D&D Survey

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TristramEvans said:
Personally, they're my favourite. I'd rather the other pieces pushed further towards the style of the halflings.

Of the pieces I love this one best:

View attachment 13489

I just really like it when RPG art focuses on "real life" situations, as a break from action set pieces.
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I don't mind having homey scenes. But the issue is two fold.

First: Let's pick on Halflings. Those proportions are cartoony, too much so compared to the rest of the art. It's jarring, it takes me out of the picture.

The second issue, is actually less Halfling more everything else. I too would like to see more 'homey' scenes for the other races, like Humans.
 
Chris Brady said:
First: Let's pick on Halflings. Those proportions are cartoony, too much so compared to the rest of the art. It's jarring, it takes me out of the picture.
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Well yeah, that's exactly what I stated to begin with - it's a cartoony, pixar-ish style that wasn't recieved well on a lot of forums.

But I'm not sure that the Halflings are more exaggerated, so much as they already have exaggerated features. They look a piece with most of the designs to me. I'd say the Elf stands out more to me as not quite belonging.
 
TristramEvans said:
Well yeah, that's exactly what I stated to begin with - it's a cartoony, pixar-ish style that wasn't recieved well on a lot of forums.

But I'm not sure that the Halflings are more exaggerated, so much as they already have exaggerated features. They look a piece with most of the designs to me. I'd say the Elf stands out more to me as not quite belonging.
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I'm sorry, it's obvious I wasn't clear. Let me clarify, the Halflings are the ONLY ones that look like you claim the Pixar models. The rest of art looks pretty bog standard, from monster to humanoid. No one else have freakishly flat feet, oversized bobble heads and round bodies. It's inconsistent to the rest of the art.

If the rest of the monsters and people looked as creepily odd, it would be consistent.
 
Chris Brady said:
I'm sorry, it's obvious I wasn't clear. Let me clarify, the Halflings are the ONLY ones that look like you claim the Pixar models. The rest of art looks pretty bog standard, from monster to humanoid. No one else have freakishly flat feet, oversized bobble heads and round bodies. It's inconsistent to the rest of the art.

If the rest of the monsters and people looked as creepily odd, it would be consistent.
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Hmm, well, I don't find them "freakish" or "creepily odd", but I'm not sure what to say. I can clearly see the xaggerated proportions on pretty much everything - The Giants, the Mer-creature, etc. But then I also don't find the Halfling bodies particularly round, or their feet "freakishly flat". Their heads are large in proportion to their frames, but that reads to me as echoing the same as is with "Little People" (I think that's the preferred term) IRL, like say, Tyrion Lannister.

I mean I look at this:

d5rsahk-3ee133a2-213c-4bba-9d34-7d811f0a69b9.jpg

...and I see a greatly elongated torso, disproportionate head, comparatively slender legs for the frame, and pretty much the same feet designs.


But I'm not trying to convince you to like this stuff. This is all meaningless, as 5th didn't go in this direction, I just would have personally have been thrilled by a distinct visual identity to the edition, in the same way that, frex, DiTerlizzi lent to Planescape of Brom to Dark Sun.
 
TristramEvans said:
Hmm, well, I don't find them "freakish" or "creepily odd", but I'm not sure what to say. I can clearly see the xaggerated proportions on pretty much everything - The Giants, the Mer-creature, etc. But then I also don't find the Halfling bodies particularly round, or their feet "freakishly flat". Their heads are large in proportion to their frames, but that reads to me as echoing the same as is with "Little People" (I think that's the preferred term) IRL, like say, Tyrion Lannister.

I mean I look at this:

View attachment 13498

...and I see a greatly elongated torso, disproportionate head, comparatively slender legs for the frame, and pretty much the same feet designs.


But I'm not trying to convince you to like this stuff. This is all meaningless, as 5th didn't go in this direction, I just would have personally have been thrilled by a distinct visual identity to the edition, in the same way that, frex, DiTerlizzi lent to Planescape of Brom to Dark Sun.
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The giant isn't as bad, but I will grant that it's not quite right.

They did though. This is the CONCEPT art. They used this as the character blueprints. If you looked in the PHB, the Halflings are clearly designed from these images.
 
As nice as it is, not much of that art floats the boat for me.
I still prefer the classic fantasy and sword & sorcery art from Rolemaster/MERP, Fighting Fantasy, WHFRP 1E and 2E, etc etc.
Some more recent games like RuneQuest Glorantha, Modiphus Conan, Forbidden Lands, Trudvang Chronicles, Dungeon Crawl Classics also capture the vibe I like.
Just so much more evocative for me.
 
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I liked the majority of 2nd edition art - Elmore, Caldwell, etc (before the Player's Option revisions)
 
New survey is up, some interesting questions, this feels more focused and less rambling than some previous surveys.

Perhaps most interesting is the section where they ask you to pick your top 3 settings (includes Birthright this time!) and they list a bunch of older designers and ask if their name on a product would spark your interest, including the likes of David Cook, Tracy Hickman, Jeff Grubbs and Monte Cook but also David Arneson and Gygax!? Are they contemplating having a Necromancer create Zombie Dave and Gary??

