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Message: <blockquote data-quote="comrade raoul" data-source="post: 3861379" data-attributes="member: 554">I don't really think there's anything objectively wrong with 4e--it's just that a lot of the apparent flavor and tone doesn't do much for me, the same way that most of the flavor from the last couple of years of 3.5e products doesn't do much for me. I like a D&D that evokes gritty, uncivilized swords-and-sorcery crossed with the pulpy weirdness of post-Tolkien fantasy. Moorcock camp is great; anime camp, less so. Player characters should remind one of the Conan novels, or at any rate Baldur's Gate, not World of Warcraft.I think this is not an uncommon sentiment on the boards.So Wormwood's post on another thread was illuminating for me.I'm about to turn twenty-six. I don't have nephews, and don't expect to have them for a very long time. (When I do have nephews--or children, for that matter--I doubt I'll game with them, or even introduce them to gaming.)What's striking is that--for the first time, for a D&D edition--I'm not the target audience. I was nine or so when I got my 2e Player's Handbook (the first D&D book I owned)--I loved the image of the knight charging at the viewer through the canyon; I was charmed but a bit disoriented by the book's dreamy illustrations, the arbitrary characters and unfamiliar vocabulary, the wonky simulationist detail (with pricing for water clocks and sedan chairs!). (A year later, I was equally charmed by the 1e cover's demon and jewel thief when I saw it at my summer camp's library.)  I was a senior in high school when 3e got released; I welcomed the bit of edginess and the elegance of the rules.Now I think at least half of the 4e flavor is irredeemably lame (the other half seems pretty cool, though). I have no interest in playing it; if I had time to game, I'd probably want to do something with heavily-modified E6 rules in a homebrew setting. But what I'm really struck by is that my reaction is massively irrelevant--in fact, I'm glad that Wizards isn't aiming at me. They're aiming for--and should be aiming for--the kids who play the game at recess, and who go home and play it with friends from the internet. I mean, haven't people talked forever at the importance of building a next generation of fans? And shouldn't it be prima facie plausible that whatever appeals to the next generation of fans very well won't appeal to us grown-ups?</blockquote>

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