D&D General D&D: Literally Don't Understand This

[cranberry]

IMHO, you should never feel that you can't voice your opinion.

Rather, people should be mindful to express their opinion tactfully.

 

[Scribe]

The original Avatar: TLA show ended in 2008; Minecraft and League of Legends were both released in 2009. So they would have been recent prominent and pop culture the entire time 5E was being developed...

Are you telling me the Apology Edition was trying to leverage Minecraft.

But in all seriousness.

Appendix E: I see Howard, I see Martin, Moorcock, Lovecraft.

I'm not seeing Notch.

 

[TiQuinn]

Yikes.

Gross. But also thank you for calling that out.

 

[The Firebird]

True! I edited my statement slightly.

But if people object so vehemently to these things I start to understand why women, POC, LGBTQ feel put off by flavors of the hobby.
Those that wouldn't welcome a middle aged glasses wearer certainly aren't going to accept an Arab-inspired hero from the Age of Science in Baghdad.

You, or anyone else here, would be very welcome at my table.

I think the Arab-inspired setting would be pretty popular among OSR types because it is in the genre--historical fantasy--that a lot of people like. Ime, the objection is more about a specific kind of modern storytelling genre (Riordan, Miller) that likes retellings of and new perspectives on older media. That is of course a valid genre. I think really interesting things can be done with that approach; Mad Max: Fury Road comes to mind first.

But it also is a different genre than traditional sword-and-sorcery or historical fantasy and such, and it isn't for everyone. And it is possible to dislike that genre without just wanting everything to be euro centric.

Edit to add: I'm not sure the fact that such a setting would be accepted resolves the issue. @Levistus's_Leviathan made a good point, that historical fantasy and representation are incompatible because certain identities did not exist before time X. Worth dwelling on.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This is also about TNT plunger detonators, heat metal hotplates, museum cafes and gift shops, etc...

Where are those from? (I haven't really gotten into 5.5, so I'm unfamiliar with some of the newer books.)

 

[TiQuinn]

I may have missed something, but I don't think anyone here is saying, "embrace tradition; reject modernity." What I've seen are people saying that certain elements in some D&D art don't match their personal expectations for what is, ostensibly, a "medieval fantasy" RPG.

I’m pretty sure that has been intimated, and if were just some D&D art they were bothered by, it wouldn’t be a problem. I can’t help but think it is the fact that some D&D art shows modern aspects at all that this thread continues to grow.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And, maybe consider that what you are saying, in a broader context, may have negative impacts on others, even if that's not your conscious intent.

Being part of a community - or perhaps more properly, being a good citizen of a community - should include having some empathy for members of the community. Honestly having empathy will usually save you from such issues, because it leads to self-editing.

Even if there's shoes and hotplates and all... isn't the bulk of the content really pretty standard and traditional? For every Radiant Citadel, aren't there also a Yawning Portal AND an Infinite Staircase? Is it really necessary that everything meet your preferences? If not... do the shoes really merit comment?

The internet makes it so we can always voice our opinion on every little thing. It does not give us the wisdom to know when we should voice our opinion.

Is your claim then that, if you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything at all?

 

[Incenjucar]

I feel it's valuable to preserve the past without being constrained by it. Keep publishing old school friendly rules and settings without avoiding new ones. The old muddy settings are good stuff, but the new ideas are good too.

Incidentally was obsessing over elemental control without spells in 2001, inspired by the 2E Tome of Magic's elementalists and comic book characters like The Human Torch (I mean look at my avatar!). When The Last Airbender came out I had the biggest laugh that the arts finally caught up to me. The first Human Torch, by the by, is from 1939.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

View attachment 414512

This is stonetoss, comic made by a self-admitted nazi.

 

[Mannahnin]

Are you telling me the Apology Edition was trying to leverage Minecraft.

No, not specifically.

Whizbang referenced a few specific hugely-successful-in-pop-culture fantasy properties as examples of fantasy IPs which are contemporaneous with 5E and likely reference points for modern (younger than us) D&D buyers and fantasy fans. (Side note: As a tiny piece of anecdotal evidence, I have a younger relative who's a recent college grad who was super into Minecraft and got into 5E as a teenager as well.)

Maybe I misunderstood you, but it seemed like, in your reply to Umbran, you were suggesting that those particular properties couldn't been inspirational to/informative of 5E. I was just pointing out that the ones Whizbang mentioned all predate it and were big before it, so if the 5E designers were taking anything from then-current pop culture fantasy, they would indeed have all been in the zeitgeist.

Though I think the point being made was less about what the 5E designers found inspirational (they're mostly older folks, and as you mentioned, in Appendix E they name older stuff) and more about what the current wave of Gen Z and Millennial fantasy fans have as reference points for fantasy. Given that anime, for example, is indeed hugely represented in the fantasy media these generations consume, I'm almost surprised that current WotC D&D art and products don't resemble anime even more than they do now.