Does D&D Need to Appeal to the Mainstream?

[Thornir Alekeg]

Look – and this came up in the "ideal new D&D cartoon" discussion – the mainstream is much closer to D&D tropes in this day and age than it was in the early 1980s, which appears to be most people's frame of reference around here. What is less mainstream about D&D than ever is that it is a pencil and paper game people physically get together in groups to play for hours at a time. If anything, that's the subcultural aspect now. Dungeons, dragons, you get that in top-grossing movies these days.

Excellent point. It is certainly much more acceptable to indulge your inner geek than it used to be, but rather than cutting edge geek, D&D with its dice and pen and paper is old school. It will be interesting to see if Gleemax, D&D Insider and the online tools might actually lower that barrier a bit.

 

[Reynard]

I am starting to get the sense that yes, it is in fact me that has lost touch. 9After all, the reason I come to message boards is to bounce ideas and read opinions, maybe even changing my own perspective -- wierd, I know, but there you are.)

I think maybe the "D&D Player" of today isn't me -- it is one of the guys I game with who loved pouring through Complete X to find just the right combo of abilities, the guy who runs the annual PvP tournament, the one who counts beans to make sure the party is at wealth-by-level.

And that's why I am upset. I want the D&D that is fresh and new on the bookstore shelf to appeal to me, and it doesn't. That sucks. I have been a D&D players and buyer for 22 years, and that's ending in May of 2008. Will I still play D&D? Sure -- I will probably play 4e even, because aformentioned bean-counter will run it and I like playing with my friends. But I'll be running old-school (1e, 2e -- hell, even 3.0 core-only was "still D&D") games and I won't get to run games for the group with bean-counter in it. i won't get to have new books that get me all excited.

Because, whether D&D needs to appeal to the mainstream or not, it (the new face of D&D) doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Cadfan]

I don't know what it even means to say that D&D should be designed "for D&D players" instead of "for the mainstream." It sounds like a stupid framework, given that D&D does not and has not ever appealed to the mainstream. This conversation reminds me of listening to goth rock fans whine that some completely unknown band that only they listen to has sold out for popular appeal.

I don't know what D&D "for the mainstream" means, but I do know that as D&D has become more and more professionally designed, I've liked it more and more.

 

[Cadfan]

I think maybe the "D&D Player" of today isn't me -- it is one of the guys I game with who loved pouring through Complete X to find just the right combo of abilities, the guy who runs the annual PvP tournament, the one who counts beans to make sure the party is at wealth-by-level.

You can't still do these things?

These things are still happening, and I'm sure they'll continue to happen in 4th Ed. If you feel no connection to them, then yes, perhaps you have changed.

 

[Reynard]

You can't still do these things?

These things are still happening, and I'm sure they'll continue to happen in 4th Ed. If you feel no connection to them, then yes, perhaps you have changed.

No. These things are things that I don't do, that I don't think are important to or desirable in D&D. But that's the way it is made, and that's what it seems most players want, so it isn't that I have changed, it is that I haven't.

 

[jdrakeh]

Umm, if you think TSR wasn't looking at the bottom line, particularly in some of the latter days, I think you might be somewhat uninformed of the history of the game.

Dear god, YES. The horror stories of former TSR employees throughout the 1980s are legendary. I gamed with a few former TSR employees in Topeka, KS and those stories were almost always more amusing (in a "Holy crap! Delivering pizza suddenly sounds like a great job!" kind of way) than our actual game sessions. I don't think that they missed those days too much. They seemed to have a fondness for certain individuals at TSR but, by all accounts, the company had serious issues that only got worse as time progressed.

 

[SlyFlourish]

D&D for new players

Both times I got into D&D, once long ago with 2nd edition and once more recently with 3.5, I got into it on my own without the aid of someone else who knew how to play. More recently with 3.5 I had the help of a friend of a friend who became a regular player who knew 3.5 real well and explained things to me like Attacks of Opportunity, Five Foot Steps, and Grapple *shudder*. Without him, I wouldn't have gotten a hold on those rules at all.

I think one of the above posters hit it right when he said that D&D needs to look towards those who were like us when we first started playing. They can't forget about the harder core players, however. They need both and they will likely support both.

I think Wizards needs to come out with a new Gygax-like boxed edition that takes players to level 10, lets them pick their classes and races, and gives them a good full D&D experience with a focus on roleplaying and simple combat. Then you get the PHB, DMG, and MM when you want to step up a bit.

I think 3.5 definitely has areas to be streamlined. I saw this when I read the D&D miniatures handbook and realized that they managed to summarize a lot of D&D combat mechanics into a couple of page. It can be easier than they make it out to be.

I think Wizards has an opportunity to bring back tabletop RPGs in a world thick with video games and MMOs. To do so, they have to focus on both existing D&D gamers and the new gamers to be. Assuming that all new players can find an experienced friend is folly.

 

[Reynard]

I think Wizards has an opportunity to bring back tabletop RPGs in a world thick with video games and MMOs. To do so, they have to focus on both existing D&D gamers and the new gamers to be. Assuming that all new players can find an experienced friend is folly.

A table top RPG -- even D&D -- cannot provide an equivalent experience to an MMO or CRPG. they are entirely different animals. And while there is some crossover, I don't think they reach the same audience. If they did, there'd be 8 million D&D players (everyone on WoW), all of them willing to pend $15 a month on D&D. that's a lot of cabbage that I don't think is being generated.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I don't think it currently appeals to the mainstream and if it did, it might be a fun game - but it wouldn't be D&D. There are some great games out there which appeal to the mainstream and families - Monopoly, Clue, Life, etc. But those games are very simple and do not have complicated rules sets. I suppose you could make the D&D rules something very fast and simple but then what do you have? Certainly not D&D anymore.

 

[jdrakeh]

I suppose you could make the D&D rules something very fast and simple but then what do you have? Certainly not D&D anymore.

Dude. The original D&D (1974) rules are fast and simple