D&D is an Adult Game?

[Umbran]

Ratings on boxes (for ages 10+) have to due with content and safety, not a target audience or who would actually enjoy the product.

I think that's a major point folks often miss. "Adult" means different things in different contexts. In terms of safety it means one thing, in terms of content (violence, sex, and so on) it means another, in terms of rules complexity, it means a third thing.

Back in the day, both the boxed sets and the AD&D hardcovers (and modules) were sold in places like "Toys-R-Us". They were also sold in hobby stores, next to the expensive and complicated miniatures-wargaming materials. These days, the materials are easily found in bookstores, usually right between the sci-fi/fantasy books and the manga comics. often within sight of the YA fiction.

I think the evidence exists to say that the target audience for D&D has always been pretty broad.

 

[diaglo]

12 is adult for movie ticket purchases. or at least it was when i was 12. that didn't mean i could go to some movies based on the Rating system. it just meant i had to pay for an adult fare.

 

[Scribble]

Hussar- Dude...

Adults just looked younger back then. I blame bovine growth hormones, and ummm vaccines or something.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

D&D is the most complex and involved game that I'm aware of. One might even argue that it is several games in one (a tactical game, a role play game). It can be played by teens and children, though it takes a certain amount of maturity to appreciate everything that D&D allows us to do.

My point is, who cares? If D&D is marketed to teens -- or even if it is made for teens -- what does that say about every other game out there? I don't think poker players, who play a much simpler game, think of their game as juvenile. Ditto for chess players, scrabble players and so on. So, why do you care?

 

[Hussar]

Your whole post reeks of bizarreness to me. D&D was popular with teens, but when was it ever marketted as a game for teens? None of the fiction is YA fiction, except for one or two unusual Dragonlance series that I only recently discovered at the library while looking for a book for my son to read. It's all modern, "adult" fantasy. All of it. And Saturday morning cartoons were for teens? No, they were clearly for much younger kids than that.

And that idea that without drugs and sex, a product doesn't appeal to adults is probably the most bizarre implication of your post. Seriously, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Well, I'd say it was marketed for teens when the ads are on the back of comic books. Is that marketing to adults? You even admit that cartoons are not marketing to adults. So, which part are you not understanding?

Umm, as far as the novels go, I go to the local library and they're all sitting right there in the young adult section. Same as they were twenty years ago when I went to other libraries as well.

So, ok, let me reverse the question. What about D&D is directed at adults? I mean, if the themes are all PG-13 or younger, there is little or no content which is not readily available in the same, so, what about the game is being directed at adults?

Heck, even look at most hobby stores. You've got D&D sitting beside CCG's and comic books. I'll buy that comic books might be an older hobby now, considering the price, but CCG's?

See, I look at something like White Wolf and think, yeah, that's directed at an older audience. You have some mature themes there that probably aren't all that much of a good idea for a 13 year old to be exploring.

But, I cannot think of a single thing about D&D that would even remotely give me pause handing to someone that age.

 

[Hussar]

D&D is the most complex and involved game that I'm aware of. One might even argue that it is several games in one (a tactical game, a role play game). It can be played by teens and children, though it takes a certain amount of maturity to appreciate everything that D&D allows us to do.

My point is, who cares? If D&D is marketed to teens -- or even if it is made for teens -- what does that say about every other game out there? I don't think poker players, who play a much simpler game, think of their game as juvenile. Ditto for chess players, scrabble players and so on. So, why do you care?

I'm more curious than anything, really. The idea that D&D is an "adult game marketed to adults" just seems bizarre to me. Twice I've now seen people complain that 4e is being marketed to a "younger audience". I am asking, when was D&D EVER marketed to anyone other than teens?

 

[Mark]

Umm, as far as the novels go, I go to the local library and they're all sitting right there in the young adult section.

What local library?

 

[diaglo]

i am asking, when was d&d ever marketed to anyone other than teens?

1971-1973

 

[S'mon]

Hmm, I think OD&D and AD&D 1e were marketed primarily at college student age, ca 18-20, but with reach-down; Mentzer Red Box Basic was marketed primarily at 10-12 year olds - and none the worse for that.

 

[avin]

If my mother had seen the 1e AD&D Monster Manual succubus, she would have taken the book away from me an burned it!

Things were different on 70's. Politically correct didn't existed as today, so one could expect to put that on a book with far less concerns he would have in 2010.

But I'm aware the problem is: people who don't like 4E says it's "D&D for kids". We won't be discussing that before the major 3E-4E split up.

PS. And, yeah, being a 4E DM I can honestly say I think it's clearly aimed to a younger audience, compared to 3E and 2E. That obviously do not prefent you to using it in a mature game.

Peace.