Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The importance of Dragonlance
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 8640518" data-attributes="member: 18"><p>Yeah this.</p><p></p><p>There are certainly IPs I don't want to see something bad happen to, but what I've realized as I've got older, is that in most cases, whilst this might be worth making cynical jokes and waggling your eyebrows about, it's not worth it, nor helpful to gatekeep or "shut people down" or whatever if they have different ideas, or if those things are done in different ways.</p><p></p><p>Sometimes it can be worth pointing out when someone literally doesn't understand a setting/book/film on a pretty basic, but frankly, that's about as common with people who are "protective" of stuff as those who are expressing different opinions. Like if someone is trying to tell you that LotR is pro-war, it might be worth explaining to them that they might misunderstand or be looking at superficial aspects, but it's not helpful to say they're like, "not a real fan" or something.</p><p></p><p>I mean, Planescape is one for me, I don't want to see it messed up. But the reality is, in 1998, it got messed up (THANKS MONTE!), and like, if it stays messed up, whilst that sucks, that's just how it is. If they make a new version that's terrible and just ignores what made the original Planescape special/unusual (I give good odds of this), well, I may well say "lol awful" and critique it at the time, but I'm not going to go around saying people who like it suck or whatever. Indeed at this point really there's like a clock on <em>any</em> IP one likes because sooner or later "corporate" probably is going to destroy what you liked about it.</p><p></p><p>Sometimes they turn it around though, too, like with the Spider-Man movies. I know a number of er... Spider-Fans, none of the rabid, thankfully, but who were kind of not-enthused with Homecoming and Far From Home, because Spider-Man was almost Robin to Iron Man's Batman, given wealth and access to awesome equipment/power armour/armies of killer drones/etc., and a lot of classic Spider-Man stuff was just missing (Uncle Ben and his lesson, or having to have a job and try to make ends meet, for example), which gave this Spider-Man a very different character. Without going into spoilers, No Way Home fixed all of that, and by the end, had a Spider-Man we could recognise as Spider-Man (and one a bit more relevant to most people's lived experience I daresay).</p><p></p><p></p><p>Re: Dragonlance I feel like it one of the big issues is a generation gap. Very few people under 40 seem to have read any DL novels, or really experienced anything DL-related. This, I would suggest, is simply because so much good fantasy has been published post-DL, especially post-2000. Fantasy that tends to be more relevant-feeling and relatable than the fantasy of the '80s and before. This hasn't just hit DL of course - an awful lot of '80s and earlier fantasy writers who had major impacts on D&D are all but forgotten. Michael Moorcock is one of the all-time great fantasy writers and also had a big influence on D&D (and fantasy in general), and is perhaps even more overlooked than Dragonlance is, now. The later books by Hickman/Weis certainly haven't helped this, because they've been very much a continuing and increasingly bizarre saga that doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you're already into DL. Possibly the new book will break this cycle but I'd be surprised.</p><p></p><p></p><p>EDIT - I will say there is a peculiar modern kind of "IP-fan-ism" that's a big annoyance on the internet which is not talked about much, which is the fan who is a fan of the broader <em>IP itself</em> come hell or high water, and who will try to gatekeep anyone who criticises any part of the IP too harshly. These guys were incredibly rare pre-2010, but the MCU particularly seems to have brought them out of the woodwork. With the MCU, they're fans of "The MCU", not so much individual movies/characters/etc. which they may also like, but ultimately their loyalty and fan-ness is directed towards the MCU and Disney/Marvel. So if you don't like an MCU movie, either because it's not very good, or it presents existing Marvel characters really weirdly (c.f. Spider-Man example earlier), they will attempt to gatekeep <em>the hell</em> out of you, often in a slightly lunatic way. The flipside of them is that sometimes they'll decide a movie or whatever "doesn't fit" with the IP they're obsessed with, and will try to gatekeep anyone who doesn't like it, on bizarre grounds like "It's not what corporate wanted" or "It doesn't fit with the rest of the IP", and thus you aren't allowed to like it. I feel like you sometimes see a version of them with RPGs, usually they're a fan of a specific edition, or a specific company. There's also a "gentle" version who doesn't gatekeep but never, ever, ever, ever, has any serious criticism of a specific IP/company - I think you see these a bit with 5E, where you get well-meaning, good-natured people who aren't gatekeepers but they do reviews, say, and no 5E WotC product has ever got worse than 80% or a B or whatever.