is Dungeons and Dragons still Lame

[Asmor]

Video games are less geeky than tabletop games, which are in turn less geeky than LARPing. See the geek hierarchy chart for further details.

Ha! Furries.

Back on point... Lame is letting others dictate for you what is cool and what is not. You alone should decide what you think is cool. (Why do I feel like the end bumper of a GI Joe cartoon?)

The critical part you're missing:

Your brother said he would be there at the appointed time.
He didn't show up at that time.
He didn't call to say he wasn't going to be there.
When you called him to ask where he was, probably indicating that other people were waiting on him, he didn't apologize. Instead, he insulted you.

Verdict: your brother is lame. His opinion is utterly worthless. Seriously.

QFT

 

[Dormammu]

Some people, such as your brother, will always think D&D is lame, whether it's fear of geek-ridicule or just find the concept unappealing. I myself think most of popular sports (baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer) are lame.

Sports are not what is lame. What is lame is a hobby in which you watch and talk about other people doing something. If you play a sport, that's pretty cool imo. If you just watch it and talk about it? Yeeeeeaahhhh....

 

[Shadeydm]

No.

Not until some money is spent advertising it in places where people who aren't already the target audience can be exposed to it.

4e or 10e will not change that.

This is an excellent observation which earns the big QFT from me.

 

[Sitara]

I still can't understand what the problem with tall elves is. honestly.

 

[ShinHakkaider]

Among larger society, roleplaying of any fashion is "Lame". To the extent that the SCA "I use foam weapons to beat my friends up, drink beer and yell about wenches" guy is lumped in with D&D players to the general public.

That opinion is similar to other geeks. The public gawks and laughs at the lines of costumed nerds camped outside of the theatres to see Star Wars. Trekkies get it too. And dare I say, the opinion of WoW and other things, to people who know what they are, isn't fabulous; look at the South Park episode dedicated to WoW.

4e will not change the average member of society's opinion, because it's still "Nerd stuff". It involves math, reading books, and playing pretend, which is just odd to the average person as a pass-time.

Inside the Geek umbrella (and under the gamer umbrella), all sides sneer at other sides. When I say "Furry", do you not roll your eyes and sigh? When I say the words "LARP", do you not snicker? Do you not think of pasty frufru goths dressing up and passing notes in a playground at night? There's feuds and stereotypes between geeks, and between gamers.

Among the gamers that I know, D&D is the "lowest common denominator" of tabletops. The Gateway Game, if you will. Everyone who's ever thrown dice knows what a +1 sword is. It's the most widely known, widely played game, and it's the easiest game to find players for. Some gamers sneer at the fact it's Level based, some sneer at its Hack'n'slash focus, others hate how limited it is, and so on.

4e isn't going to change the opinions of those who think "D&D is, and will always be, the lowest common denominator".

4e will possibly do what 3e did: bring into the fold the people who had stopped gaming 2e, and had drifted off. It might alienate some of those people. But it also might attract more young crowds, with shiny, cool stuff.

Uh, wow.

Considering that I typically dont agree with anything that you normally have to say, you pretty much hit the nail right on the head with this one.

 

[Wolfspider]

I still can't understand what the problem with tall elves is. honestly.

They can't fit comfortably in Santa's workshop anymore.

 

[Carnivorous_Bean]

Last I checked, LARPs are still gaming. Just that instead of sitting at a table, they're standing up and dressed for the occasion.

All the listed geek fandoms exercise imagination and roleplaying, just under different manners.

Exactly, I find it hilarious that people with practically the same hobby affect to despise each other so much. I happen to play D&D AND World of Warcraft, for example -- and my D&D style is very different from my WoW style (the former is an RPG, the latter is a tactical wargame).

Both D&D and WoW have most things in common. Classes, levels, quests, dungeons, magic items, spells, paladins, wizards, druids, fighters (who are weaker than anyone else, especially at high levels ), etc. etc. ..... and yet all I hear from my D&D friends is how lame WoW players are and all I hear from my WoW friends is how lame D&D players are. EACH BUNCH thinks the other are a bunch of immature weirdos, totally unable to see their fundamental kinship.

In part, I think it's human nature. In part, I think it's something that's been promulgated in our culture for several reasons .... but that's a different discussion, and not one I want to delve into on Christmas ....

Ah yes, and Merry Christmas, all!!!!

 

[Rechan]

and my D&D style is very different from my WoW style (the former is an RPG, the latter is a tactical wargame).

I would argue that D&D is, at its fundamental base, a tactical wargame, but this isn't the place for that argument, overall.



But yes. Exactly what you says.

 

[WayneLigon]

I don't think the purpose of 4E is to 'bring normal people to play D&D', nor is it to grab the CRPG people and the LOTR people. You're right: that's not going to happen in any significant number. After 30-someodd years, you're probably seeing the maximum number of people in the US that are going to play a tabletop RPG and at most a new edition is simply going to move the numbers among pre-existing gamers around a little - it might move some gamers doing Savage Worlds or other indie games back to D&D and it might bring those disaffected with the 3E complexity back to D&D but it's probably not going to create new gamers out of thin air.

The reason for a new edition is us, things that we gamers have requested.

 

[Merlin the Tuna]

No.

Not until some money is spent advertising it in places where people who aren't already the target audience can be exposed to it.

4e or 10e will not change that.

I agree, but I expect that this sort of thing will come as we get closer to the release of the books. But whereas we, the nutty folks who hang out on message boards talking about D&D all the bloody time, can be excited/curious about a new edition for months in advance, people who've never played before, not so much. It is a lot tougher to break into an older market due to this sort of thing, but they can certainly bust into the middle-school demographic that doesn't yet know how lame our wrongbadfun is.