Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
Who the F*CK is Dungeons & Dragons Even FOR Now?
The new One DnD Player’s Handbook is coming out, and it seems like WotC doesn’t know who Dungeons & Dragons is for anymore. They’ve alienated the oldheads, while also angering the "diverse new audience" with the OGL and AI debacles. Ideally, they just want gay hipster baristas from Portland. Or something. ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 The new version of Dungeons and Dragons is alienating its core tabletop audience by trying to appeal to a different demographic and potentially turning into a mobile app with a subscription model. 00:00 The new version of Dungeons & Dragons is trying to appeal to a different demographic, moving away from its historical roots as a war game, with a trend towards infantilization and a departure from the traditional style. 03:25 The speaker questions who new Dungeons & Dragons content is for, criticizing changes for diversity and inclusivity, with characters like Sherlock Holmes, a battle wheelchair, and pirates. 05:20 Dungeons & Dragons is now for a more inclusive audience, but there is criticism about the game trying too hard to be diverse and inclusive. 08:33 Dungeons & Dragons is changing to target a different audience, with the removal of racist elements and plans for a mobile app and AI dungeon Masters, causing concern for the game’s original purpose. 11:05 Dungeons & Dragons has shifted to focus on character backstories, losing diversity and gamification in favor of fanfiction generation. 13:03 Dungeons & Dragons lacks diversity and alienates older players, causing frustration and nostalgia for the second edition. 14:35 Dungeons & Dragons has become too complex and commercial, leading serious gamers to abandon it for other RPG systems, but the speaker laments the loss of the original era and the corporate takeover of the game. 17:20 It’s time to make new Dungeons & Dragons content and leave the old stuff behind. About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #Games #WizardsoftheCoast #DnD #CriticalRole #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
Hey guys, this is the audio edition of clownfish TV. If you guys are unfamiliar with clownfish TV, please check out the video versions of these episodes on the clownfish TV YouTube channel and also on the clownfish gaming YouTube channel. Please subscribe for more podcast. Check out D-Res, that's our other podcast. The episode will begin in a couple of seconds. Thanks for listening. (upbeat music) Hey guys, welcome back to clownfish TV. This is neon. I'm not here with geeky sparkles. I'm gonna talk about Dungeons and Dragons. I'm gonna talk about, was it one D&D? Is that what they're calling the new version of D&D? The new player's handbook and more artwork being leaked from it? And I don't know who Dungeons and Dragons is for. At this point, I have no idea. I think they're trying really hard to appeal to gay baristas in Portland or something. Like it's very obvious that Wizards of the Coast is trying to appeal to a certain demographic, right? And they've been trying more and more to appeal to that demographic going all in on the Tumblr crowd. The Portland crowd, no offense to anyone in Portland, by the way, I love you all. I do, I know we have people that list us from Portland, but I'm just saying, theater kids. Not your typical role-playing gamer, historically. And I blame critical role, I do. I don't blame Matt Mercer himself, but I think the culture around it that grew up or learned to play D&D as theater. And that's not really what it was. It started out as a war game. And I know that's problematic. It was started as a war game by a bunch of middle-aged white men from the Midwest. And I know that Watsy wishes that we're not the case. But we're gonna talk about this new version of D&D. And I don't even know. I don't even know what I'm looking at, guys. You know, I've given up. I got broken. I was broken about two years ago, I think, with, was it the Strixhaven campaign setting where you basically do D&D prom? But now the whole thing is that, like the whole game is that. That's what this is. And this new player's handbook, just, God, it's insane. We're gonna look at some of the art from this. And look, if this is your thing, you wanna play this game, that's fine. But this is not Dungeons & Dragons anymore. I don't know what the hell this is. You know, I don't know what this is. I know that we have had this trend toward what we call infantilization. I think Grums was actually talking about because he worked on World of Warcraft. And he said that the Orcs were always cartoonish, but they weren't Disney. And now everything has kind of got that infantil vibe to it. The LOL, so random humor that we're seeing