Does D&D Next need to be a success for D&D to be a success?

[pemerton]

I guess that lack of movie exposure, combined with the fact that I never read any S&S material until I was in college, probably explains why I've never felt S&S to have any D&D resonance. For me, D&D has always been a mix of Dragonlance, Final Fantasy, and a lot of anime.

dark and gritty has just never been my preferred fantasy flavor. I like my fantasy in full CGI Technicolor.

If you have never seen John Boorman's Excalibur you really should - it is a masterpiece of Arthurian romance which (in my view) reframes the archaism in a way suitable for a modern audience, and also has an excellent Wagnerian soudtrack. At least for me, it is the definitive presentation of the knightly ethos in a way that makes it accessible for playing paladins and the like in D&D.

I agree with you in preferring romantic to gritty fantasy. That said, at least some S&S is not as gritty as all that. REH's Conan, for instance, is often mentioned as an inspiriation for self-serving D&D "murder hobos", but in fact most of the time Conan sacrifices the loot for doing the right thing - most of the looting occurs off-panel, in reminiscences or plans for the future. It's certainly quite romantic in its orientation compared to a group of 9th level psychos butchering and then looting the Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain!

 

[pemerton]

If you have never seen John Boorman's Excalibur you really should - it is a masterpiece of Arthurian romance which (in my view) reframes the archaism in a way suitable for a modern audience, and also has an excellent Wagnerian soudtrack. At least for me, it is the definitive presentation of the knightly ethos in a way that makes it accessible for playing paladins and the like in D&D.

I agree with you in preferring romantic to gritty fantasy. That said, at least some S&S is not as gritty as all that. REH's Conan, for instance, is often mentioned as an inspiriation for self-serving D&D "murder hobos", but in fact most of the time Conan sacrifices the loot for doing the right thing - most of the looting occurs off-panel, in reminiscences or plans for the future. It's certainly quite romantic in its orientation compared to a group of 9th level psychos butchering and then looting the Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain!

But isn't sword and sorcery a pretty small part of the D&D experience? Most of the actual D&D brand fiction is epic LotR-style fantasy, not S&S.

I tend to agree. But also, as per what I just said, not all S&S is as nihilistic or unromantic as some major styles of D&D.

 

[Bluenose]

I agree with you in preferring romantic to gritty fantasy. That said, at least some S&S is not as gritty as all that. REH's Conan, for instance, is often mentioned as an inspiriation for self-serving D&D "murder hobos", but in fact most of the time Conan sacrifices the loot for doing the right thing - most of the looting occurs off-panel, in reminiscences or plans for the future. It's certainly quite romantic in its orientation compared to a group of 9th level psychos butchering and then looting the Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain!

Sword and Sorcery "Heroes" seem to often be short of money and looking for "the big score". Yet when the question comes up of doing the "right thing" or getting the loot, I can't think of many stories where they end up going for the loot. By contrast, in many "High Fantasy" stories the Heroes are out to save - maybe not the world, but something significant - and the loot isn't really a consideration but an incidental benefit. Which incidentally makes The Hobbit an S&S story and LotR a hgih fantasy one. It potentially makes the knights of the round table into S&S figures, although in their case "the score" is more about glory than wealth. And they almost certainly qualify as "Romantic" figures.

 

[Wicht]

Of the films you list, at least these ones are not sword and sorcery.

The Princess Bride is swashbuckling romance. Excalibur is Arthurian romance presented in a very tight thematic package. Clash of the Titans is Greek epic. The Dark Crystal is an epic quest. Time Bandits is a Monty Python romp. Ladyhawke is a romance too, and the Matthew Broderick character gets swept up in it in spite of his more prosaic initial motivations.

What they owe or don't owe to D&D I guess is a matter of speculation - but the Princess Bride has its origins in a book that predates the game (and also has very little fantasy in it), Excalibur's pre-D&D roots are obvious, and Terry Gilliams' love of the fantastic and the absurd, evident in Time Bandits, clearly predates D&D.

I would put Clash of the Titans and Ladyhawke both well within the reaches of a Sword and Sorcery archetype. As you after point out, Sword and Sorcery is not necessarily confined to the image some have of it. Solomon Kane as Sword and Sorcery would easily sweep in Ladyhawke for instance, and Clash of the Titans, without the Greek window dressing is very much a typical story of swarthy lad makes good with his wits and his sword. One might say that some of the earliest Greek stories are the true forefathers of Conan and his crew.

That being said, my primary contention is not that Dungeons and Dragons is responsible for these films (I think Conan had a lot to do with the cycle) (Just as LotR helped spur on the more recent trove) but that the 80's were a very good decade for fantasy films. The 2000s shaped up nicely, but we shouldn't discount the legacy of the 80's for its contributions.

