History YMMV / DungeonsAndDragons

* FanonDiscontinuity: ''Every'' edition has inspired FanonDiscontinuity. There is still a very vocal 2nd Edition fanbase that despises the changes wrought in the transition to 3rd, and not a few 1st Edition holdouts who consider 2nd to be a bastardization, and a handful of hardcore grognards who think 1st Edition should never have supplanted "classic" D&D (called it 0E [Zero-E]). The 4th edition gets it the most, and most fans couldn't stand the new alignment system. [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks Players naturally gravitate towards the things that make them more comfortable]]. Of course, it's not like the books stop working when a new edition comes out, and any really cemented group is going to have lots of house rules anyway, so it's natural that players will remain players, even when they stop buying the new material.

* LGBTFanbase: D&D is popular with LGBT players because it allows great flexibility in character creation compared to video games or other forms of games. Gay, lesbian, and bisexual people can play characters with those orientations. Many transgender and nonbinary people consider the game a ClosetKey because it allows them to play as the gender they identify as, whether male, female, or something else.

** Second edition happened during Lorraine Williams's controversial tenure as head of Creator/{{TSR}}, and was known for attempting to avoid the controversy of the SatanicPanic by removing all references to demons and devils. This edition saw D&D lose its position of top-selling RPG for the first time, to ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', and TSR going bankrupt and being bought out by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast.

** As a side note, not all the resurrection spells need the entire body (the most powerful of them, True Resurrection, only needs the name) but even with those you cannot resurrect somebody whose soul is imprisoned, destroyed, or has been turned into an undead (and such undead hasn't been destroyed) so the creation of an undead includes the imprisonment of the soul. [[AndIMustScream Think about the case of non-sentient undead]]!

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In January 2023, leaks of a draft for a new OGL titled 1.1 to replace the current one, 1.0a, that would grant Wizards of the Coast more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions canceled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards released a second draft of a new OGL, 1.2, for feedback, which in theory was supposed to be more lenient than the leaked draft. Even before the survey closed and after receiving immense feedback, they backtracked on the OGL changes (among other things by placing a significant amount of the 5th edition system under a Creative Commons license and leaving the current OGL in place).

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In January 2023, leaks of a draft for a new OGL titled 1.1 to replace the current one, 1.0a, that would grant Wizards of the Coast more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions canceled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards released a second draft of a new OGL, 1.2, which in theory was supposed to be more lenient than the leaked draft. Even before the survey closed and after receiving immense feedback, they backtracked on the OGL changes (among other things by placing a significant amount of the 5th edition system under a Creative Commons license and leaving the current OGL in place).

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: In January 2023, leaks of a draft for a new OGL titled 1.1 to replace the current one, 1.0a, that would grant them more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions canceled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards of the Coast released a second draft of a new OGL, 1.2, which in theory was supposed to be more lenient than the leaked draft. Even before the survey closed and after receiving immense feedback, they backtracked on the OGL changes (among other things by placing a significant amount of the 5th edition system under a Creative Commons license and leaving the current OGL in place).

** Playtest material for the spiritually-sixth edition "One D&D" was met with mixed response until Wizards of the Coast announced in January 2023 their intent to revoke the Open Game License and replace it with one that gave them far more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions cancelled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards backtracked on the OGL changes (among other things by placing a significant amount of the system under a Creative Commons license, though a large number of these might just be accidental on their part).

** Not all the resurrection spells need the entire body (The most powerful of them, True Resurrection, only needs the name) but even with those you cannot resurrect somebody whose soul is imprisoned, destroyed, or has been turned into an undead (And such undead hasn't been destroyed) so the creation of an undead includes the imprisonment of the soul. [[AndIMustScream Think about the case of non-sentient undead!]]

** Playtest material for the spiritually-sixth edition "One D&D" was met with mixed response until Wizards of the Coast announced in January 2023 their intent to revoke the Open Game License and replace it with one that gave them far more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions cancelled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards backtracked on the OGL changes (among other things by placing a significant amount of the system under a Creative Commons license).

** Playtest material for the spiritually-sixth edition "One D&D" was met with mixed response until Wizards of the Coast announced in January 2023 their intent to revoke the Open Game License and replace it with one that gave them far more control over third-party publications. The reaction was universally negative, with thousands of D&D Beyond subscriptions cancelled and multiple third-party publishers announcing their intent to migrate their material to other systems. In the face of the critical and financial backlash, Wizards backtracked on the OGL changes.

