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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Manbearcat" data-source="post: 9232303" data-attributes="member: 6696971">"Go about this?"Is "this" here safeguarding the brand?  Meaning, you're either disputing or unclear about whether this is possible in culture generally or the D&D zeitgeist/culture specifically?I don't know how old you are.  I have no idea how much exposure you have to all of this?  If you're relatively new to the hobby then maybe you're just seeing the finished cultural product and thinking this is a genesis rather than the (current) endpoint of a very long journey to get here?  I'm 46.  I started playing running games when I was 7 in 1984.  The TTRPG cultural fabric was extremely alive even back then even without the pervasiveness of the internet.  I'm not going to write an essay on the entirety of this but an abridged version of influence would probably look like:* Dragonlance + VtM + Larping and the "Roleplaying NOT ROLLPLAYING" wars in the late 80s and early 90s.  Either its just an extraordinary coincidence or 2e design and products (setting and adventures) were absolutely, deeply influenced by this and the complaints about AD&D being a sprawl of rules.  B/X, BECMI, and RC were basically a separate line that were comparatively still interested in D&D being a "game as game."* 3e was a design reaction to Simulationist interests of the 90s.* 4e was a design reaction to the issues that various aspects of the culture and various designers 3.x and the various trends of the time including all of the scene resolution/indie games that came out of The Forge/Fate/BW family of games, and the themes and some of the design inherent to MtG, Diablo, and WoW.* 5e was absolutely the biggest "reaction edition" as the scorched earth of the edition war laid waste the cultural fabric of D&D both online, in stores, and in meatspace generally (for eff sakes, you couldn't gather in nerd movie lines or in comic stores, or game stores or any nerd spaces without a "spillover event").  The designers told us so as plainly as possible in their own words and in their curated playtest and surveys that 5e was the nostalgia, Rulings Not Rules edition that wanted to catered to lapsed AD&D players, the OSR, and 3.x/PF players.  I said during the playtests that this has all the earmarks of "AD&D 3e."  It obvsiouly did.  I also said that the design would regret its approach to the work day and complete abandonment of balance at the scene/encounter level.  Those remarks were as booed as could possibly be.Fast forward 4-5 years and folks were routinely calling 5e AD&D 3e and folks were lamenting the Adventuring Day dynamics left and right, trying to develop community hacks/workarounds for encounter/scenario design, difficulty curve predictability, and workday models that didn't rely upon awkward 6-8 combats for desired attrition.[HR][/HR]D&D has been a culture war since the late 80s at least (possibly before that, but I wasn't about for that).  I can't even see how this could be disputed.  So many D&D players are deeply, deeply tethered to brand identity and the cultural engagement and cultural reaction and cultural networking is deep and wide and prolific.  "D&D is a way of life" is basically a battle cry.What changes do I personally want?  What am I advocating for?  Personally, I would like to see people stop trying to own the culture and trying to act like D&D is this one thing and stop trying to protect it from influences that they're afraid would capture the zeitgeist (and therefore find their way into design bogeymen into the next edition).  I'd like for 12-15 year olds not to be chastised for being shallow ROLLPLAYERs (not the esteemed "roleplayers" of the 2e, Dragonlance, beginning Adventure Path, and VtM era of D&D).  I'd like for the 4e edition war not to have happened in internet-space with its spillover into nerd meatspace.That would be pretty great.As far as design things I'm advocating for?  I don't care.  I run tons and tons of games.  I've got lots of variations of D&D (TSR and WotC and indie).  I don't need nor do I really want more.  I doubt I would be playing a 6e and I certainly won't engage in any playtest after the last playtest.  A community that isn't perpetually captured by MINE, perpetually splintered in the most hostile ways possible (as it was since the late 80s and little kids who just wanted to play a game of Pawn Stance dungeon/hexcrawl D&D were nearly pushed out of the hobby by TRUE ROLEPLAYERS TM and GMs with vast storytelling imperatives for their play) and fighting over influencing and safeguarding D&D would be awesome.  Not holding my breath though!</blockquote>

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