in comics and everything post-Joss Whedon, right? So let's talk about this. Before we get into it any further, please subscribe for more pop culture, news, views, and rants, guys. Yeah, we're working on our own. Game Engine, Adventure Engine, a lot of people have been asking us about this. We have a lot of people signed up for notifications too, which is so weird. We're testing. We're testing. We're not gonna release it until we know we've got something that's gonna work. That being said, I can guarantee you that this is gonna be a very middle-of-the-road game engine if you wanna add gay baker baristas to your campaign setting. You're more than welcome to. We're not gonna tell you you can't, but it's not gonna be explicitly stated in the handbook either. So this brings me to this. More artwork has been leaked. These are apparently two gay dwarves. Are we allowed to call them dwarves now? Because I don't think we have, do we have races anymore? 'Cause now they're doing this whole lineage thing. But they look like two baker dwarves with each other's beards tattooed on their arms. Yeah. (laughing) I got nothing. So this came from Drunken Armadillo Press. So I gotta get a hat tip. This is indicative of the art that we're seeing in the new player's handbook. And we're gonna talk about this 'cause I don't know who D&D is actually for because the audience that normally would eat this up and we had a lot of people jump into the comments on my thread on Twitter that were like, you know, trying to be more diverse and inclusive and get rid of all the racism from D&D. And I'm like, yeah, by turning the orcs into Mexican tropes. Yeah, that's totally diverse and inclusive. But yeah, so we've got the kinder, gentler, more diverse and inclusive orc familia here. We've got side shave, lesbian aunt orc and gender fluid, purple haired child orc. And librarian orc with a hawk and plus-sized orc. And yeah, and then we've got Juan Valdez over here. But then there's more, just wait, there's more. We've got these are the characters. We've got Sherlock Holmes. Of course we've got the battle wheelchair, which in some cases I think could be pretty cool. I'm gonna be honest, I think in some cases it could be cool. We've got a pirate, a couple of pirates. Is that what we're doing here? Why is this guy dressed like Sherlock Holmes? Why is he Sherlock Holmes? I got nothing. Somebody said that these paintings actually remind them of like Jehovah's Witness propaganda where you've got these diverse people sitting down eating together at the table and all the tracks, you know? But this is not what I think of. I think of D&D. But then I'm sure that they've got like every potential kind of person, you know, white people, black people, Asian people and purple people. You know, I don't think they have a purple people eaters in D&D now. Then of course we've got the bakers. Hey, good looking, what's cooking? Yeah, Brian Urso says, "Where is Larry Elmore and Clyde Caldwell?" I don't think they can afford them. But let's go out to this because again, I don't know who this is for because this audience, right? Wizards of the Coast has pissed them off. They pissed them off with AI. They pissed them off with the OGL, which I'll totally give you that one. That was bullshit. They pissed them off with the Pinkertons. And they're trying so hard to be diverse and inclusive that it's basically a parody of D&D. Like if 10 years ago, if you told me, "Hey, make a D&D type campaign setting to appeal to Tumblr as a joke." This is what I would have done. And God. Yeah, so I was talking to grums here a little bit. Yeah, they're gay baker baristas with each other's beards tattooed on their arms, I guess. 'Cause that's something that people do in real life. Talking about talking to Black's HD about how they've tried very, very hard to push Gary Gygax and company TSR out of Wizards of the Coast. And they actually threw shade. It was so disgusting. They had an interview with the people that are behind D&D at this point. And they were actually throwing shade at the guys who came up with the game. They said, "Yeah, it was a bunch of white dudes from the Midwest." And they basically weren't as socially aware as we are here at Wizards of the Coast current year. And just remember, you didn't make this game. Watson, Hasbro, you didn't make this game, you acquired it. TSR made this game. Yeah, it was enjoyed for quite some time before you acquired it. And some people believe that once you acquired it, you kind of ran it into the ground. But yeah, I can't wait for the new Portlandia campaign setting. Who has a tattoo of their own beard? I don't know. They're married. I'm not making a joke. Okay, well, maybe they are. Maybe they are married in Portlandia. I don't know. I don't know where they live, but