D&D was always a game for young nerds. Nerds in 2025 look like picrelated, and like activities like in picrelated.

The old nerds were white guys that liked adventures and fighting. These are now balding wageslaves in their early 30ies. Culturally irrelevant codemonkeys or minimum wage serfs. D&D is simply not for them anymore.

What do you think?

>>96024161 (OP)
I think this thread is bad.

>>96024161 (OP)
I think that you might have dyscalculia if you think that people who were young nerds back when DnD was new are now in their early 30s.

>>96024161 (OP)
I love this art because it makes chuds scream so hard they shit themselves.

>>96024161 (OP)
True but what's the point? Like, so what? Is someone forcing you to play D&D? Should we send help to your location?

>>96024241
I think this art is pretty bad, but I legitimately don't understand how people can scream, cry, and shit themselves every time a piece of artwork that doesn't personally appeal to them is put into a book.

>>96024270
Because its performative in the same way all the blue hair lefties are performative in their grievences.

>>96024161 (OP)
Trolling is against the rules.

>>96024161 (OP)
Fantasy is like that because corporations think they already got the old nerds locked down and can take their money for granted forever, so it makes no sense to make anything to pander to them when they can expand the key demographic to reach the "modern audience" imagined by Californian consultants and analysts.

>>96024270
>>96024241
Stop with the hyperbole, the only people genuinely yelling at this are the mentally ill. The most common reaction, and one I think even the most visceral rageposts on this website really are, is a deep frustration that leaves you feeling alone and disconnected from the perceived “culture.”

That’s what I think the biggest issue is; there’s tons of art celebrating gay people, trans rights, black bodies and all the other buzzwords that have become hot topic issues, but white guys get, “you need to be a better man, chud.” The belief that white guys still maintain a lion’s share of media attention has turned the media into either neglectful of white guys or outright critical. It doesn’t make people rage, it turns them away. When’s the last time you’ve seen a major Western piece of artwork in fantasy that presented a young white man as valorous? Or better yet, smooching a young white woman? It doesn’t happen anymore unless they’re presenting a “legacy” relationship.

Meanwhile you get OP.

>>96024297
Is this why the art is bad or why you get angry at it?
Honest question because I can't tell.

>>96024270
Not even on a book, it's art for social media platforms.

>>96024270
because these people rewrite the lore for the main game I play then tell me I am unwelcome

>>96024331
I don't get angry at it because it doesn't bother me in any way.

I'm sure somewhere there are people annoyed because it doesn't appeal to their particular tastes but the reality is you and I are getting old and there are more people besides us who play these games. It's all a sick way of manipulating people's nostalgia as if the the corporate types of back in the day care any more about your aesthetics than they do now.

There is also the fact that most of these complaints just fall conveniently in line with the current political climate which makes the ranting even more fake.

>>96024326
>but white guys get, “you need to be a better man, chud.”
But that IS the appeal, is like the isakei slop you like so much, the fetish you want sold to you it's that you're always improving, always getting stronger, everyone looks up to you, relies on you, etc.

>>96024357
>lore
You're not playing on your own setting? Really? What is this, 90s WoD shit?

>>96024326
Apologies for the abrupt end and this second post, I’m trying to organize a post-church lunch. The frustration is a classic one; white men feel like they’re the redheaded step child in a family that used to like them, and while other kids get all the love and adoration from the media and society at large, they either get punished for perceived slights, passed over for perceived “over representation” or begrudgingly thrown a bone without any fanfare.

Is this actually happening? Maybe. I’m sure you’ll have a dissenting opinion. But this is how people feel, and why white guys have become so aggressive.

>>96024369
I am, but this does not mean I'm not mad that they're changing the lore.

>>96024427
Sounds like a waste of time. Something like L5R would make you go bald if that's all it takes.

>>96024360
I mean you don't have to tell me it's all bullshit I agree with that.
Hell I think the art is bad for artistic merits alone.
It suffers from a criminal lack of focus, seriously what am I supposed to be looking at and the colors are clashing; why are the guys in the center which I guess I'm supposed to mostly look at so saturated vs the pastels of the background. It's not really framing it's just clashing. But I digress.
Anyway I just don't get the whole brand loyalty thing I guess. Play the games you want to play and the companies have never been on your side in the first place. They've always been on the side of the dollar.
Which you seem to agree with so more power to you man.

>>96024326
>>96024371
I mean I kind of understand the frustration, despite my rampant femininity and desire to be stepped on by hot women, I too am a straight white male. And just as I don't like the radical leftists that boil down identity into race, sexuality, gender identity.
I also dislike the righties that adopt that same paradigm as a defensive measure. There's a million different ways to define oneself that have a lot more bearing than those very basic surface level observations.
Enjoying media should be about learning to connect with characters unlike yourself rather than hoping that a cardboard cutout of you appears on screen and does the requisite amount of honorable fighting, fucking, and aura farming as the kids say.

And you're correct I don't really believe that straight white guys are oppressed by the existence of media that doesn't specifically cater to them, but that goes both ways I don't think that media that specifically does cater to them is problematic or wrong to exist.

>>96024226
This.

these lil niggaz be feelin it

>>96024270
how i wonder why people are upset when something they like has changed to accommodate an entirely different demographic, resulting in them no longer feeling a sense of community with the new target audience and thus eventually leaving of their own volition because they no longer feel welcome

>>96024331
corporation is using my weird and uncommon sexual predilections to try to sell a board game to children. being gay is abnormal; it is abnormal for a reason. keeping it accepted, but out of the public eye is far better than shoving it down everyone's throats. No matter what people think, most people are not gay or bi, so this is off putting to most people. And now, I as a a gay dude, feel worse and less accepted when people inevitably backlash against this stuff.

I'm sick of this. If you want to appeal to gay and bi men, just make strong, intelligent, attractive male characters.

>>96024501
People say this but 2e already changed D&D's tone from sword and sorcery to epic high fantasy, 3e is basically a completely different game with a dungeon punk aesthetic, 4e is now a skirmish game with pauldron core, 5e was 3e light with ugly art and then became tumblr storytime game. D&D has always changed to accommodate newer audiences (and it also peaked with the sword and sorcery Conan aesthetic).

>>96024443
The brand loyalty makes even less sense when you consider how many people who actually go out of their way to make their own thing do.

Funny how the "If you don't like it make your own thing." suddenly falls by the way side when you're trying to astroturf your political position in a kids game.

>>96024517
And people rightfully were turned off from 3e and 4e. We are definitely exposed to way too many opinions nowadays thru the internet but 5e's aesthetic journey has been extremely drastic in comparison, and it's affecting the tone of the game to an extreme degree. New fans don't even use 5e to dungeon-crawl.

>>96024226
And OP smells bad.
>>96024240
OP is retarded and underage nogames. He has no understanding of the hobby or D&D.

>>96024161 (OP)
The old nerds are way beyond their thirties. The oldest have gotten old and died, and the youngest of the cohort you're thinking of are now in their 50s.

I'd just like to say, for anyone who does want to play not-shit D&D?
ACKS is out there and its both fun and not packed full of political bullshit.
Detractors will scream that its inherently political because the writer drew a cock on the moon with his nazi space laser or some shit, but ignore them.
It's a good game and a good time.

>>96024552
>but 5e's aesthetic journey has been extremely drastic in comparison
Oh yeah, I definitely agree with that and I think it's been kinda forgotten too with the passage of time. I remember when 5e launched it was marketed as sort of a synthesis with older AD&D and 3e but over time once Critical Role started breaking through to a different audience Wizards pivoted hard into making it more of a weird storydriven roleplaying experience when D&D has never really suited that kind of play in any of it's editions.
>New fans don't even use 5e to dungeon-crawl.
To be fair, 5e isn't really good for this. The core rulebooks never gives you proper procedures for dungeon crawls, something that the old playtests weirdly enough had all the way into the final playtest, and the adventures they publish feels like they only include dungeons because that's something that's expected rather than because they want to create a dungeon crawl. Apparently the new introductory adventure for 5.5e doesn't even key the dungeon which is bizarre but apparently the new 5e audience doesn't even like 5.5 so history repeats itself I guess..

>>96024161 (OP)
what the fuck am I even looking at?
What is this retarded carebear-shit?

>>96024600
>ACKS is out there and its both fun and not packed full of political bullshit.
>basic D&D with a retarded economics sim that fails to emulate actual medieval economics despite it's autism
No thank you.

>>96024161 (OP)

>>96024507
sorry you dont feel comfortable being yourself in public bro. hopefully soon you'll get a bf and see why being able to hold hands in public and go on dates and shit is worth fighting for

>>96024226
It’s supposed to be bad.

>>96024507
>Gay guy that just wants to suck dicks and be left alone
While I feel nothing but contempt for the LGBT 'community' in its current form?
We cool.

>>96024241
>>96024270
Why shouldn't anyone get angry when they see corporate slop?

I don't get how you are acting how this is totally alien and out of left field when you see something you liked turned into something that appeals to no one and if you say you don't like it you get accused of some sort of -ism or how the only reason you arent cheering for it is because you have the badwrong political opinions.

