Paizo having strongly inclusive iconics, while a good thing, has nothing to do with how inclusive DnD is, because pathfinder is not DnD!

WhT mental gymnastics could possibly lead anyone to thinking PF is relevant here?

This pretty much nails it.

 

[PMárk]

I still don't get the pathfinder thing. I can't see the posts that brought it up, though bc that poster has me blocked. (I see what ppl quote)
Am I missing some relevatory thing? Is there an explanation as to how PF is remotely relevant?

like...even MTG would only be relevant in the context of camparing DnD to another thing wotc makes. It isn't relevant as a "DnD is inclusive, check out these magic characters". Paizo's DnD based game is even less relevant, because it isn't even the same company making it!

Paizo having strongly inclusive iconics, while a good thing, has nothing to do with how inclusive DnD is, because pathfinder is not DnD!

WhT mental gymnastics could possibly lead anyone to thinking PF is relevant here?

It's really simple IMO. At the times Pathfinder was "the more D&D than 4e" game. It was considered as the spiritual successor of 3.5e. It used largely the same system, worked with the same troupes. The people who did it ran dragon and Dungeon prior for years. They wrote for D&D. A lot of D&D fans migrated to play it as D&D after 4e. Therefore a lot of us considers it D&D. Is it D&D in a legal sense? No. Is it D&D in a lot of minds? Yes. A lot of people consider it as 3.75 D&D with another name and a different company, but largely the same game.

People always brings up 3rd party supplemetns when speaking about 5e. That's the same.

 

[Hussar]

Problem is, how many is "a lot of people". I don't doubt that you think of Pathfinder as DND. I don't really. It's just another d20 game. More popular than others for sure. But still not what most people think of when you say DND.

But Paizo does deserve lots of credit for pushing inclusiveness. For sure.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Problem is, how many is "a lot of people". I don't doubt that you think of Pathfinder as DND. I don't really. It's just another d20 game. More popular than others for sure. But still not what most people think of when you say DND.

But Paizo does deserve lots of credit for pushing inclusiveness. For sure.

So, you're saying that you're exclusive about your D&D when it comes to inclusivity?

 

[Imaro]

So, you're saying that exclusive about your D&D when it comes to inclusivity?

D&D is a brand owned by Hasbro... Pathfinder is a different brand owned by Paizo, they are not the same thing. I can claim Shadowrun is D&D to me... but that doesn't make it D&D, does it? It's not about being "exclusive" it's about correctly using terms in a discussion so as to avoid confusion.

Claiming inclusiveness on the part of the D&D roleplaying game and then citing examples from a different roleplaying game called Pathfinder makes no sense. I might as well claim D&D is inclusive because Earthdawn had artwork/descriptions featuring humans, elves, dwarves, etc. of color in the 90's...