Thursday, October 17, 2019

D&D celebrity mini-documentary

So, recently I was thinking of Chauncey Gardner, Peter Sellers' character in BEING THERE,* whose catch-phrase is "I like to watch".

What sparked this was my seeing a short (twenty-minute) documentary online about the growing popularity of watching people play D&D.

Here's a link to a piece including a link to the video:

https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/02/dungeons-dragons-creators-and-celebrity-players-explain-its-recent-surge-in-popularity


On the whole I found this an interesting piece that helped put in context the 'Shadows of the Crystal Palace' CTHULHU BY GASLIGHT I watched a while back.

The one point where I had to restrain myself from hooting  in derision was at their claim that Third Edition was hard (true) and  Fourth Edition was hard (true!) but Fifth Edition is easy ("easier" rather than "easy" wd be closer the truth). The unstated implication was that Second Edition AD&D and First Edition AD&D were easy. They weren't. Complicated in different ways, perhaps --easier to start playing but harder to master; more open to customization.


--John R.
--current reading: BUSMAN'S HONEYMOON


*both the original book and the movie based on it: quite different but highly recommended

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