D&D (2024) I think we are on the cusp of a sea change.

[cowpie]

I don't believe this happened?

Correction: all alignment suggestions for character races. Alignment descriptions are still in the game, they're just generifying the lore.

Book Updates | Sage Advice | Dungeons & Dragons

This Sage Advice provides updates and errata for a number of books, as well as answers to rules questions.

dnd.wizards.com

Crawford says that they just are changing beholder and mind flayer descriptions to indicate they might have more than one personality type, but still "tend" to be evil. They haven't released the MM yet, so we'll see what they do. Didn't realize that subtlety was required describing these big baddies, but I guess giant alien eyeballs from a 50s monster movie are people too? Personally, I'd like to play a beholder as a PC, but it might be OP...

In the PHB they've removed all racial references to alignment entirely, as of this past Monday.
This is repeated in the other books with races, like Volo's too.
The Drow elf sidebar detailing their lore as being evil Lolth worshipers has been rewritten.

Lots of controversial words removed or renamed in the DMG (and the adventure books) though many have long been in past editions (but I guess that's what people see as an issue).

 

[cowpie]

Early dnd was more influenced by sword and sorcery and pulp than by high fantasy. Adventurers were not chosen one heroes but people who risked their lives (and often died) to discover/steal a bit of treasure. Heroic fantasy was an influence, but not the only one or the primary one until dragon lance. And they just released a whole book on dragons, which is classic high fantasy.

I can’t help but feel that you are really reaching here. To the extent that dnd games were ever really about “themes of universal human experience” or whatever, they still will be going forward. There isn’t some monolithic tradition, either in the hobby or in…the entirety of human history…that is being replaced as the result of an errata

I'm going to stick to my guns here -- the basic format of an adventure does fit the heroes journey, including mechanics of facing challenges, battling monsters, getting treasure, leveling up, and developing the character, getting kudos as a hero.

Good point about Conan and Swords & Sorcery. Those follow the format of picaresque adventures, where the characters are placed in an episodic situation, often gritty or humorous, and the point of the story is to see "how are they going to get out of this one." The characters often stay the same from episode to episode, kind of like James Bond movies.

However the traditional adventure format -- that's mythical questing all the way.

Here are a couple of examples of how this format applies to real life situations, just to bolster my case. Imaginary D&D adventures model these real life examples.

Society is threatened: There's a pandemic
Heroes have to urgently go on a quest to get a treasure: virologists work to develop a vaccine in record time
The Heroes bring the boon back to society: The vaccine is discovered and massively produced
Society is preserved: the effects of the virus are dramatically reduced, and social instability isn't as bad as it could have been.

People are in danger: a fire breaks out
Heroes go on a quest to deal with it: Fireman head into danger
Heroes face trials and tribulations: they put the fire out, and risk their lives to rescue people
Society is preserved: the fire is brought under control before it spreads, and people's lives are saved
Conclusion: The Firemen go to a tavern, have a beer together, and get praised as heroes (people like firefighters for a reason).

One more for the road:
Quest: my child is sick
trials: comforting the child, taking them to the doctor, getting medicine, keeping calm while being worried about their safety, taking care of them
Preservation: Sickness runs it's course, child recovers and is fine (because of the things I did)

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The new material will remove some content seen as a problem, and focus more on characters that are friendly avatars representing the players, and not older fantasy tropes simulating older mythology or fantasy literature. No more evil orcs evil Drow, grimdark Conan or picaresque Fafhrd and Grey Mouser content. Also this negates a lot of themes players might want to reproduce from ancient mythology.

This reads like someone who has failed to keep in touch with modern fantasy, and read Conan so long ago that they have forgotten what the original stories where like.

Conan wasn't Grimdark, he was a thoroughgoing hero who always put the smackdown on evil, just with the occasional show of reluctance, request for payment, and odd bit of petty larceny.

"Grimdark" is modern. Harry Potter is a classic hero's journey.

 

[cowpie]

This reads like someone who has failed to keep in touch with modern fantasy, and read Conan so long ago that they have forgotten what the original stories where like.

It's a good thing I'm not that person . Ok, so i'm clueless, and forgot the stories. I'm more talking about Joseph Campbell and mythic fantasy, and how it taps into the human condition (I'm repeating a lot of Campbell's arguments). Do you disagree with my analysis of Joseph Campbell?

