It's not that I don't have compassion it that I believe people should strive to live a healthy and happy life which can not happen when they allow wounds(both physical and mental) from the past shape their actions in the future and in order to deal with said wounds as far as the mental ones go that means seeking therapy in order to help them work past said issues which I said in my post but you either read in a tone I did not intend or just ignored entirely.
Yes, I believe Davyd made it clear that he does seek therapy, but meanwhile what? He and everyone else that are impacted by harmful portrayals of mental health should just suck it up? I think content creators that are aware and sensitive about issues that may harm their audience are correctly being responsible for their products when they take these issues into account while making new content.
Of course people should seek help when they need it, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't make reasonable accommodations for people. Therapy isn't a cure all, some people may never get over their issues. Should they just never play D&D again?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
How did they even determine that this was something worth changing? Did they send out a survey? Collect data? How many accounts of affected individuals did they listen to? WHERE WAS THE DISCOURSE? Or was this something the company decided to "just do"?
Did you miss the link where Davyd showed that WOTC has hired sensitivity readers? What about all the conversations that have been happening over the past months to a year?
I think a post a few back, where it was said: if you can't see how a group of people who can be accurately described as "Dark-skinned, heavy-featured brutes, ugly in every respect, who cannot comprehend civilization and reject it in favor of their primitive, violent ways" might maaaybe set off some problematic red flags for some folks? Well. I'd have to wonder if you're actively trying not to see it. that "turned the light on" for me.
I can't relate and I can't understand a lot of this because my brain doesn't work that way. The description quoted above, to me, describes several "monster" type races from sci-fi and fantasy, but has no accurate RL ties, unless we jump in a TARDIS and find us some Neanderthal groups. It is a description a bigot, bully or racist might use, but nothing a civilized, intelligent, thinking person might use. Those who still feel such bias toward any of the cultures around our world, from the techno-rich highly developed countries to the serene, more primitive ways of life where folks still live in huts and villages will always have some way to dehumanize those they hate.
It's understandable to have trouble relating to that. But, look at your own words: "It is a description a bigot, bully or racist might use, but nothing a civilized, intelligent, thinking person might use." Then, can you understand why maybe a book/game shouldn't use the "bigot, bully or racist" version? It's one thing to put a description like that in the mouth of a character who is supposed to be a bigot. It's another entirely for the whole work to (essentially or accidentally) endorse the viewpoint by using those words in expository text.
To be clear and historical, people use those words to describe other people right now, and continuously for centuries-if-not-forever. No time travel necessary. And those real-world attitudes have long informed fictional works, like "monsters" from sci-fi and fantasy. And the (real-world) targets of those sorts of (real-world) descriptions can easily see the reflection of the real world in the art.
Like, it's great if you don't have those prejudices. It's fine if you avoided those prejudices by being exposed to "negative bias and treatment." (I too am a male who wears his hair long, and I even grew up with the name "Ken" and got a lot of teasing...) That doesn't make it OK to propagate negative bias and treatment, even unintentionally.
It's not that I don't have compassion it that I believe people should strive to live a healthy and happy life which can not happen when they allow wounds(both physical and mental) from the past shape their actions in the future and in order to deal with said wounds as far as the mental ones go that means seeking therapy in order to help them work past said issues which I said in my post but you either read in a tone I did not intend or just ignored entirely.
I think wounds will naturally effect everyone. It might effect some people less so than others, but it does effect everyone.
I'm not going to talk about physical wounds I think it's pretty obvious those can change a person's future.
Mental wounds leave a lot of people dead, look up suicide rates due to bullying or cyberbullying. But that's not really on-topic.
What is on-topic is Third_Sundering's nice post about all the way back in page 1 (here), although around half of it isn't relevant because Third was arguing with someone else on a different front. The most important in my opinion is this interesting article Third links to about how media (which does include the D&D sourcebooks) can heavily impact our perceptions of mental illness, and how those warped perceptions can negatively effect those who have mental illnesses.
