There's Powerful Deviltry at Work Here...

[Simia Saturnalia]

I think you just described Sorcerer.

Well, Sorcerer's closest analogue to an alignment mechanic (in Humanity), anyhow.

Other differences are simply too numerous to bother going in to.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Guitars which vanquish evil. Are the guitars played by ninjas? My game clearly needs more anime.

Cheers, -- N

No ninjas. Actually, the guitar is played by a guy who used to totally rock in his own rock band when he was younger, but then he married one of his groupies, settled down, and got a boring job in an office. Then this mysterious woman appears at his workplace and starts showing all this interest in him. She meets him for drinks and takes him off to a secluded location...to put a guitar pick in his hand and explain that only the power of his rock music can activate the giant space laser that is the only weapon that can save the Earth from the evil faceless alien army that is conquering its way across the galaxy.

That's basically episode 1, entitled "Stairway to Heaven". The opening theme is a John Sykes song. Good stuff. Also, (perhaps, obviously), it's a comedy.

Yes, the power of the ROCKIN' GUITAR is mighty and spans all cultures.

 

[Celebrim]

How can I talk about this... let's try the following.

Yes, you aren't the only one. It bothers me too. They've been trending this way for a while now. At this point, it bothers me more in that I think it is lame than anything else though.

No, I don't think a renewed round of D&D contriversy is likely, but if it happened it wouldn't be good for sales. The situation now post-contriversy is nothing like it was in the late '70's. D&D has already pretty much saturated the potential PnP market. The D&D playing population has been winnowed for people who already tolerate or enjoy this sort of thing, and to a certain extent for people who consider rebellion cool. Those that didn't left and aren't likely to ever come back. Nor is it likely that a 30 year old game thats now part of the cultural lexicon will ever be counter-culturally cool again no matter how contriversial it gets. It's not at all clear to me that there is a large unreached population looking for more occult material who would play D&D or who have never heard of it, compared to the number of new players who won't play if D&D goes over the top with its occult material.

No, its not merely the presence of magic which made early versions of D&D contriversial. I think that shows some ignorance either of D&D's early material, or the concerns of the average sort of person bothered by these things. Comparisons to Harry Potter are apt, but not in the way that you might think. Sure, there are some people who see evil in all representations of magic and condemn, for example, the 'Chronicles of Narnia' with equal fervor as 'Harry Potter', 'D&D', 'The Lord of the Rings', etc. But this is a tiny tiny minority anyway. There is a much much larger portion of the population, and I'd say at least three or four orders of magnitude bigger, which are troubled not at all by magic per se and who herald works like 'Narnia' and LotR as great literature, but who are intensely uncomfortable with representations of the occult. For alot of people, there is a big jump between 'Wingardium Levioso', 'Occulus Repairus', and the sort of occult inspired material used in (for example) the recent Binder class, and they may well judge the first harmless and latter less so in some cases.

And for that matter, I think if you look closely at the text, even 'Harry Potter' backed off the contriversy slightly. Almost all the most outrage provoking passages are in the early books, and even there its pretty weak. Take my word for it. If there had been a strong backlash, I would have known it. And, if 'Harry Potter' had have provoked more outrage, I guarantee it wouldn't have been good for sales. I think you'll see direct evidence of that in the responce to a different series of books and thier spinoffs in the near future.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't like the increased focus on infernal/demonic powers and creatures either...in all honestly, it is probably my least favorite thing about the new edition. I complain about it often, and loudly. More than anything else, I am simply annoyed with it, however. I'm not worried about it driving me insane, and I'm not concerned that it will warp society or undermine my parenting. For me, it has nothing to do with morality and everything to do with bad flavor.

That is to say, "bad flavor according to me."

I want to play a high-fantasy game that focuses on knights and castles, magic swords stuck in anvils, dragons who need slaying, and princesses who need rescuing. I don't want pentegrams, black candles, and bloody goat skulls splattered all over my fantasy setting. I don't want robots, mutants, and light sabers in my game either, and for the same reason, but I concede that I am in the minority.

But I get it. WotC is a publishing company; they sell books. To sell books to the public, they have to publish what the public wants, and it just so happens that demons are the "new hotness" in the industry. And really, I am glad that they are trying to cater to the whole public instead of my own insignificant opinions of what fantasy roleplaying is "supposed" to be...if they publish only the things that I like, they will be bankrupt before Christmas.

I don't care for the demonic saturation in the game, but I will still buy it. That's what house rules are for, right? I just hope I don't end up having to re-write the whole friggin' core. :\

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

But I get it. WotC is a publishing company; they sell books. To sell books to the public, they have to publish what the public wants, and it just so happens that demons are the "new hotness" in the industry.

I actually see demons and such as "grognard-friendly," rather than "new hotness". Demons aren't anything new. They're certainly not unique to this edition or this game, and the current direction they're taking the flavour draws more from the gritty mid-20th century fantasy fiction that inspired 1st edition than it does from more recent works.

