Saturday 10 November 2018

The Modern D&D Venn Diagram

D&D really is a thing again. A colleague of mine - a woman, 26, good-looking, reasonably "cool" or whatever word the kids are using these days - announced over lunch today to a group of us that she had recently switched from playing Settlers of Cataan with her boyfriend and mates to D&D. And she was loving it.

Never has a generational divide been more in evident. Everybody else around the table - 35+, professional, sensible, successful - cringed (except for me: I did my level best to be nonchalant). To them, D&D screams NERD if it screams anything at all. To somebody who is 26, D&D somehow manages to scream NERD, BUT THAT'S OK BECAUSE IT'S COOL TO BE A NERD NOW, SO HURRY UP AND ROLL UP A CHARACTER AND LET'S GET SOME CRAFT IPA AND E-CIGARETTES AND WAX OUR MOUSTACHES.

What interests me is not that D&D is reviving in popularity - it undoubtedly is (even the BBC is onto it). It's that it is popular in a totally different way to how it was in the past. I was not old enough to be playing D&D during the boom years of the late 70s and early 80s. But I am pretty sure even at the height of its popularity in those days that it was not being played by professional 26 year old women with robust social lives. Things have changed. The opening paragraph of the BBC article in the above link puts it down in part to "nostalgia". I don't buy it. My colleague ain't nostalgic - she probably wouldn't have had a clue what D&D even was 3 or 4 years ago. She's enjoying the game for what it is.

The real "meat" of the story is the fact that people are meeting up to play D&D at BrewDog pubs now. For those outside the UK, BrewDog was one of the first hipster craft beer companies to really get successful about 10 years ago: it has always billed itself as a "punk" brewer and branded itself as being a kind of market rebel (it probably tells you all you need to know that one of its lines is called Tactical Nuclear Penguin (insert eye-roll smiley here) and is 32% ABV). In the year 2007, it would have been about as far away from D&D as you can get. But in 2018, BrewDog is so D&D. It is almost painfully D&D. It is craft beer, it is guys riding around on old bicycles, it is ironic tattoos, it is veganism, it is gluten-free brownies, it is vintage plaid/checked shirts, it is taxidermy, it is urban beekeeping, it is bookbinding, it is shops and bars built inside cargo containers, it is Urban fucking Outfitters. Whether due to some work of marketing genius on the part of WotC, or (more likely) due to sheer accident, D&D has nestled in alongside those other pursuits perfectly - the paradigmatic post-ironic so-uncool-it's-cool pastime that exists outside of trainspotting and lawn bowls. Draw a Venn diagram of all those activities and somehow find some way to fit them all together and D&D could be right there in the middle.

Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. I am glad that lots of people like D&D, because I like D&D and can see its great virtues in a world full of anxious people alienated from each other by the siren-song of fake technological connectivity and emancipation. At the same time, though, there is a part of me that cannot help finding every element in that Venn diagram profoundly irritating, and is horrified at the prospect of D&D becoming tarred with that particular brush.

29 comments:

  1. BrewDog. 'Beer for Punks'; sold in Waitrose.

    Not that I object to it terribly, of course.

    Who knows where the shifting intersections of cool/popular/otherwise will lead - in beer or tabletop terms?

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    1. D&D in Waitrose maybe? Stranger things have happened.

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    2. The woman who introduced me to Brewdog beer before it was quite so ubiquitous works for Waitrose - they know the good stuff! BTW my recent Brewdog IPA delivery from Ocado included an empty can - when I told Brewdog they kindly sent me 6 full cans. Reminds me of WoTC sending me replacement PHB & MM when mine fell apart - hipster values include excellent customer service.

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  2. This might just be me, but as a 35+ D&D player in Northern California, all of those "hipsterisms" are just part of our normal rpg nerd culture.

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    1. As a 35+ in Cambridge MA I have to agree. Hipsters are nerds at heart.

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  3. I've just myself wandered out of a BrewDog here — having headed up to Manchester to run a game at a con !

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  4. The sooner we burn our labels of identity (nerd, cool, hipster, Old School, etc.), the kinder and gentler this world will be.

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  5. Fucking hipsters: to me, people loudly proclaiming to love D&D and all wearing their 'nerdy T-shirt' and swearing loud and clear their allegiance to a lifestyle brand disgust me.