* InformedWrongness: The creation of undead is regularly noted as evil, but it never really detailed what is wrong with creating a non-sentient being through the direction of energy — it just states that anything using negative energy is automatically evil. While some of this can be chalked up to InUniverse reasons, like the idea of violating a person's remains (especially since many resurrection spells require the person's body), the undead being brought back as evil, or that there are so many evil users of Undead that it colors the settings perception of them, there isn't a concrete gameplay reason why it is considered evil as long as control is maintained over the undead creatures so that they don't rampage. But because of the stigma around them (both in and out of universe), Necromancers and other undead-focused classes are treated as inherently evil. It gets even worse when golems (which require the enslaving of a sapient being) ''never'' have their creation demonized.

** Second edition happened during Lorraine Williams' controversial tenure as head of Creator/{{TSR}}, and was known for attempting to avoid the controversy of the SatanicPanic by removing all references to demons and devils. This edition saw D&D lose its position of top-selling RPG for the first time, to ''TabletopGame/VampireTheMasquerade'', and TSR going bankrupt and being bought out by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast.

* TheScrappy: No race in the entire ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' franchise has inspired such sheer loathing among the playerbase as [[PluckyComicRelief kender]] from the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' setting. Their negative reputation comes from their intrinsic attraction to {{griefer}}s. In theory, the kender are supposed to be childlike and innocent -- their racial [[PlanetOfHats hat]], being impulsive thieves, is supposed to be the result of a lack of understanding of boundaries and [[CuriousAsAMonkey limitless curiosity]] rather than greed or malice. In practice, kender attract the sorts of people who love stealing party members' stuff for the explicit purpose of disrupting the game and screwing with other players by badgering them with annoying questions while hiding behind "roleplaying" as an excuse, all with the material's implicit sanction. And while the kender are childlike and innocent, their players know ''exactly'' what they're doing. Many [=DMs=] take a dim view of anyone wanting to play a kender, and many players wish that the race as a whole would just ''go away''. It's widely thought that the reason the kender took so long to be released in playable form for ''Fifth Edition'' is because the designers knew it would be negatively received. And indeed, when an Unearthed Arcana was released in March 2022 with the kender being the new race, and ''Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen'' tweaked them slightly in November 2022, the reaction was universally negative. Players were mad not only at attempting to retcon the CuriousAsAMonkey trait, but simply bringing them back in the first place was enough to make people angry, cementing the race's Scrappy status.

* TheScrappy: No race in the entire ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' franchise has inspired such sheer loathing among the playerbase as [[PluckyComicRelief kender]] from the ''Literature/{{Dragonlance}}'' setting. Their negative reputation comes from their intrinsic attraction to {{griefer}}s. In theory, the kender are supposed to be childlike and innocent -- their racial [[PlanetOfHats hat]], being impulsive thieves, is supposed to be the result of a lack of understanding of boundaries and [[CuriousAsAMonkey limitless curiosity]] rather than greed or malice. In practice, kender attract the sorts of people who love stealing party members' stuff for the explicit purpose of disrupting the game and screwing with other players by badgering them with annoying questions while hiding behind "roleplaying" as an excuse, all with the material's implicit sanction. And while the kender are childlike and innocent, their players know ''exactly'' what they're doing. Many [=DMs=] take a dim view of anyone wanting to play a kender, and many players wish that the race as a whole would just ''go away''. It's widely thought that the reason the kender have never been released in playable form for ''Fifth Edition'' (despite allegedly being in playtesting at one time) is because the designers are wise enough to know it would be extremely negatively received. Tellingly, when an Unearthed Arcana was released on March 8th, 2022 with the kender being the new race on it, the reaction was universally negative for not only bringing them back, but attempting to retcon the CuriousAsAMonkey trait.

** Gnolls, which are basically [[FunnyAnimal humanoid]] [[HeinousHyena hyenas]], have their fair share of furry fans. They've had racial stats across all ''D&D'' editions, with the exception of ''[[TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition 5th Edition]]'' since they had been labeled as "too demonic" by the authors of ''Volo's Guide to Monsters''. This hasn't stopped certain fans from [[HouseRule homebrewing]] hyena races though.

