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

[jasper]

Thank you for clearing this up!

I will accept my "unofficial" status and skulk away into the darkness with the mongrelmen.

You mean mongrelgummi!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You mean mongrelgummi!

Somehow considerably more horrifying than mongrelmen!

 

[Jer]

I sometimes joke about all the new vocabulary words I learned from role playing games.

I believe I was 12 years old and reading one of the Slaver modules when I asked my father what "House of Ill Repute" meant. I can still remember the look on his face. Somehow he managed to choke out "it's a place with a bad reputation" and left it at that.

 

[Scribe]

I mean, okay, but like...what about your age makes it such that you cannot enjoy positivity, bright colors, peaceful solutions, ultimately good things coming to good people, and small entities with large eyes/heads and small limbs (among other neotenous features)?

I suppose I cannot say its age, but the media upon which I grew up, which is a byproduct of my age, but also my economic situation, location, sex, friends, hobbies, etc...

However I could feel my eyes glazing over at '....positivity, bright colours, peaceful solutions...' it simply holds no interest with me. These themes, drives, whatever simply do not appeal in what I view as a game about kicking in doors, killing bad guys, and taking stuff for profit.

The 'small entities with large eyes' part seems weirdly specific, but I will assume its something I dont understand the reference to.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

For those worried that Gen Z wants D&D to be non-violent, take solace in the fact that I recently ran a short campaign for college students where three of the five PCs were bloodthirsty murderhobos, including a harengon (aka rabbitfolk) barbarian whose family was killed by worgs but believed they deserved death for being weak.

 

[Retreater]

I was running a D&D game for my girlfriend's daughter who was in preschool at the time. I've never seen such bloodthirsty hate and glee at killing goblins as I did in that girl in her Tinkerbell costume.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah. I'm predominantly playing Pathfinder 2e, Traveller, Warhammer Fantasy RPG, and Forbidden Lands these days.
WotC's 5e isn't for me. I don't find much of their content compelling or even (in recent cases) written to a bare minimum professional quality.

OK so...why are you in a D&D thread? Not that you CAN'T be in a D&D thread, but it's a genuine question as to why?

 

[Lidgar]

Confession time: I’ve been playing D&D for over 40 years, love Disneyland, and am planning to buy both Spelljammer and Dragonlance. Guess those evil geniuses at WotC have me pegged…

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The 'small entities with large eyes' part seems weirdly specific, but I will assume its something I dont understand the reference to.

Cuteness.

Neoteny is the fancy science word for "looking like a baby as an adult." So, for example, dogs exhibit neoteny relative to their more wolflike ancestors. They have softer, rounder faces, softer ears, yip and whine and bark much more, etc. Other aspects of neoteny in most animals are large heads and limbs and small torsos, relative to adult body proportions.

A creature exhibiting these traits will almost certainly look "cutesy" to you. Such traits are almost universally recognized by Westerners socialized as female as markers of "cute" animals. It's the reason humans go all googoo baby-talk over the babies of other animals. We have extremely intense pack bonding instincts relative to most other creatures, which frequently cause us to bond (or at least desire a bond) with the young of other species. Dogs in particular appear to have exploited this characteristic and, in turn, been reshaped by it such that they likewise now find us adorable as well. (The evolution of canine domestication is actually a super fascinating subject, but I digress.)

 

[Malmuria]

Kids and teenagers are superviolent. What if we have it wrong: the “softer,” non-combat oriented dnd is actually for the adults

The Real DIY D&Ders - Questing Beast

A 5th grade girl is DMing D&D with a circle of boys on the playground of the school where I teach. I sit down to play along. She is having everyone roll a die. Me: “Where are we?” DM: “We’re in hell.” Me: “Why are we all rolling dice?” Boy: “Hades cursed us to pick […]

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