D&D General Is Appendix N Still Relevant to D&D?

[Willie the Duck]

Something has been gnawing at me every time I see this thread title. I've finally worked out what it is.

The question seems to assume that there is some higher authority (even if in this case the authority might just be, "the general consensus at EnWorld") that has any say over what is relevant to D&D. Maybe that's true, with respect to D&D as a lifestyle brand. But, as far as the game happening around your table, it's not.

What's relevant to D&D is what you and the players you're gaming with decide it is. No one controls that, but the group doing the gaming. That has always, and will always, be the case.

Your game is yours. Do with it as you will. The media and inspiration you consider relevant is what's relevant.

That's my position on the topic, anyway.

There's nothing inherent to the thread topic question that would require anything to be prescriptive, rather than descriptive/analytic. People answering the question can just as easily be answering whether (from their vantage point) Appendix N happens to be relevant to D&D in the wider gaming world than any kind of proclamation about whether is (by authoritative fiat) or whether it ought to be.

Edit: I see you have made a follow-up post which may have reclarified/reframed your position. I will read that now and address it separately if I have anything to say at that point.

 

[SableWyvern]

There's nothing inherent to the thread topic question that would require anything to be prescriptive, rather than descriptive/analytic. People answering the question can just as easily be answering whether (from their vantage point) Appendix N happens to be relevant to D&D in the wider gaming world than any kind of proclamation about whether is (by authoritative fiat) or whether it ought to be.

Edit: I see you have made a follow-up post which may have reclarified/reframed your position. I will read that now and address it separately if I have anything to say at that point.

I think the key point is the very last line of my second post, where I suggest it's probably just an overly pedantic response to the wording of the question, which fired me off into "Make your game your own!" crusade mode.

 

[bsss]

At my table, your reality is irrelevant. That doesn't mean every conversation about D&D must come down to that but, if someone asks "what is relevant to D&D", it is absolutely my position that we each get to decide that for ourselves. So, in this specific conversation, my argument doesn't decay to that -- my argument is that.

We're not at your table, though? If we are meant to converse about what your D&D is, then either we're on your blog, or we're each expected to talk about "our" D&D and not "a" D&D, and every disagreement immediately becomes "well that's your D&D, not my D&D". It doesn't function as a discussion.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

All genres are purely marketing. Sci-fi and Fantasy are shelved together because they share a customer profile, not by content.

tldr: I get the problem you're pointing to, but I think you're overstating the case.

Of course genre marketing is a thing, and is often over aggressive and even misleading, but there are intentional elements that tie different texts by different authors together: e.g. themes, motifs, words chosen, sentence structure. This is why parody is recognisable.

And it is also true most readers tend to organise their reading by genre, so for instance people who are interested in plumbing want to read books that deal with plumbing, and there are conventions for them: e.g. what kind of images are used (compare Treasure Island to a modern ttrpg to a scientific article on any subject); and both authors and publishers organise their work to respect these conventions, and to take advantage of the kinds of short hand that being recognized as within a genre allows. For example, people can figure out what kind of book they are looking at without having to read it all, and this helps them choose what to read. This is pretty important.

This process is part of how reading creates "global" communities that are not bound in the same way as "local" communities that meet "face to face." Ttrpgs sit within a nexus that contains both, which is part of the reason why they are complex and interesting in both theory and praxis.

 

[SableWyvern]

We're not at your table, though? If we are meant to converse about what your D&D is, then either we're on your blog, or we're each expected to talk about "our" D&D and not "a" D&D, and every disagreement immediately becomes "well that's your D&D, not my D&D". It doesn't function as a discussion.

I believe our D&D -- both yours and mine -- is what we make it. If you feel that position renders discussion impossible, so be it. I believe it, nonetheless.

 

[Barner Cobblewood]

At my table, your reality is irrelevant. That doesn't mean every conversation about D&D must come down to that but, if someone asks "what is relevant to D&D", it is absolutely my position that we each get to decide that for ourselves. So, in this specific conversation, my argument doesn't decay to that -- my argument is that.

I agree with you if you are playing a solo game, but for most ttrpg play I think you're overstating the case. When we play at a table at play with people who are "local" to us. That "local" community decides what is important at the table, its genre of you like. We need other players to play with, and what they say is a important as what I say. For example, I live in Montreal. There's a whole different scene here because so many people are bilingual, and they're is an interaction between English and French language books and culture that doesn't happen elsewhere.

However when we play on a global platform we can hope to find a community of people who will play to a "narrower" definition of what we think a game should be. However they are not local, and so I can't just "play" a Montreal style game with players from all over because they don't share the cultural background.

 

[SableWyvern]

I agree with you if you are playing a solo game, but for most ttrpg play I think you're overstating the case. When we play at a table at play with people who are "local" to us. That "local" community decides what is important at the table, its genre of you like. We need other players to play with, and what they say is a important as what I say. For example, I live in Montreal. There's a whole different scene here because so many people are bilingual, and they're is an interaction between English and French language books and culture that doesn't happen elsewhere.

However when we play on a global platform we can hope to find a community of people who will play to a "narrower" definition of what we think a game should be. However they are not local, and so I can't just "play" a Montreal style game with players from all over because they don't share the cultural background.

Yes, in my initial post I worked a little harder to make it clear the group at the table decides, not any one individual. As a group activity, all the participants in a given game get a say.

I disagree that a wider community gets to decide what happens at a specific table just because it exists inside that community. The opinions and ideas of others might influence what occurs, but it's still the people engaged in the actual game that make the ultimate decisions.

 

[SothFan]

Something has been gnawing at me every time I see this thread title

The question seems to assume that there is some higher authority that has any say over what is relevant to D&D.

There is, Hasbro. I am obviously an idiot since I do not know everything about D&D, but, it seems this appendix is just reference material, and the discussion is asking more about what current influences are as they no longer seem to represent all the listed books therein.

 

[bsss]

I believe our D&D -- both yours and mine -- is what we make it. If you feel that position renders discussion impossible, so be it. I believe it, nonetheless.

I feel that essentially saying "I don't believe in an identity for the subject of the discussion beyond my personal definition of it, and thus I reject the topic of the discussion" is a dead end, yes.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Conan stories absolutely were directly meant for teens. Why would anything think differently. These stories were published in Weird Tales. Who do you think was the intended audience for these magazines?

Weird Tales was for the 16-25 male crowd, straight up. They made no secret of that.

Weird Tales, while still skewing towards male readers in its audience, wasn't as overwhelmingly masc as one might have thought. Based on the Weird Tales fan club stats (as far as I know, the only source of demographic information for it), the audience was on average 25% women, even going as high as 31%.

REH: Two-Gun Raconteur » Blog Archive » Women of the Weird Tales Club