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

[Jacob Lewis]

Not to get too off tangent, but maybe if you can isolate what you liked about 4e (which I was also a fan), maybe you can find other games doing something similar? There is some overlap in PF2, 13th Age, Soulbound, etc.
I hate to see someone give up.

Thanks for reaching out. I'm not looking for substitutes. I just want the same level of support and the freedom to continue using and expanding my favorite system the way others get to enjoy theirs. But that's really another subject for discussion elsewhere.

 

[MGibster]

Yup, back to my OSR games I go. Have fun with your totally grown up D&D...

Yes. I too demand that the game where I pretend to be an elf has all the gritty seriousness that's a fit for a mature man such as myself.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Yes. I too demand that the game where I pretend to be an elf has all the gritty seriousness that's a fit for a mature man such as myself.

When I was a teen, I thought everything had to be taken extremely seriously. Now I an a man, I just want to have fun and be silly.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

I used to be the target market but now I'm not. That's fine; all those older products still exist and are trivial to acquire.

 

[beancounter]

yes but marketing to a bunch of 40 and 50 somethings with the maturity of a 12 year old and the sense of humor of an 8 year old (poop jokes) will never be a bad idea.

That may be true, but that wasn't what I was getting at.

By the time most kids are 12, they try their hardest to avoid being seen as a "little kid". They will start trying to do as much adult things that they can, and be independent from adults whenever possible. This behavior includes avoiding toys and games that they associate with little kids, such as Disney related stuff (among others). In addition, this is about the time puberty hits, and they start noticing the opposite sex.

Whereas most 8 year old kids won't engage in such behaviors.

So, to effectively market to these two age groups you have to employ different strategies. For example, putting a picture of an attractive women (or man) on the cover is likely to be more effective at drawing the attention of a 12 year old than an 8 year old. And conversely, putting a cute, big eyed cartoon animal on the cover is more likely to draw the attention of an 8 year old.

So, ultimately my point is that it doesn't make sense to put all kids into one single demographic.

 

[Retreater]

Thanks for reaching out. I'm not looking for substitutes. I just want the same level of support and the freedom to continue using and expanding my favorite system the way others get to enjoy theirs. But that's really another subject for discussion elsewhere.

I'm holding out hope that one day something like the OSR movement can expand to 4E. I think there is some nostalgia there and more goodwill than when it was being published.
But I feel your pain.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Yeah I recently saw DCC (from some thread here) and found it refreshing.

I mean, don't just dip your toe. Dive in! So much of the discussion of 5e's possible tone shift and audience focus here is just fully solved by DCC, which fully embraces the let's-play-scoundrels swords and sorcery tone. Folks here like to dismiss that as grim-and-gritty edgelord, which means they're too busy sneering to look at DCC. A lot of it is very wild, very gonzo stuff! And some of it is genuinely funny. It just isn't uWu hamsters and such.

But I guess it's easy for me to recommend giving up on 5e because I honestly don't get the system loyalty. It's just D&D. So is DCC. So are a ton of D&D-derived games out there. Sure, there are some differences, but at the end of the day you're still playing a class-based level-progression d20 fantasy game with the same six stats, saving throws, HP, etc. And for all the 5e-specific stuff that isn't in DCC, there's extremely cool stuff like rules for spell duels that make being a caster more interesting, and not just about spell slot management. DCC also has fun dice, amazing adventures, and you no longer have to sit around on pins and needles, waiting to see if WotC will write up a paragraph that gives you the go-ahead to include Sigil in your campaign. You'll probably be too busy with much crazier situations to care.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

That may be true, but that wasn't what I was getting at.

yeah sorry I was being snarky for a joke at our expense...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I'm holding out hope that one day something like the OSR movement can expand to 4E. I think there is some nostalgia there and more goodwill than when it was being published.
But I feel your pain.

i am so annoyed there ISN"T a good 4e retroclone

 

[Retreater]

This sound like a post by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about! If these one-liners are what you think about these books (3 of which are not even out yet) then it tells me you haven't really looked them very deeply.

Well the one-liners are just quick takes about them, oversimplified.
The past two years haven't exactly been full of opportunities to look through the books in depth in person at a store. The only one I've actually looked through was Candlekeep. The adventures all seemed too short to really get into. Some of the adventures consisted of going to one site and fighting one guy to finish the adventure. That's just not what I'm looking for.
The other stuff I'm going with the marketing and reviews I've read online, which tend to an extreme "no questions asked" loving everything Wizards makes or someone trashing it.
I do know I have no interest in Critical Role from trying to watch a couple episodes and having had bad experiences with the influence it's had on one of my former groups (my wife's DM fell under the spell badly and kicked her out of the group because she wasn't "streaming quality.")
Then I have to think about how I'm using gaming material these days - exclusively on VTT. If I were to buy and run a campaign setting, that would mean everything I play on a VTT needs to be altered and adapted (or written whole cloth) to that campaign setting.
That's at least twice the work of just finding something premade and running it on the VTT.
In this case Curse of Strahd is much more helpful for me (and usable) than Van Richten's Guide.
I own so much 5e stuff that I have to consider if I'm going to use something and how I will use it before I buy it.
Additionally what's keeping me from playing/running 5e is the implementation on VTT. I was doing ok on Roll 20, but we shifted to Foundry. I have no 5e content on Foundry, and to get it, you have to buy it on DND Beyond and (questionably) port it using a module. It's like a back door hack that's not guaranteed to work, and support can (and has in the past) get pulled at any point.
I can't even buy PDFs of this stuff to use digitally and port over myself.
There are many reasons to dislike WotC now - and it's not all displacer beast kittens.