NOTE: someone else pointed out that I forgot about Conan and Swords and Sorcery, but I haven't -- I addressed it in another response. Conan is full of grim dark survival of the fittest stuff that Howard based on the grim dark oil rig workers he knew in the Texas town where he grew up. I've read modern fantasy too. However, my original post was already TLDR, so I tried not to go into any more detail, otherwise no one would want to read any of it.

 

[John R Davis]

It's definitely losing my interest and I have given them no money since Candlekeep. This is fine for me as I have always had cycles where I play DND, and I don't, where I'm active here, and I'm not.
Lots other games out there so maybe resting my d20 I'd a good thing for a time

 

[Paul Farquhar]

It's a good thing I'm not that person . Ok, so i'm clueless, and forgot the stories. I'm more talking about Joseph Campbell and mythic fantasy, and how it taps into the human condition (I'm repeating a lot of Campbell's arguments). Do you disagree with my analysis of Joseph Campbell?

NOTE: someone else pointed out that I forgot about Conan and Swords and Sorcery, but I haven't -- I addressed it in another response. Conan is full of grim dark survival of the fittest stuff that Howard based on the grim dark oil rig workers he knew in the Texas town where he grew up. I've read modern fantasy too. However, my original post was already TLDR, so I tried not to go into any more detail, otherwise no one would want to read any of it.

Your analysis of Joseph Campbell is outdated and your failure to detect the motifs in modern fantasy like Harry Potter is just that - a failure. The whole point of the Monomyth is it's a natural part of human storytelling that humans constantly reinvent. The only way to remove it is to be aware of it and deliberately set out to subvert it.

The world Conan lives in is tough, but after Conan passes through it it is at least a little bit better. That's a classic heroic narrative. If the world wasn't tough there would be no need for heroes like Conan. In a grimdark narrative the protagonist fails to make things any better, and sometimes makes things worse.

 

[cowpie]

Dude, I got that you want to call me a failure the first time. I understand the monomyth, but it's late at night and I'm tired right now. Just because I'm not perfect doesn't make my arguments a complete failure, or that I don't make any valid points.

I also get the grimdark narrative of Conan -- I think you're dead on right!

I didn't discuss Harry Potter because my post would be TLDRx10. I get that part of what WOTC is supporting is Harry Potter, and that the Harry Potter does a great job incorporating the Monomyth. I'm fine with WOTC doing this--there's nothing wrong with that. I'm ultimately arguing that they should continue to support all the content enjoyed by their entire player base, and not favor one form over the other.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Dude, I got that you want to call me a failure the first time. I understand the monomyth, but it's late at night and I'm tired right now. Just because I'm not perfect doesn't make my arguments a complete failure, or that I don't make any valid points.

I didn't discuss Harry Potter because my post would be TLDRx10. I get that part of what WOTC is supporting is Harry Potter, and that the Harry Potter does a great job incorporating the Monomyth. I'm fine with WOTC doing this--there's nothing wrong with that. I'm ultimately arguing that they should continue to support all the content enjoyed by their entire player base, and not favor one form over the other.

And modern fantasy is more diverse than it has ever been. The shift that WotC are making (and it's an evolution, not a paradigm shift, the OP is wrong) is to de-emphasise some of the the 1970s tropes to help D&D support a wider variety of stories.

 

[cowpie]

In that case, I'm fine with that, but I've had other experiences outside of gaming with people who entered a hobby and changed it from within, and they were negative experiences so I tend to be cautious about all this. That time the people said they were doing one thing, but some of them ended up doing something else.

be that as it may, D&D, even with the removal of 70s tropes, still mechanically supports a lot of those tropes. It's chock full of action and combat rules--focusing on the exploration and combat pillars of play. Levels, Hit Points, AC, etc. If what WOTC wants to support is more story game focused, does that mean they'll need to change the system fundamentally then?

I guess I still want to play some of those 70s tropes, so if they change the core rules, I'm concerned the rules won't support them anymore, and the older customer base (which is still large) will leave.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I guess I still want to play some of those 70s tropes, so if they change the core rules, I'm concerned the rules won't support them anymore, and the older customer base (which is still large) will leave.

Broad rules support whatever you want them to support. Just because Geralt has replaced Conan doesn't mean you can't play Conan.