D&D 5E Long time players and 5e’s success

[wicked cool]

I’m in the 40-50 age group and we are totally being catered 2 by multiple companies especially with this economy. Wizkids has included miniatures in the set that most people under 40 have never seen . Under 40 and played basic d&d. Vecna most likely introduced to 3/4 of players under 40 through critical role or never heard of him. Until 2 years ago I believe most Dragonlance books were out of print so if you were under 30 you probably think a verminard is dead disease

 

[Reynard]

I'm a younger millennial, I'll be turning 32 this year.

I went to a high school where I was friends with some of the more popular kids in school because they were in the marching band with me.

::convulses in genX::

 

[Warpiglet-7]

"I don't actually have data supporting my assertion, but if I had it, some of you would be uncomfortable..."

But 1) you don't have it, and 2) being uncomfortable with hypothetical data is no more biased than building an argument on that hypothetical data.

It’s ok.

I was clear about not having the goods. Data could change my mind. Until then I can have a testable modifiable belief subject to change.

Some folks who post like to say you don’t matter because there are not many people like you. I feel ok saying that the company does not ignore us because we kick in more revenue per person and on that metric the company does value what we think.

the data I have is anecdotal. All the long time players I know buy lots more stuff vis a vis more recent players.

I did not do probability sampling. I don’t know it and was clear about it.

I am aware of my assumptions and they may be wrong.

 

[Umbran]

I am aware of my assumptions and they may be wrong.

But accusing others of having a negative reaction to those numbers you don't have isn't cool. That's proactive dismissal based on your presumptions, rather than their actual actions. I amended my post above to make that more clear.

 

[Meech17]

::convulses in genX::

Right? A lot of 'jocky' kids were in college prep and honors classes.

Many of the drama kids were very popular.

I regularly sat at different lunch tables with different groups of people.

The popular high-school set movies and dramas of the 80's and 90's did not resonate with my experience lmao

 

[Reynard]

Right? A lot of 'jocky' kids were in college prep and honors classes.

Many of the drama kids were very popular.

I regularly sat at different lunch tables with different groups of people.

The popular high-school set movies and dramas of the 80's and 90's did not resonate with my experience lmao

That has actually always been true. It is just that the pop culture of the period suggested the whole world was divided into Breakfast Club niches.

 

[AstroCat]

I'm a younger millennial, I'll be turning 32 this year.

I feel for you older players who feel disenfranchised. Like @Belen who had to struggle in an era where where you'd get bullied for liking D&D. I never experienced that. I went to a high school where I was friends with some of the more popular kids in school because they were in the marching band with me. In the late 2000's to early 2010's being nerdy was cool. I constantly had a rotating cast of kids coming to my house to play D&D. We used to play in the lunch room at school.

I feel for the gamers like @AstroCat who feel as though they are actively being pushed out of the game by the company who makes it. It does often feel like art direction and design choices are made with my generation in mind.

On the flip side however, the "Old Guard" hasn't always been the most welcoming bunch. There's been a lot of gatekeeping.

Thankfully there are plenty of gamers out there like @bloodtide who while apprehensive at first was willing to look past their biases and take on a gaggle of teen girls, and ended up having a good time and cultivating a new crop of life long gamers. I've had so many female friends and acquaintances have horror stories about trying to play D&D and being subjected to the grossest stuff.

Or @Warpiglet-7 who didn't turn their nose up at their kids for wanting to play a goblin, or a... fruit thing.. This has been such a contentious point between generations. To some people it's still controversial that Tieflings became a player race. I've been at tables where someone wanted to play something that's really not even than weird.. Like a goblin or a kobold, and they were met with an attitude akin to: "No. You'll play a human, a dwarf, or an elf, and you'll like it.. And you should consider yourself lucky you get that many options. Back in my day you'd get penalized with a level cap for wanting to be something weird."

What it comes down to is that I think younger gamers and older gamers are two pillars of this hobby, and both are required. One may not feel like it needs the other, but ultimately they both hold the weight. I'm glad that WOTC seems to be trying to cast a wide net with this revision, and hopefully it can facilitate more bridging of generational gaps.

When we run the "kids" games, or when they run their own we do not apply our "rules" to them. The kids can play pretty much whatever races/classes they want, or we pick settings that fits better. Like we did an old school Spelljammer full on campaign so the kids could pick more funky races. We had a bugbear and a tabaxi, a construct and others, no problem, it was a super fun campaign.

But when we play without the kids, we set up the "worlds" with a lot more care to setting appropriate races/classes because we find that super fun and interesting.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Well sure, but that only works the way you say if you stop caring. I never stopped caring about the stuff in D&D to which I am now told I am irrelevant.

You may feel free to join the club, though I'm afraid we've got rather an overabundance of shirts for the edition that must not be named at present. I'm sure the new edition-agnostic ones will arrive soon.

 

[Belen]

That has actually always been true. It is just that the pop culture of the period suggested the whole world was divided into Breakfast Club niches.

Agreed. You had diversity in friends. Cliques in HS for me tended to be around band (shared experience), classes, or work. Then again, it was coastal, rural, military area so the makeup was far different than the California suburbs or cities depicted in movies.

 

[Cadence]

The Dancey interview about the OGL in the new "Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons" (MIT Press) makes the point that he believed the biggest competitor they had (when planning 3rd edition) was previous editions of D&D. And that second edition struggled in part because it didn't get as many 1e players as they wanted. Part of the goal of the OGL was to let non-WotC companies make the 3e things that would be needed to make the 1e and 2e players feel at home. The GSL obviously didn't do that heavy lifting to port over 3e players (who then had Pathfinder to go to). He writes "I believe that the success of Pathfinder and the failure of fourth edition both informa a lot of the decisions they made for fifth edition."

This interview was in 2021. I wonder how much of this sentiment was made known to those who tried to yank the OGL in 2023. It feels like now, anyway, they are still trying to at least hand-wave at the players of past editions -- so maybe they feel we're at least a bit important.