D&D General Weird "DnD Is Dead" Youtube Trend??

[Sulicius]

Yup, I watched Dungeon Craft's latest "D&D as we know it is over." video. No I won't link to it because I don't think he deserves the views.

He says a lot, and none of it is news or different. We can still play D&D with the newly released books. Online or offline. There are more people to play D&D with than ever.

He acts as if the current version of D&D is bland. Well, I am happy we have an inclusive system that has a lot of stuff that we can choose to include or exclude, but it doesn't have awful sexist art. Yes, that's PDM's kickstarter that is a gritty D&D-like. Wow, I have NEVER heard of a gritty version of the game before! Almost like half of all kickstarters try to make the same system.

Yes, Dungeon Craft is meaningless drivel made to accrue views for personal gain, nothing more. He's not going against the system, he's part of it. That's what is sad about all this.

 

[Afroconan]

There's a reviewer which I used to love who now can't help but dunk on 5E on every other video, while also having a footnote that says that he didn't play but simply read the system. Your credibility just sublimed at this point.

I definitely know who you're talking about.

It's specially rich when the guy is reviewing 3rd party 5e content (which he's clearly paid to review) and is always claiming "this solves 5e", "this rules fixes 5e", and most of the time is just a rule from the 2014 DMG that has been expanded somewhat or just limiting play to level 10.

I still follow the channel because it's a way to learn about new games and crowdfunders, but he sounds especially salty about 5e being as popular as it is.

 

[GrimCo]

D&D as a game isn't dead and can't die unless millions of people decide to suddenly ditch it altogether.

What is dead is business model for yt content creators that centers around D&D. Like people said, COVID era created unrealistic demand for content. It was market disruption. People were stuck at home, so consumption of content skyrocketed. When world came back to "normal", people returned to normal life and consumed less content.

Second problem is, there is finite amount of content you can make around 10 year old game, specially one with so few splatbooks like 5e. In 3.x/pf1 days, there was so much splatbooks coming up regularly, that had it been yt then, they would have abundance of material to use for videos ( reviews, builds, etc). Also, even with advice videos, you have finite amount of stuff to tell and newbies can always watch old stuff. While 5.5 did bring in fresh new material for content, it didn't bring that much new material.

While i like some of the creators, like Bob Worldbuilder, Dungeon Dudes, Ginny Di, even Professor Dm, i don't really care about stuff they put out any more.

 

[Afroconan]

Yup, I watched Dungeon Craft's latest "D&D as we know it is over." video. No I won't link to it because I don't think he deserves the views.

He says a lot, and none of it is news or different. We can still play D&D with the newly released books. Online or offline. There are more people to play D&D with than ever.

He acts as if the current version of D&D is bland. Well, I am happy we have an inclusive system that has a lot of stuff that we can choose to include or exclude, but it doesn't have awful sexist art. Yes, that's PDM's kickstarter that is a gritty D&D-like. Wow, I have NEVER heard of a gritty version of the game before! Almost like half of all kickstarters try to make the same system.

Yes, Dungeon Craft is meaningless drivel made to accrue views for personal gain, nothing more. He's not going against the system, he's part of it. That's what is sad about all this.

I don't disagree that 5e is bland as it is and that part of my task as a GM is to spice it up myself, but I don't see that as a flaw but a feature. D&D can be a lot of things, and that's fine. Great even.

But yeah, I made the same assesment of PDM. He also went from an unsubscribe to a "do not recommend" fairly quickly. And about the artwork... Yikes! That's like intentionally sexist art. You don't produce that by mistake but as an statement in this day and age.

I was already a 100% uninterested in Deathbringer and I still don't understand how it won "Most Anticipated Game of 2026" other than by "mobilizing" his fan base, which admittedly most winners do. I just don't see what's so special about it. it's just a Shadowdark/5e, hack after all but with "spicy sexist art"....

 

[Parmandur]

If you give him a pass on using clickbait titles and mouth-agape video thumbnails as part of "what it takes to survive on Youtube"

Nope, I sure don't.

This is why, other than Mastering Dungeons, I don't touch D&D Tube with a ten foot pole.

 

[Parmandur]

And about the artwork... Yikes! That's like intentionally sexist art. You don't produce that by mistake but as an statement in this day and age.

Uh, yeah, yikes, I hadn't seen that since I ignore him...

That makes peak cheesecake TSR look pretty tame.