D&D General Gen X D&D

[MGibster]

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

I remember. But this is an edition for us, so we get to make it as cool as we want it. That means extreme demons wearing lots of leather and pouches everywhere!

 

[Blue Orange]

Rap music bards.

Too bad this isn't a thing--what are diss tracks but Vicious Mockery?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Rap music bards.

Hey!
I do not like you college bard
I do not like you in my yard
I do not like you in my game
I do not like your songs- so lame
I do not like your average life
I hope you do not take a wife
I hope you don't decide to breed
Cause that's more bards we do not need

I do not think you‘re magical
I hate you and your fancy school
You're wrong about the martial class
I hope they kick your bardic a—
I do not like you in this game of ours
I'd rather live on planet Mars
And die from lack of oxygen
Than see you breathe the air of other men
Hey!

 

[nevin]

View attachment 366788
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”.

and the blood war so they could fight each other instead of angels and heaven.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Too bad this isn't a thing--what are diss tracks but Vicious Mockery?

Yep!

I could almost envision a rap bard-centric anime a la Samurai Champloo in which the bards engage in rap battles/The Dozens to settle scores.

In my mind, William Shakespeare would be one of the more well-renown battle bards.

Hey!
I do not like you college bard
I do not like you in my yard
I do not like you in my game
I do not like your songs- so lame
I do not like your average life
I hope you do not take a wife
I hope you don't decide breed
Cause that's more bards we do not need

I do not think you‘re magical
I hate you and your fancy school
You're wrong about the martial class
I hope they kick your bardic a—
I do not like you in this game of ours
I'd rather live on planet Mars
And die from lack of oxygen
Than see you breathe the air of other men
Hey!

 

[bedir than]

There'd be a video ad for our partners at 9pm that says "Do you remember where your partner is?"

 

[MNblockhead]

Thinking more critically, beyond the limits of what I said above (which, I admit, is a bit colored by my experiences)...

Punk aesthetic is a must. Gen X was all in for leather and studs and dyed mohawks.

As noted in the other thread...Question Authority. This was the generation that grew up facing the realpolitik realities post-Watergate. Institutions are suspicious. Authority figures, especially those who claim that authority without a clear mandate, are EXTRA suspicious. Sticking it to the man is a core principle. This doesn't mean legitimate authority can't exist, but all authority figures really really have to prove themselves--often repeatedly/continuously.

Violence and sex are treated much more casually. That doesn't necessarily mean violence is embraced, per se, but it's not seen as being nearly so off-limits as a solution to problems. Of course, it's understood that this is a drastic action and it can lead to more problems if done poorly, but the same can be said about any attempted solution to complicated problems. On the sexuality side, various "transgressive" elements are acceptable, even laudable--LGBT (though the T is technically anachronistic, that sort of stuff didn't become a major topic until the 2000s or later), BDSM, various other fetishes are seen as within reason. That doesn't mean the books should be overtly violent or sexual, just that a climate of acceptance is reasonable.

Environmental causes started to become a real Thing in roughly this period. People were pretty worried about acid rain and the hole in the ozone. I think this is best implemented through making magic have some sort of dangerous side-effect--preferably arcane magic, as it's the one most naturally aligned with "things man was not meant to know."

Organized religion is....not favored, to put it mildly. Clerics, if they're affiliated with an organized faith at all, will be at best "conscientious" participants, aka immediately willing to defy orthodoxy or convention the moment it fails to pass a smell test. (See also: question authority, gods are authorities too.) Paladins would NOT be required to be Good, and in fact their default state would probably be just Lawful, assuming alignment is retained at all.

Speaking of alignment...either the Good/Evil axis is chucked out entirely, or it's replaced with something more ambiguous, like "Light vs Dark" or the like, where it's rather more valid to have excessive and dangerous aspects of both sides. This fits with both the grimdark aesthetic (there are no heroes, only mercenaries), but also with the questioning of authority and the punk aesthetic/mores.

Lethality should probably be on the high end, and resurrection, if it's available at all, should have Consequences. Exactly what those are, hard to say, but I imagine it would probably end up polarizing a person toward some extreme or other--clinging to life when you're "supposed" to be dead is antithetical to a healthy, balanced mind or somesuch.

So, in other words, Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

 

[MNblockhead]

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.

Therefore, instead of "faction" rules, their would be rules for "cliques."

Instead of starting the adventure in a tavern, you find yourselfs amoung a group of other misfits in a holding cell. Each of you is from a different clique, united in hatred of the Captain of the Watch.

D&D: The Dungeon Club.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

So, in other words, Warhammer Fantasy RPG.

That doesn't seem to reflect what I've heard of the setting. Chaos is quite clearly Evil and the forces working against it, while not always capital-G Good, are pretty much never anything less than a dingy Neutral.

 

[MNblockhead]

That doesn't seem to reflect what I've heard of the setting. Chaos is quite clearly Evil and the forces working against it, while not always capital-G Good, are pretty much never anything less than a dingy Neutral.

I've been listening to a podcast that reads classic 80s Warhammer stories and then discusses them and it has dived into the 80s punk and other social influences on the game. So I reacting more to that aspect of your post. But regarding you point in this post, I think that even in the current (4th) edition, it leans into moral ambiguity. Chaos in the setting is basically an fantasy analogy of the long effects of an apocalyptic nuclear event that continues to poison the world. Many of those touched by chaos are as much victims as they are "evil." The corruption of chaos is often the slippery slope of seeking safety, influence, and resources in highly class-based world, but in a way that harms you and the world as it benefits you in the short term. The forces of law and order (of "good") do terrible things to people in the name of protecting the people. You can play stereotypical heroes who always do the right thing, but you are doing so in world that can make it difficult to always be sure of what the right thing is.

Warhammer can be full of eye-rolling stereotypes and puns. It can also lean heavily into everything is dark and hopeless. But at its best it is about about civilization progressing and struggling against both external and internal threats, some of them self-inflicted. And in all cases, it is heavily influenced by the concerns, fears, and pulp culture of Gen X.