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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Composer99" data-source="post: 8615912" data-attributes="member: 7030042">I wasn't making any point with respect to the prevalence of swords-and-sorcery content in 5e D&D or lack thereof, so, apropos of the point I was making (which had to do with art)... so... so what? Why would I even care to try to prove you wrong?It's worth nothing that in the 5e DMG, there is discussion on pages 38-41 on the different "flavours of fantasy", including a description of swords-and-sorcery. That is basically all the treatment that swords-and-sorcery gets in the DMG, although I should note that most of the other genres discsussed have also been hitherto underserved, with so far only some getting new time in the limelight with the publication of various setting books - Theros for mythic fantasy (more or less) or Ravenloft for dark fantasy (more or less), for instance. Indeed, the DMG explicitly states: "Heroic fantasy is the baseline assumed by the D&D rules." (DMG 38)(I should also note, apropos of the recent announcement of Spelljammer, that insofar as "gonzo fantasy" is "a thing" distinct from what the DMG calls "crossing the streams", such a subgenre didn't even rate a mention in the DMG as a "flavour of fantasy", although it's about to get its time in the limelight as well.)The rules, then assume a heroic fantasy baseline. What is more, insofar as D&D 5e has a "default" setting, it's the Forgotten Realms, which for the most part falls squarely into the mold of heroic fantasy. Most adventures published thus far are therefore either set in the Realms or have been shorn of setting - the Yawning Portal anthology, for instance, or how Ghosts of Saltmarsh introduces such a tiny part of Oerth as to not really get across its distinctive qualities, or how Curse of Strahd has nothing in particular to do with the Ravenloft setting as such.Little wonder that swords-and-sorcery has yet to have its day in the sun. It may well do so in the future, though - or not.None of this is to attempt to prove you wrong, but that was never my goal. The closest I might get to such an attempt is to dispute that swords-and-sorcery was particularly prevalent or important to the "gameplay culture" of the past, except for serving as one of the inspirations of the game. In that it is similar to, say, Tolkeinesque fantasy. But I am not sure you are asserting that to begin with, and in any event the amount of swords-and-sorcery content in times past not particularly germane to the question of "D&D and who it's aimed at" in the present.</blockquote>

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