When you think about Spiderman the last few years, the movies around the character and "legend" can't seem to break out of the typical "origin story plus headline villain" cycle. The character feels like he is stuck in the Green Goblin, Gwen Stacy, Jonah Jameson, Doctor Octopus cycle of retelling that story over and over again. You could really say this applies to all superheroes, with Batman's origin story and the Joker, Superman and Lex Luthor, and you could go on and on. I feel Spiderman highlights this the best because the character has been rebooted the most recently, with the largest visible cultural impact (or lack thereof).
It's the curse of being a superhero, I guess. You are doomed to forever be rebooted, and having the same story told about you again and again in slightly different ways. It is the fairy tale curse in a way, the Three Little Pigs gets told over and over again, and the story may have a new style this time, but the legend and story never really changes.
With D&D, it's different. D&D is a game you tell your own stories with, so there are some similarities to the "retelling of a legend" thing I have been thinking about. But you have to realize the only thing that makes D&D, well D&D, is the collection of "product identity" that goes along with the game, such as:
- Beholders
- Lolth and the Drow
- Mind Flayers
- Owlbears
- Displacer Beasts
- The game worlds like Faerun and Grayhawk, along with signature adventures
- Original characters like Drizzt and Elminster
- Signature magic items unique to the game
...and so on. If you ever wondered why these monsters are featured so prominently on products, this is the reason why. It is brand identity, and I have no problem with that being highlighted, since that is what makes the game, well, the game.
Planescape too figures into this as well, being the de facto setting of the game since 3rd Edition. You may pick and choose a starting world, but every edition since 3rd has you plane-hopping after a while since of course this was popular in Planescape, and they kind of grandfathered the setting into every edition since. It solves the "what world are you starting on" problem easy since in the end, it doesn't really matter, you will be plane-hopping early in your career and the books tend to assume it. I have a big problem with this being an assumption of the default world setting, but that is for another discussion.
So Spiderman? We come back to this default mythos, and yes the setting plays into this. If you try to create other stories with Spiderman for a while, yes it works, Spiderman versus the Nazis, killer robots, mercenaries, or any other villain of the moment fits here, but the character isn't really the character unless he goes back to his roots. Eventually the story needs to be told again, with all the original elements and enemies in place, and here we go again.
With D&D, it feels like that again, at least for me. Here we are with a version that plays more to nostalgia than something new. I love nostalgia, and I love seeing stories rebooted, but there is a part of me wondering questions like, "What will be the next Planescape style setting that will shake things up?" With catering to the past, we give up on the future in a small way. I guess the answer is there will not be a Planescape for our generation, and we will be listening to the "classic rock" of Faerun, Grayhawk, and the other greatest hits of the last 40 years of roleplaying.
I like classic roleplaying, and I like my classic rock. But I also like the new stuff, new stories, and new music. I like it when a movie studio resists he urge to do another reboot of an origin story, and give us something new with a superhero. Something we haven't seen before.
It's just I can't feel like I can tell compelling stories with the above list of product identity anymore. I have done that for the last 40 years, and heavily with 4th Edition. I have had my legends with Drows and Githyanki space pirates, Mind Flayer cults and Beholder fortresses. With a new generation of players who hasn't seen all this before, I mean, it's great to be them. Play on and discover this anew, more power to you.
For me, it feels like watching another Spiderman reboot, and looking at my watch and counting the minutes until the Green Goblin shows up again.
With commercial properties, there is that "brand stagnation" but occasionally, something magical happens and we get the Planescapes or the Venom or the Bane, and the familiar is now something new, while still retaining that sense of familiarity and tradition. The problem comes when that good horse is rode until dead, and that which made the brand new and fresh becomes another trope in the mythology.
And then we need something new. Something to make the familiar "this generation's" version of the game, or the hero. When it doesn't come, we feel slightly let down since that process of renewal hasn't happened this time. Sometimes you need to completely throw out the old to do this, and it takes a lot of bravery and creative vision. It happened a little with D&D 4 with the new cosmology and breaking with tradition, but it quickly went back to the familiar when the shortcomings of the rules weighted down the setting - when the two were independent ideas.
So in a way, our myths are our prisons. The safety of the familiar is what keeps us coming back. We go back into Plato's cave, but it may have new carpets and a fresh coat of paint this time, but it is still the same cave. To be honest, I am waiting for that next Planescape or that next Eberron for D&D, something to shake things up and fire me up (for or against it, either way).
But it needs to be new. It needs to be fresh. And it needs to change things while keeping a tiny handhold on the familiar, just for nostalgia's sake. But if nostalgia gets in the way, it needs to go. Right now I am finding myself attracted to other games and the new experiences there. It is a natural cycle, but it also highlights the curse of the familiar.
And I just switched my station from classic rock to what is this? It is something new and cool and I have never experienced before, and while someday I may return back to Classic Rock 99.9 and relive those days; but for this moment, I am hearing something I have never heard before and life begins anew.
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