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

[Greg Benage]

To be picky - maybe even pedantic - I didn't say disneyfication. I said sanitization.

To me 'disneyfication' implies making changes specifically aimed at becoming more kid-friendly while 'sanitization' implies making changes aimed at making it both more kid-friendly and more grandma-friendly at the same time.

Yeah, see, I agree (does anyone disagree?) that there's been sanitization. I disagree that this is intended to make D&D more appealing to a specific age group, which, I thought, was the point of the "Disneyfication" charge.

 

[Malmuria]

I don't know...Good vs Evil strikes me as more "sanitized" than moral grey. The question with humanoids was just that of fantasy biological essentialism, especially having to do with moral traits and choices.

 

[Jahydin]

It utterly baffles me when people get bent out of shape that the current crop of books don't cater to their taste.

I'll admit, I pick and choose and I always have. Outside of core, my first 3.5 WOtC book that I bought was like Tome of Magic. I skipped 99% of the material WotC produced because the OGL stuff was more to my liking. 4e saw me get the core books only. 5e, core books and then my first WOtC purchase was Waterdeep Dragon Heist. My last WotC purchase was Tasha's.

If WotC isn't rocking your boat, there's a freaking MOUNTAIN of stuff out there for you. Who cares if WotC is doing stuff that doesn't speak to you? It's not it's 1992 and the only source of D&D stuff is one company.

Be positive about the stuff you like and ignore the rest. Stop whinging about what they're not doing and sing the praises of those who are catering to your tastes.

It just baffles me that people waste any time with stuff they don't like. I guess I just don't get the payoff.

I mean, this thread was setup for people to come in and explain why they felt D&D is losing its way.

Feels like:
Person 1:"Hey,there's a lot of people cranky about D&D right now, I don't understand why, seems okay to me?"
Person 2: "Well, I (and everyone gamer I know) haven't bought anything in the last 4 years because the tone is too soft, sleek, and silly."
Person 1: "Wow, how about just shutting up and just talking about the things you DO like."
Person 2: "Okay..."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I don't know...Good vs Evil strikes me as more "sanitized" than moral grey. The question with humanoids was just that of fantasy biological essentialism, especially having to do with moral traits and choices.

Yeah, black and white alignment serves as a way to remove moral ambiguity. There are the good guys in white hats and the bad guys in black hats. Removing alignment makes things much more complex and "adult".

 

[Lanefan]

I don't know...Good vs Evil strikes me as more "sanitized" than moral grey.

Only if a) the players only get access to the Good when it comes to PC generation and-or b) when the Evil is presented to the DM in a remote, touch-only-with-a-ten-foot-pole-because-you-have-to manner.

The unsanitized (and IMO better) version would be to present Good and Evil (and Neutral, which I'll ignore for these purposes) as "Here's what Good does, here's what Evil does, here's some tips on how to play each, now have at it" without any embedded moralizing other than a reminder that what happens in the game stays in the game.

 

[Malmuria]

I mean, this thread was setup for people to come in and explain why they felt D&D is losing its way.

Feels like:
Person 1:"Hey,there's a lot of people cranky about D&D right now, I don't understand why, seems okay to me?"
Person 2: "Well, I (and everyone gamer I know) haven't bought anything in the last 4 years because the tone is too soft, sleek, and silly."
Person 1: "Wow, how about just shutting up and just talking about the things you DO like."
Person 2: "Okay..."

The specific claim is that there is evidence that wotc products are aimed at younger audiences:

Yes, some products are aimed at younger players (which is a good thing, for obvious reasons), the recent Netherdeep book was clearly aimed at older players with its more graphic artwork and horror themes

Per your claim of "soft, sleek, and silly," I would question whether that's specifically for younger audiences or just a wider variety of audiences at all ages. And second, along those lines, the tone of their products seem to vary which doesn't suggest a trend, and they are revisiting heritage settings which is a gamble because new players may or may not actually care about those settings.

Are the following books "soft, sleek, and silly"?

• Call of the Netherdeep
• Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
• Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

note, I'm not asking whether you like critical role or not, or whether you agree with any lore changes in VRGtR. How would you characterize these books in terms of their tone?

 

[Retreater]

I mean, this thread was setup for people to come in and explain why they felt D&D is losing its way.

Feels like:
Person 1:"Hey,there's a lot of people cranky about D&D right now, I don't understand why, seems okay to me?"
Person 2: "Well, I (and everyone gamer I know) haven't bought anything in the last 4 years because the tone is too soft, sleek, and silly."
Person 1: "Wow, how about just shutting up and just talking about the things you DO like."
Person 2: "Okay..."

