Before Tolkien, we had stories of knights and heroes, King Arthur and Sir Lancelot, Merlin and the dragon, and earlier times of Rome and the Ancient Greeks. We had the Bible, too.
I still have the Bible.
Tolkien resynthesized what came before and made it new again. The Appendix N authors were the new wave of creators, Conan and many others, who cut a blaze of glory through our minds and imaginations.
D&D came along in the 1970s and resyntisized all of that. We had a good run with that game, and eventually D&D became stale. The last real high point for the brand was pre-Wizards, in the 1990s, with the NYT Bestseller novels. But, like any IP, they never took care of the brand, never protected it from the garbage of pop culture, video games, Internet memes, and the toxic influence of social media, and the game died.
Oh, you can still buy the books, but like a necromancer resurrecting grandma, the soul of D&D isn't there anymore. It is full of anthropomorphic races, too modern anachronisms, steampunk, pink hair, Victorian trench coats with plate pauldrons, the neon-colored planes of every idea, and I don't even know what this game wants to be other than "Fortnite: Fantasy Edition."
That is the Fortnite legacy: toss a million and one random characters in the same world and put it on a blend. It is a buffet full of familiar but low-quality food. Pizza you would never touch, but since it is on the buffet, you grab a slice. And in the end, you walk away feeling sick and vow to never eat at a buffet again.
I can see why people are returning to strongly curated experiences, with the "toxic modern mashup" kept out. I don't want the goofball Fortnite crap in my games anymore.
I don't want "everything" anymore; I want "that one best part" with all the garbage kept out.
I want pizza that I would order if that is all I was eating. I want a pizza experience that I would return for. I don't want a cold, tasteless, dry, garbage slice of pizza-like bread thrown on my plate next to the turkey and mashed potatoes.
I am done with the garbage "all-in-one" experience.
They never took care of D&D, and like a pet you never take care of, it died, and there is no bringing it back. Many of us have moved on. We remember through the OSR, and needing "D und D" as some sort of three-syllable noise we make when someone asks us "what we are playing" is not all that important anymore.
In fact, D&D brings with it so much baggage, like the OGL, that many of us dislike the three-syllable sound, and it provokes a gut reaction of revulsion toward the brand. How am I supposed to play Greyhawk without alignment, D&D 5.5E? Or is it another corporate skinsuit?
"D und D" becomes the problem: the modern corporation telling us what to like, what the game is, who should play it, and the toxic social media enforcement mobs these companies wink and nod to, acting as their online thought police. How companies let this devolve to this point is beyond me; it is as if they all collectively gave up on the brand and let the mobs run the show.
Maybe there was no value there, and they were throwing everything against the wall in a desperate plea for attention. Like the end days of Fortnite and Warner Brothers, here comes Bugs Bunny to pick up an AR-15 to kill people with. Might as well go out with a bang, buddy.
Hey, all of us in the office are happy to be paid; we don't really care. The rest are pushing their own agendas with the brand. Even corporate doesn't care anymore. As long as we "move the engagement needle" like a needle filled with heroin, nobody cares.
With D&D, I get that "death of a brand" feeling all over again.
And we have better.
We have the OSR, other games, and the break with the OGL made is a divorce that was long overdue. Instead of OSR games being "D&D-likes" and a wink-and-a-nod, they were forced to innovate and become their own thing. Tribute games, like DCC, arose and became their own brands. Shadowdark emerged from the darkness. Nimble did a million dollars in its reprint and expansion. The OSR has a dozen strong games: S&W, OSRIC 3.0, ADAD, Dragonslayer, C&C, DCC, ACKS, and a few others.
Even with 5E, we have Shadowdark, Nimble, Level Up, Tales of the Valiant, and likely more replacement games coming. You can play 5E without touching D&D.
We are in the age of the D&D replacements. I have more than I can play. I can afford to be choosy. Some will collapse and fail. Others will be taken care of through this coming downturn and survive.
D&D is becoming those old comics and stories that Tolkien replaced.
And I will return to those classic fantasy comics and play them with GURPS, and turn the clock back to better days. Even simulationist gaming, like where my 250-point Sir Lancelot is struggling with a crossbow wound to the leg with bandits approaching, is better than the mess that D&D has become these days. That one story is more engaging than anything D&D or 5E can give me. What, short rest, and that wound and the pain are magically gone?
The short and the long rest are not engagement mechanics; they are narrative game mechanics meant to reduce the pain of consequence, just like that needle filled with heroin. Let's keep the goofball antics coming and not think about what happens after the trigger is pulled. Storytelling games have become part of the larger problem in gaming, as the corporations use those consequence-free tools to push engagement.
I enjoy the low-fantasy stories more these days. I don't like the modern mish-mash. I want consequences in my gaming. I want a heart. I want a story. I crave a game with a soul.
Those old comics still have that.
The old games still have that.
Creators making games to appeal to those feelings "get it."
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