D&D General Millennial D&D (+)

[EzekielRaiden]

You raise a very good point--a fantasy appealing to Millennials would probably be somewhat the opposite of the actual conditions. The 'grimdark' 90s were actually a fairly prosperous time (at least in the USA) and relatively peaceful when people had stopped worrying about the Cold War and hadn't started worrying about terrorism yet, though of course not everyone was doing well.

I'd say most of Europe was in a similar condition. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, many places saw quite a bit of economic improvement and at least increased prosperity. Plenty of things didn't go well, it's not like it was some absolutely problem-free zone, but life was pretty good. Even the "Dot Com" bubble was relatively minor. The first blush of the Internet arrived, computers had just started to become a Big Deal, travel was relatively good.

Much of the creative works at the time (comics, movies, etc.) were in response to the oppressive "Father Knows Best" censorship and media control finally collapsing in the 80s. Imitators failed to understand the point behind creative works like Watchmen, and instead just did dark stuff for dark stuff's sake, thinking that made it automatically more "mature" and "intelligent" etc.

I find that most Millennials are rather more enchanted with hopepunk and daring to dream, the belief that something good is possible even if it's not easy, even if it's something only one's children or grandchildren might see. They love things like Justice League/Justice League Unlimited, Avatar: the Last Airbender, and reconstructions, rather than the deconstructions that were extremely popular beforehand. They have a complicated relationship with things like queer-coded villains, because on the one hand a lot of them are fun and entertaining to watch, but on the other the trope arises from rather nasty roots; there's usually an effort to reclaim these things and make them more interesting, rather than to abandon them as too toxic to handle (which I find is loosely more characteristic of Gen Z attitudes).

Because it was a prediction, and here we are.

Nah. It was a string of progressively lazier writers badly imitating good writers who had finally been set free of the shackles of things like the Comics Code Authority and Hays Code.

That things have gotten worse in various ways since then is, frankly, completely unrelated.

Particularly because most of the so-called "predictions" haven't come true in the slightest, e.g. overall violent crime has significantly dropped since 1980. In fact, in CDC numbers, 1980 vs 2019, deaths from any cause at all decreased substantially for all persons under the age of 25, and increased significantly more slowly than population growth for persons 25-44. Only 45-64 and 65+ have actually increased, and both of those simply kept up with population growth, of about 50%.

The only "prediction" that's come remotely true is that the 1% have hoarded most of the new wealth for themselves, but it hasn't created the vast unemployment, squalid conditions, violent uprisings, or other "predictions" that most grimdark narratives claimed. Things have gotten bad in some ways and better in others--as history is wont to do.

 

[Scribe]

I find that most Millennials are rather more enchanted with hopepunk and daring to dream, the belief that something good is possible even if it's not easy, even if it's something only one's children or grandchildren might see.

I just dont see this in the older end of Millienials at all, considering the youngest Millenials are 28ish, and I have no context really for that age group, maybe that would explain it.

To me, the older end of Millenials, as I'm in Canada, are far closer to what most folks associate with Gen X, and anecdotally of course, we all drank the grim dark kool-aid as kids, and we will (all) see what we want to see in the world either hopepunk, or grimdark.

The failure of my cyberpunk dystopian dreams to manifest anything cool at all, is a sore point I will have to nurse forever it seems...

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I just dont see this in the older end of Millienials at all, considering the youngest Millenials are 28ish, and I have no context really for that age group, maybe that would explain it.

To me, the older end of Millenials, as I'm in Canada, are far closer to what most folks associate with Gen X, and anecdotally of course, we all drank the grim dark kool-aid as kids, and we will (all) see what we want to see in the world either hopepunk, or grimdark.

The failure of my cyberpunk dystopian dreams to manifest anything cool at all, is a sore point I will have to nurse forever it seems...

As usual, generations are artificial. The earliest Millennials will have more in common with the late Gen Xers and vice-versa.

I'm pretty close to the middle of Millennials, and I can absolutely say that folks in my general age group have gotten REALLY REALLY sick and tired of so many stories where:

(1) Everyone is always a terrible person all the time
(2) Nothing ever changes, except to get worse (though temporary fakeout improvements happen to intensify the tragedy)
(3) People who choose to do good things are almost instantly punished for it
(4) Dystopia is absolute and completely unalterable
(5) Related to 4, heroes absolutely never exist, they are always (a) fake, (b) deluded, (c) stupid, (d) crazy-pants, or (e) any combination thereof

I do not, at all, mind challenging institutions or questioning authority, hell, there's literally a JLU episode straight-up called "Question Authority" (a reference to both the popular phrase, and the central character for the episode, The Question). I don't, at all, mind the idea that we need to be reminded that even our heroes are still people, and people can be flawed or harmful in ways we don't realize at first.

