TheSword
Legend
My comment about elitism was your assumption that people aren’t capable of making a rational buying decision and that only you see through the fog to the true path. I fully admit to liking MacDonalds and Coca Cola even though they are bad for me. But I’m not being tricked, I’m choosing to focus on one thing over another because at that point it’s what I care about. This is particularly the case with TTRP gamers, who are generally literate and imaginative.Whenever someone criticises the idea that popular = good, accusations of elitism follow. I don't buy it. Firstly, because marketing works. No-one wants to admit that they can be manipulated, everyone imagines themselves a cool cynic, but the reality is that we are all deeply fallible, and truly enormous sums of money are spent every year to exploit that.
Secondly, because 'lowest common denominator' isn't a criticism of the people being denominated. If person A likes spicy food, and person B does not, the dish I make to please them both will have a slight enough dusting of spice that both with find it tolerable. I end up cooking a mediocre dish in order to pander to the greatest number of people.
Marketing does work of course. But you seem to be under the illusion that it convinces people to do something they don’t want to do. Rather than putting the products that people want in front of them. Most marketing is about understanding what your potential customer wants and making sure you provide it.
While marketing can distract from downsides - MacDonalds and Coca-cola being good examples - are you honestly saying that WotC marketing is doing this? What downsides does the marketing itself cover up? The only things that matter are that D&D feels overall like D&D, is a fun communal game to play and that people will want to keep playing it. I’m really struggling what downside exists that is being obfuscated by marketing? Obviously folks can always be lied to and tricked into believing things that aren’t true by people they trust but that isn’t marketing and I don’t think that is what’s happening here.
Your spice argument doesn’t hold up because you are assuming there are distinct camps of gamers and that folks who have issues with 5e are doing so on big macro terms like the spice level. When in fact disagreements about 5e are usually about extremely narrow (and in the grand scheme trivial) things like whether Rangers have spells and the uniqueness of the sorcerer. These are topics that the vast vast majority of diners just don’t care about. Your gaming arguments equate to being that WotC used Bolivian chillies not Argentinian chillies and therefore the dish is mediocre. I say mmm, the spice level here is nice and crack on.
All this ignores the fact that when it comes down to hobbies and in particular relatively cheap and accessible ones like D&D. Popularity is an extremely important measure, because it means the system gets support and development over a sustained period of time, which to be honest is all I want. The reality is that WotC is changing its spice balance in a series of small changes to try and get the balance even better. They’re just not using the spice you like.
In truth popular just means liked and accessible by more people. I don’t know why folks are so against us saying it’s amazing and brilliant that D&D is liked and accessible to so many more people. Conversely what are you expecting us to care about that is more important than that?
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