I don't want to adventure there. Those are dwarves. What the F, what the F, modern D&D sucks so much. Gay hipster barista dwarves to be precise. Yeah, there you go. So this person here, I thought this was kind of funny. They're trying to show a more inclusive look. You can still play hard if you want. No reason to be mad. I'm not mad. I'm just telling you, this game is not for me. I'm not mad. They just want to make sure people know the racist parts are gone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the racist parts are totally gone, including the Mexican orcs. Oh my God, this person hears this by slapping some bararas and ponchos on the orcs. After all the manufactured discourse about how it's wrong to use orcs as a stand-in for real life ethnic groups. Not at my table, they're not. They're pandering to specific crowds as John Adams, which is what being inclusive always turns into. This isn't for a general audience. No, that's what I'm saying. Wizards should just come out and say that normal people aren't wanted anymore. I've pandered to a different specific crowd before, no it didn't. Also, we haven't seen the whole thing. There'd be plenty of art you like and just didn't see yet. It'll be okay. Again, who is this for? Because a lot of hardcore gamers, they left D&D years ago. They went to Pathfinder, they went to other systems, maybe you'll go to adventure engine, but I'm just saying, yeah, that'd be nice. But yeah, so they already left and even critical role left after the OGL debacle in the pinker tents and the AIR. And it wasn't even the AIR so much as it was that they got caught lying about it multiple times. They laid a bunch of people off. I mean, who is D&D for? The people that you're pandering to at this point, they don't want your shit anymore, wizards. But I feel like D&D as a tabletop game is on life support until they figure out what they're gonna do to turn it into a shitty mobile app. And I've been saying for the last couple of years and people thought it was crazy. But I've been saying for the past couple of years, that is the end game. That is the goal, that is what they want. They wanna turn D&D, the D&D brand, into a shitty mobile app. And they wanna upcharge everybody. And if you play D&D, you're gonna have to get your monthly D&D subscription and bust out your D&D app. And apparently now they're even testing AI dungeon masters. They want everybody to play through the virtual tabletop, which kind of defeats the whole purpose. But they keep saying, like Chris Cox keeps saying, they made a bunch of money off of Monopoly Go. So they're gonna keep milking it. They're gonna milk them damn dwarfs. Milk 'em hard. So, again, just a reminder, players' handbook now focuses on your backstory, your tragic backstory, which never really mattered that much in D&D, at least when I played. Now, I played a long time ago. I started a long time ago. In fact, I started so long ago that this was my first introduction to D&D. The beloved red box, which I still to this day look at is kind of the gold standard for a basic set for somebody getting into role-playing games. It was fantastic. It was so good. Now, maybe I'm looking at through rose-tenant glasses, but it got me into eventually advanced Dungeons & Dragons, which had much better art on the cover, not necessarily in the book. I was looking through the book and I was kind of like, yeah, the art wasn't as good. Wasn't as good as I remember it being. Some of the stuff's just kind of like, yeah, actually it wasn't a whole lot of art in the advance. That's how you knew it was advanced. There wasn't a whole, there we go. We got some spot illustrations here and there. But yeah, but anyway, yeah, this was like, yeah, it was like you're an adventurer. And they had some diversity in there, but it was up to you. How you played the game was up to you. And they always let you know that you were more than welcome to create your own rules if it didn't suit your table. And they never had to explicitly state like, oh, well, if you wanna play with gay characters, you have to, we have to have a rule for that. We have to make sure that, you know, the orcs aren't problematic, but it was a game. It doesn't feel like a game now. It just feels like, you know, let's pretend, like a fanfic generator, you know, and I miss the gamification. I miss the stakes, I miss, you know, perma death. If you screwed up, you could die permanently. Actually, some of the art and the basics, that was actually very, very good, I thought, but it still holds up to this day. My main advanced entrance dragons, players handbook, that was actually second edition, because that's, I was coming into my teens when the second edition came out. Well, no, I guess it came out few years before that. But yeah, by the