** While it's not a new edition and more of a revision in line of 3rd edition and 3.5 (codenamed [=OneD&D=]) and not due to be released until 2024, it's already off to a rocky start due to community backlash over changes to the Open Gaming License. However, Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast has addressed it by releasing a draft to for feedback. Time will tell if that will affect the brand or not.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License, called 1.1, that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them. In response to the backlash, Wizards has removed the more controversial parts of the 1.1 draft, gone back to the drawing board, and released another draft[[note]]Most notably, that draft says the core mechanics of the game will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.[[/note]], this one called 1.2, for feedback in the style of the playtest process for D&D Next and [=OneD&D=] and will be altering them as needed.

** While it's not a new edition and more odba revision in line of 3rd edition and 3.5 (codenamed [=OneD&D=]) and not due to be released until 2024, it's already off to a rocky start due to community backlash over changes to the Open Gaming License. However,Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast has addressed it by releasing a draft to for feedback. Time will tell if that will affect the brand or not.

** While 6th edition (codenamed "[=OneD&D=]") is not due to be released until 2024, it's already off to a rocky start due to community backlash over changes to the Open Gaming License.
* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License, called 1.1, that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them. In response to the backlash, Wizards has removed the more controversial parts of the 1.1 draft, gone back to the drawing board, and released another draft[[note]]Most notably, that draft says the core mechanics of the game will be released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.[[/note]], this one called 1.2, for feedback in the style of the playtest process for D&D Next and One D&D and will be altering them as needed.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License, called 1.1, that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them. In response to the backlash, Wizards has removed the more controversial parts of the 1.1 draft, gone back to the drawing board, and released another draft[[note]]Most notably, that draft says the core mechanics of the game will be released under the Crative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.[[/note]], this one called 1.2, for feedback in the style of the playtest process for D&D Next and One D&D and will be altering them as needed.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License, called 1.1, that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them. In response to the backlash, Wizards has removed the more controversial parts of the 1.1 draft, gone back to the drawing board, and released another draft, this one called 1.2, for feedback in the style of the playtest process for D&D Next and One DnD and will be altering them as needed.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License, called 1.1, that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them. In response to the backlash, Wizards has removed the more controversial parts of the 1.1 draft, gone back to the drawing board, and released another draft, this one called 1.2, for feedback and will be altering them as needed.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: The planned changes to the Open Gaming License that got {{Content Leak}}ed in January of 2023 (and were indirectly confirmed by Creator/WizardsOfTheCoast in their response) received a lot of backlash from community content creators due to the very harsh restrictions it placed on smaller content creators, who would have to pay royalties to Wizards and Creator/{{Hasbro}} if their profits from their fan content exceeded a certain margin. Given that a significant amount of D&D content is fan-created, this was widely seen as a money-grabbing overreach from them.

* ''YMMV/AdvancedDungeonsAndDragonsSecondEdition''

** While 6th edition (codenamed "[=OneD&D=]" is not due to be released until 2024, it's already off to a rocky start due to community backlash over changes to the Open Gaming License.

** After a revival of the brand with 3rd edition and 3.5, 4th edition made a controversial overhaul to gameplay and stands as probably the least popular edition, losing the title of best-selling RPG once again, this time to the 3.5-based ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}.

* CreatorsPet: Kender are depicted as not just a good race, but ''the'' good race. They are presented as curious, playful ''[[CuteCrittersActChildlike children]]'' with [[WouldHurtAChild all the associated moral compunctions to those who harm them]]. It's said that only the AlwaysChaoticEvil races hate the kender while the "wisest" say that "the world would lose something precious if the kender were ever to leave it". This is the given description for a race that casually rifles through other people's stuff ([[TooDumbToLive often sabotaging their own allies by "borrowing" equipment]]), [[{{Hypocrite}} gets offended when people accuse them of being thieves]], and [[ConsummateLiar has a strange talent for lying]]. Yet the books say this behavior is supposed to be endearing. One problem with them is that novelists like kender because they add comic relief and the ability to instigate plot by doing something reckless. The other characters love or at least tolerate the kender because the writers say they do. Conversely, in a tabletop game, having [[{{Griefer}} a player who recklessly starts conflicts and/or steals from other players]] just creates friction, along with causing certain world-building issues -- how did this race survive more than one generation, given how much trouble they cause? The Creator's Pet issue is just the cherry on top, essentially telling players that if they object to these annoyances, they are bad people, therefore creating a shield for toxic players to misbehave while insisting they are only playing their characters "as intended". And the problem has unfortunately made its way to ''5E'' as of ''Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen''.

* PopularWithFurries: ''Dungeons & Dragons'' has introduced a few {{Beast M|an}}en, {{Funny Animal}}s, and generally monstrous races that furries have long became fans of.