Also, thanks for the statement that your genre preferences do not define a formula for the successful publishing of D&D. It's refreshing, and all-too uncommon. I do not, however, suppose that you will find any more difficulty running "rescue princess from castle with sword pulled from anvil"-style D&D with 4th edition than you do with 3rd edition. Have fun doing it!

Edit: you know what would be really cool? If they had a list of authors that inspired the game, like Moorcock, Leiber, Howard, etc. on a back page of the PHB, and this caused a resurgence of interest in mid-20th century fantasy among 4th edition players.

 

[Ulrick]

I think that WotC might actually be trying to create a backlash toward D&D. The backlash in the late 1970s/early 1980s helped cause sales to soar. People become intrigued when somebody says, "don't do that." People are also intrigued by the concept of evil. The number of money making movies over the years and video games like Diablo are evident of this. WotC is just trying get its piece of the pie.

What concerns me is how bad the back-lash could be on an individual basis. There are no ends certain religious people will do to enforce their convictions. I've seen this firsthand back in high school when my best friend's parents flipped when they found his D&D books. They rounded up their family and took my friend along with all of his D&D stuff and went for a drive in the country. They found a secluded spot, dumped all his books in the ditch, and burned them while they prayed for his soul. It emotionally scarred him.

And then they yelled at me and wanted me to burn my books!

 

[Lurks-no-More]

I think that WotC might actually be trying to create a backlash toward D&D. The backlash in the late 1970s/early 1980s helped cause sales to soar. People become intrigued when somebody says, "don't do that." People are also intrigued by the concept of evil. The number of money making movies over the years and video games like Diablo are evident of this. WotC is just trying get its piece of the pie.

Very unlikely, in my opinion. The "Satanic panic" of '80s was an one-off case; the alarmists have passed D&D and other RPGs and are focusing on new targets by now.

 

[BadMojo]

I think that WotC might actually be trying to create a backlash toward D&D.

I don't think enough people would even notice, let alone care, to make a difference. Anything done with demons, devils, etc. would be overshadowed by the media coverage of things like Grand Theft Auto or Manhunt 2.

Manhunt 2 was banned in the UK and chopped up (no pun intended, ok a little bit) here in the US just to get released. How much have you really heard about that game in the mainstream media?

 

[Baduin]

I don't like the increased focus on infernal/demonic powers and creatures either...in all honestly, it is probably my least favorite thing about the new edition. ... I don't want pentegrams, black candles, and bloody goat skulls splattered all over my fantasy setting. I don't want robots, mutants, and light sabers in my game either, and for the same reason, but I concede that I am in the minority. ...:\

There is nothing wrong with "bloody goat skulls" (although horse skulls are more interesting). The Binder class on the other hand, with actual demonic names and summoning sigils, went a bit too far. They should at least change the sigils.

Demon summoning doesn't work - but a lot of intelligent people thought that it does work, and some of them ended badly. Generally, it is a bad idea to put into the game any magic which you can try in your basement. The Binder doesn't use the actual rituals, only the sigils and the names, of course, but it is getting a bit risky.

"The Black Easter" by James Blish is a very good book based on the real medieval magic, btw.

 

[Celebrim]

I think that WotC might actually be trying to create a backlash toward D&D. The backlash in the late 1970s/early 1980s helped cause sales to soar.

I think that this is a rather unprovable assertion. It isn't my sense of things. My sense is that the concept of an RPG was bound to soar. Consider how popular RPGs are as a concept. RPGs are a mainstream phenomenom now. They even think that they can use them to sell trucks, for crying out loud.

But D&D is permenently stuck as a niche, slightly counter-cultural, 'cult' game with the popular perception that people that play it are all wierdos or deviants. Moreover, there is a not insubstantial RPG audience that doesn't play D&D because of the contriversy, but is able to buy and play differently braned games openly because they didn't get the negative public exposure that D&D got.

D&D undoubtably got an exposure boost from the contriversy. It no doubt gave it a short term sales boost. But it didn't need that kind of exposure to grow because the RPG market was ripe for growth anyway. My opinion is that the early contriversy of D&D permenently stunted D&D's growth and market share, and put a cap how big the brand D&D could become. It's the difference between the D&D movie being what it was, and having a budget and broad appeal like Transformers. It's the difference in popularity between the Dragonlance books, being lavished with the same sort of treatment as LotR, 'Harry Potter', or Narnia and the embarassing treatment thier getting in the new animated movie.

I personally think that the contriversy crushed D&D as a brand. It's not a popular opinion amongst D&D players, but that's because the crucible of the contiversy has created a D&D community which is overwhelmingly on one side of the contrivery. It created a community which overwhelmingly self-selected for 'rebellion against social norms' or whatever it is that people credit as good in being a contriversial game that needs to attract young people as a source of new players. Naturally when they talk among themselves they find an amazing number of people who were attracted to the game because it was 'something that they weren't supposed to do', but that's because they are talking amongst themselves. The community is a product of the contriversy, but you have to compare it not to the community in the early '70's when almost no one had heard of role-playing, to the community it would have now if D&D hadn't essentially been kicked out of the mainstream just as it was getting big.