 

[pemerton]

the 80's were a very good decade for fantasy films.

I certainly agree with you about Excalibur. A masterpiece!

 

[DaveMage]

You can also easily find the MST3K treatment of the sequel The Cave Dwellers (if you have Amazon Prime you can stream it for free), but its... well lets just say that the original, while cheesy, is a far, far better movie. Though its worth watching just for the hang-gliding grenade dropping scene,... (Crow: You gotta be kidding me!)

How much Keefe is in this movie?

 

[Andor]

I think both Hasbro and WoTC, as "the big boys", are not happy with their market placement. Regardless of sales, if D&D Next fails to solidly recapture the "best selling RPG" title, I think that may well spell a shelving (or continued sales, but limited or no new development) for D&D as an RPG. Hasbro bought the first and best-selling RPG. Now their Coke has become Pepsi.

Nope. Hasbro bought a pair of liscences to print money called Magic and Pokemon. They happened to come with some other stuff bundled with them like D&D. D&D continued because it kept the new guys happy, and why not? WotC these days does have to answer to Corporate, but D&D is not the cash cow and never has been.

 

[N'raac]

I love the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. But the source material predates D&D.

I think it should be pretty obvious that the materials which inspired D& would predate D&D. I'm not sure how relevant citing fantasy movies or TV is to assessing the popularity or cultural impact of D&D. I believe a lot of D&D players were also readers of LoTR, Lovecraft, Moorcock, Leiber, Howard et al, and were interested in playing D&D as a result. I don't think many people had their first exposure to the fantasy genre (or the S&S subgenre) thrugh D&D and went on to read books and watch movies in the genre. I think the source material (hence that name...) came first for the vast majority.

There were D&D cites on TV in the past. I'm pretty sure the radio announcer on That 70's Show tried to tempt the characters into a D&D game offering that "You can play the Elf", and I recall a furore some years earlier when Jesse featured a D&D game focused on "funny hats" and statements like "There are no telephones in the Labyrinth of Doom". But mainstream media seems much more aware of D&D today. It's lasted several decades, so there is more awareness.

Is it off the shelves? I remember D&D being available in the local K-Mart - the old boxed set, though, not a full line by any means. But I see the books in major bookstores now (again, D&D - not a lot of other RPG's). However, the main source then was hobby shops and the main source now is specialty stores, so little has changed in that regard. I question whether it was a fad played by millions. I never got that sense, but there were likely pockets where it caught on big for a short period. Intellivision licensed it for a while.

Does it matter? Superheroes are more in the public eye than ever, but comic book sales are pretty poor and have been declining for decades. The IP has value, but the source of that IP - not so much.

It does beg the question what a "success" means for D&D or D&D Next. Does it mean "Hasbro Success" with sales and staying power like Battleship or Candyland? I suspect a roaring success (say top decile of product releases) by RPG standards wouldn't impress Hasbro much. RPG's cater to a smaller market than the Hasbo boys are used to being in. Now, maybe if they brought the game down to the age 9 - 12 level and marketed it heavily (say as heavily as Pokémon has been marketed), they'd get sales. How many of us would be happy with a D&D edition focused on the 9 12 demographic?

So how do we define "success" for D&D Next or for D&D as a whole?

 

[TwoSix]

Now, maybe if they brought the game down to the age 9 - 12 level and marketed it heavily (say as heavily as Pokémon has been marketed), they'd get sales. How many of us would be happy with a D&D edition focused on the 9 12 demographic?

Not to be needlessly contradictory, but I'd be pleased as anything by a core D&D that focuses on a younger demographic. 9-12 is the age range for Narnia and Prydain and Hogwarts and the Dark is Rising and Mortal Instruments and the Dark Materials series. Setting up a game in a similar sort of world with a warrior, a sneak, a protective magic user and an offensive magic user seems like it could appeal to a lot of young people's sensibilities, AND be scalable/moddable to provide the classic D&D experience within sidebars, an appendix, or a second core book.

 

[N'raac]

Not to be needlessly contradictory, but I'd be pleased as anything by a core D&D that focuses on a younger demographic. 9-12 is the age range for Narnia and Prydain and Hogwarts and the Dark is Rising and Mortal Instruments and the Dark Materials series. Setting up a game in a similar sort of world with a warrior, a sneak, a protective magic user and an offensive magic user seems like it could appeal to a lot of young people's sensibilities, AND be scalable/moddable to provide the classic D&D experience within sidebars, an appendix, or a second core book.

I certainly agree a "younger market" product has considerable merit. That's not what I'm positing, however. I'm positing a mass marketing push with the "new edition" 100% focused on the 9 - 12 demographic (or say 11 - 15 - but very much a 'youth' demographic) leaving us old fogeys to play our old editions.