But what if I LIKE Anime/Video-game tropes in my D&D?

[rkanodia]

I don't even like fantasy novels, and I've tried to ford my way through Jordan, Howard, Greenwood, and a host of others. I just can't get past the torturous world-building verbiage ... I'm 23, and apart from the Middle Earth books, I've hardly read any fantasy. I have, however, played nearly every RPG and adventure game produced by Square and Enix, and those are really the fantasy styles I'm most interested in. I don't know that 4th Edition is moving any closer to that, but I'd be pleased if it did, and I'd congratulate Wizards on the quality of their market research.

Bingo. I used to like Piers Anthony when I was in high school, but now I recognize it for the pointless fluff that it really is. Sword of Shannara? More like Snore of Shannara.

In contrast, I've played tons and tons of videogame and computer RPGs. Obviously there are some I like more than others, but on the whole, I see those as more of the 'source material' for my game than the 'Fantasy' section of the local bookstore. A lot of the things from 4th Ed that I like seem to come heavily from that side of things.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Hey, that's my line!

I'm in the same boat as the OP. I'll be even more controversial: I don't even like fantasy novels, and I've tried to ford my way through Jordan, Howard, Greenwood, and a host of others. I just can't get past the torturous world-building verbiage. "One thousand years ago, the dark god Yorgfiblius forged an orb of pure hatred to contest the reign of the god of light, Kiblablyoot. It is written that one mighty mortal will wield the sword Amphublicrupst against the demonic hordes of Yorgfiblius and blah blah blah..."

I'm 23, and apart from the Middle Earth books, I've hardly read any fantasy. I have, however, played nearly every RPG and adventure game produced by Square and Enix, and those are really the fantasy styles I'm most interested in. I don't know that 4th Edition is moving any closer to that, but I'd be pleased if it did, and I'd congratulate Wizards on the quality of their market research. If the game is going to grow, it has to reach out to more people my age and younger, and they could do worse than to incorporate the parts of console and computer RPGs that make them great.

This describes me to a tee!

I am in my early 30s, so I started my D&D addiction with the Basic Red Box set (never could get a hold of Immortal Rules ). I never got into the fantasy novels, about the only thing I liked reading when I was yonger were the Lone Wolf books and Choose Your Own Adventure (which was the closest thing to solo-D&D play you could get to back in the 80s).

Anyway, was always a big video gamer, especially RPGs. Loved Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy and most 8-bit Nintendo RPGs. My online excursions started with muds and then to UO, EQ and WoW.

All my friends read Robert Jordan, George R R Martin, and so on. When I meet other gamers, they are surprised at the fantasy novels I have never read. I did get around to reading all the LotR books, but that was because of the movies.

Video game fantasy > fantasy novels in my world. I'm not saying that D&D should go this way, but just saying where I am coming from.

And yes, I think a lot has to do with the useless fluff you read in such novels. Just turns me off. Was LotR movies any less good because it didn't have Tom Bombadil or whatever his name was?

 

[ShinHakkaider]

If this in reference to my post, I should note that Teen Titans is one of my favorite shows of all time, and I want to have S-Cry-ed's angry punching babies.

Being aware of what others find irritating does not imply having similar feelings.

Shonen IS for kids. It's what the word MEANS.

But being mature is about not fearing seeming childish when it suits you.

Nah, I was actually referring to ArmoredSaint's posts on the first page.
Which is funny because when I see his/her screen name the first thing that comes to mind is
Saint Seiya...

 

[Mistwell]

Bookstores have huge sections devoted to manga while they have much smaller sections devoted to regular comics and graphic novels; right now, manga is vastly more popular with the under-25 age group than anything DC or Marvel makes. Manga sales in the USA are as high as $200 million per year after being on the big chain radar for only about four or five years; non-manga graphic novels for all companies combined hit $330 million last year. That's not 'a small niche' but a rapidly growing market.

