Quote from: Melichor on April 19, 2025, 12:40:05 PMI'm interested in hearing if this makes you more interested or less interested in playing D&D.
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For me it's not something that would make me interested in playing.

I was already at zero interest, so I'm going to have to go with "unchanged". Unless you'll accept numbers less than zero.

Who is D&D marketing to?

Honestly? They're marketing to third-party content creators (whom they think are mostly woke lefties because that's what Google/YouTube says they are) to try and keep the fad afloat another day.

D&D took its mortal wound with the OGL scandal. Their new edition digital initiative required trust that they absolutely squandered. So it's been bleeding out as one thing after another disappoints.

Releasing the 5.2 SRD under CC is just a desperate attempt to gain back some of the third party content creators that are moving on. Too late they now understand that the OGL and trust in it actually drove people to buy WotC core books... so are left essentially begging for third-party creators to actually use their system.

That's their present audience... bargain-tier Mercers willing to sell 5.5e to the masses for them.

Today's D&D seems to be primarily targeted at the romantasy crowd. It has nothing to offer to traditional rpg players.

Quote from: Melichor on April 19, 2025, 02:05:05 PMWhat this says to me is that playing D&D is like watching 'Cheers'. Everyone is a frenemy and nobody really does anything.
Where's the adventure?
To me this makes D&D look bland and unexciting.

Planescape was always like that. No matter where you go theres someone wanting to kill you, someone wanting to use you, and someone wanting to be your friend. Doesnt matter where. It'll eventually happen if you hang around long enough.

The art in question is in the same vein. Just wotc style.

Theres adventure in anything really. Just from that art could see factions moving to crush or support such a friendship. Or make use of, and so on. And the PCs getting dragged into it or hired to intervene. etc.

Is wotc able to come up with even that? Probably not. They'd screw it up somehow.

It's probably marketing to the same sort of people who buy those inexplicably popular Travis Baldree books like Legends and Lattes.  I personally hate it, but there's an audience for that stuff.

Quote from: I on April 21, 2025, 10:39:07 PMIt's probably marketing to the same sort of people who buy those inexplicably popular Travis Baldree books like Legends and Lattes.  I personally hate it, but there's an audience for that stuff.

Read that as Legends and Latinas and had a mild interest...

Quote from: Brad on April 21, 2025, 10:45:08 PM

Quote from: I on April 21, 2025, 10:39:07 PMIt's probably marketing to the same sort of people who buy those inexplicably popular Travis Baldree books like Legends and Lattes.  I personally hate it, but there's an audience for that stuff.

Read that as Legends and Latinas and had a mild interest...

Now I want a setting that unapologetically uses all the Mexican tropes and stereotypes. Mariachis, luchadors, speedy gonzales, I want all of it alongside hot Latinas.

Quote from: ForgottenF on April 19, 2025, 10:55:33 PMThat art doesn't do anything for me, but frankly almost no RPG art does. These days, the only new fantasy art I see that really speaks to me is on album covers.






Stick an image like that on the cover of an RPG book and I'll buy it in a heartbeat.

Since your 2nd image is from iconic Warhammer, or Oldhammmer now, illustrator Ian Miller, that style has been in a lot of rpg material.

Quote from: Aglondir on April 20, 2025, 06:01:54 PM

Quote from: SHARK on April 19, 2025, 03:39:25 PMI like my game world to be realistic; harsh, savage, brutal. Mysterious, and yet, overall, consistent. Relatively low-magic, high magic occasionally, in a more mythical and epic sense, but defaulting to a relatively normal approach. No plane hopping trips for Players. No Resurrection or Raise Dead spells. I've even strictly controlled Flying as a spell. Flying, anything like resurrection, that is all epic, unusual, and not typically available or controllable in any way by Player Characters.

Excellent concepts! I also prefer low magic. I preferred the 4E cosmology to the Great Wheel (isn't that the basis for Planescape?)  These days I do my own "5 plane model" but they aren't places where you want to hang out. Rather, the planes are the sources of monsters and magic.

I get that. The profusion of planes, Resurrection/Raise Dead, and other elements always made D&D seem gonzo to me - throwing in everything and the kitchen sink together. And it is deeply built in, like having Raise Dead a part of the core rules (referenced in the Constitution table).

That's why I've generally preferred RPGs like RuneQuest's Mythic Europe, Harn, Burning Wheel and similar - with a cosmology built around a specific setting. I can try to rein in D&D and take out things, but I often prefer to just start from a different base without those assumptions.


I am also OK with some high-power fantasy like Amber Diceless, but it isn't overcomplicated because the high power is built into the system. High level D&D generally ends up with dozens of spells and effects and fiddly items for each character.

It 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.

Quote from: Brad on April 21, 2025, 10:45:08 PM

Quote from: I on April 21, 2025, 10:39:07 PMIt's probably marketing to the same sort of people who buy those inexplicably popular Travis Baldree books like Legends and Lattes.  I personally hate it, but there's an audience for that stuff.

Read that as Legends and Latinas and had a mild interest...

Would be a good name for a porn channel.  Hell, I'd watch it.

Specific example aside, I think they're marketing to those already invested in the hopes of not losing them. In other words they're in maintenance mode trying to cater to as many established customers as possible.

Quote from: Hzilong on Today at 12:24:52 AM

Quote from: Brad on April 21, 2025, 10:45:08 PM

Quote from: I on April 21, 2025, 10:39:07 PMIt's probably marketing to the same sort of people who buy those inexplicably popular Travis Baldree books like Legends and Lattes.  I personally hate it, but there's an audience for that stuff.

Read that as Legends and Latinas and had a mild interest...

Now I want a setting that unapologetically uses all the Mexican tropes and stereotypes. Mariachis, luchadors, speedy gonzales, I want all of it alongside hot Latinas.

Speedy Gonzales would make such a great little Rouge, for a high level adventuring party.  Get in, and get out.

D&D will never have sexiness again

Quote from: D-ko on Today at 02:19:37 PMD&D will never have sexiness again

It took me a second to think of any way you might be wrong, but I agree.

That stings a bit.

But, we have the OSR and the independent authors out there, so we're good.

Take True-D6.   This is literally the first picture inside the book.