D&D 5E New York Times remembers early days of D&D

[lowkey13]

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[ccs]

Why do you think that is?

Because that's the most publicly notable thing about D&D.
Even if it's surpassed it'll become the 2nd. So it'll be focused on again, & again, & again....

What can we do?

Nothing.
Just ignore it.

 

[Kobold Stew]

It's because it's the only interesting controversy D&D has had. So unless the premise of the article is "Hey, people are still playing D&D and it's as popular as ever!" (which plenty of articles do)...

I've seen those articles too -- I'm not sure it's "plenty" and it still feels like it's marginalizing. Which may be fine -- we can claim to be counter-cultural or retro or whatever.

But given the cultural shift that geek/nerd culture has experienced in those 30 years (with where people can participate by watching the top-rated sitcom or attending the top-grossing film) it seems to me to be a genuine failure that we haven't moved on.

I think one of the reasons it still comes up is that we've gone from the Satanic Panic to stuff like Harry Potter and D&D being cool. It's such a crazy cultural shift.

Next, cultural influence. It is odd, to me, that while the nerd-culture represented by D&D has gone mainstream, D&D itself is more of a niche that it was in the early 1980s.

That's what I see in these comments. I too was part of D&D clubs in the 80s (one I started at school, and one I attended on Saturdays above a bowling alley), and I had supportive parents who saw the hype but fundamentally trusted me, and were pleased when my gaming (as they saw it) helped get me into university a year early.

If we're marginalized now it's for different reasons, but I don't want to say tt-rpgs have simply lost out to video games.

The NYT piece shouldn't be the best coverage the games get. It's in the "retro file", and it's a non-news story about something from the last century.

I guess if they're doing a non-news story on the hobby, I want it to be about something current. And I assume that there's something we could do to make that happen.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Artifact]

The 'panic' over D&D never impacted me too much. I learned early on who I could share my hobby with and who I couldn't.

Even today, I only reveal that I'm a DnDer to someone who asks. I only go into detail if the person seems genuinely interested and isn't just looking for a hot-button debate (it happened more often back in they day, not so much now --but I'm still careful).

So 'D&D is evil' has had some impact on me but I manage .

 

[The Grassy Gnoll]

I remember I was on a family holiday and I heard that Mazes and Monsters was due to be on TV so I badgered my parents to let me watch it...and was promptly horrified at what I saw.

Luckily, both mum and dad fell asleep and my brother thought I was a weirdo anyway, but even he could see it was garbage.

 

[shieldbearer]

80s I wasn't allowed to play DnD because of my parent's fear. 90s magic the gathering got popular and I'd tell them I was going to my friend's house to play magic, but we'd also play DnD.

The NYT probably went to DnD for a shakedown and said 'pay us x dollars to run a fun story about dnd or we'll run the old story of how it used to be evil'. DnD executives thought 'hey, even bad press is free advertising' 'we're not paying you anything'. Anyway...

The mainstream popularity of fantasy movies and video games should speak for how benign gaming is. Smartphones and the internet are waaay bigger problems for kids.

Show people a few minutes of Critical Role stream and how much fun they're having or the DnD episode of Freaks and Geeks when James Franco becomes friends with the DnD players through Carlos the Dwarf and everything will be fine.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

The 'panic' over D&D never impacted me too much. I learned early on who I could share my hobby with and who I couldn't.

Even today, I only reveal that I'm a DnDer to someone who asks. I only go into detail if the person seems genuinely interested and isn't just looking for a hot-button debate (it happened more often back in they day, not so much now --but I'm still careful).

So 'D&D is evil' has had some impact on me but I manage .

I've always gone the other way with it; D&D is the first hobby I mention, because it is my favorite, and I bring it up with anyone whenever it isn't a non sequitur. Such as when a fellow student back in school said "What are you doing after school?" or more recently when a co-worker said "Got any plans for your weekend?", and definitely at any time when someone asks "So, what are you in to?"

When I was younger, this openness about D&D meant that when hanging out with friends with particularly minded parents I would wind up in discussion with their parents explaining the stories we were actually telling with the game (and their their child happened to be playing a character devout in their faith, seeking to protect all from the evils of hell, in most of those cases oddly enough) and helping them to realize their fears about D&D were completely unfounded (with only a single case of a person being so unreasonable as to insist that I was trying to seduce their child to devil worship, despite having seen the text clear on the page labeling devils just as they would; Evil).

Throughout my life as a gamer this openness, rather than silence until directly questioned, has been a large part of why my table has always been full at session time, despite living in numerous different cities and states during that time. And if anyone ever thought less of me for being a D&D player, I'm glad not to have know it or to have had them exit my life before truly becoming a part of it so that their idiotic judgement of me did not cause me any hurt feelings.

 

[Springheel]

It's nice for the hobby to get mainstream coverage, but it still seems unable (and we gamers seem unable) to get past where things were 30+ years ago.

I'm not sure it makes sense to criticize an article in the "retro files" for talking about things that are...retro.

It's not like D&D isn't in mainstream media anymore...there's a new D&D movie being made right now.

 

[Sezarious]

Even today, I only reveal that I'm a DnDer to someone who asks.

I'm the same, but only with people who are 'worthy'. Then I allow them to join my secret club.... Then we have an initiation involving a blood sacrifice and a casual demon summoning, followed by snacks, then some d&d, another blood sacrifice, lunch, then we play some more d&d and send the demon home after feeding it and getting it drunk on a bottle of spirits (see! Blood and SPIRIT sacrifices! Get it? It's a pun!).

D&D will always be around as long as videogames have limits I think. Like how I think books will never be truly replaced by their movie equivalents.