I disagree. Most Manga is distributed in graphic novel or TPB format in the U.S., and not in pamphlet form. While the numbers for TPB and graphic novels are impressive for Manga (though have leveled off), as a whole of the industry they are still a niche. Bookstores were just catching up with how huge Manga is in some other nations. But as far as comics in general, bookstores are not a good measure of that industry.

As for "vastly more popular with the under-25 group than Marvel or DC" in the U.S., I'd like to see a link backing that up.

It's not a huge hit with the traditional fans of the DC/Marvel/Image crowd, but it is a hit with the vast numbers of customers the traditional comics companies have never been able to attract and still can't. If I thought that by adding more anime tropes and styles that D&D could achieve that kind of new customer acquisition, I'd say 'go for it'.

Again, anything to back that up? One of my closest and most frequent clients is the world's leading comic news website, and the data you are mentioning is not something I have come across (though admittedly I could have missed it). I've even seen some behind-the-scenes business plans from major companies meant to attract investment citing Manga sales numbers as a percentage of the market, and it was nothing close to the numbers you quoted (though that was several years ago and it has surely changes a bit since then).

Mind you, I like some Manga. "Lone Wolf and Cub" was brilliant. So was "Eagle: The Making Of An Asian-American President". I just don't think the profits or quantity of sales in the U.S. are all that big relative to the entire comics market.

 

[IanB]

Was LotR movies any less good because it didn't have Tom Bombadil or whatever his name was?

Oh man, you totally just geek-Godwined the thread.

 

[Leugren]

Confession time.

I'm a child of the 90's.

...In short, anyone HAPPY about the move to add some anime and videogame elements into the old horse that is D&D?

I am a child of the 70s and 80s. I started playing D&D at the age of 11 with the orginal brown booklets back in 1978. I fully confess that I don't know too much about anime, and the last video game that I played on any regular basis was probably Asteroids.

I am nevertheless extremely excited about the changes coming down the pipe for D&D 4E, particularly those that pertain to the introduction of amazing new powers for martial characters.

I'm not sure why so many of the other "old-timers" view these changes as a corruption of the genre. I'm also not sure why these changes are being ascribed exclusively to the influence of "anime", "video games", "superheroes", and other newfangled entertainment media by critics of 4E. I consider this a failure of imagination. Where others see "anime", "superheroes", and "video games", I see Achilles, Hercules, Perseus, and Gilgamesh; all legendary heroes; all capable of extraordinary superhuman feats that defy the laws of physics. Call them "beloved of the gods", or call them what you will. Modern fantasy literature is every bit as informed by these archetypes as it is by Tolkien!

 

[JDJblatherings]

I saw heroic knights performs amazing martial attacks, wizards who flew and faced each other fire, lightning, and summoned beasts. Intricate, detailed stories full of love, betrayal, darkness and redemption. Sure, I played, and loved, D&D. However, D&D was its own brand of fantasy and never emulated the grand heroes, dastardly villains, and epic battles I saw in my view of fantasy.

I must have been playing the game wrong I recall plenty of heroic knights performing amazing martial attacks and wizards flying about zapping each other in aerial battles for dominance.


As for tieflings and dragonborn being anything new...they aren't. Draconians anyone or halfdragons ? Monte cook even has two types of draon men in his Arcana Evolved books. Tieflings...hmm spawn of a man and demon/devil, oh yeah Caliban a character from a Shakespeare play a few hundred years old. So how are these new? And how are they anime?


The problem with "adding" vidoe game tropes to D&D is it is incestual. They aren't original videogame tropes they are video game adaptations of D&D. Final fanasty was derivative of D&D at it's inception. Warcraft is an entertaining rip-off of D&D and warhammer. What tropes is 4e adopting?

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Nah, I was actually referring to ArmoredSaint's posts on the first page.
Which is funny because when I see his/her screen name the first thing that comes to mind is
Saint Seiya...

I don't know, but Saint Seiya-style armors would be great....

