Why is D&D still Medieval?

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For all of 1E and 2E D&D there were plenty of classes that did little more then 'hit a foe' with few special effects.



So, yes there are people that play D&D super hardcore gritty. 5E even has core rules for it, and there is at least one 'gritty' sourcebook out there. So, if that is what you are saying, then OK.

The rest of the gamers, when offered a choice between:

A. Your character can hit with a weapon and do some damage

And

B.You can use Lightning Strike to charge your weapon with energy, do more damage, maybe stun your opponent and possibly shot a arc as a bonus action at a nearby foe.

Now, I meet few players when given both options pick "oh, I want to just hit a foe and do damage".




I'm not trying to talk about Hollywood: my point was what "fans" like.

If you put out a action movie with no CGI period and only limited 'real' stunts and no explosions.....most action movie fans, that don't specifically like that exact setting, won't like the movie.

If you put out a movie with near endless CGI spam over the whole movie with no real stunts and lots and lots and lots of explosions....then nearly all action movie fans will love the movie.

It's the same with video games:

80's action video game: hit the foe with a sword and they fall down and fade from the screen.

21st century: massive colorful animated spam covers the whole screen as the character swings their weapon and hits the foe and causes even more massive colorful animated spam, and more massive colorful animated spam.

AND this is NOT about "just" the bland fact that computers and special effects have gotten better so they AUTOMATICALLY put them in everything. You DO NOT have to use super computer special effects: It IS possible to make a movie with out them. Even an action type movie.


So my point is MOST gamers LIKE and WANT special flashy abilities in the game. And D&D over the years has added more and more and more effects.

BUT the setting lags way, way, way behind. A character can be covered with lightning and force effect spam......but in the setting it is still 'strike two rocks together to make a fire to cook for dinner'. A character can teleport around, but still have to walk 100 miles to the next city.

Um, given that gritty warfare shooters and live action films with conservative CGI are very, very popular, this very much does not hold true. In general, people praise interesting practical effects and direction over pure flash. Things like Mad Max are both popular and stick. Even what many might consider bottom of the barrel mass-market shlock doesn't just put a million colors on the screen every time anyone does anything. Honestly the attitude of treating use of lots of color and vibrant special effects as "spam" is pretty insulting, since lots of movies do use these things and are all the better for it, but it's used skillfully. And people have been making vibrant colorful movies with special effects for as long as movies in color have existed. Back when there wasn't even colored film, and people painted individual frames. Yet even when it was a complete novelty, when film was still figuring itself out, it wasn't what everyone wanted.

If everyone thought the more CGI the better, no one would watch anything but cartoons. After all, those are nothing but special effects. Yet as is cartoons are often considered a lesser form of entertainment, and when they do reach mass appeal they tend to be pretty tame in terms of effects, like The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, which largely rely on comedy rather than action, and are certainly not visually thrilling at all times.

If most gamers wanted a superhero-like or modern setting for DnD, then you'd figure that homebrew for it or official settings would be all the rage. But they're very much not. You absolutely get high magic practically modern settings like Eberron, but even that for all its quality is just very well-loved, not completely dominant. d20 Modern is hardly forgotten, but to my knowledge was never particularly popular. The fact that these settings exist, are considered serviceable or even great, yet are not even close to the only things people play, is about as obvious an indication as any that people do in fact like other things.