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

[Scribe]

Do Tales from the Yawning Portal and Ghosts of Saltmarsh not count as this? Or Dungeon of the Mad Mage?

I don't see how that is in any way a playstyle or something worth bringing up.

Umm . . . do the Oathbreaker Paladin and Death Domain Cleric not count as this? Phantom Rogue? Most Warlock subclasses? (Fiend, Hexblade, Undead, GOO) They don't mechanically require you to be Chaotic Evil or anything, but they're pretty strongly themed as being not morally good.

That's a circular argument. If you think D&D 5e is being sanitized, you're only going to look for art that supports your argument. I already posted a ton of dark D&D 5e art from the past two years. If those don't prove that D&D isn't being Disneyfied/sanitized, nothing will.

No. Playstyle as you said can be done at the table level. What I said was market a book for sword and sorcery, with art and style that evokes that past era, with full youtube, twitter, and website support about how great it is, to go out and be a reaver.

LOL with no desire to offend anyone here, I had to go look and pass over several examples.

We both know they wont.

 

[Maxperson]

Umm . . . do the Oathbreaker Paladin and Death Domain Cleric not count as this? Phantom Rogue? Most Warlock subclasses? (Fiend, Hexblade, Undead, GOO) They don't mechanically require you to be Chaotic Evil or anything, but they're pretty strongly themed as being not morally good.

Oathbreaker and the Death Domain Cleric require DM approval. They aren't default PC options. The rest can definitely be themed dark as PC class options, but there aren't many dark backgrounds, which is where I would prefer most of them to be. Backgrounds can be assigned to many more character concepts than class options can.

 

[Scribe]

Oathbreaker and the Death Domain Cleric require DM approval. They aren't default PC options. The rest can definitely be themed dark as PC class options, but there aren't many dark backgrounds, which is where I would prefer most of them to be. Backgrounds can be assigned to many more character concepts than class options can.

And besides, it was rhetorical. They actively are going through and removing things via errata. They are not going to go back and actively put anything that could be remotely called out as offensive, or even within spitting distance of 'problematic' into the game and put a full marketing push behind it.

Twitter would go nuclear.

 

[Maxperson]

But that's exactly our point, though. If D&D has always had these goofy/wacky concepts like Owlbears, Spelljammer, Modrons, Flumphs, and Displacer Beasts, then claiming that D&D is suddenly being Disneyfied/sanitized in regards to newer goofy/silly content is a stupid argument. And, yes, that is what most people are claiming when they say that D&D is being sanitized/Disneyfied. They don't actually mean that stuff like nudity and extreme gore is being removed. If they meant that, they would be saying that. What they've been saying/showing is just a handful of pieces of art from books that they think looks too cute and are throwing a fit about it.

I never saw owlbears or displacer beasts as fluffy/goofy/wacky. Modrons, Flumphs, Dungeonland and The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror and others stuff, though, were definitely in those categories.

Reading through this thread proves that what most people mean when they talk about the "Disneyfication of D&D" is that they think some modern 5e art is too cute/silly. That's what the majority of complaints (and the most liked ones) in this thread are talking about. That is what some of us are trying to refute.

My take on it is that while art is mentioned, most of what "Disneyfication" is about is the move to make D&D far less deadly with each new edition and remove controversial topics like evil humanoid races, rendering alignment so meaningless as written that it's effectively not even in 5e, and so on.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

No. Playstyle as you said can be done at the table level. What I said was market a book for sword and sorcery, with art and style that evokes that past era, with full youtube, twitter, and website support about how great it is, to go out and be a reaver.

Yeah, this is not at all what I was talking about. I don't care about art style. Tales from the Yawning Portal, Ghosts of Saltmarsh, and Dungeon of the Mad Mage are Swords-and-Sorcery style adventures. Whether or not their art evokes the classic Swords-and-Sorcery adventures/settings really is not relevant to the discussion of whether or not D&D is being "sanitized".

LOL with no desire to offend anyone here, I had to go look and pass over several examples.

We both know they wont.

. . . Why would they? Why in the world would they publish a book with art featuring scantily clad adventurers? That's just not at all necessary, and, as you said, it's controversial. If that is the definition of "sanitizing D&D," good job. You just made it meaningless.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Oathbreaker and the Death Domain Cleric require DM approval. They aren't default PC options.

Everything requires DM approval, but you are technically correct. But I'm pretty sure @Scribe wasn't specifically asking for evil options that don't require DM approval. They still work as character options and are more evil-themed than any other official subclass in the game.

The rest can definitely be themed dark as PC class options, but there aren't many dark backgrounds, which is where I would prefer most of them to be. Backgrounds can be assigned to many more character concepts than class options can.

There is the Haunted One. And, even though they're not technically backgrounds, many of the Dark Gifts from Ravenloft have a similar role.

 

[Scribe]

Why in the world would they publish a book with art featuring scantily clad adventurers? That's just not at all necessary, and, as you said, it's controversial. If that is the definition of "sanitizing D&D," good job. You just made it meaningless.

Why wouldnt they? Why is it even controversial? Its a 100% textbook example of sanitizing D&D.

What did you think 'sanitizing' meant??

 

[Medic]

Umm . . . do the Oathbreaker Paladin and Death Domain Cleric not count as this? Phantom Rogue? Most Warlock subclasses? (Fiend, Hexblade, Undead, GOO) They don't mechanically require you to be Chaotic Evil or anything, but they're pretty strongly themed as being not morally good.

Let me preface this by saying that I am not being confrontative, and would appreciate your honest thoughts on the matter. Now, as I prefer to back my statements with evidence, let us delve into an older book for a moment. Al-Qadim features slaves available for purchase in the equipment table. Courtesans, specialists, and eunuch guards, all available for the PCs to buy, if they have the funds. Experienced player characters explicitly had the option to staff their palace with slaves, run a profitable business using forced labor, or even become slave traders themselves.

Do you believe that Wizards would be willing to include slaves as a product that PCs may purchase in future official published content, or at least put in a sidebar endorsing the option?

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Let me preface this by saying that I am not being confrontative, and would appreciate your honest thoughts on the matter. Now, as I prefer to back my statements with evidence, let us delve into an older book for a moment. Al-Qadim features slaves available for purchase in the equipment table. Courtesans, specialists, and eunuch guards, all available for the PCs to buy, if they have the funds. Experienced player characters explicitly had the option to staff their palace with slaves, run a profitable business using forced labor, or even become slave traders themselves.

Do you believe that Wizards would be willing to include slaves as a product that PCs may purchase in future official published content, or at least put in a sidebar endorsing the option?

No. I don't think that WotC would ever give the option of buying slaves in a modern D&D 5e book. I don't think that WotC would do anything that would even appear to be endorsing the idea of the characters buying and owning slaves.

But I don't really think that qualifies as "sanitizing" the hobby. And if it does, it really isn't something worth complaining about. I'd be more concerned with the people complaining about the removal of rules for buying slaves than I would be with the removal of them in the first place.

 

[Scribe]

No. I don't think that WotC would ever give the option of buying slaves in a modern D&D 5e book. I don't think that WotC would do anything that would even appear to be endorsing the idea of the characters buying and owning slaves.

But I don't really think that qualifies as "sanitizing" the hobby. And if it does, it really isn't something worth complaining about. I'd be more concerned with the people complaining about the removal of rules for buying slaves than I would be with the removal of them in the first place.

What is sanitizing, to you?