Remember when the president of McDonalds ate a burger from McDonalds but looked so unnatural doing so everyone started joking about it? Well it's WOTC's turn now. Here's a social media post where the president of D&D eats a D20 "flavored" burger to get in on the joke...
Why is there surprise at this? Surely Enworlders have the depth of experience and/or the fore sight granting wisdom to understand that TTRPGs can explore myarid experiences; including those Pumpkin Spuce seeks to give. It almost gives the impression that Enworld is a small isolated backwater...
The question we need to be asking is why arn't these Pumpkin Spicers playing D&D instead???
Any DM worth their salt should be able to run a campaign that appeals to Pumpkin Spicers!!
Allow me to refine my previous statement to "D&D might as well not have an intended playstyle because everyone just rules zeros any intention away to play the way they want".
People use D&D to make horror!
https://hitpointpress.com/collections/heckna/products/heckna-campaign-book-1...
D&D has no intended playstyle and everyone plays it! It can do Doctor Who, Critical Role, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Lord of the Rings, Studio Ghibli, and more!!! Why design your own game when D&D can already do everything???
This is both really hard to talk about and really important when it comes to TTRPGs.
This must be why Powered by the Apocalypse generates such heated arguments. There's barely any mechanics but tons of procedure :P
If you strongly discourage combat via high lethality and low rewards, players will stick to the much more intresting exploration and role-playing D&D was meant for!