D&D (2024) So what happened to the new and classic campaign settings? (and what's next?)

[Desdichado]

Honestly we should just base it on what cartoons we watched between the ages of 8 and 14.

That's why I think the older practice of making the "marketing" generations last about ten years made sense. That's about the window, more or less, in which people have a common perspective based on pop culture, current events and socio-cultural trends during their formative years. Anything longer than that, and you have people in the same "generation" who don't have the same experience or perspective at all.

I hope I wasn't phrasing this as "everyone in Gen Z likes this kind of fantasy, and nothing else." I was answering the question of "has fantasy actually changed in the past decade." Look through fantasy bestseller charts and you will see lots of new authors' names -- many of them women and POC -- writing about things like "a retired half-orc adventurer and her best friend open a coffee shop."

Gen Z folks can and do love more traditional styles of fantasy, but the rising tide of cozy fantasy -- which certainly owes a debt to Mercedes Lackey and other romantic fantasy (which is not the same as romance fiction, it should be noted; fiction genres are weird), as well as Tumblr -- is a new thing in the past decade and is largely read by younger readers.

If you are a Gen Z reader who likes other forms of fantasy fiction, I did not intend to erase you or try to tell you what you or your generation should be reading. This was a purely reactive post, based on watching this interesting new wave of fantasy climb the bestseller charts.

It's worth pointing out that these "fantasy bestseller charts" are relative not absolute, and fantasy bestsellers sell only a fraction of what they did a couple decades ago. N. K. Jemisin, by her own admission, can't live off her income as a fantasy author, and she's a three-time Hugo winner and supposed best-seller.

 

[overgeeked]

Honestly we should just base it on what cartoons we watched between the ages of 8 and 14.

That would only be useful pre-streaming. Maybe even pre-home video. I watched cartoons I liked growing up with my kid. We’re more than 25 years apart. Definitely not the same generation. I’m later Gen X and my kid is Gen Z. If we go by cartoons watched, we’re both Gen X.

 

[Reynard]

It's worth pointing out that these "fantasy bestseller charts" are relative not absolute, and fantasy bestsellers sell only a fraction of what they did a couple decades ago. N. K. Jemisin, by her own admission, can't live off her income as a fantasy author, and she's a three-time Hugo winner and supposed best-seller.

I bet there are fantasy fiction youtubers that make more than her.

What a world we have wrought.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There used to be a cohort in between Generation X and Millennials called Generation Y, and they were significantly different than either of the generations on the border.

No, Generation Y is what the Millennials were originally called by demographers before the generation got old enough to call themselves something and marketers got on board and ran with Millennials.

There is a Millennial obsession with creating ever-smaller cohorts ("Xennials," "elder Millennials," etc.), but Generation Y was a demography thing. I remember it very clearly in Time magazine, in an article about how today's kids (Generation X in this case) were lazy, had no work ethic, were going to inherit a poorer world than their parents had, etc. All the stuff that was then recycled and the Millennials were hit with and Generation Z will get slammed with soon.

The great hope for the angry Baby Boomers and Greatest Generation readers (and writers) of Time magazine at that point was the new, better generation, Generation Y, which would be coming of age right around, you guessed it, the turn of the millennium.

(Incidentally, Generation X is also a name that the generation got stuck with. It was popularized by the once-rising star novelist Douglas Coupland, who was everywhere in the early 1990s.)

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That could work. For kids, so gen Alpha and youngest among gen Z. As a separate product. But nothing that you described is so specific to gen Z/Alpha. It's same old Saturday morning cartoon style fantasy we have all seen in original He Man, Conan, Galthar, Thundar or Records of Lodoss War.

Gen Z aren't kids any more. They are young (and some not so young) adults. More than half of that generation is 18+.

I find that Gen Z rejects the idea that this is something only for children.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Avatar: The Last Airbender RPG pulled 81,567 backers pledged $9,535,317 to help bring this project to life. I think that beat Ryoko's Guide. Ryoko's is #5 on the list.

Sorry, you're right. Ryoko's at the time was the top grossing 5E project.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I’m getting the idea that even though Gen Z may be one of the largest demographics for the game, we have a really bad sense of what they want in a D&D product.

"Let's keep doing the same stuff we've been doing for 50 years and not worry about it" seems like a bad strategy, though.

WotC loves, loves, loves their marketing surveys. A more targeted one at younger players would likely be worthwhile.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I've seen over and over that they (wotc) should make new default setting for "modern" audience. But only one person tried to explain what that means, and he basically described modern audience as left/progressive leaning urban college kid from coastal part of USA.

He was going off of fantasy bestseller charts.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, Generation Y is what the Millennials were originally called by demographers before the generation got old enough to call themselves something and marketers got on board and ran with Millennials.

There is a Millennial obsession with creating ever-smaller cohorts ("Xennials," "elder Millennials," etc.), but Generation Y was a demography thing. I remember it very clearly in Time magazine, in an article about how today's kids (Generation X in this case) were lazy, had no work ethic, were going to inherit a poorer world than their parents had, etc. All the stuff that was then recycled and the Millennials were hit with and Generation Z will get slammed with soon.

The great hope for the angry Baby Boomers and Greatest Generation readers (and writers) of Time magazine at that point was the new, better generation, Generation Y, which would be coming of age right around, you guessed it, the turn of the millennium.

(Incidentally, Generation X is also a name that the generation got stuck with. It was popularized by the once-rising star novelist Douglas Coupland, who was everywhere in the early 1990s.)

The irony is, most people called "Boomers" today are actually Gen X. You know, the allegedly "naughty word the system" garage band skater punks who were flipping off The Man and smoking pot while being juvenile delinquents and teen parents.

That generation is now the "I demand to speak to the manager" generation, amongst other far more concerning patterns of behavior.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There are micro-generations (like xenials and zenials and whatever z/alpha), but those are just people born at the tail end of one and begging of other.

Generation Alpha is the cohort after Generation Z. Again, it's a demography thing, not something invented on Tiktok, although Tiktok discourse certainly likes to throw these terms around sloppily.