Lego Harry Potter, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Lord of the Rings are huge franchises aimed at 5-9 year olds. There's magic, sword fights, and things blowing up.

Minecraft has endermen monsters and magic swords. It's absolutely massive with 5-9 year olds - every boy in my son's class plays.

Have you watched any of the superhero cartoons on the TV these days? I'm actually a bit taken aback myself at some of the sexual innuendo. But I don't see them boycotted or suppressed by parents (except maybe the religious home-schooler type, but they've obviously never been the target for D&D)

So what is it about D&D that would make the average parent in 2014 more concerned about it than they are about Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Avengers, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Minecraft?

Quote from: dragoner;755061As a general rule, kid's stuff has become less violent, look at the reaction to "war-toys".

You keep saying that but I don't know what you mean and Google isn't helping. Do you have any citations?

Quote from: Haffrung;755071Lego Harry Potter, Lego Star Wars, and Lego Lord of the Rings are huge franchises aimed at 5-9 year olds. There's magic, sword fights, and things blowing up.

Minecraft has endermen monsters and magic swords. It's absolutely massive with 5-9 year olds - every boy in my son's class plays.

Have you watched any of the superhero cartoons on the TV these days? I'm actually a bit taken aback myself at some of the sexual innuendo. But I don't see them boycotted or suppressed by parents (except maybe the religious home-schooler type, but they've obviously never been the target for D&D)

So what is it about D&D that would make the average parent in 2014 more concerned about it than they are about Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Avengers, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Minecraft?

the preponderance of 40 year old bachelors with social issues and poor personal hygiene that are asking kids to come and see what they have in the basement?

Quote from: Haffrung;755071So what is it about D&D that would make the average parent in 2014 more concerned about it than they are about Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, the Avengers, Yu-Gi-Oh, or Minecraft?

Assuming the question is earnest and not rhetorical...

1) Reputation - how many of these parents were forbidden to play it themselves?  How many had the rule, "any game but D&D"?
2) Role playing - video games don't ask for persona shifts.  And I'd think parents would be alarmed if their kids started speaking in character for their Minecraft account.
3) Religion - 'nuff said...
4) ...

Honestly I think those are probably enough.

Should it be different?   You and I both know it should not.

Is it different?   Probably.

Quote from: mcbobbo;7550802) Role playing - video games don't ask for persona shifts.  And I'd think parents would be alarmed if their kids started speaking in character for their Minecraft account.

Talking to the computer, maybe. But little girls shift voices and character viewpoints all the time when they're playing dolls. Boys do it with action figures (dolls).

Religion isn't worth worrying about... there's no telling what the fundy nutters will freak out about if they're in the mood for a bonfire... if D&D got under their skin again it might be a good thing.

As for reputation, I think it's worse that it's seen as something that homely maladroids do because they can't find girlfriends... vs. anything about demons/violence/murderhobos.

Quote from: Warthur;755075You keep saying that but I don't know what you mean and Google isn't helping. Do you have any citations?

Hasbro has been floundering with G.I.Joe anymore despite being it's most lucrative property back in the 80s. Sad, but true.

Quote from: Endless Flight;755083Hasbro has been floundering with G.I.Joe anymore despite being it's most lucrative property back in the 80s. Sad, but true.

That might have more to do with the movies being really bad than with any kind of parent activism.

Quote from: Endless Flight;755083Hasbro has been floundering with G.I.Joe anymore despite being it's most lucrative property back in the 80s. Sad, but true.

Well, what's to say that's not just due to it being a dated franchise rather than there being a moral backlash?

Quote from: Warthur;755085Well, what's to say that's not just due to it being a dated franchise rather than there being a moral backlash?

And yet the Transformers are still rolling along after 30 years. It has nothing to do with being dated or a "backlash".

I would point out that even though the GI Joe movies weren't that good (I enjoyed watching them for nostalgia and fight scenes), they were still financial successes. They weren't breaking any records, but they made well more than they spent on them.

They have absolutely failed at keeping a cartoon running though.

Quote from: Endless Flight;755087And yet the Transformers are still rolling along after 30 years. It has nothing to do with being dated or a "backlash".

The Transformers cartoons have kept reinventing themselves over all that time, though - they're not still resting on the laurels of the orignals. The Joe cartoon, so far as I can make out, has floundered to be relevant ever since four-colour Reaganism went out of fashion.

Quote from: Warthur;755105The Transformers cartoons have kept reinventing themselves over all that time, though - they're not still resting on the laurels of the orignals. The Joe cartoon, so far as I can make out, has floundered to be relevant ever since four-colour Reaganism went out of fashion.

They've kept reinventing themselves? How so? It's still the same characters, right? Optimus Prime? Megatron? Robots in disguise? What kind of heavy lifting has Hasbro had to do with the Transformers?

Quote from: mcbobbo;755080Assuming the question is earnest and not rhetorical...

1) Reputation - how many of these parents were forbidden to play it themselves?  How many had the rule, "any game but D&D"?
2) Role playing - video games don't ask for persona shifts.  And I'd think parents would be alarmed if their kids started speaking in character for their Minecraft account.
3) Religion - 'nuff said...
4) ...

Honestly I think those are probably enough.

Should it be different?   You and I both know it should not.

Is it different?   Probably.

I'm a parent, and I can say from my perspective it is different. 2014 is a world away from the 80s in terms of kids, parents, and entertainment. I think you're projecting your own experiences from 30 years ago to today. Besides the religious fundamentalists (who nobody expects to ever be on board with D&D, or Lord of the Rings, or the Avengers, etc.) nobody today cares about that religious stuff anymore. And people have been harping on about the dangers of World of Warcraft since it was released, and it hasn't had any apparent effect on its popularity. Franky, I think most parents today would regard a tabletop D&D game as a healthy and welcome respite from video-games.

Quote from: dragoner;755061As a general rule, kid's stuff has become less violent, look at the reaction to "war-toys".

What, you mean like two Star Wars cartoons, one of which regularly had arcs focusing on the clone troopers' perspective, airing within a couple of years? A year out from the most outright violent and realistic Transformers continuity yet?

And I hate to harp on Avatar again and again, but I wish to emphasize that this is a cartoon that got away with featuring a near-total genocide in its backstory, and that was almost ten years ago, to say nothing of the populist revolution and civil war in Legend of Korra's first two seasons.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;755084That might have more to do with the movies being really bad than with any kind of parent activism.

Bingo, bubbie.

Quote from: LibraryLass;755117What, you mean like two Star Wars cartoons, one of which regularly had arcs focusing on the clone troopers' perspective, airing within a couple of years? A year out from the most outright violent and realistic Transformers continuity yet?

And I hate to harp on Avatar again and again, but I wish to emphasize that this is a cartoon that got away with featuring a near-total genocide in its backstory, and that was almost ten years ago, to say nothing of the populist revolution and civil war in Legend of Korra's first two seasons.

So kids cartoons are getting violent again? Huh, because I noticed in the 90's a definite trend away from violence.