To Hell with Dungeons & Dragons ! ! !

[Dire Bare]

<sniping (most of) the unnecessary political references>

I want D&D 5e to scare fundamentalists again. Full blown fire and brimstone from every pulpit.

I want to see Mommies panicking across Real America. Website upon website with tearful columns about how teens who used to be so quiet in their rooms playing MMOs are now "doing that D&D thing with their friends!"

THAT is the D&D I want to play!

Heh. For personal reasons Eric's Grandma won't let me go into, there's a devil on my left shoulder cackling the same thoughts. I've had a rough year, in part due to a certain type of conservatively minded folks, and a little gratuitous Satan's-gateway-style D&D sounds pretty good to me right about now.

But on a more serious note, I wouldn't mind D&D pushing that envelope a little further with D&D Next. Not quite to the topless succubus pictures in the Monster Manual, but certainly with less regard to offending certain types. It's a fine balance WotC would have to play, to avoid sliding into gratuitousness of any sort, but producing material that is a little edgy, and well mature. It just might help their sales, it certainly helped put D&D on the map back in the 80s when I was a kid. I remember my parents, and other adults, being concerned, my grandparents freaking out . . . I only wanted D&D more!

 

[grimslade]

Before the thread gets locked:
D&D would need to be sold in toy stores and Walmart to be threatening to folks like in the 80's. Pushing the envelope is not going to really matter. Is WotC going to top stuff from White Wolf or Black Dog imprint?
Seriously, why doesn't Hasbro want D&D sold in mass marketing outlets? Or are the buyers for mass marketing worried about Tunnels and Trolls backlash? (Thank you Mr. Tom Hanks). Until D&D reaches the same market share it had in the early 80's there will be no outrage other than for nostalgias sake.

 

[Spinachcat]

It's a fine balance WotC would have to play, to avoid sliding into gratuitousness of any sort, but producing material that is a little edgy, and well mature.

Do you see Hollywood or video game companies worried about this stuff? It's called Grand Theft Auto, not "Kinda Naughty Driving". Sex and violence are the bread and butter of big money entertainment.

D&D hasn't been edgier than Sesame Street since 2e came out. If WotC wants teenage males to care about their geriatric IP, they are going to have make it something that Mommy really doesn't like.

Or they can go the family friendly route and make it like overcooked oatmeal, its bland enough to appeal to everyone who gets easily offended.

 

[gloomhound]

Man I hate it when you start dragging political stuff up in threads.

 

[Ulrick]

While I certainly see the appeal of making D&D seem like an object of devil-worship (increased sales!), I do see some downsides.

In fact, I've experienced some of those downsides growing up, and this was long after the "Satanic Panic" of the 1980s. When my best friend's parents found out that he played D&D, they rounded up the family for an intervention. They took him and all of his books to somewhere in the country. While the burned his books, they prayed for his soul.

And then anytime his parents even thought he was hanging out at my place, they would rally the family and surround the apartment building where I lived until he came out. One day they waited for four hours until they discovered they he was at another friend's place.

Speaking of which, when the grandmother of that friend passed away and the grandmother was mourning, my best friend's mother went to visit. The grandmother confessed to my friend's mom that she could still "feel" her late husband's presence in the house. My best friend's told the grandmother the her husband's spirit was still around because her grandson played D&D. And so, the grandson (the other friend) had to throw all his D&D/RPG books away--which included the classic boardgame HeroQuest.

So basically I lost two players--and almost two friends because of a couple parents going ballistic about D&D.

 

[Halivar]

To be fair, they were talking about glam rock at the time, and it really did almost destroy America in giant hairspray-fueled fireball.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Injecting D&D with an air of rebelliousness, anti-establishmentism could help.

Certain celebrities danced around satanic themes to the success of their carriers. But look at those celebs. They were generally attractive people or so ugly they were attractive.

Now look at your stereotypical gamer. We can't pull it off folks. There is no type of cool tabletop RPGers can cloak themselves in. Even this one.


That said . . .


Frankly it is rather questionable that this thread has been left open. :/ This kind of equal-opportunity mockery would never be similarly left opened. *sigh*

 

[Hassassin]

Injecting D&D with an air of rebelliousness, anti-establishmentism could help.

Lets make alignment be CG, G, N, E, LE.

 

[drothgery]

They tried dropping tieflings and infernal-pact warlocks into core with 4e to be dark / edgy / cool. Despite being pretty much a 4e fan, I think this was a bad idea.

Some people like that sort of thing, and that's fine, but it belongs in something like Heroes of Shadow, not the first player's handbook.

 

[Keefe the Thief]

Regardless of what the OP says - anything that Wotc would do in this regard would lead to "OMG edgy WTF" and "goth/emo/adolescense OMG" and "Evanescense-crowd as a targed market???". Sprinkled with something about the entitlement-generation and "that's not proper D&D satanism, just look at what the Giants of the Past did with the 1e PHB cover and LEARN!"

Face it, dudes, the ENworld/D&D core agegroup is neither the expert community on youthful rebellion nor tolerant of any kind of whippersnapper-ism.

EDIT:

They tried dropping tieflings and infernal-pact warlocks into core with 4e to be dark / edgy / cool. Despite being pretty much a 4e fan, I think this was a bad idea.

Some people like that sort of thing, and that's fine, but it belongs in something like Heroes of Shadow, not the first player's handbook.

The clone wars, begun they have.