As I posted in the other thread, I think this is a remarkably pithy point: "...it is difficult to develop a proper aesthetic account of D&D. It is less like reviewing a book and more like reviewing a book club."
Thoughts?
A book club where the members have branched off into different factions.
Some of the discussions are typical and expected. Some people only want to read paper books, others only ever read on Kindle (most members don't seem to care that much either way and just go with what is convenient).
But some discussions are much more emotional. One discussion section will only talk about the original novel, another section has only read the sequel. There are many discussions about which is better. Some people only care about the plot, others only want to discuss world building, and some talk about nothing but characters. There is little consensus about what the book is actually about.
And then there's a section of the book club that claims to be translating the book into Esperanto, but if you ever talk to them it seems like they're more invested in designing a new version of Esperanto than actually translating. It's unclear if any of them have read the book.
So, yeah. When I was younger I used to think that it was silly when traditional media like magazines, or TV news, or movies had a hard time talking about D&D. Like, it's just this game, right? Why is that so hard? My years on ENWorld have changed my mind. If we, as a dedicated fan base, can't agree on what D&D is actually about how do we expect it to look from an outside view?