I just can't stand the oppressiveness of outright grimdark. It's not enjoyable media. It's jumping into the midden and throwing feces because feces are gross and if you pretend you don't make feces you're a liar and (etc., etc.) I get that the world has feces in it. That doesn't mean I want to spend most of my time thinking about how gross feces are. In fact, I'd rather think about that only the absolute bare minimum necessary to maintain sanitation and both public and personal health.

 

[Scribe]

I just can't stand the oppressiveness of outright grimdark. It's not enjoyable media.

I can appreciate that it's not to everyone's liking, but for me, a great 40K novel ends with a gut punch of everyone getting what's coming to them, and I love it.

I think we probably cannot see eye to eye on this though.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I can appreciate that it's not to everyone's liking, but for me, a great 40K novel ends with a gut punch of everyone getting what's coming to them, and I love it.

I think we probably cannot see eye to eye on this though.

For my part, hearing that, I think of the "Eight Deadly Words," per TVTropes: "I don't care what happens to these people." (Allegedly coined by Dorothy Jones Heydt on Usenet.)

Watching terrible people suffer because of their terribleness just makes me sad in most cases. It requires a pretty major effort for me to genuinely, unreservedly hate someone so much that I would ever derive any joy from their suffering. Even people I really, really dislike and have every reason to oppose...I just feel hollow and empty when I see them suffer for their misdeeds.

 

[Scribe]

For my part, hearing that, I think of the "Eight Deadly Words," per TVTropes: "I don't care what happens to these people." (Allegedly coined by Dorothy Jones Heydt on Usenet.)

Watching terrible people suffer because of their terribleness just makes me sad in most cases. It requires a pretty major effort for me to genuinely, unreservedly hate someone so much that I would ever derive any joy from their suffering. Even people I really, really dislike and have every reason to oppose...I just feel hollow and empty when I see them suffer for their misdeeds.

There's a recent-ish, 40K trilogy, that ends with near everyone getting killed, or worse. Seeing as it's 40K, everyone involved has done terrible things, and are only good people in relation to both the twisted morality of 40K, and their enemies who granted, are some of the worst in the setting.

I absolutely cared for the characters, their journey, the climax of the story...and the fact everyone dies and it's all hopelessly futile on multiple levels was just so perfectly 40K, that I loved it.

Not because I enjoy suffering, or I only play bad guys (Paladin is my lifetime #1, played straight) but because it's correct for the setting.

It's not for everyone, and that's fine, but the day 40K gets a ray of hope, it will be diminished.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It's not for everyone, and that's fine, but the day 40K gets a ray of hope, it will be diminished.

Oh, sure, no question. I just think that making that baked in for ALL players of a D&D-type thing, which is at least nominally meant to embrace a wide variety of options, would be unwise.

Black licorice is a selective taste that absolutely isn't for everyone. But replacing it with red licorice to please more people is a disservice to those who actually like it. (In small doses, I'm actually one of them, I actually like licorice-flavored saltwater taffy for example.) Likewise, extreme spiciness is essential for some dishes, e.g. there should be ultra-hot curries out there for the folks who love that stuff, putting in something to ameliorate or mitigate the spiciness would be denying them their joy.

The issue lies in setting that setting as the default everyone else has to work around, rather than an opt-in that some folks can implement. Good support for grimdark is tricky because of how hegemonic it often becomes--as you say, allowing even a single "ray of hope" breaks it, sort of like stripping the patina off of just the handles of a tea set, you've ruined the look. I wouldn't envy the designer who needs to thread the needle between "give folks who love grimdark the support they need to really enjoy a grimdark game" and "give everyone else the support they need to not actually have a grimdark game if they don't want it."

 

[Scribe]

Oh, sure, no question. I just think that making that baked in for ALL players of a D&D-type thing, which is at least nominally meant to embrace a wide variety of options, would be unwise.

Oh agreed. I considered much in BG3 extremely dark, my Paladin was the ray of goodness. The problem I have with official D&D, is they went too far the other way.

 

[Charlaquin]

They have a complicated relationship with things like queer-coded villains, because on the one hand a lot of them are fun and entertaining to watch, but on the other the trope arises from rather nasty roots; there's usually an effort to reclaim these things and make them more interesting, rather than to abandon them as too toxic to handle (which I find is loosely more characteristic of Gen Z attitudes).

(Adding on, not disagreeing): the very loosely Gen Z-associated movement towards abandoning things like queer coded villains mostly comes from a sort of neo-puritanical contingent of online fandom culture, which originates from bad actors within the space who were mostly Milennials and Gen X, but influenced a lot of young (at the time) Gen Z folks, and has since gone on to become a much bigger thing.

 

[Chaltab]

(Adding on, not disagreeing): the very loosely Gen Z-associated movement towards abandoning things like queer coded villains mostly comes from a sort of neo-puritanical contingent of online fandom culture, which originates from bad actors within the space who were mostly Milennials and Gen X, but influenced a lot of young (at the time) Gen Z folks, and has since gone on to become a much bigger thing.

I've heard this obliquely but I was wondering if you could elaborate.