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Message: <blockquote data-quote="SteveC" data-source="post: 3790171" data-attributes="member: 9053">I just wanted to talk for a moment about the whole "the game is becoming Exalted!" meme that seems to be going around.The thing is, the game is changing to continue to be current and relevant to new and younger players. Back in the day<tm> Gary and Company didn't draw all of the quirky D&Dism from ancient tomes of high literature, they drew them from what was popular at the time. That's not to say that there aren't strong elements of great literature in the game (Paladins anyone?) but those odd things that make D&D, well, D&D come from what was popular fantasy in the 70s.Back in the day, Elric, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Edger Rice Burroughs were all parts of popular geek culture of people growing up and going to college. Ditto for Lord of the Rings.Today, with the exception of Lord of the Rings (thanks to the movies), none of those books are still in the mainstream of the collective sci-fi, college nerd crowd. I seriously doubt that a sizable number of gamers under 25 have even heard of most of the source material for D&D (again, with the exception of LotR). What's more, as much as I love Conan, Leiber, De Camp et. al, they actually weren't very good literature: they were largely Pulp novels, that were fun to read (the Incomplete Enchanter is one of my favorite guilty pleasure from the time) but they weren't exactly Shakespeare. Is there anything wrong with that? Of course not! But let's not make the mistake of saying that we're talking high art.And that's why things are changing: to keep them relevant. Writing a game based largely on source material that your market increasingly hasn't ever heard of is not good a good business practice. Now I know that there are ENners out there who will tell me how they're 16 and Fletcher Pratt is their favorite author ever, but that's no longer the norm.So as much as I love all of the old books, and as much as I dislike much of the fantasy that's popular today, D&D needs to change with the times to keep fresh and relevant to todays market.Now when I start to see classes entirely based around young women who are mystically bonded with an animal, and must use that connection to learn about their mysterious heritage and defeat the evil dark lord, well, I'll join the grognard club as well. Well maybe not if I play the class and get a pony. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Just my $.02.--Steve</blockquote>

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