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

[Parmandur]

Locally my two stores can't keep product in stoke, breweries are hosting games, sports coaches are playing the game, complete strangers walk up and ask me about my shirt.
The game is strong right now.

But, he knows.like 20 people who are lukewarm about the recent book, how can this be?!? I thought "data" was the plural of "anecdote."

 

[Hussar]

Also, now mechanical options and deadliness of combat are Disneyfication? I think we’ve successfully rendered the term meaningless — or more likely, it just means “stuff I don’t like.”

Hand crossbows are Disneyfication. Prove me wrong.

Like most of these terms, yes, it absolutely is a sort of dog whistle to show your "team". Don't like X? Then use some made up term that is so vague that it cannot be countered to prove your on the right side! Works for just about anything.

 

[Jahydin]

is pretty indicative of just how out of touch you are. I mean, when the newest WotC book is hitting the top 10 on Amazon while still in pre-order, that's a LOT more than just catering to Zoomers and Magic fans. Your books don't sit in the early top 100 of Amazon for TEN YEARS if they are only selling to a slice of the population. I mean, good grief, right as I type this, the 5e PHB is #111 on Amazon of all books. Never minding that mainstream publishers would give up their left testicle for sales like this, this is a ten year old game book! This is unheard of.

To put it in context, the PHB has likely outsold all other RPG books outside of D&D combined. I don't mean just during the 5e era. I mean of all time. If you took all the books sold by all RPG publishers other than D&D, combined them, they'd still probably have less total sales than the 5e PHB.

They most certainly aren't alienating anyone.

Just so we're clear, a Zoomer can be almost 30 at the moment. I think if you read my statement to say I guess a lot of new players coming into the hobby are under 30 and/or Magic fans it's not nearly as ludicrous as you're making it out to be.

And if you remember, 4E also outsold all other editions of D&D. It also had a pretty good run, but in the end almost tanked the franchise. A big part of 5E's development was getting back to the roots of the game and reclaiming the older fans again. It did and it was amazing. But with a new edition coming out this is shaping up to be pretty different from classic D&D again, I can't help but think they're going to repeat the same mistake.

 

[Jahydin]

The willingness of people to generalize from their own little bubble to everyone else is really mind-boggling. The game has never been so popular. As far as anecdotal evidence, I’m a fiftysomething who’s been playing since 1980 and I just pre-ordered SJ and JttRC. I seem to have plenty of company.

I don’t like everything Wizards is doing (never liked everything TSR did, either), but I absolutely think the “they’re leaving me behind!!!” crew is a small, very vocal online minority.

I know I was generalizing, that's why I shared my experience and posted my guesses here on the forum to get other opinions. That's how we learn.

Not clear why everyone has to be so dramatic about it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Really? As an adolescent I found it funny. At 45 years old now I find it cringey and misogynistic. You seem backwards on what adolescent males like.

Oh, absolutely. Early D&D is intensely adolescent. The random harlot table is probably the most pointed demonstration thereof. Lewdness purely to be lewd, not for any other purpose but to demonstrate lewdness, because adults can be lewd and children should not. It reflects, as Lewis put it, the fundamentally adolescent desire to appear "very grown up," as opposed to the actually grown up thing of doing things because you choose to and not caring tuppence about what others think (of course, only so long as you doing what you like doesn't harm others, but that's not particularly relevant here, methinks.)

Just about the only really mature thing in early D&D is its emphasis on Law vs Chaos, rather than Good vs Evil. Because--as I think most of us would agree--the unfortunate trend with Good vs Evil conflicts is that both sides become deeply flanderized. Good becomes so flat, one-note, and lens-flare-heavy that it's just one glaring blob with no defining characteristics, and Evil becomes a mustache-twirling caricature, a Dick Dastardly that can't bear to win legitimately and must cheat, even if doing so increases the likelihood that he will lose. Law vs Chaos was, in part, an attempt to dodge those faults (which were rather prevalent due to the Comics Code Authority still being enforced, albeit weakening). Of course, the problem is that it almost immediately got just as flanderized as soon as it left the source, with Law being turned into either "the only place where people can actually live live" or "HORRIFIC FASCIST TYRANNY," and Chaos likewise being turned respectively into "HORRIFIC ANARCHIC BLOODBATH" and "the only place where people can actually live live."

What they may have failed to consider is that merely attempting the former is enough to make much of the latter group unhappy.

Despite my comments below: "Much" may be overstating the case. I just wish that more of those who weren't made unhappy by this would, y'know, speak up and share that "honestly this is fine" or "honestly this is fine even if it isn't for me." Which (since this post has taken me a while to write), it seems people are actually doing. So that's good!

I don’t think so, honestly. I think it’s a small minority of the latter putting up an outsized fuss.

The thing is, it's always a vocal minority. It's always been a vocal minority that kicks up this kind of fuss. A vocal minority killed the Next playtest sorcerer. A vocal minority tore down 4e and tarred and feathered it for sins it never committed, solely because it was new and different. A vocal minority hated the warlord, and WotC was originally perfectly content to ignore them (they just burned themselves with their own sloppy, badly-handled schedule.)

