Quote from: bat on April 22, 2025, 12:37:09 AMSince your 2nd image is from iconic Warhammer, or Oldhammmer now, illustrator Ian Miller, that style has been in a lot of rpg material.

Interesting. I never would have guessed the connection. Sadly in the modern days of digital distribution and no longer having album booklets, it can be a bit difficult to find out who does cover art.

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

I wonder. If Marvel comics is bringing back its swimsuit special, it's possible the tide has genuinely turned.

Quote from: Spooky on April 22, 2025, 06:17:26 AMIt makes me angry. The Angel is clearly in the lair of Satan and has become fallen, choosing to literally embrace Satan!

So they're marketing to overweight purple haired Satanists on meds and in masks who want to corrupt good.

I get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

for those of us who remember the 80s, it was basically playing D&D, fighting demons and devils, while listening to Venom and W.A.S.P.

yeah, it was cool and dangerous back then

Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on April 22, 2025, 05:01:40 PM

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

for those of us who remember the 80s, it was basically playing D&D, fighting demons and devils, while listening to Venom and W.A.S.P.

yeah, it was cool and dangerous back then

Since early on, D&D has been all sorts of different things to different gamers.

In my last 1980s campaign, I played a brutal but canny half-ogre fighter along with other shady characters who were systematically looting and killing our way through a Judge's Guild mega-dungeon. Halfway through we got in over our heads and had to make a bargain with an evil deity, promising part of our kills every week as sacrifices. We would never have put up with a goody-two-shoes paladin, say.

But then, my most recent 5e campaign was much more about good-vs-evil, where the PCs were agents of a holy former emperor doing stuff for honor, good, holiness, and the sacred empire.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PMI get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

Not really. This image is a blatant, in your face, FUCK YOU to Christians. I can't believe everyone here is overlooking that. Maybe you and everyone here has already given in to Satan?

Quote from: Spooky on April 22, 2025, 09:55:24 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PMI get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

Not really. This image is a blatant, in your face, FUCK YOU to Christians. I can't believe everyone here is overlooking that. Maybe you and everyone here has already given in to Satan?

As a Christian, I take more offense at The Omen than at Good Omens or Planescape - because the latter are clearly not intended to be taken seriously, theologically speaking.

My fictional RPG worlds don't have to conform to my Christian theology. I'm fine playing Call of Cthulhu even though it's nihilistic atheism, or D&D with angels serving pagan deities. My dislike of Planescape has more to do with its playability than its theology.

Quote from: Spooky on April 22, 2025, 09:55:24 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PMI get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

Not really. This image is a blatant, in your face, FUCK YOU to Christians. I can't believe everyone here is overlooking that. Maybe you and everyone here has already given in to Satan?

Oh, you're going to be fun.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PM

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

I wonder. If Marvel comics is bringing back its swimsuit special, it's possible the tide has genuinely turned.

...you can think this, but don't say I didn't warn you when you notice the surgery scars and extra junk in the g-string.

Disney/Marvel, just like WotC, has an agenda to push "The Message." They won't put Peter and MJ back together in the main books despite the Ultimate line vastly outselling them. Instead they put MJ into Venom (not like a sexy female Venom costume... into the middle of hulking muscled masculine Venom).

Hasbro/WotC has the same agenda; mock traditional culture while claiming victim status by saying its because of transphobia or misogyny that no one will buy their garbage.

Who is D&D being marketed too? All the freaks surrounding the WotC offices in Seattle that WotC believes is the entire country and not the relatively small bubble of perversion it actually is.

And they're incapable of learning. After Deadpool & Wolverine's success what did Marvel do? Double down with an ugly gender-swapped Silver Surfer, making the new Johnny into someone who would appeal to 'modern audiences' and reportedly turning (Mary) Sue Richards into a 'strong wahmen' who the entire story is actually focused on.

Presuming Hasbro doesn't just shelve it, that's what WotC will do with D&D too. Expect more degenerate adventures where traditional villains are just misunderstood and it's traditional society that is actually the real monster.

Because that's who Hasbro/WotC are.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 23, 2025, 09:12:19 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PM

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

I wonder. If Marvel comics is bringing back its swimsuit special, it's possible the tide has genuinely turned.

...you can think this, but don't say I didn't warn you when you notice the surgery scars and extra junk in the g-string.

Disney/Marvel, just like WotC, has an agenda to push "The Message." They won't put Peter and MJ back together in the main books despite the Ultimate line vastly outselling them. Instead they put MJ into Venom (not like a sexy female Venom costume... into the middle of hulking muscled masculine Venom).

Hasbro/WotC has the same agenda; mock traditional culture while claiming victim status by saying its because of transphobia or misogyny that no one will buy their garbage.

Johnathan Pageau made an interesting observation about how the "revolutionaries" who won their revolution have to constantly re-create their oppressors in order to justify the continued existence of the revolution.
So it's not backing away from "The message" so much as constructing some new or recycled bogeymen for them to "fix".

Quote from: HappyDaze on April 22, 2025, 11:59:05 PM

Quote from: Spooky on April 22, 2025, 09:55:24 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PMI get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

Not really. This image is a blatant, in your face, FUCK YOU to Christians. I can't believe everyone here is overlooking that. Maybe you and everyone here has already given in to Satan?

