D&D 5E D&D and who it's aimed at

I've been there from 1983 to 2008 and then again from 2019 to now.
Yeah, ther was an early 2000's period for me, too, but...I only bought two D&D books in the Aughts, the 3.5 PHB and the 4E PHB. I was planning to get the 4E MM and DMG during the build up when I was excited, and then...never did.

Whereas I have skipped one 5E book so far.
 

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Yeah, ther was an early 2000's period for me, too, but...I only bought two D&D books in the Aughts, the 3.5 PHB and the 4E PHB. I was planning to get the 4E MM and DMG during the build up when I was excited, and then...never did.

Whereas I have skipped one 5E book so far.
Nobody in my group liked 4e, so we skipped that and kept playing 3e. When 5e came out we all liked it, but nobody wanted to give up all the options for only a few. 2019 was the year we decided enough had been released for us to make the switch. Now I own every non-adventure non-setting hardback, Sword Coast, Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the variety adventure books. I have one of the dragon oriented campaign books because a player bought it for me. Oh. And Strixhaven since a player also bought me that one.
 

Nobody in my group liked 4e, so we skipped that and kept playing 3e. When 5e came out we all liked it, but nobody wanted to give up all the options for only a few. 2019 was the year we decided enough had been released for us to make the switch. Now I own every non-adventure non-setting hardback, Sword Coast, Dungeon of the Mad Mage and the variety adventure books. I have one of the dragon oriented campaign books because a player bought it for me. Oh. And Strixhaven since a player also bought me that one.
We tried 4E, and gave it a bit of a go, but that's also when College was winding down. Pretty much stopped playing D&D entirely just before Essebtials came out.

Then I saw a commercial for D&D Kreo before the Lego movie in February 2014, wondered "hey, what's up with D&D these days?" That was about the perfect time to ask that question and get back into it.
 

You don't find Spelljammer silly? You don't think that Modrons are silly? Or skunk-throwing kobolds? Or zombie T-Rexes that vomit other zombies? Or floating alien jellyfish with telepathy that shoot stink spray at people? Or Flail Snails? Gnomes? Or Sea Lions that are actually lions with fish tails? Seriously? You don't think that literally any of that is silly, but somehow think that having a Rio-style Mardi Gras in a D&D book is so childish that it makes you want to mock people that like this version of D&D and boast about how you're playing "adult" D&D from decades ago?
Not sure what this rant is getting at... All I meant by my statement is if I find something "goofy and cringe" you can't "prove me wrong". That's all. You can talk about how you don't think it's goofy and cringe, and that's totally cool. In fact, it's why I post on these forums.

Yeah . . . yeah, you really do. Or, at least, to get a fully accurate sense of their tone you need to. "I don't have to even read the book to know that I don't like it!" is not a compelling argument.
You really think you have to read every book before you can decide if you like it or not?

Ah, the "It's okay if I'm objectively incorrect, it's just my opinion!" defense.

You've admitted to not reading the full books, have tried to say that there was no goofiness in early D&D (proven false by the mere existence of Spelljammer, Flumphs, and Owlbears back to the TSR era of the game), and cherrypicked art from a couple of recent D&D books to support your argument when there are literally dozens of pieces of art that directly contrast the overall point that you've tried to make and have continued to ignore. D&D 5e can be (and often is) serious, gritty, and dark. It still is, even in these last few years that you seem to think are nothing but bubbles, sunshine, and fairies for some reason. The people that have actually read the books and have run games with them are the ones that actually know what they're talking about. You don't.

Having an opinion is not a suitable replacement for factuality. Having an opinion does not make your opinion as valid as those more experienced/knowledgeable in the subject matter.
Good grief. Just because you cherrypicked your art and shared your opinion doesn't make you anymore "objectively correct" than me.

You have a lot of great things to say, but would be nice if you just shared them rather than focus on proving me wrong.
 


My suggestion, then, is duck; because if it hits you it's really gonna hurt! :)

With 30 odd hardcovers incoming that could hurt.

It's not just the art in both covers that's a turnoff I'm just not in the market for more 5E adventures. I've got more than I'll ever need or will ever get around to playing.

If it was a book like Xanathars or Tasha's I could overlook the art perhaps. Or a setting that does it for me.

I'll probably buy Spelljammer pass on Dragonlance. DL is basically my least favorite setting of all time.
 

You really think you have to read every book before you can decide if you like it or not?
I mean, we literally have a famous idiom in English that you cannot judge a book by its cover...one of the most widely used metaphors in the language, specifically used to remind people that superficial appearance can be deceiving. And it's flanked by several others, like "still waters run deep," "not all that glitters is gold," "beauty is only skin deep," "the clothes do not make the man," "more than meets the eye"....