Look at any media in fact.
Look at Jurassic Park for example.
The first movie was great and now we had like 5 or 6 movies in the past 30 years that were utter slop. They all tried to recreate the some sort of feeling that made the first movie good and they are all bad. Badly written, badly directed etc.
The first one is a timeless masterpiece and the current one is like something created for the current year that will be utterly forgotten after 3 months. Its empty, it stands for nothing.

And the same thing happened to D&D. They tried so hard to make it for everyone, chasing that mythical "broader audience" that doesn't exist.

Maybe im autistic, but I dont get it: How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?
How on Earth is it logical to say "Oh we made it to appeal to more people" when it doesn't even appeal to the people that supported you for years?
How does this statement make sense?

Its like I was isekai'd onto some alternative world in past 20 years where you hear the most pants-on-heads retarded illogical statements from companies and people just nod and go "Yup that makes sense"

>>96024507
Out of the public eye is a bit subjective. Like I don't really get the glorification of it that pops up from time to time, but I don't think every story about gay people is glorifying it or necessarily off putting.
Especially lesbians considering how many straight dudes beat it to them.

Corporations are always using whatever is currently trendy and well received to sell shit. That's just the facts of life at this point though drawing the moral line at gay shit feels a bit arbitrary.

Totally agree about the appealing to gay or bi men though. Most of them just want eye candy and unless it's explicitly romance they don't care about seeing dudes be gay.
Especially if they're not attractive dudes, Gay men are still men after all they want hot dudes just as much as straight dudes want hot chicks.

>>96024501
Accommodating a different demographic doesn't necessarily mean that the old one has completely disappeared.
I don't particularly think the new art in D&D 5e/5.5 is great, but to act as if it's all like this and doesn't have any through line to the old stuff is a bit disingenuous, I think.
It's a bit subjective though and I can't change your opinion on that most likely.

>>96024743
>Maybe im autistic, but I dont get it: How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?
>How on Earth is it logical to say "Oh we made it to appeal to more people" when it doesn't even appeal to the people that supported you for years?
>How does this statement make sense?
Look at the comic book industry and how many people still buy Batman books no matter how shitty they get. Or Warhamme 40k and their models. That’s what the corpos presume of you. That the hardcore audience is too invested/addicted to just stop buying their shit and that they’ll eat whatever slop is given to them. Therefore, I’d their money is guaranteed, expanding the audience to a bigger source of paypigs will make red line go up.

Is it flawless logic? No. Is that why this shit keeps happening? Yes.

>>96024241
The best part is that said chuds all have this super gay picture they apparently hate saved so they can repost it over and over and over and over again.

>>96024627
More like "why do you keep making threads about it all day every day"

>>96024743
My problem isn't anger at corporate slop. I also strongly dislike corporate slop, although I'm self-aware enough to admit that what is and isn't slop is somewhat subjective.

My problem is the dearth of good criticism and a lack of willpower.

Saying "I'm racist I don't like shit with blacks in it," is a valid statement. I can't agree, but there's no argument to be had.
Saying "This sucks because there's blacks in it," well no that's not a criticism. The existence of black people in a work is not a sign of low quality in and of itself.
Substitute black people with any other singular element or belief and you see the problem.
People nowadays on both sides don't have any media analysis skills and just call things shit because they don't align with their beliefs, values, or preferences instead of recognizing the subjectivity of such things.
It's just tiresome. I blame all the autism.

And as for willpower as others have pointed out.
STOP BUYING THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE OR AGREE WITH!
If you continue to support garbage, you'll continue to get fed garbage. It really is that simple.

>>96024625
You really do just keep the archive open don't you?

>>96024766
>Look at the comic book industry and how many people still buy Batman books no matter how shitty they get
>still

the fuck are you even talking about?
Do you live in sort some of alternative reality or have you just never left your house?
People are buying OLD issues.
They are buying Figmas and nerdshit.

Out of the 8 comicstores in my city the only one that is still around only exists because they switched to selling older issues and reprints, Figurines and manga.
Its so bad the comic industry literally had to rebrand comic books as "graphic novels" because no one bus comics anymore.

>Or Warhamme 40k and their models
Wamham is in the middle of a bubble of getting bigger because there a lot of service games to spread its popularity. This will not last if they change everything about it that people liked.

>That the hardcore audience is too invested/addicted to just stop buying their shit and that they’ll eat whatever slop is given to them.
Thats not whats happening tho.

>Therefore, I’d their money is guaranteed, expanding the audience to a bigger source of paypigs will make red line go up.
You are doing literally the very thing i just told you is fucking retarded. Someone tells you an absolutely asinine idea is true and you go "no no that actually makes sense" without a hint of self-awareness.

>>96024743
Except it worked. Fifth Edition is far away the best selling roleplaying game with an absurd market share.

It's funny that you bring up Jurassic Park. They've made, what, 4 Jurassic World movies now? And they all do really well in theaters. It's one of the last fucking film franchises to make money. You get that these are businesses, right? They want to make money?
>But it doesn't have SOVL!
Hasbro doesn't and will never give a shit about that.

>>96024822
>well no that's not a criticism
It absolutely is.
You can twist yourself into pretzel all you want but people noticed that performative inclusion goes hand in hand with bad quality.

>substitute black people with any other singular element or belief and you see the problem.
People nowadays on both sides don't have any media analysis skills and just call things shit because they don't align with their beliefs, values, or preferences instead of recognizing the subjectivity of such things.

But the thing you criticize already did that. It said "Well it had too many white people in it therefore its bad" and somehow you thought it was legitimate criticism but now that the shoe is on the other foot you claim "well the existence of black people in a work is not a sign of low quality in and of itself."

You talk about autism when you dont even have the basic self-awareness to notice how you are doing the exact same shit you bitch about.

>t's just tiresome. I blame all the autism.
Well then it looks like you are part of the autism.

>>96024838
It's simple, and it really is odd to me you people pretend to not get it. Old people get old and die. The original audience always moves on over time. You don't maintain relevance by eternally pandering to old people who grow more and more disillusioned for any number of reasons and who eventually die off or simply grow smaller over time. Any company looking to make products with the intent of making profit will try and expand their audience. It's inevitable, and won't stop as long as the system requires it.

The only exception to this is if the old guard actually do as japanese idol fans and other such fanatics do, that is prove their purchasing power like those freaks that buy often numerous redundant copies of a thing to artificially inflate their vote.

>>96024838
Anon, I was saying it’s a stupid idea with holes in its logic visible from space that a lot of marketing chodes who don’t actually understand the industry they are working in still believe. I have no idea why you are so buttflustered about this. Please calm down.

>>96024908
It’s not autism. It’s hypocrisy. It’s the evangelical daughter having an abortion to “fix a mistake” while the poor black girl is a “whore” for “killing her baby.” It’s rules for thee but not for me.

And it’s not usually intentional. It’s simple human nature. Your tribe has their reasons for doing X, but the other tribe doing X must be doing it for the wrong reasons.

>>96024847
>Except it worked. Fifth Edition is far away the best selling roleplaying game with an absurd market share.
Then why are Hobbystores closing left and right?
You say the most asinine shit the marketing dept tells you.

>b-b-but the middleman!
You can cope how you want but cant be this stupid to think that stores closing left and right is a good sign.

>And they all do really well in theaters
And here we go. "short-term profits therefore good!"

>You get that these are businesses, right? They want to make money?
Do you understand how brand-loyalty and brand-damage works?

>>96024625
Can you explain whats wrong with ACKS economy system or are you just gonna fall for the muh intangible goalposts fallacy (you're not moving them, they just never existed in the first place, cause you're a dumb shill)

>>96024743
>Why shouldn't anyone get angry when they see corporate slop?
Because when I get angry, I lose. Me getting angry doesn't help me, it just makes me upset. When I see things I don't like, I don't get angry, I simply avoid them and focus on things I do like.

>>96024908
Hrm if you're implying I like D&D 5e you're wrong. I don't, although I don't dislike it because it's got gays or blacks or whatever idpol bullshit is happening.
I dislike it because I think the rules are mediocre at best, the more interesting lore has been gutted or buried, and the art is way worse than 4e and most of 3.5 so it's not even really enjoyable from a purely aesthetic standpoint.

Inclusion does not make a work bad and correlation does not equal causation.
There are plenty of good stories and games that have diverse casts of characters and ideas. There are also plenty of bad ones.

The common trend among the bad ones is the belief that diversity, inclusion, and political messaging automatically makes their work valuable. Thus they forget to make likable characters, well written dialogue, an interesting plot, and a compelling setting.
But notably it's the lack of those last 3 things that make it bad NOT the diversity.

Also not sure where you even got the idea that I think that "It had too many white people" is a valid criticism either. I'm le enlightened centrist, too many white people is just as retarded of a criticism as too many blacks.

>>96024927
>It's simple, and it really is odd to me you people pretend to not get it. Old people get old and die. The original audience always moves on over time. You don't maintain relevance by eternally pandering to old people who grow more and more disillusioned for any number of reasons and who eventually die off or simply grow smaller over time. Any company looking to make products with the intent of making profit will try and expand their audience. It's inevitable, and won't stop as long as the system requires it.