Why does everyone here insist on absolutes as a man with the high ground once said "only the sith deal in absolutes" and that's all everyone here seems to want. It's all this absolutely must change or it absolutely must not but what you all are seeming to forget is that D&D a game with a human operating system so if you are uncomfortable with something you can ask your DM/GM to change it or maybe somewhere in the book they could have said "and here with have the madness system, stress and fear, or maybe even eldritch insight call it what you want" but no everyone here insist on my way or the high way no matter what side of the fence your on and this is absolutely ridiculous.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Why does everyone here insist on absolutes as a man with the high ground once said "only the sith deal in absolutes" and that's all everyone here seems to want. It's all this absolutely must change or it absolutely must not but what you all are seeming to forget is that D&D a game with a human operating system so if you are uncomfortable with something you can ask your DM/GM to change it or maybe somewhere in the book they could have said "and here with have the madness system, stress and fear, or maybe even eldritch insight call it what you want" but no everyone here insist on my way or the high way no matter what side of the fence your on and this is absolutely ridiculous.
What absolutes are you referring to now? What happened in this thread are that people noticed there was a language change between the DMG and Van Richten's Guide in regards to various mental stress effects and thought that it was a good change. Is that the absolutism you're talking about?
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
as far as physical wounds effecting your future your right they can but you can still work past them after all if this man https://youtu.be/RykSAE8LjWE can compete in a marathon even with his physical disabilities or this one https://youtu.be/YXkHrvkna6E then I believe you can definitely work past them. And as far as mental wounds and suicide go as far as I'm aware and feel free to correct me, many people who commit suicide do so after having failed to seek out help in time or their friends and family failed to see the signs in either case it could have been prevented if they had received help. And I'm aware some people still commit suicide even after receiving all the help and support they could have but does that mean I think we should start banning words because of the impact they might have on some people no because frankly that's ridiculous we should instead fix things at the source to use madness as an example back in yester year it was most definitely used as a catch all for mental illness however nowadays in modern media it's used as a catch all for the mad scientist archetype or for the people who know that which man was not meant to know and similar cases which shows that the term is being changed from its negative roots and into something with a different less harmful meaning. and as far as harmful words go if you really think that removing all mean words is even remotely possible boy do I have news for you. and don't say that's not what your trying to achieve because it is maybe not on such a grand scale, but that is still the goal your heading towards a world where words that hurt people will no longer be used.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
as far as physical wounds effecting your future your right they can but you can still work past them after all if this man https://youtu.be/RykSAE8LjWE can compete in a marathon even with his physical disabilities or this one https://youtu.be/YXkHrvkna6E then I believe you can definitely work past them. And as far as mental wounds and suicide go as far as I'm aware and feel free to correct me, many people who commit suicide do so after having failed to seek out help in time or their friends and family failed to see the signs in either case it could have been prevented if they had received help. And I'm aware some people still commit suicide even after receiving all the help and support they could have but does that mean I think we should start banning words because of the impact they might have on some people no because frankly that's ridiculous we should instead fix things at the source to use madness as an example back in yester year it was most definitely used as a catch all for mental illness however nowadays in modern media it's used as a catch all for the mad scientist archetype or for the people who know that which man was not meant to know and similar cases which shows that the term is being changed from its negative roots and into something with a different less harmful meaning. and as far as harmful words go if you really think that removing all mean words is even remotely possible boy do I have news for you. and don't say that's not what your trying to achieve because it is maybe not on such a grand scale, but that is still the goal your heading towards a world where words that hurt people will no longer be used.
You know no one banned anything, right? Like I said, they decided to go with different wording in the newest book and people noticed and thought it was a good change, that's it. It's just like if someone put in left handed writing desks in a class that formerly only had right handed desks and the lefties (like me) noticed and said something about it.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Would you prefer I say that that I don't think they should start removing words from people's vocabulary instead of the word banned. Because to me those sound pretty darn similar.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Would you prefer I say that that I don't think they should start removing words from people's vocabulary instead of the word banned. Because to me those sound pretty darn similar.
So the change in question is discussed HERE in a Twitter thread. If you'll notice, no one banned anything or removed anything. The authors simply chose to use different words and someone noticed and was happy about it. I don't know where "banning" or "removing" even came from.
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Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You do realize by changing the wording they effectively removed it I'm not talking about the rules/mechanics here just the wording.and by changing the wording they have by definition removed the previous wording.
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If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Would you prefer I say that that I don't think they should start removing words from people's vocabulary instead of the word banned. Because to me those sound pretty darn similar.