It's probably one of the most common metaphors in our language, and English isn't alone in this. Judging something on the basis of very limited information, especially if your judgment ends up being truly inaccurate for that thing's actual qualities, is usually considered a fault.

Now, the issue of course is basing a judgment on sufficient information. What's sufficient? How much do you need to know? This is necessarily a sorites paradox. There is no single right answer for all cases; as Aristotle would put it, we must find the value that is correctly intermediate between the extremes of deficiency and excess for each situation, not some singular perfect intermediate value which is universally correct for all cases and all time. It is not possible to have a vice of excess in terms of "making good judgements in general," since a larger number of good judgements is always better than a smaller number of good judgements, but it clearly is possible to have a vice of deficiency in terms of failing to seek out enough information, vs a vice of excess, delaying so long that you effectively fail to make a decision at all. I would consider this a branch of diligence, which is flanked by the deficient vice of sloth, and the excessive vice of perfectionism: on the one hand, lacking in due motivation to properly prepare and investigate, and on the other, becoming so hyper-focused on making perfect decisions or judgments that you end up making no judgment at all ("the perfect is the enemy of the good" and all that.)

You are not wrong to say that you should not need absolutely flawless back-to-front understandings of things in order to make judgments about them. Yet, at the same time, your actual conclusions drawn here appear to be rather at odds with the product itself, such that others have claimed you are asserting simply false things about the book in the process of stating your judgment about it, rendering that judgment questionable. To use an obviously toy, primitive example: if someone said they did not like a particular flavor of ice cream because it was pink and they don't care for bubblegum ice cream, it would not be inappropriate for someone to question that judgment, not because disliking bubblegum ice cream is somehow inappropriate, but because the ice cream is actually strawberry flavored. In other words, the judgment has been made based on a (in this case, axiomatically, by design) inadequate understanding of the item in question. Now, you may certainly argue that there is a difference between this real example and my artificial, toy example, in that (say) one can actually read parts of the text and miss details that only come up later, whereas if one has tasted any amount of the ice cream at all one should quickly recognize what it's supposed to taste like. That's the sorites paradox coming in: what is a heap? When does a sufficient reading of the text fall below the minimum amount of information to draw a conclusion? There will never be a single answer. But that does not mean that there aren't states of insufficient information, nor that all judgments are equally valid on the basis of incomplete readings...especially if those judgments are accurately (that's very important) called out as asserting objectively false things about the text (such as claiming that it contains things it does not, or fails to contain things it actually does contain.)
 


Hey my 9 yr old daughter is really enjoying this adventure. But that is sorta the point you’re making. I think the occasional adventure aimed at the younger generation is good. But it needs to be balanced with products for those that want a grittier game. Which I don’t think we have seen from WotC lately.

And while my daughter is really enjoying WBtW, like almost all of the stuff from WotC, it requires substantial work from the DM to make good. This is my biggest complaint about the products they have been producing and, imo, defeats the primary purpose of buying premade material. Which is to reduce the DM’s burden.
For you, and for others who also hold this "haven't seen much other stuff from WotC lately" position, I have some questions.

Were you happy or unhappy, back in (say) 2015-2016, about the fact that Wizards was intentionally producing only a small amount of material each year?

Do you think "bloat" is a serious problem that games should make significant efforts to avoid?

Are you of the opinion that, in game design, "less is more" is just better than other approaches? (That is, few and generic options that cover many cases broadly, as opposed to many and specific options that each cover a few cases thoroughly.)

Finally, do you feel your preferences need official support in order to be playable or functional within D&D?

I of course have Thoughts about all of these, but I am genuinely curious about the responses here.
 

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.
I don't think I have it backwards so much as you seem to be confused about why I don't think the authors of AD&D were targeting 12 year old kids in a game with a random harlot table. As a 46 year old man, I don't find it particularly cringe inducing nor misogynistic to include harlots on a table with random encounters one might have in the city (at least not for a game aimed at adults or older teens). I don't believe Gygax and others included the table in the game to attract adolescent males, but I could be wrong. And if you have evidence that would suggest otherwise I'm more than open to evaluating it.

Keep in mind that Gygax was pushing 40 when AD&D 1st edition was released, so instead of bringing up age I think we just have to accept that attitudes and ideas of what's appropriate have changed over the last near half century. And I'm fine with that. It's not like I actually miss the harlot table.
 

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