You are using all those buzzwords that corporate likes to shit out but you still cannot answer a simple question:
If it doesn't appeal to the hardcore fans and the old audience, why would it appeal to the new one?

>>96024945
Nice moral relativism now it became obvious that the wokies lost the culture war.
Keep moving those goalposts champ.

>>96024948
I'm not saying it's a good thing, you fuckin' chungus, but you're in here going
>tHeY mAkE pRoDuCt I dOnT lIkE wHy ThEy Do ThAt?!

Money! Money is why they do that! You're in an echo chamber, but most people *still* play and support d&d. This product is the thing that has gotten the greatest amount of people to play the game. That is why they did it: it fucking worked! Are you getting that?

Also, laying the decline of hobby stores at the feet of d&d is a braindead take. Amazon, an absurd and increasing rent situation, and the fact that more and more people do less and less in person are far bigger factors to that decline than d&d being a game you don't like. Again, more people are playing now than ever. Your perception of the quality of the product has nothing to do with that.

>>96024927
I don't give a fuck about companies making profit.
>b-b-but they have to
I don't give a fuck and I'll continue to shit on and be toxic to their new player bases to damage their business as much as possible. Tracking the spending of a close friend of mine who got into DnD with Critical Role, plus the number of people I have genuinely discouraged or prevented from playing D&D (or TTRPGs in general) via methods such as "lure and cure" and just general shit talking of the game, I have cost Wizards of the Coast around 15,000 dollars. If everyone who cared about stopping the SJW plague did that, Wizards of the Coast would be out of business within 2 years (especially in their current state) and it would be over for them.

>>96024993
>If it doesn't appeal to the hardcore fans and the old audience, why would it appeal to the new one?

It does appeal to the new one. How do you not get this?

>Wokies

Oh, you're a braindead nogames culture warrior, I see why you have issues with simple concepts like "company want to make money."

>>96025004
>, I have cost Wizards of the Coast around 15,000 dollars.

>>96024766
>Look at the comic book industry and how many people still buy Batman books no matter how shitty they get.
The comic book market is generally shrinking year on year, sales are in the toilet, books like Batman and Amazing Spider-Man used to sell 500,000 per issue, now their lucky to even scrape 50,000, let alone 100,000 copies sold
This is due to several factors, but the storyline for books getting worse and the general enshittification of everything into Corporate slop is definitely one of those reasons.

>>96024982
As someone that's dealt with him before?
What he's now going to give you is the most bad faith retard version of RAW.
Expect the words 'There's no supply or demand' to come up and 'You have to roll 63 times per city'.
Also expect him to call both you and I shills/ACKShill.

Meanwhile having actually played the game rather than engaging in Ivory Tower Seethe over it? It works pretty good.

>>96024600
>ACKS is out there and its both fun and not packed full of political bullshit.
And, the EXACT opposite is true.
You're not going to find a less fun or less political community around a game, period.

Game itself is stale and nothing, but the people who promote it are pure cancer.

>>96025037
Whoops, meant "more political."
They are the kind of guys who do things like keep making threads like this one.

I always find it amusing when the 'I'm actually a gay race socialist awaiting my chance to build a guillotine' left immediately latches mouth first onto the dick of any corporation as soon as their enemies mutter even the slightest critique of it.

To any Prosecco-Bolsheviks in attendance, this is why everyone keeps pointing out you have no principles.
You'd give a Raytheon CEO the reach around in an IHOP bathroom if you overheard some working class hill billy say 'I really don't fancy dying in another bullshit war in the Middle East'

>>96025034
I figured. There's some stuff I don't like in ACKS but its a solid system. I'll probably run it for some Pathfinder fags soon as a drop-in game because their attendance for the main game is so abominable.

>>96024992
>Inclusion does not make a work bad and correlation does not equal causation.
You can cope however you want, doesn't change the fact that people noticed it.

>There are plenty of good stories and games that have diverse casts of characters and ideas
And there are plenty of good stories ruined by performative diversity.
Just look at the last Captain America.

>But notably it's the lack of those last 3 things that make it bad NOT the diversity.
Notably its that likable characters, well written dialogue, an interesting plot, and a compelling setting are sacrificed because of the diversity.
Because writers are terrified of some rainbow-haired shewhale will accuse them of isms if the female lead or the black lead has flaws and someone else than an incel white man loser is the villain.
Due to wokisms you have created so many new taboos in writing and despite that you still defend it. You still pretend its not there.

>Also not sure where you even got the idea that I think that "It had too many white people" is a valid criticism either.
Because I dont see you being bothered about it when it first started happening and diversity was being forced down everyone's throats.
But now that people want it to be undone you have a problem with it.
Curious.

> I'm le enlightened centrist
Nah, youre larping as what you think is one.

>>96025053
>You'd give a Raytheon CEO the reach around in an IHOP bathroom if you overheard some working class hill billy say 'I really don't fancy dying in another bullshit war in the Middle East'
The Raytheon pride month socks is a very hot commodity for precisely this reason.
>This They/Them will turn you "men" into Was/Were

>>96024625
It fails at even being basic D&D.
Basic D&D was all about making the game simple, fast, and fun.
ACKS does everything to be the exact opposite, unless you think organizing spreadsheets is the best part of RPGs.

>>96025013
>It does appeal to the new one.
If it appeals to the new one why is Games Workshop closing stores instead of opening new ones?
If it appeals to the new one why are there less Comicbook stores instead of more?
If it appeals to the new one why are there barely any RPG-Hobbystores around?

>you're a braindead nogames culture warrior, I see why you have issues with simple concepts like "company want to make money."
And the mask slips.
As soon as gets cornered because his argumentation makes no sense he starts seething and calling you isms.

>>96025051
But anon, don't you realize? Political is when I don't like thing! It's non-political if I like it!

>>96024161 (OP)
It's bait but I'll bite.
>Dnd was never a game of young nerds
It's just not true if you go back to gygaxs and the early tables these were guys finishing high school and early in college. These Guys were science fiction writers/fans and fans, these guys relatively well-educated (getting into college was an accomplishment back in the day). So they wrote a game that was a little bit historical minitures, a little bit Kriegsspeil and a great big bit of tolkien/fantasy as it was back then (no monster fuckers).

As the game caught on it was marketed younger to mixed results, a good fad of sales leading to relatively steady use. The basic/advanced set is saying where the game started was not for young people. They had to build that (which is a plus because it gave them a chance to 'rebuild' the standard of play which gave us b/x eventually which is still super servicable as a game). We did catch the first waves of 'new fantasy' happening here (as gothic impulses reached the community, you can see this late term as vampire, early as CoC and Ravenloft.

This gives us our main two modes of play, the high fantasy adventure, often simulationist (after its wargaming roots) dungeon crawl that it started wtih and the fantasy story engine (after its gothic fantasy/horror roots) which prized fidelity to the story type. The horror games should be brooding and slow and dramtic at times but scary.

Then we get the 'new wave of RPG wankery' which is to say the three fold model, which came not quite 10 years after gothic fantasy rpgs. They started wtih the presup that there's already two ways, and we don't find them satisfying so there must be a third way. And that didn't work at all because it was overly academic fill in the blanks shit by low iq fucking retards.

Still all three of these waves, we're talking graduating high school/early college in terms of who's influential. They had good heads for math and lit, were keen and really wanted to capture the material.

>>96025053
>I always find it amusing when the 'I'm actually a gay race socialist awaiting my chance to build a guillotine' left immediately latches mouth first onto the dick of any corporation as soon as their enemies mutter even the slightest critique of it.

Its amazing, isnt it?
And they actually wonder why no one likes them and why they lost this hard.

>>96025093
>If it
>If it
>If it
Because nobody has any fucking money. It's not an issue of interest it's a matter mercantile. People today are significantly more poor than their parents, and thus have less income to throw on frivolous expenditures. The only people that still have some money to burn are women and gay people - and now it should be connecting why those people are getting pandered to.

>>96024443
>my rampant femininity and desire to be stepped on by hot women,
>I too am a straight white male
>Femdom
>Straight
>Implying

Lessers fear the greatest

>>96025064
YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM! HOW DO YOU KNOW I WASN'T MAD ABOUT IT YOU ACTUAL SCHIZO!?

I don't watch or indulge in garbage that has diversity just for the sake of it.
I like things that have diversity IF AND ONLY IF they're actually good.
I find it interesting to learn about other people, places, and things. Which naturally requires diversity. Actual diversity, people from other foreign places, beliefs, and cultures.
Not arbitrary colorism of equal parts black, brown, yellow, and white, with all one unifying belief system.

Your reactionary mindset doesn't even help you get people on your side. If your goal is to actually stop this garbage from getting made. All you're doing is increasingly isolating yourself from potential allies.

Like me for example. I would be with you on your crusade against bad media, but you can't even analyze it deeply only viewing it for surface level bullshit.
Between that and your insistence that I'm not who I say I am and that I'm actually some subversive element out to get you, makes it real hard to actually FIX THE PROBLEM YOU ALLEGEDLY WANT TO FIX!

