D&D 5E The Mainstreaming of D&D

[Reynard]

Maybe try some other TTRPGs?

It's weird that people keep saying this, when I have not only played a bunch of different RPGs in the 35 years I have been gaming, but I've written for a pretty wide variety, too.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's weird that people keep saying this, when I have not only played a bunch of different RPGs in the 35 years I have been gaming, but I've written for a pretty wide variety, too.

Oh, it's just about the particular thesis that D&D is no longer weird and transgressive for you.

There's always something weirder out there, if you turn over enough rocks!

 

[Reynard]

Oh, it's just about the particular thesis that D&D is no longer weird and transgressive for you.

There's always something weirder out there, if you turn over enough rocks!

Admittedly, those games are harder to find players for.

 

[BookTenTiger]

It's weird that people keep saying this, when I have not only played a bunch of different RPGs in the 35 years I have been gaming, but I've written for a pretty wide variety, too.

To be fair, you did tag this as D&D5e, so I imagine the conversation is going to be based around that context.

 

[Parmandur]

Yeah, TMNT was a very cool, strange, quirky, kinda punk rock black and white comic that I knew primarily through the Palladium RPG. Then it morphed into something for kids. I mean, I was a kid, but I liked it because it wasn't for kids, you know?

The Saturday Morning Cartoon version was on the air when I was 2, so it's primary to my mind, and awesome.

 

[Mannahnin]

Yeah, TMNT was a very cool, strange, quirky, kinda punk rock black and white comic that I knew primarily through the Palladium RPG. Then it morphed into something for kids. I mean, I was a kid, but I liked it because it wasn't for kids, you know?

I was also a kid with a subscription to Daredevil at the time, so the parody was right in my face.

But this exactly. The original comic was also bloody and more raw than the comics code would allow Marvel to be. When it turned into a cartoon with color-coded bandanas for the characters to help the audience tell them apart, the shark had officially been jumped for 12 year old me.

 

[loverdrive]

Maybe you just got tired of Dragons. I think you should get yourself a Dungeon.

 

[D1Tremere]

I honestly don't see any difference in the material with regard to being more "safe, kid friendly" or having a different direction than it always has. Could someone elaborate on these things?

The main difference I see in content is that the game, and to some extent the player base, has grown. As much as I appreciate Gygax and Arneson for creating D&D, it is easy to see today that they came from a place of simplistic tropes and stereotypes, and fairly unimaginative (by today's standards) "Fantasy" gaming. That is just my opinion. Gygax specifically was very focused on keeping the game grounded in a romanticized medieval European aesthetic.

 

[D1Tremere]

First and foremost: I am glad D&D is having a renaissance, and I am glad lots of new people are coming into the hobby. I am glad there is a robust 3rd part of semi-pro support ecosystem out there. I am glad there are YouTube channels, streamers and tik-toks aplenty on the subject of running and playing the game. I am glad celebrities are "coming out" as fans.

All that said, if I am honest, I liked it better when D&D was a nerdy little hobby that felt a little weird and a little transgressive. I'm not lamenting exclusion -- it is great that everyone gets to discover D&D -- nor am I missing the unfriendly stereotypes of old school sword and sorcery -- although you can take Frazetta from my cold dead hands. It's more like as I see what is emerging for D&D in this new mainstream environment, I am... bored. Uninspired. It feels like TMNT on saturday mornings compared to its origins. It feels a lot like teh 2E transition, in fact, with everything glossy and clean and, well, safe.

Anyway, just thinking with my fingers, really. Like I said, it is good that D&D is popular and mainstream for any number of reasons. But the shape it is taking in the mainstream leaves me cold, a little sad even.

Can you elaborate on the shape you see it taking?

 

[Dragonsbane]

I agree completely.

DnD is pop music. It's vanilla.

Maybe it's time to dig deeper into the scene and play other stuff.

Try Cypher System. We play 5E and 3E and 1E modules as well as homebrew, and it is much more satisfying than DnD for me and my 1980s grognard group. Fixed everything I had houseruled. It is SO not vanilla.

That said, I do remember in the 80s during the Panic a sense of coolness for being in that outside nerd/freak group lol