time I was ready for advanced entrance dragons, like the first edition stuff had been gone for a couple of years. So I had, by like everything, I had like everything for second edition. I had players handbook and DMs guys, DMs. So I was always a DM. I was always a guy that got stuck by and everything, but all of the monsters, man, even for worlds that we didn't play in. Campaigns saying is we never played in like Spelljammer and stuff like that. I'd go buy the compendiums just 'cause I thought it was cool to have this big ass binder with a bunch of monsters. And I am pretty sure I had every monsters compendium set. God, I missed that, I missed that. But yeah, we can't even leave that alone, right? We can't even have that perfect memory because to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast thought would be a good idea too, show you the face of the Warrior from the Red Box set. I don't know about you, I don't know about you, but I don't think it was a thick black woman that was on the cover of the Red Box set, but we have to retcon it because there's just too many white folks in this. But yeah, I don't, I'm not, are you getting that vibe from this character? I'm not getting that vibe. So yeah, they've chased off the old heads like myself. They've chased off, I think, casuals because it's gotten ridiculously complex. You used to just be able to buy a box set or, you know, a couple of books and now there's so much shit you have to buy. And they've chased off the Tumblr crowd, right? 'Cause they're gonna go where Critical Role goes. And Critical Role has also abandoned D&D. So what you got, you know, what you got left? Oh yeah, there's dance fighting now, apparently. There's dance fighting. But it's interesting, 'cause I remember this article coming out and people said this was hyperbole. This is from War Gamer where a D&D historian said that the RPG Golden Age is dead, that people aren't going to all be playing Dungeons and Dragons as the default. It used to be D&D was the game and then you would branch out into other games like Gerbs or Star Wars. That was big. War Hammer was just kind of coming into its own when I was playing Heavy and, you know, we had Vampire Masquerade, which I played. I thought that was pretty good, but it was never D&D, and now I think it's like D&D is just the very commercial corporate RPG system, but the people that are really into gaming, they're really serious about gaming, aren't gonna be playing D&D. And that's all across the board. So you got rid of people, the old heads, and you got rid of Tumblr, all in one fell swoop. So good luck with that. I don't know how this is gonna go for them. I really don't, but I'm not interested. I haven't been interested. I bought some 5e stuff to try to get my kids into 5e. They weren't interested. I went back and bought actually basic fantasy, and then they were interested. Then they were interested in gaming. They did not like the 5e set. I'm not even kidding. But there we go. I'm gonna wrap this up. I went longer and I thought it was gonna go. I just like, I don't even, I don't even know what to think. I don't even know what to say anymore. It's just like, it's just like, I feel the same way about Star Wars and Marvel comics and all this stuff I loved as a kid growing up. Like, it's all gone. That era that I grew up in, it's gone. And it's never gonna come back. And now we just have these corporate brands parading around in the skin suit that has the name of the stuff we loved as kids. But definitely not the heart and soul of the stuff we loved as kids. The era's gone, the Dungeons and Dragons I played, came from TSR. TSR is gone. It got absorbed into Wizards of the Coast. The people associated with it, for the most part, had been pushed out of Wizards of the Coast. So the game I love, the game I played, it doesn't exist anymore. You know, it really doesn't, it's a shame. But, you know, we can always go back. We can always buy the old stuff, play the old stuff. We can always do homebrew. We can always look for alternatives. And there are a lot of alternatives out there. I don't have any illusions about that. But yeah, I think it's time to make new stuff. It really is. And just leave these legacy brands in the rear view mirror. Let Darwinism do its thing. I'm gonna wrap it up. Please subscribe. We'll talk later. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, clownfishtv. You can buy official merchandise, clownfish, comic books and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us a positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. If you'd like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webreath.io. This podcast is a production of clownfish studios, LLC and web reef media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)