>Muh Spreadsheets
Another in the 'Fascinating reveals of this kind of thread' series; People that despise ACKS admitting they're too stupid to take basic notes and that's the games fault.
Only time I ever used a spreadsheet when running ACKS was distributing XP.
And even that's only because I'm lazy and didn't want to tot up the values by hand when they returned to civilization.

>>96025106
The third wave was mostly bad and characterized by two things, a desire to systemize things make them very consistent and easy to use (Sub wave 3rd edition) and a desire to write new novel things, and do new novel games where you're not constrained by the tedium of gamism or simulationism but a new third way (Three fold RPG design theory, post modern takes on RPG's etc.) Again the groups doing this were not kids. The third edition sub wave worked relatively well, especially combined with an open licence it allowed DND and all those third party publishers to produce a metric fuck ton of shit that worked well enough. The downside to it, is that the 'we must target younger demo sales' push was there and behind at least some of the desire to simplify and unify rpgs. If it's simplier younger kids can buy, and 3rd edition sold well.

It was those fucking retards at the forge, those people wanting a sexy post modern indie take on rpg's (again not kids here, these were college age and a little older people). So this wave is were freakshit begins, you start to see (in both subwaves) where the material becomes self referential (Dnd as genre/post modernism as game design) and it kinda worked. They produced books, they bought them, they even played some. but ultimately knife fight and the forge, and all that fell because as post modern twats they couldn't actually articulate what they wanted or what they were trying to replicate with their games. That lead to a lot of discussion that the postr modern twats couldn't hack so they hid 100% behind actual play and just banning conversation. And it kind of worked, I still enjoy a handful of those games but literally hundreds (thousands if you want to goway back to 1km1kt) were made and maybe a dozen see common use, you could probably widdle that list down to 5.

But because these games were not trying to emulate older games, and the writing was not trying to adhere to best practices what's left? Well your character.

D&D was never a game.
It was always, and still is, a way for nerds to combine whatever aspects of pop culture they enjoy into the kind of inconsistent narrative experience they personally enjoy.
The only difference now is D&D is being used as a political piece, mostly to widen the net as a means to gain more customers. D&D's owners have always cast as wide a net as possible, but the past few years have been its first foray into expressing a political stance and involving itself so blatantly in a culture war.
There is no difference between the old, original nerds and the new, young nerds; they are still putting what they want into the system, and they are still telling their critics to "play" it however they want.

I think you need a better grasp on reality if you can't see that, and I think you need better, less obvious bait for the kind of outrage you're looking to incite.

>>96025147
After so many socialist democrat policies and green new deals no one has any money?
How did that happen?

>The only people that still have some money to burn are women and gay people - and now it should be connecting why those people are getting pandered to.

But you have just said that everything is new and great and the rumored "wider audience" is doing great and everything is making money and popular and now just one or two posts later everyone is such dire straits that they need to appeal to the only people who still have money?

Huh.

>>96025152
Alright fair enough you've got me there. Being a
femdomfag is absolutely the gayest shit you can be while still only technically being straight.

But screw you I know what I am.

>>96025087
ACKS combat is the worst thing I've ever seen. It's impossible to play by RAW thanks to all the extra rolls it unneccesarily added to slow things down.

And it gets worse. The mass combat is the worst I've ever seen of any combat rules. If RPGs had something like the raspberry awards, I would actually nominate the ACKS mass combat rules as the worst rule set ever. It's incredibly slow, incredibly boring, incredibly unrealistic and up its own ass, and even just trying to figure out how to set up a battle takes an extraordinary amount of time. What's insane is that B/X already had mass combat rules that were better decades ago.

ACKS mass combat is like if someone took the worst war games, boiled them down to the parts people hated the most, and then dumped them down with the expectation that no one would ever actually use them. Ordinarily, I wouldn't malign something that can be tricky like mass combat, but a guy recommended me the system because of them and I hope the circle of Hell he lands in is particularly toasty.

>>96024161 (OP)
>D&D is simply not for them anymore.
Its funny how the womyn, faggots and LGBT freaks all demanded equity and access until they had the power to ostracize who they wanted. It's pretty obvious these woke scum never got over being bullied/laughed at growing up and now want to take it out on others. Great lessons for why you should never appease or include these fags.

>>96025188
>Economists lying to their shareholders to keep from causing a panic
Same reason people viciously ignore the term, "depression" and go for "recession."
>How did that happen?
Generational suffocation of the middle class through corporations gradually eliminating anything that bit into their profit-margins, including, "paying our workers a living wage" and "providing customers with a bare minimum of service." The greatest example of this in your day-to-day would be self-checkout being ubiquitous yet using it offers no discount for doing all the labor a cashier would've done. Where does that cashier's wage go? Certainly not into saving you on eggs and bacon.

>>96025167
So these games and the games that follow after them, where the material that dnd aimed to reproduce doesn't exist except in reference to the previous references, games where the only important thing is your character, games where the DM is an obstacle to the game selling, the games designed by committees of video game people who are neither bright nor esteem the original source materials, etc. It all becomes
>YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT
And you're a bad gm if you don't let in the latest freakshit, after all little they/them sally bought the damn book so shut the fuck up oldtimer and let her play.

This is most itch.io books, 4th and 5th edition dnd. Theres not really anywhere for them to go. They wanted to the dumbed down product for the masses and it frankly is not that appealing. There's only so many zany voices, only so many times you can say 'but I'm not like the others, Im special'. Only so much appreciation you can dump on players. It rings hollow and there's just nothing to grasp for. Maybe some fantasy or sci fi will actually be meaningful and gain a cultural zeitgeist again? Maybe we'll finally get a 4th wave of RPG's. but to answer the questions.

RPG's (when they are good and meaningful) are not aimed at the kids, they're aimed at inspiring stories, not profit margins. The reason it's boring freakshit promnight mosnterfucking is because that's the height of fiction according to women and gaming execs.

>>96024931
>chodes

>>96025165
nta, but the wasp in the jam is that, fundamentally, you can't acknowledge why the media is bad because it comes from the same place as the 'Sprinkle angry black lesbians all over it and call it a day'

Even if we're moving in the same direction, there is going to come a point when you will turn to me and go 'That's far enough, we can't go any further' and I'm going to say 'No, this problem isn't solved and I intend to fix it properly'
At which point you'll put the knife square between my shoulder blades, for much the same reason that a hardline Catholic would if I was investigating the child sex abuse in churches, because the reality is you don't want this cured because the cure will be messy, invasive and judgemental of the circumstances that led us here in the first place.
No, what you want is for the symptoms to go away.

You are not a potential ally, you are, temporarily, a fellow traveller.
And anyone who knows their history, be it communism or the donner party, can tell you how quickly fellow travellers will eat each other.

And if you can honestly go over to a mirror, look yourself square in the eye and say 'That's not what I want, I'd never pull that shit and they're wrong about me' then come back and say you did so without once looking away in shame?
Well I'm sorry for having misjudged you, but can you blame anyone for being wary when dealing with a cult ideology?

>>96025093
So now, instead of talking about d&d, you've switched to talking about a different game that's owned by a different company, and you're STILL completely ignoring shit like rent, and people being able to buy things directly on the internet instead of going to a store.

But yeah, no, it's definitely woke that's ruining everything. It's not shithead companies that are obsessed with making a number go up without any critical thinking.

>>96025197
>if I crap on ACKS and mi'lady enough surely I'll get a crumb of pussy
You should try playing the game.

>>96025197
>I would actually nominate the ACKS mass combat rules as the worst rule set ever.
No, that would be its economy rules.

>>96025165
>YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM! HOW DO YOU KNOW I WASN'T MAD ABOUT IT YOU ACTUAL SCHIZO!?
Well did you?
You seem pretty touchy about that.

>I find it interesting to learn about other people, places, and things Actual diversity, people from other foreign places, beliefs, and cultures.
Not arbitrary colorism of equal parts black, brown, yellow, and white, with all one unifying belief system.
Then we agree on something to a certain degree.

>Your reactionary mindset doesn't even help you get people on your side. If your goal is to actually stop this garbage from getting made. All you're doing is increasingly isolating yourself from potential allies.
ahem
>YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM! HOW DO YOU KNOW I WASN'T MAD ABOUT IT YOU ACTUAL SCHIZO!?

>Like me for example. I would be with you on your crusade against bad media, but you can't even analyze it deeply only viewing it for surface level bullshit.
I dont want a hypocrite with me.
You are just to busy sniffing your own farts and pretending that you are a reasonable enlightened centrist and you think that this pathetic display somehow makes you more likeable to anyone and when someone calls you out you get defensive and upset.

Again, you quite literally argued that that problem isnt "that something has black people" in it yet just a paragraph ago you essentially made an argument that if something doesn't have diversity in it its not interesting.
>Which naturally requires diversity.
Your own words betray you.

>Between that and your insistence that I'm not who I say I am and that I'm actually some subversive element out to get you, makes it real hard to actually FIX THE PROBLEM YOU ALLEGEDLY WANT TO FIX!
Choose your poison then:

Either you are pretending to be something you arent or your opinion is an incoherent mess that is at odds with itself and makes you sound like a hypocrite with no principles.

