Yeah! I'm in Dragon (again). Want to argue?

[Zander]

I just picked up Dragon 325 and discovered a letter I wrote to ScaleMail has been published. It appears on page 16.

If you want to take issue with my argument, go ahead. I can't promise I'll address every point because that could take too long. But time permitting, I will.

 

[Piratecat]

Want to summarize your argument here, Zander?

 

[Zander]

Want to summarize your argument here, Zander?

Don't worry, P-cat. It's neither political nor religious.

For the benefit of anyone who hasn't got Dragon 325 yet, here's the e-mail I sent them. It appears pretty much the same way in Dragon:

Dear Scale Mail,
Matthew Sernett is quite right in his editorial in DRAGON #321 that D&D needs new players. But I disagree strongly with him and with Jason Rekker in issue #322 in believing that revising fantasy is a way of attracting ones who will stick with the hobby.

Portraying characters with facial piercings, spiky hair and punkish dress may lure a few teens who find that look cool. Fashion is ephemeral though and soon that vogue will pass. When it does, those gamers who started playing D&D because of it will abandon their PHB's as quickly as their tongue studs. What then? Will D&D keep following the latest sartorial trends?

When I started playing D&D over 21 years ago, the game didn't try to pander to fashion. That was during the hobby's heyday when the game experienced phenomenal growth. Part of the attraction of D&D back then was that it was based on a fantasy with near-universal appeal. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's genius wasn't in redefining fantasy; it was in allowing you for the first time to be directly involved in it. The reason that D&D succeeded while competing role-playing games foundered was that the fantasy upon which D&D was based was already familiar to so many people. You didn't need to be told that the guy with the pointy hat could cast spells or the knight in shining armour was a friend even if you knew nothing else about the game.

Perhaps surprisingly, I welcome the EBERRON setting. I hope it acts as a repository for all the scientific and mundane elements that have crept into D&D such as dungeonpunk, techno-magic and psionics. That would leave the rest of D&D to those of us who appreciate classic fantasy. Ultimately, it is through us, not the fickle revisionists, that D&D will thrive over the next three decades.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Alexander F. Simkin
London, England

 

[Alzrius]

For the sake of anyone who wants to reply, here's what the Matt Sernett wrote back in the magazine in response to this:

Thanks for your thoughts, Alexander.

We agree more than you might think. You're absolutely correct that D&D relies on the appeal of hooking people into fantasy they already know. My point in the editorial was that the youth of today share a common knowledge of fantasy that is different from what we grew up with. Their foundation isn't Conan, King Arthur, and Tolkien; it's Final Fantasy and Harry Potter.

It's not about fashion; it's about where the genre of fantasy is going. Sci-fi has changed enormously over the past thirty years due to the development of the genre and changes in our society. Is it so odd to think the same could happen to fantasy?

We do differ quite markedly in our opinions of what will keep the hobby alive, though. You've been playing D&D for twenty-one years, but the die-hard gamers like you and I do stop playing (and more importantly for the continuation of the hobby, stop buying products), and even if we don't stop playing, we eventually die. Younger people tend to be more active as players, buyers, and recruiters for the game, so it's important to the hobby that they become involved.

The danger D&D faces is that people of all ages can become directly involved in fantasy far more ways than were available twenty or thirty years ago. As time goes on, the online environment will offer better, more sociable, and more customizable options. To survive in the future, D&D must draw in not a few teens but hundreds of thousands of them - continually. Each new generation must take up the game.

I'll be happily playing D&D when I'm in a retirement home, but I'll be happier if the teenagers I'll be complaining about play too. I'll be happier still if we both play the same edition of the game; then I can invite them to share a few raucous hours playing the best game in the world.

Frankly, I think Matt expressed my thoughts and feelings on the matter perfectly.

 

[Crothian]

He does have points but todays teens are going to be influenced by Tolkien since we have the movies that just came out. The problem with the two he shoes (Final Fantasy and Harry Potter) are they are not really fantasy. One is modern fantasy and the other does have fantasy elements mixed with technology at times. So, the youth are not getting to know what fantasy really is.

 

[Zander]

It's a bit unfair of me to disagree with Matt without him being present so I hope that Alzrius or someone else will act as Matt's advocate.

It's not about fashion; it's about where the genre of fantasy is going. Sci-fi has changed enormously over the past thirty years due to the development of the genre and changes in our society. Is it so odd to think the same could happen to fantasy?

Yes. For the most part, the fantasy that Col Pladoh and Dave Arneson captured in D&D is the distillation of the best of the genre over thousands of years of history. While technology allows us to create and communicate today in ways we couldn't when I started playing D&D, I'm not at all convinced that anyone over the last 10 years or so has managed to replace the best fantasy themes and images of the last few millennia with anything better. Who are the fantasy authors of recent years who eclipse everyone from Homer to Tolkien?

 

[Crothian]

Its not about eclipsing the authers...and Harry Potter has. Its about what the youth is looking at. They aren't going back and reading Homer as much as they are playing the latest video games and seeing the latest movies. Also, look at the fantasy authers in the past 10 years. THe books are never ending epics that frankly even adults get tired of.

 

[Zander]

Its not about eclipsing the authers...and Harry Potter has. Its about what the youth is looking at.

Periodically, new authors come along and contribute to the fantasy genre. People who are young when those ideas are introduced embrace that as the replacement of the old whether or not it is genuinely better than that which existed previously. In time, however, only the best of the new (if anything at all) is retained and the genre moves on. The trouble is that the young people who are attracted to D&D because it conforms to the latest fantasy concepts are not going to stick with the game when those concepts are thought to be old hat as they will be at some point in the future.

 

[Malic]

You know, I wouldn't be surprised if once the 'fantasy fashion' changes, young people will be more likely to stick with the game if they see how flexible it is to play with different themes and moods which might interest them then, rather than if it represents only the 'best' in classical fantasy. Publishing something which is 'cool' now but will get dated seems like a good idea, if once people start they can see lots of alternatives.
That seems to me be one of the great things about the d20 licencing system. It has certainly drawn my group back to D&D. The wider the range of settings available the better, I think. I haven't read Eberron but it sounds like it does a good job in providing something which is different but still 'D&D'. It won't be for everyone, but three cheers for variety.
Cheers!

 

[Spatula]

Zander, the flaw in your argument is that D&D's original presentation was very much influenced by the fashions of its times, which is why there's little in the way of tattoos, piercings, etc. in the art (as such things were not openly worn by "decent" folks back then), and a lot in the way of really bad hair. The times have changed and so has the art. The fantasy is still basically the same.

Body modification has been around for as long as human civilization has. And it was present in a lot of the cultures that D&D derives inspiration from.

Your email reads to me like it's written by a cranky old person bitching about the kids on his lawn. And I say that as a fellow "old timer", who's been playing D&D since 80-81 and who has zero tattoos, zero piercings. This is an argument that the grognards should just let go of, because it's a fruitless argument against evolution. The only way you're going to stop the game from changing with the times is to get everyone else to stop playing it.