D&D General D&D is now Steampunk (poll)

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do words no longer have meaning?

Based on the news of late, no.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Aquaman is closer to Southern Gothic than it is to The Little Mermaid

The problem with that is that Southern Gothic is actually interesting, which Aquaman consistently avoids being.

 

[I'm A Banana]

1E was more 14th century with a few anachronisms eg two handed swords.

One of the interesting things about how D&D grew was that it grew out of wargames, where historical accuracy matters quite a bit more. Part of the enjoyment of a wargame is in exploring military history, and I think a lot of early D&D inherited this -- see the list of polearms, for example. 1e's roots are still very much showing. But even 1e was more...encouraging you to read history, and less "Brittain in 1399 is the cap on technology."

In addition, we aren't talking about the real world. It's a world where magic works and there really might be a monster under your bed. We have no idea what the world would look like with such a significant fundamental change to reality.

Because fantasy is a fundamentally modern creation, it's easy to see how, for example, the message spell has come to prominence as a way to work cell phone conversations into D&D. Or how we never really consider how DARK everything indoors really was (candles and torches and even chandeliers do not compare to modern light bulbs!). Or how we don't really evoke the four humors and leeching in how our fantasy game heals injury and illness.

I don't think anyone craves deep historical accuracy.

But, people do get invested in aesthetics, and the aesthetics of D&D are definitely not what they were in 1975.

 

[bedir than]

I bet the Iron Kingdoms sourcebooks could get you most of the way there.

It's a twelve-year old setting with 9 campaigns.
It got so much easier when the 5e artificer showed up. I had a massive amount of smoggy tech handwritten prior to that.

 

[Autumnal]

The problem with that is that Southern Gothic is actually interesting,

I used to be a reader like you, until I took an arrow to the knee had a friend who specialized in Southern Gothic. Sturgeon’s Law was not revoked: it turns out there are great quantities of crap Southern Gothic, boring, turgid and imitative in prose (you haven’t really lived until or maybe unless you’ve read someone trying to write like Flannnery O’Connor and utterly failing), the whole deal.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I used to be a reader like you, until I took an arrow to the knee had a friend who specialized in Southern Gothic. Sturgeon’s Law was not revoked: it turns out there are great quantities of crap Southern Gothic, boring, turgid and imitative in prose (you haven’t really lived until or maybe unless you’ve read someone trying to write like Flannnery O’Connor and utterly failing), the whole deal.

It's not in Appendix N, but I'd bet money that Gygax read a whole lot of Flannery O'Connor, between his overwrought prose and his extremely black and white worldview. (If that dude didn't read A Good Man Is Hard to Find, I'll eat a lightning bug.)

 

[Azzy]

1E was more 14th century with a few anachronisms eg two handed swords.

More than a few anachronisms.

 

[Stormonu]

Its not Steampunk, but its not '70s grim fantasy anymore either. D&D has always been about a decade behind on what influences it, so when it came out it was 60's movies and popular books (many from the 30's & 40's). Pretty much now its 2010 movies and popular books, maybe even a bit closer.

For example, the original werewolf in the MM was the Lon Chaney view; we've long been past the influences of the Howling and has approached more the likes of the modern Teen Wolf TV show and the like.

Dinosaurs have evolved from old movie depictions like the Land That Time Forgot through the changes that Jurassic Park and its sequels have wrought.

Even the depiction of pirates in the game - from the classics of the old Treasure Island to the more modern Pirates of the Caribbean and its sequels and spin-offs like Black Sails.

Where a lot of people's image of wizard was defined by the likes of Merlin in Excalibur back in the time, now its more influenced by the Harry Potter films and its ilk.

A lot of D&D's magic has always been modern tech reimagined as the magic of the time in the game, and probably always will.

I'm not in love with the art direction and greater influence of "mundane" magic into just about every class of the current D&D myself, but it is NOT Steampunk by a long shot.

(And let us not forget the likes of Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, City of the Gods, Temple of the Frog, Tale of the Comet, Murlynd of Greyhawk and Rad of Mystara, and articles in Dragon where adventurers run across Nazis in halftracks and tanks dumped into their fantasy world for a combat. Far more advanced tech than mere gunpowder weapons have shown up in D&D over the ages, and in some cases, it's even hinted - such as in Greyhawk - that the current fantasy world is a post-apocalyptic equivalent of an even more-advanced version of our world)

 

[Charlaquin]

This points to all D&D being punk. Or at least every PC party that has run away from the watch, refused the Wretched, Squalid, or Poor Lifestyle Expenses, or has just decided to be "adventurers."

Lol no.

 

[Charlaquin]

One of the interesting things about how D&D grew was that it grew out of wargames, where historical accuracy matters quite a bit more. Part of the enjoyment of a wargame is in exploring military history, and I think a lot of early D&D inherited this -- see the list of polearms, for example. 1e's roots are still very much showing. But even 1e was more...encouraging you to read history, and less "Brittain in 1399 is the cap on technology."



Because fantasy is a fundamentally modern creation, it's easy to see how, for example, the message spell has come to prominence as a way to work cell phone conversations into D&D. Or how we never really consider how DARK everything indoors really was (candles and torches and even chandeliers do not compare to modern light bulbs!). Or how we don't really evoke the four humors and leeching in how our fantasy game heals injury and illness.

I don't think anyone craves deep historical accuracy.

But, people do get invested in aesthetics, and the aesthetics of D&D are definitely not what they were in 1975.

This is a more cogent argument than that it’s no longer medieval fantasy because there are handlebar mustaches. That said, it’s not like the aesthetics not being the same as they were in 1975 is a sudden and unexpected turn of events. The aesthetics of D&D have never been consistent, because it’s a game of imagination - its aesthetics are and have always been whatever you imagine them to be. Moreover, there hasn’t been a single cohesive art style in the books for a long, long time. Each edition has had different art direction, and different artists creating works under that different direction. Now, that’s not to say the opinion anyone who liked all of the various styles and artworks that have appeared in D&D until now is invalid. But it shouldn’t come as a big surprise. It’s also only a matter of time before the style changes again. Change is, after all, the only constant.