[P] I've been trying to pin down why I dislike the D&D 5.5E artstyle so much. I'm an amateur artist with a wife who's so talented, so I do pick up things. In my twilight though I'm not always sure I have the vocabulary for it. But thwn I saw someone use a descriptor that hit me like a tonne of bricks. "Focus-tested." I mean, yes, it's soulless and so homogeneous, but it's so much worse than that. It's corporate-by-design.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-1
[P] I mean, older editions were guulty of this too, but never to this extent. This is like those shallow '80s toy cartoobs that existed solely for selling children plastic rubbish. I keep expecting a paladin to hold up a Cica-Cola, declaring it to be "The elixir of a new generation!" It doesn't have any idenrity beyond being cirporate. I mean, going all-digital as they are I can even see product placement becoming a thing.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-2
[P] What an awful dystopia we live in. The reason why the 3.5E era is looked upon fondly is because it was artist-driven. They needed someone to drag them out of the testosterone-pumped, sexist, Conan shit of 2E. It was a shift that actually began in late 2E, funnily enough, but it peaked around 3.5E. 3.5E had this cohesive dungeonpunk aesthetic because it was artist driven. 5.5E has me expecting in-Universe ad billboards.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-3
@wearywulf I would love to play D&D 3.5 with some people tbh. But nobody wants to play it with me.
Although I bought the core books for D&D 3.0 instead
I haven't gamed in almost a year, sorry. Too busy.
I hadn't thought of how differences in art style might represent corporate focus vs artistic freedom.
[P] It looks like advertising! It has the aesthetic of advertising. It's hard to articulate to anyone who hadn't had the unfortunate experience of the '80s. I was so glad when we were done with that. It's why I use really shallow toy cartoons as a touchstine. You know the sort, not few good ones like BraveStarr, Ulysses 31, or Willy Fog. No. I mean like Mask, Visionaries, and their ilk. Literal 20 minute ads for kids.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-4
[P] It feels like D&D is weaponising that shallow advert-aesthetic. It's focus-tested. It's designed to get dopamine pumping, to have the lab rats feel rewarded just by looking at it. It isn't taking risks! It has no identity, because if one had an identity, one might not cast the widest net. This is what those '80s cartoons did. Some compare it with Marvel's "capeshit," but it's so much more shallow than even that.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-5
[P] And seeing that they're going digital with a subscription model? It clicked. The closest modern experience to those '80s cartoons is a certain era of mobile games. For the younger out there, reading this, it might help to say D&D by way of Candg Crush. It isn't even inckusive, either. So much of Gygax's detestabke sexism is still baked into this digital subscription live service product. I don't like what that suggests.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-6
[P] And yes, there's heaps of sexism still baked into D&D.
The two opposing dragon gods, for example:
Tiamat — Female: Evil; Vindictive; Spiteful; Manipulative; Scheming; Demonic.
Bahamut — Male: Good; Noble; Protective; Kind; Charming; Saintly.
So any inclusiveness D&D has is surface level and shallow. Gygax was a racist, sexist, biological determinist arsehole and so much of his poison haunts D&D. They've barely fixed that.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-7
@wearywulf I played D&D a bunch in high school and a bit in college, but as I stated to realize more and more how much racism & sexism is baked in, it lost its appeal. If I ever go back to regular TTRPG play it will probably have to be an entirely different (likely non-fantasy) system.
The concept of a "racial alignment" is (ironically enough) inherently evil.
Yeah, I immediately did away with that idea when I played in high school.
[P] A main 5.5E goal SHOULD have been to clean out Gygax's vileness. Even for his time he was a gross dickhead. But no. WotC's goal? "Let's make D&D more corporate, let's maks it a focus-tested live service product!" And I'm NOT here for it. They could fix D&D's actual problems with bigotry to make it truly inclusive, but instead it really does feel like they're gearing up for billboards and paladins drinking coke. Dystopic.
#psychology #actuallyautistic #dungeonsanddragons #dnd #dnd55e
-8
Weary Wulf
Jacqueline
firebreathingduck
Tiota Sram
TeflonTrout 
he/him