>>96025093
The only ones still around are the ones appealing to the larger crowd because most people like you use online shopping if you even buy stuff at all instead of just pirating everything. You can go ans ask LGS owners about what they actually sell to maintain the store.

>The worst thing about ACKS is-
Putting up with the discordites who pop up to inform you it's a heckin' chud game any time its mentioned.
Yeah, I know it is, stop trying to sell it to me.

>>96025272
I kinda wish one of them would get AIDs so that they'd all end up dead from all the circle-jerking they do.

>>96024948
>Then why are Hobbystores closing left and right?
amazon, poor business practices, market pressure, 'those damn phones'

>>96024161 (OP)
Honestly, I think we should just take our masks off and stop pretending to care about minorities.
Forget 'soft power' and 'the moral high ground'. Let's just embrace being bad people, and start fucking shit up.
The beast wants red meat and the blood of its enemies, and its stupid to deny it.

>>96025293
>He doesn’t know
Straight white men are the meat. People are feasting, and it’s on you.

>>96024270
Because it's in a book that used to appeal to me, which means the stated intention to not appeal to me anymore
How can you not understand that, it's pretty simple

>>96024161 (OP)
When Gygax invented D&D in 2004, he didn't realize the cultural legacy he was creating.

>>96024270
>I think this art is pretty bad, but I legitimately don't understand how people can scream, cry, and shit themselves
Sauce on people screaming, crying, and/or shitting themselves?

>>96025334
Here's the part where you get stuck in a 30 post hell-chain where (you) and anon(s) dance around, "but what exactly do you mean it's not For You anymore?" Art both supporting and rejecting this claim will be posted and ignored, and everyone walks away frustrated.

>>96025221
I can tell you why it's bad. In fact I did.

It's the substitution of political ideology for actual story.

Things can be politically charged and still be good, even if you don't agree with them. They can still at least have some measure of objective quality.

Most of the things that aren't good are SOLELY motivated by political grandstanding and forget the actual quality and this goes for both Left and Right-leaning shit. Unless you're actually going to defend garbage like Lady Ballers or the other recent small wave of explicitly right wing anti-woke films that serve no purpose other than being a retaliatory punch back at the leftist films.

They're also terrible for much the same reasons.

>>96025252
Yes I'm mad about garbage media. I don't play games that offer nothing but pandering to left-leaning sensibilities.

My opening line was a bit of humor. I thought it was obvious considering I called you a schizo, also I'm willing to extend an olive branch. If you want to fight against bad borderline political propaganda with little artistic merit, yeah I'm with you.
Unfortunately it's kind of nebulous so we may disagree somewhat, but them's the breaks I guess.

My argument, which wasn't an argument btw it was a statement solely about myself and potentially others like me, was that I like to learn about others which necessitates diversity of media. It does not mean that every piece of media must BE "diverse" in the sense that Hollywood uses it.

I'm being authentically myself. An autistic retard that likes good things and some bad things, but hates being fed political bullshit from BOTH SIDES.

I'm not a hypocrite, for this particular issue at least.

I WANT GOOD INTERESTING MEDIA THAT TELLS COOL STORIES ABOUT ALL KINDS OF PEOPLE BECAUSE IT'S COOL! I LIKE ANIME, WESTERN CARTOONS, FOREIGN INDIE FILMS, BOLLYWOOD PRODUCTIONS, HISTORICAL DOCUMENTARIES, ETC.
This is real diversity and it's pretty cool.

I don't know what you want me to say to be based.

>>96025328
Only because we let them.

>>96025334
The dungeons and dragons 2024 pride collection is something that appeals to you?

>>96025244
>So now, instead of talking about d&d, you've switched to talking about a different game that's owned by a different company,
>So now

Listen champ, if you cant follow the conversation on a cambodian butterchurning board then maybe you shouldn't be replying?
If the flow of the conversation confuses you scroll up and reread some posts.

>you're STILL completely ignoring shit like rent, and people being able to buy things directly on the internet instead of going to a store.
Im starting to think I need a Bingo-Card for this because we went from
>ackshually its popular and sells well and they shouldn't worry about the core audience
over
>ackshually the only people with money and gays and women
to
>ackshually we dont need shops
and
>ackshually the economy is to blame

The floundering and constant flipflopping is a sight to behold.
And my question still stands:
How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?

>>96025266
oh fuck, I really need a Bingo-Card.
>ackshually you dont buy anything anyway and piracy is to blame

>You can go ans ask LGS owners about what they actually sell to maintain the store
Well, of course I know him. He's me.
Which is why all your platitudes and repeated corporate truisms don't work on me.

>>96025355
>Only because we let them.
That's not actually true, anymore. It hasn't been true for decades. The number of "domestic terror cells" soundly silenced by the feds is evidence enough.

>>96024161 (OP)
Let us point out what is actually wrong with this image, and many other images in 5e D&D:

No dwarves.

How can this be fantasy without the inclusion and dominance of thick, hairy dwarves? Either cloaked in kino clothing with colourful hoods like in the Hobbit, or all masculine and bare-chested destroying any kind of disgusting femininity in a 100 mile radius. Experiencing the kinship of a virtually male-only society, keeping our true names secret to all others except those dwarves we only trust intimately... Truly, a curse upon any who does not appreciate the homoeroticism of the dwarf people and would rather play humans or elves or any other freakshit out there.

Anyways, everything else that was complained about in this thread is retarded. I don't know what an "acks" is, I thought it was the sound someone made when they get hanged.

>>96025353
>Things can be politically charged and still be good, even if you don't agree with them.
I disagree, at least, in the context of 'politically charged' meaning 'Propaganda'

Fuck it, know what I'm going to give you something that might help you and might not.

Here: https://www.unz.com/print/NewMasses-1946feb12-00019

'What shall we ask of writers' was an essay written nearly 100 years ago by this point on this exact topic by a man called Albert Maltz.
An open, card carrying member of the American communist party, who published it in The New Masses (A communist editorial) and someone I have no end of respect for, for having the intellectual honestly to write what he did.

Go read it.
Think it over, digest it.
Ask yourself if it's reasonable and so on.
Go read what his 'comrades' did to him for writing it.
Then come back here and see if that puts some perspective on the discussion at hand.

I promise, it's the most important thing you'll read this weekend and it's very short.

>>96025355
You're actually right. Literally anything is possible, we could level Iran and China in a day. We could turn the Middle East to glass. We could shoot all the troublemakers and turn the US into a true Empire, the only reason we haven't is because we're ashamed of our own strength for some reason.
If anything, this election has shown that people are sick of feeling guilty and having to kowtow to absurd identity bullshit.
Pride month, more like black history month, black and already history.

Oh no. It's too late. These people have all been /pol/iticized. They may look fine now, but it's a matter of time before they turn into /pol/acks. This entire thread must be purged.

>>96024161 (OP)
>Nerds in 2025 look like
Nope, it's just entryist normalfags.
Nerds in 2025 don't read re-branded harlequin novels like romantasy but stuff like Xianxia and DMR/Cirsova pulps, run gamist CAG sandboxes using the old systems rather than thespian exercises for failed novel writers, watch hololive vtubers instead of normalfag streamers, play niche autism games instead of AAA lowest common denominator by-the-numbers garbage and unsurprisingly this all catches the same old heat from fake-ass "nerds" who pretend to like what nerds liked before their kind came in and went about ruining it.
The kind of people who like all that nu-shit catering to them are the exact same kind of people who would give us shit back in the day for liking nerd stuff in the first place. And they still do when it's genuine nerd stuff.

>>96025198
If you were not such a retarded and underage nogames you would know that the people who you are upset about were there pretty much from the start of the hobby and will be there long after you died alone and unloved.

>>96025352
>>96025358
I honestly don't see how it's that complicated.
>The OP art clearly depicts gay and trans identities.
>The books didn't used to depict gay and trans identities and a clear pandering towards the gay community.
>I used to like the content of the book.
>The books didn't used to have gay and trans identity depictions and pandering towards the gay community.
>Now the book includes stuff I don't like, gays and trans identities and pandering towards the gay community.
Something that I used to like, now it's flooded with stuff I don't like, and I complain about it, and point it out, like in this post.
Which part aren't you following here?
Seems pretty simple to me

>>96025379
There has been no flip flopping, except for you suddenly switching from d&d to warhams because you don't actually have a point. Yes, d&d and Warhammer are selling well. Apparently their "core audience" is doing just fine. You live in an echo chamber. Your experience is not the experience of the general populace. You are obviously no longer the core audience. Yes, the closing of physical hobby stores has more to do with absurd rent, digital retail, and people in general going out less/being more online. You're either a schizo or a troll, bud.

>>96025495
You sound really upset that you lost the argument.

>>96025498
The picture is from a something specifically made for pride. It isnt in "the books."

>>96025004
>I don't give a fuck about companies making profit.
Then why the fuck should they care about what you want? It's not a charity, and attracting you in the first place is clearly a net negative because of how obsessively destructive you are.

>>96025521
Reread it this time without dicks hitting your stupid face.

>>96025498
Would you care if it was the exact same picture, but it was two straight people kissing?