Oh, you're going to be fun.

EDIT: at almost 100 posts, I'm pretty sure he's trying to be funny.

Quote from: Rhymer88 on April 21, 2025, 05:35:19 AMToday's D&D seems to be primarily targeted at the romantasy crowd. It has nothing to offer to traditional rpg players.

Honestly, I agree with the first part and disagree with the second. 

If we just go by the art, D&D has been feeling for some time now like the emphasis is less on traditional dungeon crawling and monster slaying, and more on fantasy people (and creatures) just standing around.  From a technical stance it's oftentimes better, but from a "what is a game of D&D like" the emphasis is less on adventurers fighting monsters or solving puzzles and more of them just kind of hanging out.  Which isn't to say older D&D didn't have art of people and creatures hanging out, but you also had pictures where you freaking knew someone (or something) was about to get killed horribly.  The famous picture of a paladin in Hell, the guy in a trap room filling with water as a skeleton with a dagger snuck up behind him, the naked succubus just hanging out (but she gets a pass, because you'll never see a healthy looking naked woman in a D&D book again).  D&D was violent, cruel, and could even be titillating (pardon the pun). Now it's "play this game and laugh with your friends, in character!" which is one marketing step worse somehow than pictures of families laughing together as the play a late-stage game of Monopoly (only one person might be laughing at that point), in that both promise a fun time but D&D doesn't even show you the committee approved group of people pretending to play the game of pretend.

As for the second part though, that D&D offers nothing to traditional gamers, I disagree.

I'm not saying it's a perfect game, because it isn't (there's several things I'd change).  But almost every gripe I've seen lobbed at it could be applied to one or more earlier editions of the game as well.  D&D has never been "perfect" because no TTRPG is.  But you could whip out an old set of campaign modules and (with some stat updating) run it just fine.  And in that regard I'd say it has plenty to offer traditional gamers.

It does indeed seem like modern D&D, is mostly about fantasy characters hanging out, and "doing stuff".

If they do go on an adventure, it's like the LotR; but the good guys are all tieflings with complicated relationships.

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 23, 2025, 12:35:32 PMthe naked succubus just hanging out (but she gets a pass, because you'll never see a healthy looking naked woman in a D&D book again). 

Quote from: Habitual Gamer on April 23, 2025, 12:35:32 PMthe naked succubus just hanging out (but she gets a pass, because you'll never see a healthy looking naked woman in a D&D book again).

I'm pretty sure that TSR put an end to naked illustrations early in the 1980s, probably from conservative pressure. The first run of B3 Palace of the Silver Princess in 1980 was recalled and destroyed over a non-naked racy drawing. The B series was more for kids, so it had extra pressure, but even in AD&D books, I think nudity disappeared after the 1970s.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PMI get where you're coming from, but from a Christian perspective, shouldn't you be more upset that D&D co-opted the imagery of angels into a pagan cosmology to begin with?

  D&D didn't have angels until 3.5. Gygax was quite clear that devas were not angels in the pages in DRAGON Magazine, and the game didn't call them by that name until that revision. By that point, you could have full-fledged demon and devil worshippers as PCs.

Quote from: Rhymer88 on April 21, 2025, 05:35:19 AMToday's D&D seems to be primarily targeted at the romantasy crowd. It has nothing to offer to traditional rpg players.

That might actually be an accurate read of their target audience. Romantasy and LitRPG/Isekai are the big trends in fantasy fiction at the moment.

Quote from: Chris24601 on April 23, 2025, 09:12:19 AM

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 22, 2025, 04:57:08 PM

Quote from: D-ko on April 22, 2025, 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

I wonder. If Marvel comics is bringing back its swimsuit special, it's possible the tide has genuinely turned.

...you can think this, but don't say I didn't warn you when you notice the surgery scars and extra junk in the g-string.

Disney/Marvel, just like WotC, has an agenda to push "The Message." They won't put Peter and MJ back together in the main books despite the Ultimate line vastly outselling them. Instead they put MJ into Venom (not like a sexy female Venom costume... into the middle of hulking muscled masculine Venom).

Hasbro/WotC has the same agenda; mock traditional culture while claiming victim status by saying its because of transphobia or misogyny that no one will buy their garbage...

I've been seeing more and more rumors lately that the money-men in the entertainment industry are starting to come around to the "get woke, go broke" maxim, and that the ESG money which previously insulated them from their failures is drying up (we know the ESG money from the US government will be at least), enough rumors that I'm starting to credit them. Corporations tend to be moral cowards, so I don't think it's impossible that they will sniff the wind and try to alter course.

Are we going to get based right-wing media? Probably not in our lifetime. The entertainment establishment has been left wing since at least the 60s. If anything I think we'll see a retreat back to the milquetoast center-leftism of the early 2010s, with maybe some extra fan-service here and there to quietly try and keep the normies on side. At any rate, any kind of sea-change will probably hit D&D long after it hits movies and videogames, just because it's economic small-potatoes by comparison.