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Gods know that I love video games, I’ve even played a number of MMOs. I think that there is a whole lot of bad anime out there, but there is also a fair bit of good anime which I happen to enjoy quite a bit. (read “good anime” as “anime that I like” and “bad anime” as “anime that I don’t like”) As far as any “anime flavor” in 4e, I think there are a few hints of it. A few of the names seem more harmonious with anime style than with previous D&D, and a few of the abilities of various races/classes seem to suggest a more “anime-ish” setting to me. Is this my particular cup of table top gaming tea? No. If I use 4e will I remove and/or limit these things? Yes. Will I re-work a very large chunk of fluff to suit my games? Certainly. Do I think that this will be bad for the hobby? Honestly, no.



I prefer a more low powered, grittier game at my table. E6 hits my group right where we live, and I’ve been restricting/cutting certain spells/powers/races/classes/kits since my first day with the magic DM hat. Every group that runs in a homebrewed setting that I’ve ever met does exactly the same thing. They take what they want, and they leave the rest. Then they re-tool what they took to get the flavor that they like. Then they houserule any gaps that they’ve picked up along the way. Does it look like that job will be bigger (for me) with 4e than with 3e? Sure does. By the same token I’m sure that syncing the new rules and fluff with their personal playstyle preference will be a much smaller job with 4e for some groups. I already pull out a lot of the “high fantasy” fluff, pulling out any potential “anime fluff” is the same job on a different day, at least in my opinion.



What is of much more concern to me, with regards to the future of the hobby, is the apparent (in my opinion) shift towards more of a “video game” feel in 4e. Now as I’ve already stated I do love video games, but I think making D&D look more like one is a mistake. Why? Because if D&D tries to compete with videogames on their own ground, D&D will lose. Period.



What do I mean by that? Well, If I want grid based tactical combat, with a bunch of crunchy options, and I want the turns to flow smoothly with no math required, and no rules look-ups, I’m reaching for a videogame. Why? Because videogames do it better. If I want to have a bunch of combat abilities that I can use every so often, the computer can track them all in real time while I continue the fight unencumbered by a need to do so, again the videogame is king of this particular hill. Wading through an army of low level enemies in a “cool” and “badass” fashion… and in a timely manner? Nod goes to the videogame again. I don’t even need to count squares for my fireball, all that behind the scenes math is done by the machine, I just press A, B, X, Y, square, circle, triangle, or left click and let it rip. These are the strengths of a video game against D&D, and D&D shouldn’t get involved in a contest over these areas. It should stick to what it does better than any videogame can, otherwise people may look up from the table and ask, "Why am I not playing The Witcher right now?"

Interestingly, I actually like this part of D&D. I like that I have a lot of time to make my complicated tactical decisions, including counting squares, choosing to trip or disarm or just make an attack. I think most video games make this part unsatisfactory. I never found the Never Winter Nights fight, for example, as exciting as "real" D&D battles.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'm not sure why so many of the other "old-timers" view these changes as a corruption of the genre.

As another old-timer, let me put it this way.

A good, well-designed game is like cooking a meal. You combine ingredients to get the right "flavor" and wait until it's "done."

One of the adages of cooking is that undercooking can be corrected, overcooking cannot. There is a similar one to use of spices.

Some of the 4Ed changes that have been revealed are analagous to "overseasoning" or "overcooking"- seemingly arbitrary, possibly contrary to a large segment of the installed base, whatever- and could have been drafted as optional rules to be added on instead of being integral to the base game.

For example, consider the Tiefling as a core race. I have absolutely no problem with PC Tieflings- I even try to play them on occasion. I DO have a problem with them as a core race replacing a legacy core race AND without the corresponding Aasimar as a core counterbalance.

Too much seasoning, too much cooking.

Don't get me wrong- I'm reserving judgement of 4Ed until I have its entire Core in my hot little hands, and I've already pre-ordered it- but I'm definitely less impressed by advanced info released re the switch from 3.XEd to 4Ed than I was about the revision from 2Ed to 3Ed. For all I know, the game could come together into a nice little cassarole.

However, unlike the last upgrade, I'm not holding my breath.