It is kind of funny how many shills come out of the woodwork in these threads to insist people stop noticing and criticizing the multi-million dollar company.

>>96025539
nta but yes, because D&D should be about adventure, not FRIENDS style coffee shop sitcom drama bullshit.
If I wanted that (and I'll put my hands up and fully admit that occasionally I do) I'd play Monsterhearts.

Not every game has to be about the trials and tribulations of a Californian Barista with a worthless degree trying to bring about the revolution in the hopes that it'll cancel their college debt and they can be a full time feminine-ballsack waxer or whatever the fuck afterwards.

>>96025518
>except for you suddenly
reread >>96025379
Im not your mommy and I wont explain it to you again.

>Yes, d&d and Warhammer are selling well.
>Yes, the closing of physical hobby stores has more to do with
Riiiight.
Because there is MORE demand they need LESS stores, got it.

This is exactly what I was talking about in >>96024743
You spout all these truisms like slogans and no point do you even stop to examine two utterly contradictory statements.

>You're either a schizo or a troll, bud.
Hey, if that's your newest cope who am I to disagree.
Its not that you regurgitate statements that are antithetical to each other, surely it must be being a troll.

>>96025553
I know right?
Its fucking comedy.

>>96024161 (OP)
No. It's always been a game for racist white men, and NO ONE ELSE.

>>96024241
Where?

>>96025587
Nope sorry nogames.

>>96024270
Every bad cultural work permanently damages the soul of the people that produces it. Roleplaying games, like restaurants and galleries, are cultural venues. A civilized society should point its members in the direction of what is right. Not encourage them to act like pigs in a trough.

>>96025559
Did you just wake up from like a 30 year coma? Do you not know that online retailing exists?

So, here's how it works: in order to operate a store, you need to, firstly, a supply chain to support that store. Then, you need a physical location. Retail needs to be, firstly, in a place zoned for it, and secondly, in a place that people will come to. So generally retail space is at a premium, whether you are renting or you own the space outright. Then, on top of the purely physical costs of a building, you also need to hire employees to run this location. There are also all kinds of incidentals like insurance and electricity and water and garbage, etc. But, there is this thing called the internet? And it's where *most* people do quite a bit of their shopping now. So, they either buy from a large online retailer, like Amazon, who can buy things in bulk and have pretty massive discounts, because they don't need to pay retail employees and pay rent in order to have physical retail locations, or you can buy directly from a company like GW, who already has supply lines, so it's basically just a net gain for them to cut the physical retail out of the equation.

Is any of this making sense? I'm amazed that, right after you got out of your coma, you get on 4chan but you didnt know that you could also buy things on the internet. It's not just for shit posting, crazy, I know.

>>96025405
>I am not saying that an artist should be without a point of view on life and society, or that his point of view does not inevitably guide his selection of materials, characters, etc., or that any book, profoundly written, will be without political implications (The Brothers Karamazov). But there is a difference between possessing a philosophic point of view, which permeates one's work (the social novelist), and having a tactical axe to grind which usually requires the artificial manipulation of character and usually results in shallow writing (the political novelist or political propagandist working in the novel). (Albert Maltz)

This was my point of reference for politically charged. Writers have political beliefs that will get injected both consciously and unconsciously. It's unavoidable.
And yes I agree with what he wrote. What he wrote has been my entire point in the thread. Thank you for sharing that with me I had never read it before.
One cannot throw a work out just because the work or the author doesn't agree with you and that shallow momentary political commentary in a creative work blows goats.

>>96024698
heterosexuality is correct and superior and all degenerates will be exterminated.

>>96025633
Fine, you are the first to die, retard.

>>96025603
Yep sorry nogames.

>>96025640
Good job finding yourself

>>96025645
Nope, you found yourself.

>>96024226
fpbp

>>96025652
Yes, I found that I am not nogames like you and your smells.

>>96025553
For something that isn't even in an actual book?

>>96025608
>Did you just wake up from like a 30 year coma? Do you not know that online retailing exists?
>ackshually online retail is to blame!

>any of this making sense? I'm amazed that, right after you got out of your coma, you get on 4chan but you didnt know that you could also buy things on the internet. It's not just for shit posting, crazy, I know.
Oh damn you are so mad because someone dared to criticize BRAND.

So, here is the thing, according you:
- Its the most successful D&D in the history of ever yet they had to fire 1100 people
- They dont need the core audience because everything is fine and nothing is wrong, yet Hasbro is struggling with declining sales for another year by 23%
- D&D is great and its just me who isnt the core audience which is why so many veterans from WOTC were let go
- They also dont need shops or Hobbystores to play D&D because of the overwhelming demand

Did I summarize your opinion accordingly?

And all that floundering and denial on your part where you have to come up with more and more excuses to justify that there is no war in Ba Sing Se merely because I asked:
>How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?

Amazing.

>>96025731
Nice confirmation bias. I had a look at the 22% decline, and it literally doesn't mean what you think it does. Know why? Because every single board game is a "tabletop game". They don't separate D&D out from other products anywhere, so you can't see its numbers on its own the way you can with Magic.

>>96025631
Cracking, in that case you have to acknowledge that the current tranche of artists view art purely through the lens of 'Weapon as a Pamphlet is a weapon' for the most part.
I've got no issue with writers having political beliefs or them coming through, but when you start wagging your finger to the detriment of the piece, that's when I start looking elsewhere.

I'm glad it helped though anon, even if we're on opposite sides of this discussion, I always, always hold the hope that one day, maybe we'll be able to bridge the gap, start speaking the same language again and actually work this shit out peacefully rather than both sides just swinging for the cheap seats until one falls over.

can you faggots talk about actually good games for once.

>>96024627
>>96024806
Because hopefully, not unlike the people who bitched, moaned, and complained endlessly until they go their way, if we harp on enough about how DnD is bad now that it's gay and point out that we actively want to give our money to someone who can tell a story that's not overtly gay then maybe, just maybe, the heads of the corpos will fucking listen. I doubt it though, because it's not about money for them, it's just about pushing gay things; there's no other point.

>>96025767
I did mention ACKS earlier in the thread.
Hope that helps.

>>96024226
fippybippy

>>96025758
By the way here’s a quote from the earnings call transcript:

>D&D received the first significant update to Fifth Edition since 2014, and closed out the year strong with both the new Player’s Handbook and Dungeon Master’s guide breaking records for the best-selling D&D books ever.

So, unless they are lying to their shareholders, the decline was more likely from board game sales floundering and the fact that there was one less Magic card set released last year.

>>96024743
>Why shouldn't anyone get angry when they see corporate slop?
Because it doesn't effect me personally.

>>96025758
>Nice confirmation bias.
If you only had the self-awareness to realize how funny that is coming from you.

>ackshually it literally doesn't mean what you think it does
>ackshually every single board game is a "tabletop game"
>ackshually they don't separate D&D out from other products anywhere
oh lawdy lawd!
I love you. Completely ironically. You are a wellspring of endless mirth.

Oh another thing: Then how do you know that D&D is doing so well if you don't have any numbers?
Oh because BRAND told you?
Got it.

>>96025731
Oh no an actual analysis!
>>96025758
Ahh of course, the cocksucking faggot shows up to play sophistry and decide the definition of "tabletop game" has given the illusion of failure, no they're not firings or declining sales IT DOESN'T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT DOES NAH NAH IM NOT LISTENING fucking faggot.

>>96025805
>So, unless they are lying to their shareholders
nooooo! You think someone would do that?!
Just go into a Shareholder-Meeting and tell lies when they ask why the shares dropped by another 6% for another year?

>>96025763
Correct, I've never denied that certain artists are a negative, although I'm not entirely sure they view it that way explicitly. Many of them are guilty of it implicitly though.

My entire point has been though, one needs to actually look into something to criticize it before dismissing it outright. Consider if something like The Boondocks came out today. There would probably be people blindly calling it woke who never even watched it, simply because it was an anime-esque cartoon that featured a majority black cast.
Now you may or may not like The Boondocks specifically, and it absolutely has some things to say about politics and culture.
But it's inarguably a show with artistic merit, passion, and style.
And that's the kind of media I want to succeed regardless of whether it's left-leaning, right-leaning, or completely apolitical.

>>96025819
>>96025836
>>96025837
How do you know that D&D is doing so bad if you don't have any numbers?

Oh because it came to me in a dream?

My armchair analysis proves it?

It just feels that way to me because I want it to be true?

>>96025731
NTA but
>Did you just wake up from like a 30 year coma? Do you not know that online retailing exists?
>ackshually online retail is to blame!
yes because online retailing allows them to sell more things with less physical stores . . . but i guess you're just baiting, anyway.

>Its the most successful D&D in the history of ever yet they had to fire 1100 people
changing corporate landscape means that upper management likely believed they need fewer employees to maintain the brand. more work can be done with contracts/temporary workers. a lot of companies let people go once the 'big project' is done.

>D&D is great and its just me who isnt the core audience which is why so many veterans from WOTC were let go
(((veterans))) doesn't really mean anything. d&d design teams always change over the years. people like crawford and mearls eventually caused a stagnant design space in a paradigm that requires innovation to sell more books. this is a neutral outcome.