As I said probably over a dozen pages back, nobody can make you do or not do anything. WotC isn't telling you you can't use this or that word, and they couldn't even if they wanted to (which they don't). At your table, your group decides what's appropriate and what isn't and which terminology to use or to avoid. And nobody has any problems with that (assuming everybody at the table is ok with the proceedings). All that's been done is that WotC decided not to use certain words because they have acquired connotations that make them harmful for some people and they want to avoid those people being confronted with this in sourcebooks meant to be used by as many people as possible.
WotC can't check every group for what may be problematic and what may be ok and then provide them with a bespoke copy of the books that fits them perfectly. They have to consider any and all D&D players, current and future, when making decisions about what content they put out. And they won't always get it right either. That's impossible, just like it's impossible to create content that's perfect for everyone. There are tens of thousands of differently specc'ed pairs of jeans out there and there are still people who can't find a pair that fits them perfectly; obviously a single book can't perfectly fit every reader either. Nonetheless, the right thing to do is to try.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
You do realize by changing the wording they effectively removed it I'm not talking about the rules/mechanics here just the wording.and by changing the wording they have by definition removed the previous wording.
No. That means they changed it. They replaced it. There's a difference between removing/"banning" something and replacing it. Furthermore, nothing is removed from the DMG or any other D&D 5e book because of this change in language. If you want to use the DMG's Madness system (in or out of Ravenloft), no one and nothing is going to stop you from doing that.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
You do realize by changing the wording they effectively removed it I'm not talking about the rules/mechanics here just the wording.and by changing the wording they have by definition removed the previous wording.
How did using different words in Van Richten's change, remove, or ban anything from the DMG? I don't have the book yet so I don't know if you have more information than me. Did they mention that the wording in the DMG was no longer supposed to be used?
You do realize by changing the wording they effectively removed it I'm not talking about the rules/mechanics here just the wording.and by changing the wording they have by definition removed the previous wording.
How did using different words in Van Richten's change, remove, or ban anything from the DMG? I don't have the book yet so I don't know if you have more information than me. Did they mention that the wording in the DMG was no longer supposed to be used?
As I am sure you can predict, no...it doesn't.
"This section presents an alternative system, exploring reactions personalized to individual characters and offering incentive for players to embrace roleplaying moments of fear."-VRGtR pg 195
So you can use the option in the DMG or you can use the system in VRGtR OR you can use neither, as both are optional rules.
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To be fair by being aware, this thread started with a critique of the DMG. It was convenient coincident VRGtR was slated to come out within days of the OP, but the OP (who has since been absent) made no mention of the new book (though had made an uninformed diss of the book in another threads). I think there's some confusion over whether VRGtR supercedes the DMG in this area. Common sense says no, because VRGtR isn't a core book to the rules. The DMG is, and to date the DMG has not been modified.
But it's clear to me via the cascading digressions in this thread that this -not a change but - option has stirred the beef a very vocal set of players hold against (at least) Tasha's. The Tasha's rule for floating ability score modifiers were also presented as an option. From UA published since then many in the community have concluded that all races/lineages in the future will be designed in accordance with the Tasha's option, with no rules states bound ability score modifiers. I guess that's the substantiation into which proponents of the slippery slope that keeps getting invoked have their cleats dug.
I also remember a few members of this forum being concerned/agitated that DDB "just changes" bought content to reflect the most recent errata/edition of a subscribers owned content. I think there was something in the PHB, can't remember what; but I definitely remember some alarm over the removal of negative ability score modifiers for race/lineage options presented in Volos or Mords, plus some of the revisions in CoS.
This is not the only vector for some of the pushback against what VRGtR makes available to the game, but it's pretty clear why some members when presented with "options" they start to think "change." I don't believe some of the rancor (well, any of the rancor actually) raised in protest of game options and optional accommodations is warranted, but I don't think anyone can in good faith not recognize where it's coming from. Not saying we all have to agree to it, but this is a known beef that has never and I doubt will ever be resolved on this forum regardless of whatever rules of order, informal logic rules, or handy guides to debate attempt to apply here. Intransigency is real. Over 400 posts and has anyone ceded anything?
Originally, I was somewhat against Wizard's errata. I do not remember which thread or forumite, but someone replied to my response and I specifically remember reading "hurt" and "pain", and for me, those two words turned on my light switch. While I still do not completely support Wizard's decision, I could not think of a better solution, and this is the best solution we have right now to reduce hurt and pain. I support free speech and saying whatever you want, but I also support not being an ass and not hurting people. And if being more aware, conscious, and polite makes you more profitable too, then that is even more of a reason to do so.