    They don't know what it was like even well into the 2000 to be an 'uncool, dirty nerd'. These are people who would have bullied real nerds back when it was still uncool and not a market for corporations to tap into.

    But, maybe...I'm too salty?

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    1. Dude you’re gatekeeper badge is showing. The “hipsters” who play dnd and loudly proclaim their love for dnd wouldn’t have been the ones bullying nerds in HS, they would have been the drama kids, the band geeks, etc.

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    2. Agree with Horrible Old Man. The hipsters were never into bullying nerds, that would have been uncool. Indeed one could argue a hipster is just a nerd who didn't dump-stat CHA.

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    3. Much too salty.

      I’m excited people can be nerds in public. Maybe it didn’t happen for us, but that’s no reason to be mad at the new kids...

      That’s like being mad at the fact kids can literally make millions playing video games on twitch. Don’t be mad you couldn’t, be happy someone can...

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  6. FWIW, when I first heard about D&D in high school, it was from three boys, two of whom were on the football team (in the Midwest United States, that’s akin to being a musician from Liverpool in the 1960s) - one the quarterback, class president, and very popular. I’d say close to half of those playing then were what we called ‘popular’ – varsity lettermen, class officers, popular jocks, the lot. The fellow who was DM for the first game I tried was varsity basketball and track, and class officer to boot. That was about 1981, and I was aware of no reputation with D&D. By 1984, all but a few of those popular classmates had dropped D&D and wouldn’t get near it with a ten foot pole. It seems to have grown in popularity about a year or so before I heard about it. So for around five years there was no real ‘stigma’ attached (See E.T. and who’s playing it in that movie). But then, the whole idea of ‘nerd/geek’ was only taking hold, riding alongside the computer/home computer/video game revolution taking place as well as other developing labels. It’s worth noting that according to my sister, who was almost a decade older than me, such terms and labels were almost unheard of when she was in school. Nonetheless, somehow that development merged with D&D/Role Playing and by ‘84 or ‘85, it definitely had ‘the reputation.’

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  7. I played a tabletop RPG for the first time 20 years ago. I also like craft IPAs. It kind of makes sense, I'm both an RPG nerd and a beer nerd. And I've homebrewed stuff for both those hobbies in the past, now that I think of it.

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    1. I am not against craft IPAs but to be honest they're pretty samey. Lots of citrus, very hoppy. I don't dislike that but there is more variety in your more traditional ales.

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    2. Ain't that the truth. I like them, I drink them... but pardon me if I see yet another hop-heavy IPA and don't immediately get enthusiastic about the "filmy mouthfeel" and the "hints of bergamot and vanilla tobacco". You can make beers, good. Now make a nice, drinkable lager, or if you are real good, get off your behind and go for a lambic.

      (This comment is more RPG-related than it might seem.)

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    3. Yeah, I never said IPAs are my favorite style. I like them, but I like other ales better. When it comes to brewing, I'm actually more of a Weizen guy. Good enough?

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  8. I'd say that plenty of people who have been into RPGs since childhood/early teens have ended up in those hobbies as well (also, and overlapping, a whole lot of old punks and metalheads). At least in my experience of my social circles.

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  9. My gaming venue of choice also sells beers from a local microbrewery. Never really been my thing, but now that you mention it...

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  10. "At the same time, though, there is a part of me that cannot help finding every element in that Venn diagram profoundly irritating, and is horrified at the prospect of D&D becoming tarred with that particular brush."

    I feel like this about a couple of my favorite authors. I'm convinced that like 70% of Gene Wolfe fans are weird shut-ins with women issues who pretend to be monarchists or some nonsense. If you look around the room and see nothing but weirdos, makes you wonder if you belong more than you think.

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    1. I feel very much that way about wargamers. Sometimes you look around and think "Jesus, I would not be comfortable introducing ANY of these people to my parents."

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  11. Being born in 1981 this is before my time but my impression from reading stuff is that D&D went like this:

    1. Started within the war gaming community.

    2. Spread from there into the wider fantasy fandom, often via university gaming clubs, bringing in people who hadn't done wargaming before. A lot of these people were in their 20's and a relatively high (at least compared to before and later) were female.

    3. With the publication of Basic there was an explosion of D&D among kids and D&D became largely a fad among middle school-ish boys.

    4. Eventually the fad passed but so many people had played it when they were kids that it kept on chugging along at a lower level with various ups and downs (remember the late 90's being an especially low down during the waning days of 2ed when all the nerdy boys were playing MtG instead).