That it is a vocal minority is, if anything, the prime reason to speak up against it. Prove that there's more to the story!

You make it sound like they just put out a few products. The tone and direction of the game has changed so much they're overhauling the core products to match.

It IS just a few products, and even then, only a limited and (often) rather jaundiced interpretation thereof. E.g., several people have openly admitted to judging The Wild Beyond the Witchlight purely based on its cover and having been told that it is merely possible to overcome its challenges nonviolently. (I, myself, rarely--as in essentially never--buy adventure books regardless, so I paid it little mind, and what I saw made me think it was too dark for my tastes.)

The problem, of course, is that "just a few products" is also most of what WotC will publish in a year. Amazingly, people are now seeing the dark side of "publish very very few things to avoid any possibility of excess." The very same people who were toasting 5e's commitment to "avoiding bloat" and (allegedly) only publishing things that were really worthwhile are now the people complaining about a sudden (or not-so-sudden) shift in tone and a dearth of options.

It's the classic unpleasable fanbase. "Cut down the bloat," people complain if there's even a six-month period where they don't get products explicitly and solely catering to them and their interests, or the dearth of options, or both. Fail to "cut down the bloat," and those very same people will complain about the excess of options and how "unnecessary" so much of it is.

If it had a more consistent form, I'd almost want to coin a new fallacy for it. Though I suppose a certain meme fits...

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I own Candlekeep barely read it but I can say that for most of my recent purchases.

Hang on a moment, you just admitted that you hadn't really read Candlekeep. If you haven't actually read the book (and presumably other newer releases) who are you to be making such a stand that the newer releases are "Disneyfying D&D"?

In the writing community, there's this little phrase, "write what you know." You've probably heard it before. I'm a strong believer that its basic meaning also applies to online posts, in-person conversations, and general discussions.

If you don't "know" Candlekeep Mysteries and its contents all that well . . . why in the name of Tharizdun are you writing multiple posts about how you think that it and other newer books are "Disneyfying D&D"?

(P.S. I'm just specifically calling you out because of this post of mine. This applies to a lot more people that just you. And in more threads than this one.)

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Yep.

I quite like Witchlight, but I disliked the cover even before I knew anything about the contents of the book. I especially don't like the alternate art for it. There's a reason people say "don't judge a book by its cover". This is very applicable (IMO) to The Wild Beyond the Witchlight.

That and the promotional art of Frog-Nard the neck beard fairy.

His name is Thaco the Clown. He's not a fairy, he's just wearing fake fairy wings (like basically everyone at the carnival does). And he's not at all an important or major part of the adventure. He's just a joke character that appears in like one page and never comes up again. Listing him as a reason for not wanting to buy the book is silly.

And the Wizards marketing blurb "you don't have to fight anything."

That's just to open up more options to solving the adventure and its encounters. You absolutely can fight literally everything contained in it. You're just not forced to. Listing the fact that you're not forced to fight anything in the book is silly.

All that competing against me not liking fey to start with.

That's fine. I'm a bit confused as how someone could hate a creature type as diverse as "fey", given that it includes everything between Satyrs, Dryads, Redcaps, and Quicklings, but that's a valid reason to not like the concept of a Feywild adventure. Your other reasons for not wanting to buy the book are pretty ridiculous, but this one's perfectly reasonable, even if I don't understand or agree with it.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Chapter 2 main encounter is The Wild Beyond the Witchlight according to the book you would be 2nd level or maybe 3rd. . 4 or 5 3rd level vs CR 7. 2 of her buddies Volo's Guide to Monsters CR 1 with a cr 2 guest Volo's Guide to Monsters
So if they do try to do the murder hobo the odds are not in their favor.
Chapter 1 Mr Witch and Mr Light both Cr 3 dudes. And guard by a cr1 bugbear.
So the odds are generally stacked against the murder hobo types.

I'm sorry, maybe I'm not understanding you, but are you saying that the book is "Disneyfied" because it doesn't encourage murderhoboing?

 

[S'mon]

It doesn't seem aimed at children (or parents), to me. Modern college students, yes. But the core target audience seems to be more twenty-somethings.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Absolutely. I personally am a huge softie and favor fanciful, light, and fluffy. I have pretty much completely ignored Wild Beyond the Witchlight because that cover screams "eldritch horror circus" and/or "gritty fantastical steampunk," depending on whether you focus on the creepy clown who looks like he has blood splattered on his face, or the nonhuman top-hatted gentleman with the glowing pocketwatch (who appears to be an orc or ogre or the like.)

Wow. Your impressions from the cover ("eldritch horror circus" and "gritty fantastical steampunk") could not be more wrong. There's basically nothing even remotely steampunk-y in the book, and really not much eldritch horror (unless you count hags).

(Also, the ringleaders are Shadar-Kai, not orcs/ogres. They're actually former ringleaders for Ravenloft's carnival.)