I can always homebrew or roleplay racism, sex, politics, religion, and anything and everything taboo into the game if I want to, so it is not like it matters whether it is in the official publications or not. And unlike videogames where it is more difficult to mod game (unless you can code, you will have to rely on modders), for D&D and other TTRPGs, it is almost impossible to not mod/homebrew your own game. Modding D&D is something that is super easy to do, and it does not require any special knowledge or coding to work. At worst, putting sensitive content back into D&D is a minor convenience, and if this is the cost for reducing pain for others, such minor convenience is hardly a big deal.
These threads and posts might not have the immediate significant impact that you can see, but I think there is impact, however small it might be. Each post might not be significant individually, but they all add up to help someone understand and empathize. It might take 20 pages of discussion, or even maybe 20 discussions, but if it helps turning on one light bulb, I think that is worth it. For every person that is more conscious and tactful, it could potentially reduce the pain of dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of others depending on who the person is.
Why does everyone here insist on absolutes as a man with the high ground once said "only the sith deal in absolutes" and that's all everyone here seems to want. It's all this absolutely must change or it absolutely must not but what you all are seeming to forget is that D&D a game with a human operating system so if you are uncomfortable with something you can ask your DM/GM to change it or maybe somewhere in the book they could have said "and here with have the madness system, stress and fear, or maybe even eldritch insight call it what you want" but no everyone here insist on my way or the high way no matter what side of the fence your on and this is absolutely ridiculous.
First of all, it is clear that the Jedi deal in absolutes at least as much as the Sith. "Do or do not, there is no try" is a start. Many things are banned for a Jedi, not because they are bad in themselves but because they may, possibly, lead to bad things in the future. I highly doubt Anakin would have turned to the dark side if the Jedi had been in any way flexible.
I do agree with you that absolutism is to be avoided.
That said, few if any on here who are in favour of newer, more sympathetic wording, have argued for an absolute. None of us have said "it must change". What we have asked is that people be sympathetic towards those who find the previous wording painful, just as we ask for sympathy towards anyone who is in pain (including those who find the new wording, or the fact that new wording has been introduced at all, painful). Kindness, sympathy, compassion, empathy, consideration... These are not absolutes.
On the other hand, "I don't like this change. I will never adapt my game based on the opinions, beliefs or pain of those at my table and would rather quit as DM than make any accommodations"... I agree, that's absolutism and that attitude should be avoided.
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Yes, I believe Davyd made it clear that he does seek therapy, but meanwhile what? He and everyone else that are impacted by harmful portrayals of mental health should just suck it up? I think content creators that are aware and sensitive about issues that may harm their audience are correctly being responsible for their products when they take these issues into account while making new content.
Of course people should seek help when they need it, but that doesn't mean that people shouldn't make reasonable accommodations for people. Therapy isn't a cure all, some people may never get over their issues. Should they just never play D&D again?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Did you miss the link where Davyd showed that WOTC has hired sensitivity readers? What about all the conversations that have been happening over the past months to a year?
https://dnd.wizards.com/articles/features/diversity-and-dnd
There's been discourse. There could be more, of course, but it's been happening.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
It's understandable to have trouble relating to that. But, look at your own words: "It is a description a bigot, bully or racist might use, but nothing a civilized, intelligent, thinking person might use." Then, can you understand why maybe a book/game shouldn't use the "bigot, bully or racist" version? It's one thing to put a description like that in the mouth of a character who is supposed to be a bigot. It's another entirely for the whole work to (essentially or accidentally) endorse the viewpoint by using those words in expository text.
To be clear and historical, people use those words to describe other people right now, and continuously for centuries-if-not-forever. No time travel necessary. And those real-world attitudes have long informed fictional works, like "monsters" from sci-fi and fantasy. And the (real-world) targets of those sorts of (real-world) descriptions can easily see the reflection of the real world in the art.
Like, it's great if you don't have those prejudices. It's fine if you avoided those prejudices by being exposed to "negative bias and treatment." (I too am a male who wears his hair long, and I even grew up with the name "Ken" and got a lot of teasing...) That doesn't make it OK to propagate negative bias and treatment, even unintentionally.
I think wounds will naturally effect everyone. It might effect some people less so than others, but it does effect everyone.