I know I've been one of those complainers, but for the most part my complaints have been "I'm just not interested in this stuff." A couple of them were too "silly-forward" (with the marketing that was promoted). Others are things that should be "easy sells" if you were in Wizards corporate (Critical Role-focused material), but I just don't care about Critical Role.
The stuff that has been marketed for the past edition fans (rebooted Ravenloft) doesn't really appeal to me because they changed the flavor and tone of it. What I liked about the Ravenloft setting was its basis in literature - to the point that I would adapt novels to adventures (I made Captain Nemo a Darklord, and it was a great adventure). The new version seems different.
I could tell you exactly what I would want. I'm not on here just to complain.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

For the last year or more these forums have seen endless debates arguments over one clear and undeniable example of sanitization: the de-Evil-ing of Orcs and some other species.

Whether one agrees with these changes or not, that they are a form of sanitization is pretty much a fact.

But, again, that is CLEARLY not what people mean by "Disneyfied." Like, if people meant that, they would have been saying that a year or more ago.

Instead, it's a term that popped up in the last, what, three months or so? And it's very clearly focused on art and presentation. I never saw a single person refer to "orcs can be non-evil" as "Disneyfied." I certainly saw them complain, though I felt their complaints were unwarranted and honestly chock full of slippery slope fallacies and pearl clutching alarmism, but not because it was turning D&D into a cloying, child-friendly, brightly-colored, sanitized thing. Instead, it was people claiming (more or less) "I can't adventure if orcs aren't Always Evil," which is frankly ridiculous on its face and, more importantly, not at all prevented by the proposed changes. Making it exactly what I referred to earlier in the thread: people don't just need their preferences to be allowed, don't even just need their preferences to be recognized, they need their preferences to be enshrined in the rules or else D&D is a Bad Game that has Betrayed Its Spirit or whatever other nonsense. Other people, however, do not need their preferences enshrined in the rules, because the rules have never limited what people can choose to do with D&D. This attitude or "support for me but not for thee" is incredibly prevalent in D&D circles specifically and even more incredibly frustrating, especially since most folks don't even seem to notice they believe it and see nothing inconsistent with (say) demanding that the low level experience be brutally hard because "well you can just play at higher level."

 

[Retreater]

Are the following books "soft, sleek, and silly"?

• Call of the Netherdeep
• Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
• Fizban's Treasury of Dragons

Ok. So I can tell you how I see them (as mostly an outsider who has seen the initial marketing and the big word-of-mouth promotions).

Call of the Netherdeep
My opinion as an outsider ... Critical Role is a humorous setting run by comedic voice actors. The scenes I have heard about include a player thinking it would be HILARIOUS to wild shape into a goldfish and jump off a cliff. When my wife watches the animated series, there's a bard that is singing about having sex with stuff constantly. It's like watching Tenacious D&D. Which can be entertaining, sure, but it feels more like Harmon Quest than a real D&D game I'd want to play.
Netherdeep's big reveal about the end boss ...

Spoiler

You face him down and try to turn him from his evil ways.

That's certainly soft.

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft
The big thing I've heard about this one is that the way I used to run Ravenloft is bad, and I should feel bad about playing it and presenting it the way I've done for nearly 30 years. It's a very negative way of promoting a product. Some of this is from the official marketing, some of it from fans online. I'd rather just not run either setting now. I'm a middle aged white guy in the mid-western U.S., running games for the same population. The cultural zeitgeist of the recent years is that we need to let people tell the stories of their cultures - and I'm good with that. I just can't do it without appropriation.

Fizban's Treasury of Dragons
I don't suppose this is soft or silly. I just can't imagine a world in which this would be useful to me. It's a book about dragons. What am I going to do, run an adventure with all these dragons in it? We've got plenty of dragons already, and this doesn't seem like it could possibly add anything to my game. It is as exciting to me as Gary's Book of Polearms.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Only if a) the players only get access to the Good when it comes to PC generation and-or b) when the Evil is presented to the DM in a remote, touch-only-with-a-ten-foot-pole-because-you-have-to manner.

The unsanitized (and IMO better) version would be to present Good and Evil (and Neutral, which I'll ignore for these purposes) as "Here's what Good does, here's what Evil does, here's some tips on how to play each, now have at it" without any embedded moralizing other than a reminder that what happens in the game stays in the game.

Funny. Every time I have advocated for a similar thing in literally any other area, I get mountains of opposition...and, unless my memory fails me, that includes you.

Stuff like not having judgmental comments about which races are inherent to fantasy settings vs icky newcomers, but instead presenting all of them without fear or favor and then giving useful advice for how to use lists (whether curated, set by player choices, or unlimited) to set tone and theme for a world. Or to do the same thing for options like classes or deities, which similarly can shape how a setting looks and feels. (E.g., in my DW game, there is only one god in the dominant religion of the area where the characters live, but the One is worshipped under many different aspects that are all understood to be facets of a single infinite being beyond mortal ken, akin to certain Jewish and Islamic perspectives, because Islam and Judaism are the primary inspirations for this religion.)

So, awesome, glad to see another person on the "give people tools, resources, and advice, and support them in making their own decisions rather than telling them what D&D is supposed to contain." Are you interested in generalizing that position to other things I know we have argued about more than once over the years?