>They also dont need shops or Hobbystores to play D&D because of the overwhelming demand
it's more like there is demand in spite of the hobby stores all closing down. after all, what is the draw of modern hobby stores? the few in my area are focused on board games or trading cards, there aren't many that specialize in ttrpgs precisely because the rpg gamer doesn't need to use physical stores, unlike board gamers or card gamers which rely much more on physical mediums.

>>96025692
The faggots who are getting upset about D&D don't play tabletop games because they are retards who only care about culture war stupidity. OP is probably the same fag who made those dumb nogames how to fix D&D threads and the stupid D&D can't be fixed thread.

>>96025883
>How do you know that D&D is doing so bad if you don't have any numbers?
Oh I dont know at all, I just typed into google "Is Hasbro struggling"
You guys were the ones who have been saying corporate slogans the whole time, not me.
You claim that its the best selling D&D and that everything is fine yet you cant seem to back it up.

>Oh because it came to me in a dream?
No, because as a company they don't behave as they should if it was popular and if they were raking in dosh.
And they sure as fuck wouldn't need guys like you hanging from their ball-sacks, ready to scream "LEAVE CORPORATION ALONE!" if someone dares to ask uncomfortable questions.

>My armchair analysis proves it?
>It just feels that way to me because I want it to be true?
Well, you do demand me to prove a negative so I think you are sweating bullets over how popular it truly was.

>>96025886
>changing corporate landscape
Oh fuck! Now he had to actually to resort to corpospeak to defend BRAND!
Jesus.

You are getting paid for this, right? No?
You are doing this.. for free?
Completely free of charge?
Big oof.

>more work can be done with contracts/temporary workers. a lot of companies let people go once the 'big project' is done.
DAS RITE!
This is merely because they are doing so well.

>people like crawford and mearls eventually caused a stagnant design space in a paradigm that requires innovation to sell more books. this is a neutral outcome.
So its not doing well?

>it's more like there is demand in spite of the hobby stores all closing down. after all, what is the draw of modern hobby stores? the few in my area are focused on board games or trading cards, there aren't many that specialize in ttrpgs precisely because the rpg gamer doesn't need to use physical stores, unlike board gamers or card gamers which rely much more on physical mediums.
Oh okay, its because THING is more popular than EVAR that stores are closing down.
Got it!

>>96025539
I have not seen artwork of two straight people kissing in official WotC content for decades.

>>96025988
>DAS RITE!
>This is merely because they are doing so well.
lol, you really are showing your ass here as someone who know very little about how things work.

>>96024161 (OP)
Homosexual here. I hope somebody drops a nuke (or perhaps Meteor Swarm since it's D&D) on this image.

>>96024226
Fpbp. Slaughter the redditfaggot op.

>>96024161 (OP)
Tbh a morbid part of me wants to make gayville as depicted in OP part of my next setting, maybe as a place one of the gods put together to curse the beholder in the pic for the luz. It'd be one half Barbie, one half all the cringiest parts of Dragon Age: Veilguard, and everyone drinks hallucinogenic rainbows and uses glamour magic out of the wazoo to maintain their safespace.

>>96025988
>Oh fuck! Now he had to actually to resort to corpospeak to defend BRAND!
reddit-tier argumentation strategy. it's quite evident that hasbro wants to see how much they can sell for as little cost as possible. wizards of the coast is no longer the company that it was 25 years ago, or even 10 years ago, and the importance of d&d within their strategy has shifted dramatically.

>This is merely because they are doing so well.
a project can be successful and still cause lay-offs for temporary or contract workers. companies aren't your friends or your buddies who are obligated to do the right thing, they are just obligated to make money.

>Oh okay, its because THING is more popular than EVAR that stores are closing down.
wizards of the coast does not own local game stores, and their success or failure has no impact on stores shutting down. idk the margins of sales off the top of my head but there is a reason family-owned hobby stores stock as much of a selection of products as they can manage. please kys you retarded weaboo tranny.

>>96026039
>>96026095
Don't bother, you're clearly arguing with a child or someone with the mind and understanding of one.

>>96024501
Yeah but how does it affect you?

>>96024161 (OP)
>>96024241
I don't like the pastel colors.

>>96025731
Okay, so you don't understand commerce. Got it. The company is engaged in a giant conspiracy to print books that no one wants. 5e actually didn't sell any copies. Sure.

>>96026184
It's like the stupid crying about Blackrock. People itt think that people who goal in life is make as much money as possible are going out of their way to lose huge amount of money.

>>96026039
>lol, you really are showing your ass here as someone who know very little about how things work.
Das rite2!
I dont know at all how business works which means that if Demand is high less stores means everything is peachy.

>>96026095
>it's quite evident that hasbro wants to see how much they can sell for as little cost as possible. wizards of the coast is no longer the company that it was 25 years ago, or even 10 years ago, and the importance of d&d within their strategy has shifted dramatically.
And yet here you, hanging from their balls and defending them when someone dares to suggest that maybe they aint doing so well.

>a project can be successful and still cause lay-offs for temporary or contract workers. companies aren't your friends or your buddies who are obligated to do the right thing, they are just obligated to make money.
Then why are you defending them?

>wizards of the coast does not own local game stores, and their success or failure has no impact on stores shutting down.
Yes, and?

>idk the margins of sales off the top of my head but there is a reason family-owned hobby stores stock as much of a selection of products as they can manage. please kys you retarded weaboo tranny.
You sound really upset because someone is criticizing Hasbro.
Do you wish to talk about why that is?

>>96026111
You tried that cope before.

>>96026129
Yeah but how does it affect you if hes upset?
Also see >>96024743


Again, as a reminder, that all these people are upset because I asked:
>How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?

And they have been seething and coping and using all kinds of corporate buzzwords and twisting themselves into pretzels all because of that.

>>96026184
>>96026233
>Okay, so you don't understand commerce. Got it. The company is engaged in a giant conspiracy to print books that no one wants. 5e actually didn't sell any copies. Sure.
Very cool that you came up with an argument no one made and then chose to argue against it.

>t's like the stupid crying about Blackrock. People itt think that people who goal in life is make as much money as possible are going out of their way to lose huge amount of money.
See >>96025731

>>96024357
This.

>>96026269
Yes, we see that you are stupid.

>I don't get it, why is d&d doing [thing I don't like] even though it doesn't sell!
Because it does sell.
>But that can't be true, hobby stories are closing down!
That doesn't have anything to do with the popularity of d&d. WotC doesn't own hobby stores, and even in the case of gw, they can sell online with less overhead.
>But that doesn't make any sense!
Yes it does. They can either sell a $50 model and 1 of those dollars goes to keeping a physical store open, or close that store and sell the model online and keep that dollar.
>But they laid off a bunch of people!
Yeah, every fucking industry is doing this. Doing "good" is not enough, shareholders demand infinite growth. This is related to your unspecified "23% drop in sales" figure. When is that a 23% drop from? You realize that all ttrpg sales boomed like mad during COVID, and now moron CEOs and shareholders want that to be the new normal? I guarantee that even if 5.24 is a "failure" in the eyes of WotC and they are lying to their shareholders, it's launch was probably bigger than 3rd or 4th edition, and possibly both of them.
>Why are you defending them!
I'm not, I'm answering your question. The giant toy corporation is doing a thing you don't like because it makes them money. I stole my copy of the PHB to play in my friends 5e game because he wants to run 5e and I like playing games with my friend, but it's a dogshit, made by committee system, and WotC has been a corpse puppeted by a toy company for years now. Play other games.

>>96025670
Nope.

it's crazy arguments and the overpoliticization of this game that lead me to Sword World...

>>96026318
You are a nope.

>>96026184
Glad you finally get it, retard.

>>96026233
>It's like the stupid crying about Blackrock. People itt think that people who goal in life is make as much money as possible are going out of their way to lose huge amount of money.
You're retarded, they control that money already. They can easily lobby print politicians to print more, stealing from others, to enrich the value of their shares/properties/etc. Money is meaningless at this point in the game.
Let's say you have 1/3 of all the money, you control 10 trillion in assets across the US the market. You think they actually care about getting more? It's hard enough as it is to create all the Vanguard and shell interactions to try and prevent people from noticing it's all one group at the top; imagine needing to do more. But, back on topic, if you had all that money and could get more at the equivalent of a phone call then what would you go about doing?
Whatever you want, really, which means if you think it's funny to destroy companies made by nerds by making them gay; subsequently chasing some nerds away and feminizing the ones who stay then why not? You're basically as close to a living God as there can be with that amount of money; can't do everything, certainly, but can do anything within the realm of plausibility that costs - including destroying companies for funsies.

>>96026283
Kill yourself faggot:
https://ddoplayers.com/2025/02/25/wotc-and-magic-sales-dip-in-q4-and-2024-hasbro-has-hopes-for-2025/
>WOTC tabletop revenues specifically (including Dungeons & Dragons) saw a significant 22% decrease, falling to $207.0 million from $265.6 million.
Oh no, there's that drop in sales!
Also more numbers from your employer direct, for you to be a homosexual over, faggot:
https://investor.hasbro.com/static-files/6b4ecf71-a203-43eb-8245-746b40af7eff
I'm not even the anon you are talking to, I just fucking hate you faggots digging in like ticks when you're not wanted. Why the fuck would anyone defend a corporation, if it wasn't painstakingly obvious they're a rainbowfaggot clinging to their DEI shit?