I'm not going to talk about physical wounds I think it's pretty obvious those can change a person's future.
Mental wounds leave a lot of people dead, look up suicide rates due to bullying or cyberbullying. But that's not really on-topic.
What is on-topic is Third_Sundering's nice post about all the way back in page 1 (here), although around half of it isn't relevant because Third was arguing with someone else on a different front. The most important in my opinion is this interesting article Third links to about how media (which does include the D&D sourcebooks) can heavily impact our perceptions of mental illness, and how those warped perceptions can negatively effect those who have mental illnesses.
if I edit a message, most of the time it's because of grammar. The rest of the time I'll put "Edit:" at the bottom.
Why does everyone here insist on absolutes as a man with the high ground once said "only the sith deal in absolutes" and that's all everyone here seems to want. It's all this absolutely must change or it absolutely must not but what you all are seeming to forget is that D&D a game with a human operating system so if you are uncomfortable with something you can ask your DM/GM to change it or maybe somewhere in the book they could have said "and here with have the madness system, stress and fear, or maybe even eldritch insight call it what you want" but no everyone here insist on my way or the high way no matter what side of the fence your on and this is absolutely ridiculous.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
What absolutes are you referring to now? What happened in this thread are that people noticed there was a language change between the DMG and Van Richten's Guide in regards to various mental stress effects and thought that it was a good change. Is that the absolutism you're talking about?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
as far as physical wounds effecting your future your right they can but you can still work past them after all if this man https://youtu.be/RykSAE8LjWE can compete in a marathon even with his physical disabilities or this one https://youtu.be/YXkHrvkna6E then I believe you can definitely work past them. And as far as mental wounds and suicide go as far as I'm aware and feel free to correct me, many people who commit suicide do so after having failed to seek out help in time or their friends and family failed to see the signs in either case it could have been prevented if they had received help. And I'm aware some people still commit suicide even after receiving all the help and support they could have but does that mean I think we should start banning words because of the impact they might have on some people no because frankly that's ridiculous we should instead fix things at the source to use madness as an example back in yester year it was most definitely used as a catch all for mental illness however nowadays in modern media it's used as a catch all for the mad scientist archetype or for the people who know that which man was not meant to know and similar cases which shows that the term is being changed from its negative roots and into something with a different less harmful meaning. and as far as harmful words go if you really think that removing all mean words is even remotely possible boy do I have news for you. and don't say that's not what your trying to achieve because it is maybe not on such a grand scale, but that is still the goal your heading towards a world where words that hurt people will no longer be used.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
You know no one banned anything, right? Like I said, they decided to go with different wording in the newest book and people noticed and thought it was a good change, that's it. It's just like if someone put in left handed writing desks in a class that formerly only had right handed desks and the lefties (like me) noticed and said something about it.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
Would you prefer I say that that I don't think they should start removing words from people's vocabulary instead of the word banned. Because to me those sound pretty darn similar.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I feel like your purposely being obtuse seeing as how I said what absolutes I was talking about in my post.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
I'm not, though I will confess to being utterly confused as to what you were talking about and how it related to anything else in the thread.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
So the change in question is discussed HERE in a Twitter thread. If you'll notice, no one banned anything or removed anything. The authors simply chose to use different words and someone noticed and was happy about it. I don't know where "banning" or "removing" even came from.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You do realize by changing the wording they effectively removed it I'm not talking about the rules/mechanics here just the wording.and by changing the wording they have by definition removed the previous wording.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
As I said probably over a dozen pages back, nobody can make you do or not do anything. WotC isn't telling you you can't use this or that word, and they couldn't even if they wanted to (which they don't). At your table, your group decides what's appropriate and what isn't and which terminology to use or to avoid. And nobody has any problems with that (assuming everybody at the table is ok with the proceedings). All that's been done is that WotC decided not to use certain words because they have acquired connotations that make them harmful for some people and they want to avoid those people being confronted with this in sourcebooks meant to be used by as many people as possible.
