D&D in Target?!?!

[darjr]

I'd just like to add, for those looking for a reason to buy from both places, that there are charities out there that would love to have games for older kids donated.

 

[Stormtalon]

I'm gonna be buying one for my kid (he turned 13 this summer) at the FLGS so he can have the same box that I started on (with different and modern contents, of course).

Retro for the kid!

 

[Korgoth]

Depending upon your bankroll and purposes...

If I were buying 1 copy, I'd buy at my FLGS. They're the backbone retailers of the hobby who will be there if the big-box stores drop RPGs at some point.

If I were buying multiple copies- because I'm a Group Librarian type- I'd buy one at my FLGS and one at Target. Beyond that, all bets are off.

Yeah, support the FLGS. They need every edge they can get in a world of online discounters. The FLGS is still important to the hobby.

 

[pawsplay]

Not to be a party pooper, but it's 2010. The more "modern" look on the second one is starting to look dated to me. Three-dee is out; painterly magical realism is in. Preloaded fonts are out; vintage sarif fonts are in. Look at the covers of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Pierce's Lioness books, Jonatha Strange, etc.

 

[cavalier973]

It's a vastly different culture now than when D&D first came out. The Internet allows a busy parent to research a topic much more easily then they might otherwise.

First Thessalonians tells Christians to "abstain from the appearance of evil." It would be really hard for me to believe in this day and age that Dungeons & Dragons could even appear as being that evil. Simplified it's overinvolved chess. Today's game isn't even as controversial as 3E was.

And the correct translation of the Greek there in Thessalonians is "abstain from evil, regardless what form in which it appears." It's a different meaning than the conventional reading gives it.

C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, wrote a book (the Screwtape Letters) purporting to be letters from one demon, giving advice to another demon. So if I handed someone the book, and told him it was full demonic advice, he might shun me, but not because the book is necessarily evil. Context matters, and the point of much of D&D is that the characters are fighting the demons, not hooking up with them (usually)....

I've ordered the Red Box through Amazon.com (but have learned that it won't ship out until Sep 13th, so I won't get it until a couple of weeks after it comes out in stores; still, it's at an appreciably lower cost). I am curious whether the amazon.com copies will have the retro covers or the modern covers. So now, I have to decide whether to order the other Essentials products, and enjoy the price reduction, or just take the hit and get the books as soon as they are released. Decisions, decisions....

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, wrote a book (the Screwtape Letters) purporting to be letters from one demon, giving advice to another demon. So if I handed someone the book, and told him it was full demonic advice, he might shun me, but not because the book is necessarily evil. Context matters, and the point of much of D&D is that the characters are fighting the demons, not hooking up with them (usually)...

Context DOES matter...and most of the game's attackers will point out that its default settings include a polytheistic- thus anti-Christian- worldview.

 

[Rex Blunder]

Not to be a party pooper, but it's 2010. The more "modern" look on the second one is starting to look dated to me. Three-dee is out; painterly magical realism is in. Preloaded fonts are out; vintage sarif fonts are in. Look at the covers of Percy Jackson, Harry Potter, Pierce's Lioness books, Jonatha Strange, etc.

This is a good point. There is a huge teen market for fantasy literature. D&D should be courting this market. If that means copying Scholastic printing conventions, sobeit.

 

[Solvarn]

Context DOES matter...and most of the game's attackers will point out that its default settings include a polytheistic- thus anti-Christian- worldview.

Yet it would be so easy to completely disassemble this view or argument, on the Internet, where the sheer stupidity of the argument could be put on display for everyone to see.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You mean by pointing out the existence of hinge like Testament?

That only gets you so far- that isn't a baseline product, it's a supplement. It still doesn't get you past the default polytheistic assumptions of most FRPGs. And polytheism is fundamentally at odds with Christianity, even though such a worldview can result in identical moral/ethical viewpoints.


Now, using those facts to set an anti-RPG stance in general IS quite unwarranted.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Besides, given the choice, what would you rather have your kid be doing; playing at thieving and murder, running down innocent bystanders with a car and ... yeah, it gets worse... or playing at being a fantasy character fighting in a world of magic, struggling against evil?

Honestly in our high-school-era campaigning, you couldn't tell a big difference between what we were doing and Grand Theft Auto With Swords.