    5. Then we get the current YouTube-fueled revival. It's just amazing how D&D focused a lot of RPGing scenes are these days, I don't remember 3.5ed being anywhere near that dominant even during its heyday.

    Oh and for American IPAs they're not as samey as they seem. The default is citrusy, but there are a lot of piney/resiny ones and a lot of the really popular hops these days (Galaxy, Citra, etc.) are more tropical fruit than citrus. Also several sub-categories of American IPAs (loosely):
    -East Coast IPAs: less bitter, darker, more caramelly.
    -West Coast IPAs: dry, more bitter.
    -New England IPAs (the newer trend): less bitter but huge amount of hop flavor (due to using more hops but not boring them as much/not at all), less caramelly but not so dry and often really cloudy due to the huge amount of hops used/some yeast floating about. Often use English ale yeast instead of normal American ale yeast.
    -Imperial IPAs: stronger.
    -Session IPAs: around 5% alcohol, basically like an American Pale Ale but hoppier and drier.
    -White IPAs: IPAs with Belgian wit yeast and/or wheat.
    -Red/Black/Brown IPAs/Cascadian Dark Ale: IPAs with enough malt to change their color, usually not much malt flavor as you'd expect for the color. Kinda pointless in most cases, except a few that taste like hoppy porters.
    -American Saisons: not called IPAs but hopped like them.
    -Brett IPAs: IPAs with a different species of yeast in addition to or instead of normal yeast, very different flavor of yeast.

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    1. I like Citra - there's a good M&S own-brand beer that uses citra hops.

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  12. It doesn't bother me - and I was introduced to Brewdog beer about 4 years ago by a fellow D&D playing grognard (a female grognard, there are such things). :) This phase will pass, just like the Fighting Fantasy Jackson & Livingstone phase that got me and countless other British pre-teens into D&D ca 1983-4, 35 years ago.

    I guess one effect of the new demographic is that the published material tends to be more suited to the tastes of 20 something middle class hipsterish women, and less to those of - eg - 15 year old male nerds. This is equally true of a lot of other geekdom; look at Marvel & Lucasfilm Disney movies for similar changes.

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    1. I'm not sure who it was who realised that you could market nerdish/geeky stuff to middle-class hipsterish women and thereby capture both that demographic and the core nerd audience, who would still carry on buying the product undaunted. Whoever it was is truly a genius.

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    2. Aye! It was a clever little tweak with big results, if done correctly. Sometimes it goes wrong - qv The Last Jedi - it does take some awareness of what both markets will bear. But fundamentally the average 26 year old female Australian academic is not that different from the average 15 year old male British computer gamer, and reconising that gives you a nice big market with a lot of disposable income.

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    3. On one hand, I am happy more people are gaming (and it is not just "gamer" gamers but the rest as well). It is great, brings in new ideas, new buzz, a bunch of creativity. People even discover the things I and my friends like. Great.

      On the other hand - to continue the beer analogy - I am seeing a push to get my comfortable neighbourhood pub cleaned up for the "right" crowd. The latest spat over James Raggi is pretty much that moment where the young, hip property developer comes in and, looking around admiringly, and exclaims - "This place is SO authentic! But I wonder... could we stop with the smoking, and start offering kale lattes? And those weirdos with the nasty talk in the corner? I would put the new cooler right there." And so on and so forth.

      Perhaps we need just a little gatekeeping in our hobby. Perhaps we also have a way of life worth protecting. Who knows? Because I used to think there was space for everyone. Now a lot of folks think there is no space for ME. But who owns gaming?

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    4. I’ve only heard about the James Raggi thing thru people who have worked with LOTFP, I’m sure that there were others commenting on it but I don’t do the whole forum thing.
      To continue your beer analogy it seems less like a developer came in to change things and more like the bar staff went
      “Hey this smoking in here is severely affecting our health, and those dudes with the nasty talk in the corner won’t stop leering at us, and tried to slap my ass.”

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  13. I am not too surprised about the resurgence of D&D. When I went to Gen Con last summer in Indy there seemed to be thousands of players in the Baldman Games room playing 5E at all hours of the day and night for all four days. And there were 5E games going on at all six of the other hotels and the Lucas Oil Field. There were also older edition games going on. I played in a 2e game, a 4e game and several 5e games while I was there. It clearly is getting popular again.

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