 
I've only played D&D once in my life and, while fun was had by all, don't intend to run or play it again anytime soon. It was 5E. So yeah, I can't really fill in those surveys in a meaningful way. Which is a pity, because I like doing surveys. They shouldn't be assuming people are only playing D&D and inquire more about non-D&D interests.
 
3rik said:
They shouldn't be assuming people are only playing D&D and inquire more about non-D&D interests.
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Because it really doesn't help your marketing strategy if you don't understand what people like about the competition ... this one seems better than the last few, but I still get the impression that they are looking for justification do to what they are already planning to do. I say this as someone frequently exposed to government "public engagement".
 
My response to 32, about prepping to play:
Licking toads is essential to getting my mind 'right.'

Seriously folks, I'm not writing an essay on my prep. Infer from my responses.
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On the plus side, looking forward to all that sweet, sweet new Dave Arneson content.
 
The Butcher said:
This is one horribly long survey and this length will inevitably skew results towards hardcore fandom.
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No doubt
I dropped off at 84% of the way through because I needed to go back one page, it messed up and went back further. I'm remembering why I don't fill out their surveys.
 
Vile said:
...I still get the impression that they are looking for justification do to what they are already planning to do. I say this as someone frequently exposed to government "public engagement".
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How dare you insinuate such a thing, sir! I'll have you know we hold public hearings on controversial topics at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday at a location with no free parking nearby because we want maximum input from our constituency!
 
Dumarest said:
How dare you insinuate such a thing, sir! I'll have you know we hold public hearings on controversial topics at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday at a location with no free parking nearby because we want maximum input from our constituency!
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So this is interesting. My father is on the city council in his city. Remote meetings have made this tactic substantially less effective than it has been in the past. Now John Q Public is showing up in numbers they've never seen before and expecting to be able to give input. It's really sort of messing with the system in the best possible way.

I heard this sort of official meeting problem is happening with Brexit and other negotiations because laws require everything sent by post/electronically to be recorded/released and there's no way to have off book conversations now like they usually have in corridors/lunch etc. People can't say "Look I have to officially say no way to X but really we know I have to give a little there. Of course I need you to give a little on Y or it will never fly" in the hallway.
 
Why bother? They've already got a destination in mind, and I'm not part of it.
 
OK, I don't know the finer points of Brext, or what is controversial to say in regards to that
 
TristramEvans said:
Um, did this become political? I can't exactly tell
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Not intentionally. Just pointing out that in politics in general you need/often want to set the stage for a meeting sometimes requiring private communication. That's very hard to do these days with online/recorded meetings
 
D&D has always been picked up by those who were 'marginalized'. The unwanted, the undesired, the unaccepted. Most gamers were pushed into D&D and RPGs because they just don't fit in.

But gamers, as a group, are among the most accepting people in the world. Because we know what it's like to be lonely, and we WANT to share, DESPERATELY want to share our toys, our stories, everything. We WANT people to like what we like.

Do we have disagreements? Sure. But at the end of the day, we just want more people to play with.

But that tweet implies otherwise, and I take exception to that. I find insulting to think that someone believes that gamers don't accept others.

And it's been shown very clear that WoTC has a direction they want the game to go in, damn the torpedoes.
 
WhisperedVacantChicken-size_restricted.gif
 
Endless Flight said:
I wasn't pushed into RPGs because I didn't fit in. I got into them because I thought they were cool as fuck.
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Yeah, I didnt fit in because I chose RPGs, rather than the other way around

Most of my interests - fantasy books , warhammer, comics, RPGs were "socially unacceptable" in the 80s. But my response remains the same - "if this is wrong, I don't want to be right"
 
I was just an average kid in school. I got bullied a few times in middle school by one asshole but I was liked by some of the jocks. I got into comics, RPGs, toys etc because of who I am, not because of any social reason. I mean some people grow out of it and I still like the stuff 40 years later. The kids in school knew I liked comics because I took art classes and used to draw that kind of stuff right in front of a lot of people. I had the rep of being really good at art and kids appreciated it to some extent. I liked RPGs because that tied into using your imagination and I liked the supers games. I don’t know if I would have gotten into RPGs if it hadn’t been for MSH and DCH.
 
Endless Flight said:
I was just an average kid in school. I got bullied a few times in middle school by one asshole but I was liked by some of the jocks. I got into comics, RPGs, toys etc because of who I am, not because of any social reason. I mean some people grow out of it and I still like the stuff 40 years later. The kids in school knew I liked comics because I took art classes and used to draw that kind of stuff right in front of a lot of people. I had the rep of being really good at art and kids appreciated it to some extent. I liked RPGs because that tied into using your imagination and I liked the supers games. I don’t know if I would have gotten into RPGs if it hadn’t been for MSH and DCH.
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I literally had two choices...
Gangs and Drugs
Or MTG (magic) and RPGs

I think I chose well. At my grade 7 reuinion out of 31 in my class 13 were alive with one in prison. The other class was 28 kids with 18 alive with two in prison.
 
Faylar said:
Even in GURPS it's all about them Sex moves huh?
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Dude you don't need "moves" when you got crunch this detailed. You've got several simultaneous simulationist sex subsystems. Note how even the alliteration is arousing.
 
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