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 8640518, member: 18"] Yeah this. There are certainly IPs I don't want to see something bad happen to, but what I've realized as I've got older, is that in most cases, whilst this might be worth making cynical jokes and waggling your eyebrows about, it's not worth it, nor helpful to gatekeep or "shut people down" or whatever if they have different ideas, or if those things are done in different ways. Sometimes it can be worth pointing out when someone literally doesn't understand a setting/book/film on a pretty basic, but frankly, that's about as common with people who are "protective" of stuff as those who are expressing different opinions. Like if someone is trying to tell you that LotR is pro-war, it might be worth explaining to them that they might misunderstand or be looking at superficial aspects, but it's not helpful to say they're like, "not a real fan" or something. I mean, Planescape is one for me, I don't want to see it messed up. But the reality is, in 1998, it got messed up (THANKS MONTE!), and like, if it stays messed up, whilst that sucks, that's just how it is. If they make a new version that's terrible and just ignores what made the original Planescape special/unusual (I give good odds of this), well, I may well say "lol awful" and critique it at the time, but I'm not going to go around saying people who like it suck or whatever. Indeed at this point really there's like a clock on [I]any[/I] IP one likes because sooner or later "corporate" probably is going to destroy what you liked about it. Sometimes they turn it around though, too, like with the Spider-Man movies. I know a number of er... Spider-Fans, none of the rabid, thankfully, but who were kind of not-enthused with Homecoming and Far From Home, because Spider-Man was almost Robin to Iron Man's Batman, given wealth and access to awesome equipment/power armour/armies of killer drones/etc., and a lot of classic Spider-Man stuff was just missing (Uncle Ben and his lesson, or having to have a job and try to make ends meet, for example), which gave this Spider-Man a very different character. Without going into spoilers, No Way Home fixed all of that, and by the end, had a Spider-Man we could recognise as Spider-Man (and one a bit more relevant to most people's lived experience I daresay). Re: Dragonlance I feel like it one of the big issues is a generation gap. Very few people under 40 seem to have read any DL novels, or really experienced anything DL-related. This, I would suggest, is simply because so much good fantasy has been published post-DL, especially post-2000. Fantasy that tends to be more relevant-feeling and relatable than the fantasy of the '80s and before. This hasn't just hit DL of course - an awful lot of '80s and earlier fantasy writers who had major impacts on D&D are all but forgotten. Michael Moorcock is one of the all-time great fantasy writers and also had a big influence on D&D (and fantasy in general), and is perhaps even more overlooked than Dragonlance is, now. The later books by Hickman/Weis certainly haven't helped this, because they've been very much a continuing and increasingly bizarre saga that doesn't make a whole lot of sense unless you're already into DL. Possibly the new book will break this cycle but I'd be surprised. EDIT - I will say there is a peculiar modern kind of "IP-fan-ism" that's a big annoyance on the internet which is not talked about much, which is the fan who is a fan of the broader [I]IP itself[/I] come hell or high water, and who will try to gatekeep anyone who criticises any part of the IP too harshly. These guys were incredibly rare pre-2010, but the MCU particularly seems to have brought them out of the woodwork. With the MCU, they're fans of "The MCU", not so much individual movies/characters/etc. which they may also like, but ultimately their loyalty and fan-ness is directed towards the MCU and Disney/Marvel. So if you don't like an MCU movie, either because it's not very good, or it presents existing Marvel characters really weirdly (c.f. Spider-Man example earlier), they will attempt to gatekeep [I]the hell[/I] out of you, often in a slightly lunatic way. The flipside of them is that sometimes they'll decide a movie or whatever "doesn't fit" with the IP they're obsessed with, and will try to gatekeep anyone who doesn't like it, on bizarre grounds like "It's not what corporate wanted" or "It doesn't fit with the rest of the IP", and thus you aren't allowed to like it. I feel like you sometimes see a version of them with RPGs, usually they're a fan of a specific edition, or a specific company. There's also a "gentle" version who doesn't gatekeep but never, ever, ever, ever, has any serious criticism of a specific IP/company - I think you see these a bit with 5E, where you get well-meaning, good-natured people who aren't gatekeepers but they do reviews, say, and no 5E WotC product has ever got worse than 80% or a B or whatever. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
The importance of Dragonlance
Top