D&D General Gen X D&D

[EzekielRaiden]

The thing you don't realize is that all D&D is Gen X. We were the only ones allowed out completely unsupervised, riding our bikes wherever the winds took us until the streetlamps came on. We drank from water hoses, rode in the back of pickups and station wagons without seats much less seat belts. We raised ourselves. And like adventurers, the ones that survived became mighty.

Even the upstanding-moral-exemplar heroism?

Because what you just said, to me, screams Greco-Roman heroism. The kind that exalts the potent, not the principled; the mighty, not the moral; the proud (in both senses of the term), not the painstaking. All of which fits rather better with the "Question Authority" vibe of Gen X. (Well, other than that Greco-Roman heroes are always a half-step away from hubris...though even then that isn't THAT far off the mark.)

D&D's original, Gygaxian roots were definitely that. But the direction it almost immediately swerved was toward knight-in-shining-armor tropes, Big Damn Heroes, etc. Three Hearts and Three Lions is a huge influence for a reason.

 

[BigZebra]

I absolutely love this . And I absolutely love my generation.

For me it’s somewhere between AD&D 2e and Vampire. I don’t think I understood most of it. But we didn’t care and just had fun while our parents were smoking cigarettes and watching MASH reruns.

I loved that time - obviously. Nostalgia exist for a reason. I try to understand my kids music tastes - “Another rap song with autotune! Great son”. But hey they need to make their own stories and memories. Basically life’s great. And now I need to prep for tonight’s session.

 

[MGibster]

Oh, because of The Satanic Panic, there will be no Devils or Demons…again.

Whoa there, bub. This is for Gen X so that means the devils and demons will be more xtreme.

 

[MGibster]

Instead of player characters kicking down doors to hunt for monsters and loot in dungeons, the player characters will hide in their own homes and set up a series of traps and ambushes for creatures that wish to do them harm. D&D's name will be changed to Dungeon Alone.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I guess I considered all of that wrapped up in the "dyed mohawks" part of it. And it's not like hair metal bands didn't wear tons of skintight black leather...

More to the point, though, I see all that neon-and-pastels as glimmers in the dark, when it comes to "Gen X D&D." It's flashy, it's edgy, it's shiny, but in a way that highlights and accentuates the dark. Neon signs blaring through the rainy night, as it were, is deeply associated with the "cyberpunk" aesthetic. It's the glitzy, glamorous sheen put up by corpos and wageslaves, the bright veneer over the grim darkness within.

The Punks would HATE you for grouping them in with Hair/Glam metal…and vice versa!


The New Wavers would just look at you funny.

And the Goths would be sullen that you attributed their look to the punks.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Whoa there, bub. This is for Gen X so that means the devils and demons will be more xtreme.

I was born in 1967. I lived- and gamed- through the Satanic Panic, the Jack Chick propfauxganda and all that noise.

Certainly, there were all kinds of evil outsiders, but the terms “Devil” and “Demon” were excised from the game for a while. That’s when we got “Tanar’ri” and “Baatezu”.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The Punks would HATE you for grouping them in with Hair/Glam metal…and vice versa!


The New Wavers would just look at you funny.

And the Goths would be sullen that you attributed their look to the punks.

I'm aware.

Most of them are not nearly as different as they would like to believe.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Most of them are not nearly as different as they would like to believe.

Don’t say that around any old punks or crusty metal heads*. You might catch a cane to the dome or get run over by a scooter!

Celebrating the similarities between the groups was the main reason Perry Farrell created Lollapalooza. But the similarities would only bring the groups together in limited fashion. Otherwise, it was a lot like The Warriors, but with less violence

* while I am part of all those genre fandoms, I almost never looked the part, so you don’t have to worry about me.

 

[Aldarc]

Gen X would celebrate Stranger Things, the '80s D&D cartoon, and bring back the classic D&D settings of the '80s and '90s... oh wait...

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Gen X would celebrate Stranger Things, the '80s D&D cartoon, and bring back the classic D&D settings of the '80s and '90s... oh wait...

Rap music bards.