D&D in Target?!?!

[vic20]

I hope the singing and dancing LARPers in the aisles don't get in the way...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FhMMmqzbD8]YouTube - Target Ain't People[/ame]

 

[Greatwyrm]

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

This and then some. My daughter is going through these 100-or-so page young readers fantasy books faster than the library can get them in. There's a bazillion* Young Jedi Whatever Star Wars ones just a shelf over. Why not D&D based fantasy, too?


*Yes, a full bazillion. I asked the librarian.

 

[Hawkeye]

This and then some. My daughter is going through these 100-or-so page young readers fantasy books faster than the library can get them in. There's a bazillion* Young Jedi Whatever Star Wars ones just a shelf over. Why not D&D based fantasy, too?


*Yes, a full bazillion. I asked the librarian.

"And then the little Warrior that could killed the massive red dragon with a swipe of his mighty vorpal blade and his 25th level Daily Exploit, Supremacy of Steel. And they all lived happily ever after."

The End.

Torqumada

 

[Jhaelen]

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

*blinks* err, what? A polytheistic worldview is not an anti-Christian worldview, it's just a non-Christian worldview.

 

[Amphimir Míriel]

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.

Not to derail the thread, but there's also Spiritual Warfare (look it up in the regular .pdf selling place) which is 3.5 D&D in a monotheistic, Christian world (think D&D+Narnia)

It has rules for preaching and bible quoting to monsters...

 

[Saracenus]

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.

Yoinked for my sig. YES!*

* only this described my middle school (6-8th grade) days of gaming.

 

[giant.robot]

I'm pretty happy to hear Target is going to be selling the Essentials stuff. It's not really out of character for them as stores have at least a rack of CCGs including Magic: The Gathering. I'm less worried about the "OMG Satanism!" now than I would have been fifteen or twenty years ago. If crazy fundamentalist groups were able to get Target to stop carrying products they wouldn't be carrying things like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, or Twilight.

One major difference between the olden days and now is an entire generation of adults grew up playing D&D. In the D&D boxed set heyday of the 80s millions of copies were sold. There were probably far more players then than there are now and these people are now adults with kids of their own. Since few if any of them fell into depravity by playing D&D I doubt they'll raise much of a stink today. Unlike their parents they actually know what D&D is and don't need to rely on ridiculous hyperbole from the nightly news or overzealous pop psychologists.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Is there a link to an official announcement?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

*blinks* err, what? A polytheistic worldview is not an anti-Christian worldview, it's just a non-Christian worldview.

Try telling that to someone who is a fundamentalist Christian. They probably won't agree that there is a distinction.

In the RW, I've seen just that with a buddy of mine who is a pagan who works as a radiology tech. He's also gay. One of his co-workers is an evangelical.

He is her worst nightmare...and she is his biggest pain in the ass.

 

[JohnSnow]

Try telling that to someone who is a fundamentalist Christian. They probably won't agree that there is a distinction.

The thing is that WotC (and D&D) doesn't need to worry about the fundamentalists who don't see the distinction. Those are the same people who picket the release of Harry Potter books and movies. They are, to put it rather mildly, rather firmly outside the target demographic.

Anyone who would give credence to BADD and its ilk can be soundly ignored. D&D can be rather legitimately linked to heroic fiction, like that written by old Professor Tolkien, who was writing (non-heavy handed) Christian allegory. Or that of medieval chivalric romances, many of which were written by Christians. Or to Greek/Roman mythology, which has been an acceptable form of heroic narrative for most Christians to read as far back as, oh, 800 or so.

If the fundamentalists have a problem with it? To put it bluntly: tough.