>>96026283
>Because it does sell.
Because it sells they let go the people from the Division that made them the most money?
Got it.

>That doesn't have anything to do with the popularity of d&d. WotC doesn't own hobby stores, and even in the case of gw, they can sell online with less overhead.
Just like Marvel/DC doesnt own Comic-Stores, yet barely any of them being around were good indicator how bad comics are doing.

>Yes it does
Thats right, it makes sense that are less locations where you can play popular thing because thing is so popular!

>Yeah, every fucking industry is doing this. Doing "good" is not enough, shareholders demand infinite growth.
So they are doing well but actually they arent doing well.
Got it.
So well in fact they had to get rid of 1100 people.

>This is related to your unspecified "23% drop in sales" figure. When is that a 23% drop from?
I already told you where the figure is from, try to keep up.

>I'm not
Yes you are.

> I'm answering your question
No youre not.
My question was:
>How do you even want to appeal to a wider audience when you couldn't even create something to appeal to the hardcore fans of the thing you made?

>I stole my copy of the PHB to play in my friends 5e game because he wants to run 5e and I like playing games with my friend, but it's a dogshit, made by committee system, and WotC has been a corpse puppeted by a toy company for years now.
Then why are you defending them?

>>96026354
>You're retarded
Yes, you sure are faggot

>>96026319
>it's crazy arguments and the overpoliticization of this game that lead me to Sword World...
were you getting into these crazy arguments with people at your table . . . ?

>>96024743
>Why shouldn't anyone get angry when they see corporate slop?
Because you’re wasting emotional energy on validating the corporate decisions. If you don’t like corporate slop? Take inspiration from that to create you own work that has heart and soul behind it. At the very least, simply turn away from the work that offends you and seek out older works that don’t.

If you don’t like something, don’t give it power. Don’t obsess over it, don’t bemoan the fact that it panders to others instead of to you. Anger is engagement, and engagement keeps them in control. And, whatever you do, don’t attack them. Don’t let yourself be defined solely by opposition. Promote the positives of what you would like to see, rather than fixating on the negatives of what you hate seeing.

By giving into anger, rather than channeling your response into something constructive, you contribute to a broken cycle of disparagement. The only way out is up—not by dragging others down.

>>96024270
>a piece of artwork that doesn't personally appeal to them is put into a book.
It's not even in a book, it's a pride month illustration for merch, where all the profits went to the Trevor Project. It's actually insane how much these people hate gays.

>>96026366
>Then why are you defending them?
Truly the mind of a child.

>>96026363
>>96026366
Boy, if the left can't meme, this thread is really proving that the right cannot fucking read.

>>96026363
>>96026374
>faggot
If you agree gay is derogatory you'd think you wouldn't be arguing against my points. Bait or retard, has to be one of the two.

>Your preferred system thread dies under 20 post
>This shit is going over 200
I hope you get a general otherwise it's sad

>>96026421
>retarded nogames is also a newfag
It sad how often this happens.

>>96026433

>dnd is gay now

>nogames
>newfag
lmao, try harder.

>>96026450
No u and your retarded face.

>>96026456
Ha, your mom.

>>96026363
22% drop from what, anon? Over what period of time? From 2023 to 2024? None of this is an argument against what I said: The entire industry hit a crazy all time high during COVID. There was a massive bump. It has been steadily been sliding back down to "normal" since that bump. It was literally a bubble.

>AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING THEM!

Facts don't care about your feelings, sweaty. This isn't a rainbow conspiracy, it's basic ass capitalism.

>>96026415
Who the fuck is right, retard? You're a pedophile, how about that? Exactly the same shit, dumb fuck.
>>96026421
Faggot is a label for insufferable gays, like you, being shoehorned into "priority groups" and affirmative action positions. I'm glad you acknowledge that you are a retard, well done faggot.

>>96026474
>let me define faggot for you
I didn't know you were Indian.
I do love turning this place into /pol/ though, thanks for the help, anon.

>>96026461
Yes, your mom is fat.

>>96026462
>uh uhhh uhhh where is your number coming from? Source?
>OH uhhh uhmmmm uhh those numbers don't mean what you think they mean
>Uhhhh fuck, uhhhm uhhhh those numbers are because COVID, yeah

Just fucking kill yourself you disingenuous faggot. There's no proof or mathematics you'd accept, you're a little woke faggot squatting on a shitpile of PRODUCT a shitty corporation made to appeal to you dumb fucks with rainbows and soft pussy shit. You don't want to believe that the sales are failing, you'll gaslight and deny it until you can't, and then you'll pretend you never cared. Boo hoo, you colonized a hobby and now its falling apart because your fudgepacking friends are not a viable market on their own. Thanks for playing lil buddy.

>>96026511
>Does not understand how statistics work
>Has a melty

So, we'll basic fuckin' math to the list of things you're unable to comprehend?

>>96026474
>Why do you think I'm "right" dickhead?
>Proceeds to parrot a bunch of rightoid NPC talking points

Like pottery.

>>96026511
lmfao, trvke, they're like locust, really. Honestly, it would make a good campaign to have a disingenuous smiley, happy, gay faction; like that cult in the beginning of Mob Psycho slowly taking over other factions and groups - think warrior guild, mages guild, thieves guild, maybe different paladin orders, whatever is in the city. They infiltrate the different guilds by pretending to have interest. Eventually obtaining power the group slowly replaces the symbols of the different guilds with the smiley dick sucking flag. Most people in the town don't like them that much but they're ultimately indifferent. It's up to the party to either join the fudge packing cult or track down the head of the nefarious group who is, for some reason, seeking to dismantle and replace all of the symbols of the past.

>>96026554
>>96026564
Nah fuck you faggot. The Q4 is posted, it's right there. You deflect and avoid the fact that sales are down. Nothing will change that, faggot.

The modern audience is an illusion, used to sell prog bullshit to CEO retards.
Simple.

>>96026572
And now we're in the late stages of the rainbow flag cult; USAID is dead, and no more tax money is keeping these faggots afloat. ESG money is gone, and now it's gaslighting about "No no no the sales are not down your eyes are LYING" just like they do every time a woke-captured IP starts declining.

>>96026580
Sales are down compared to what!? How are you this fucking stupid!?
Listen, if you sell a single orange in March, then sell a hundred oranges in April, and then sell 95 oranges in May, the sales are down from April to May, right? Does that mean your hypothetical orange company is failing? Does it mean that you aren't selling oranges? You're looking at a single earnings report for a single year, which is next to fucking meaningless in the greater context of gaming as a whole. Jesus fucking Christ, how are you this dense?

God, I miss the ip counter. The n we could see it's always the same faggot bumping this thread.

>>96026623
Why do you think they got rid of it?

Insane amount of reddit spacing going on itt

>>96025539
The other anon said decades, I haven't seen people kissing in official dnd artwork in my life

>>96025529
now you are being obtuse

>>96026631
and is always a bunch of posts that somehow agree with each other one after the other, very disingenuous. I wonder if he thinks he "wins" if he agrees with himself over and over again.
Sage goes in all field.

>>96026617
You may not know this seeing how you are a retarded nogame but the Diaper Master being in the White House is not change the fact people you don't like who been in the hobby from pretty much the start are not going away. And this is ignoring the fact right wingers are not going to let their boogeyman go away as that lets them justify the pulling the US down the crapper.

>>96026683
>you don't like who been in the hobby
Nah, you and your BPD cunt friends were and have never been part of the hobby.
Fuck off with your rewriting history post Big Bang theory bullshit.

Get ye gone from geekdom, you never belonged here

>>96026681
I don't see how it's being obtuse at all, bud. It's in supplement material that you don't have to interact with at all, that isn't in any of the game books. This isnt just "you can ignore it," it's literally "you had to seek it out, so you could save it and post it over and over again as some kind of gotcha."

>>96026683
Did you reply to the wrong person? What does any of this drivel have to do with the fact that these fuckers can't do math?

Traditional games?

>>96026617
>Sales are down compared to what!? How are you this fucking stupid!?
It's posted right there you stupid fucking retard. Why did your faggot daddy cum inside such a stupid fucking cunt like your mother? Why the fuck weren't you aborted you DUMB fucking faggot? Why are you THIS fucking S T U P I D you ugly little cocksucker? WHY ARE YOU SO FUCKING STUPID YOU DUMB FAGGOT?
>>96026363
Oh no! Real numbers! Including why the sales are DOWN you STUPID FUCKING RETARD! WHY ARE YOU SUCH AN UNINTELLIGENT FUCKING MORON? See, your "playing dumb" isn't working, faggot. Read the numbers off Hasbro's own Q4 report, I provided it for a helpless little fudgepacker like you.

>>96026713
More likely scenario is he got it from an outrage account on twitter or youtube.

>>96024161 (OP)
The downfall of D&D is that its lead development changed from being done by midwestern wargamers to being done by west coast art students.