D&D is an Adult Game?

[Perram]

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbbqMoEwDqc]YouTube - Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition: Teaser[/ame]

And here are more adults in D&D advertisement.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think there was a post by Gary Gygax, preserved in one of the threads on Dragonsfoot, where he says that they quickly became aware that the potenital audience for D&D was "almost anyone" (or words to that effect)....TSR certainly didn't hesitate to market to kids, as the ads Scribble dug up show clearly.

OTOH, those ads are pretty craptacular. It's amazing D&D caught on at all.


RC

 

[N0Man]

I was looking on Amazon for Chess Sets. I saw several that stated, "For ages 8 and up".

Clearly, Chess is a child's game and marketed towards children.

 

[rogueattorney]

D&D was designed by adult wargamers for other adult wargamers. Its development occurred within the context of a society of wargaming clubs. Of course, Gary Gygax did a lot of playtesting with his school-aged kids. So he obviously saw the potential.

The 1977 Basic set was definitely an attempt to broaden D&D's appeal, both to younger players as well as casual players.

 

[MichaelSomething]

This reminds me of Batman. Sometimes he's a dark anti-hero and other times he's a campy action hero. He's flexible enough to do both and thus can appeal to multiple demographics.

 

[CarlZog]

D&D was designed by adult wargamers for other adult wargamers.

Yes. I was by no means an adult at the time, but I was sure wargaming before I was playing D&D.

And I assure you, many wargames at the time were a LOT more complex than D&D!

 

[Herschel]

Only adults over 21 smoke cigarettes too.

Hook 'em young and keep 'em buying 'til their estate is being settled. With D&D that should be longer (depending on gamer diet )

 

[CarlZog]

If I recall right, this is actually Gary's daughter.

 

[jbear]

My first contact with d&d was with the cartoon series. I was 7 or 8. And I loved it. Shortly after my parents sat me down and had a serious talk with me about an evil game I was never to play because one became demon possessed and homicidal. My parents were evangelist preachers and this literally put the fear of god in me. But loved fantasy and adventure path books like lone wolf. I made my own adventure path adventures with sketches, maps and stories which i played with my friend. Then there was Heroquest. Wow. But none of these were technically d&d so technically my soul was safe.

I ran into proper d&d rpg in highschool (13 years old). I played a few times at lunch time and by the time I was 14 my and my friends had our own books, our own lead figurine collection and we spent all summer holidays rotating from one house to the next with all-night d&d fests each taking turns to dm and play. Absolutely awesome. Our story were just as amazing and imaginitve and plain awesome as they are now.

But I can't actually remember having d&d be marketed at me ever. Certainly not as WOW has.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

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?

By the time D&D came out, and especially the ads for it in comics, comic books were definitely being targeted at adults. (College students and twentysomethings, mostly.) Yes, kids and teens were still buying plenty of them, and there was certainly some marketing aimed at them, but mostly the marketing was aimed at an older crowd. (No doubt because the prices kept going up, and up, and up...!)