D&D General WotC Asks What Makes YOU Play Dungeons and Dragons?

WotC has a new survey asking about what you want from D&D -- "Extra extra! The D&D team wants to know what makes YOU play Dungeons & Dragons! The open world? Character customization? Shared storytelling with friends? Iconic art? Take our survey and help shape the future of what we're working on at Wzards. Please share to help us spread the word and hear from more fans."

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5231853/pas?sglocale=en

 

[Sacrosanct]

They didn't have the main reason why I play D&D as an option: To kill things and take their stuff--things frowned upon in real life.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

It's a terrible criticism made by ignorant people who you shouldn't be listening to because now they've embarrassed you by having you repeat it.

snip

First, you're being rude. It's a fair criticism, and I'm allowed to criticize something without being personally insulted (unless I'm saying something truly reprehensible like Nazism).

Second, you're whole post is kind of proof of exactly the criticism I reiterated, that the WHFB setting is a hodgepodge of different influences smooshed together with very little unifying it together.

Now, I understand that's the whole point; it's supposed to be selling models of armies that look pretty distinct from each other. But as a setting for an TTRPG I find it considerably lacking, as other "kitchen sink" settings like FR do the blending a little bit better.

This is my opinion, so maybe cool your jets a little bit.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

You may be surprised but some fans aren't really players, but more like collectors. For the 90's D&D was almost totally unknown by the main public, only a children cartoon, and it was only sold in the big cities. The second half of the 90s were the last years of AD&D, 3.0 was in the 2000, and then World of Darkness was the start among the geeks who went to the university.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

Dig the picture. Suppose that's from the newspaper group patron in Eberron Rising from the Last War.

With all the gnomes, it's probably the Korranberg Chronicle.

 

[Atlatl Jones]

That was difficult for me. I chose Dragonlance: Time of the Dragon. It's a weird, wonderful setting that strayed a bit from the usual Euro-centricism cliche.

I did get to tell them that Time of the Dragon (1989, Zeb Cook) was the greatest D&D setting of all time though, so there is that. I may possibly be the only person on the planet with this opinion but I suspect that is in large part because maybe only five other people ever played Taladas.

That's what I chose for my favourite product of all time too.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The whole Dawn War mythos, which is the meaningful part of the nebulous Mentor Vale, is the basis for Exandria.

It’s not the same conflict, nor the same lead up that caused the conflict, nor are all the players even the same, nor the time between said conflict and the “present” of the setting, nor do the actual themes and driving forces of the worlds match, nor do the races have similar origins, nor do the gods have the same relationship with the world...

Seriously they aren’t especially similar. Exandria isn’t even a “points of light” setting.

It’s god the pantheon, mostly. That’s it.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Why would you recommend D&D - "after 40 years of playing it would seem silly not to"

 

[Retreater]

It's not my criticism, it's one I've heard and sort-of understand considering D&D came out first and you can see the influences on WHFB. It definitely has original stuff, chiefly being the Empire's Holy Roman influence, the Lizardmen, Skaven, and Chaos armies. But the three elf races, orcs, dwarves, and Bretonnia lack some originality.

A lot of people bash on the Age of Sigmar (when it first released it really did look like "SigMarines"), but nowadays I do appreciate how that setting has allowed GW to be more creative and push it's own distinct look with every new release.

The below Sylvaneth are a good example of pushing beyond the "Wood Elf" trope into something a little more interesting and unique.

View attachment 115270

I might be the only person, but I miss the Old World design of Warhammer Fantasy. I've tried to get into Age of Sigmar, but everything seems to be out of line with the traditional fantasy aesthetic. I understand this is at least partially an effort for GW to claim intellectual property rights over their line. However, the big hulking monstrosities in most armies these days don't appeal to me as much as say, lines of halberdiers and rows of woodland archers.
I also don't spend nearly as much time wargaming as I do with tabletop RPGs, and I'd like to have access to those minis for D&D/etc.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That's what I chose for my favourite product of all time too.

Hooray! There are at least two of us!

Weird and wonderful is exactly right. You can see the seeking, risk-taking, non-cliched mind that created Planescape in that early Taladas stuff too, I'd suggest. Zeb Cook has a much broader way of thinking and knowledge of a much wider range of history and philosophy than virtually all D&D writers. It's a real pity he left to work on computer games, but I guess you gotta make money somehow, and probably TT RPGs weren't cutting it.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Second, you're whole post is kind of proof of exactly the criticism I reiterated, that the WHFB setting is a hodgepodge of different influences smooshed together with very little unifying it together.

It's a literally ignorant opinion. That doesn't necessarily mean you are generally an ignorant person. It'd be like if I gave my opinion on horseracing or something. I might feel very sure of myself, but it'd be an opinion springing from ignorance.

That's not intended as some sort of cheap insult or aimed even at you particularly, but rather the opinion. But it is a fact that it is an opinion born someone's out of lack of knowledge of the subject.

D&D is a "hodgepodge of different influences smooshed together with very little unifying it together" (what with Tolkien's Elves - except short - adventuring alongside devilmen and robots, and Vancian magic cheek-by-jowl with nigh-Biblical clerics and New Age-influenced Druids), as are the vast majority of settings for it - especially early ones like Greyhawk, Mystara, and Dragonlance. It wasn't really until the Grey Box FR and Time of the Dragon that people even started making vaguely coherent D&D settings (so the later 1980s).

To sneer at Warhammer on that basis necessitates that you sneer at an awful lot of D&D settings, unless one is to be truly hypocritical. And if you do sneer at Mystara, Spelljammer, Greyhawk and other "messy hodgepodge" settings (I love Spelljammer but it's ten times more of a hodgepodge than Warhammer is now - maybe back in 1990 it was a toss-up, but Warhammer has developed, and Spelljammer hasn't), well fine, that is a viable opinion. But do you?

I think it was a recent article on Cubicle 7, but I will see what I can find.

Hmmmm. I've google'd that and looked the Cubicle 7 website and I can't find Priestley saying anything about Warhammer in association with them at all. Are you sure this wasn't just some youthful Cubicle 7 dude speculating?

EDIT - Only interviews I'm finding that are even Warhammer-related are with Emmet Byrne who is definitely too young and too not-employed-by-GW to say anything on this - and indeed reading the interviews, he doesn't.

However, Age of Sigmar Soulbound does seem kind of cool so there's that!