WotC can't check every group for what may be problematic and what may be ok and then provide them with a bespoke copy of the books that fits them perfectly. They have to consider any and all D&D players, current and future, when making decisions about what content they put out. And they won't always get it right either. That's impossible, just like it's impossible to create content that's perfect for everyone. There are tens of thousands of differently specc'ed pairs of jeans out there and there are still people who can't find a pair that fits them perfectly; obviously a single book can't perfectly fit every reader either. Nonetheless, the right thing to do is to try.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
No. That means they changed it. They replaced it. There's a difference between removing/"banning" something and replacing it. Furthermore, nothing is removed from the DMG or any other D&D 5e book because of this change in language. If you want to use the DMG's Madness system (in or out of Ravenloft), no one and nothing is going to stop you from doing that.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
How did using different words in Van Richten's change, remove, or ban anything from the DMG? I don't have the book yet so I don't know if you have more information than me. Did they mention that the wording in the DMG was no longer supposed to be used?
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
As I am sure you can predict, no...it doesn't.
"This section presents an alternative system, exploring reactions personalized to individual characters and offering incentive for players to embrace roleplaying moments of fear."-VRGtR pg 195
So you can use the option in the DMG or you can use the system in VRGtR OR you can use neither, as both are optional rules.
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To be fair by being aware, this thread started with a critique of the DMG. It was convenient coincident VRGtR was slated to come out within days of the OP, but the OP (who has since been absent) made no mention of the new book (though had made an uninformed diss of the book in another threads). I think there's some confusion over whether VRGtR supercedes the DMG in this area. Common sense says no, because VRGtR isn't a core book to the rules. The DMG is, and to date the DMG has not been modified.
But it's clear to me via the cascading digressions in this thread that this -not a change but - option has stirred the beef a very vocal set of players hold against (at least) Tasha's. The Tasha's rule for floating ability score modifiers were also presented as an option. From UA published since then many in the community have concluded that all races/lineages in the future will be designed in accordance with the Tasha's option, with no rules states bound ability score modifiers. I guess that's the substantiation into which proponents of the slippery slope that keeps getting invoked have their cleats dug.
I also remember a few members of this forum being concerned/agitated that DDB "just changes" bought content to reflect the most recent errata/edition of a subscribers owned content. I think there was something in the PHB, can't remember what; but I definitely remember some alarm over the removal of negative ability score modifiers for race/lineage options presented in Volos or Mords, plus some of the revisions in CoS.
This is not the only vector for some of the pushback against what VRGtR makes available to the game, but it's pretty clear why some members when presented with "options" they start to think "change." I don't believe some of the rancor (well, any of the rancor actually) raised in protest of game options and optional accommodations is warranted, but I don't think anyone can in good faith not recognize where it's coming from. Not saying we all have to agree to it, but this is a known beef that has never and I doubt will ever be resolved on this forum regardless of whatever rules of order, informal logic rules, or handy guides to debate attempt to apply here. Intransigency is real. Over 400 posts and has anyone ceded anything?
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Originally, I was somewhat against Wizard's errata. I do not remember which thread or forumite, but someone replied to my response and I specifically remember reading "hurt" and "pain", and for me, those two words turned on my light switch. While I still do not completely support Wizard's decision, I could not think of a better solution, and this is the best solution we have right now to reduce hurt and pain. I support free speech and saying whatever you want, but I also support not being an ass and not hurting people. And if being more aware, conscious, and polite makes you more profitable too, then that is even more of a reason to do so.
I can always homebrew or roleplay racism, sex, politics, religion, and anything and everything taboo into the game if I want to, so it is not like it matters whether it is in the official publications or not. And unlike videogames where it is more difficult to mod game (unless you can code, you will have to rely on modders), for D&D and other TTRPGs, it is almost impossible to not mod/homebrew your own game. Modding D&D is something that is super easy to do, and it does not require any special knowledge or coding to work. At worst, putting sensitive content back into D&D is a minor convenience, and if this is the cost for reducing pain for others, such minor convenience is hardly a big deal.
These threads and posts might not have the immediate significant impact that you can see, but I think there is impact, however small it might be. Each post might not be significant individually, but they all add up to help someone understand and empathize. It might take 20 pages of discussion, or even maybe 20 discussions, but if it helps turning on one light bulb, I think that is worth it. For every person that is more conscious and tactful, it could potentially reduce the pain of dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of others depending on who the person is.
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First of all, it is clear that the Jedi deal in absolutes at least as much as the Sith. "Do or do not, there is no try" is a start. Many things are banned for a Jedi, not because they are bad in themselves but because they may, possibly, lead to bad things in the future. I highly doubt Anakin would have turned to the dark side if the Jedi had been in any way flexible.
I do agree with you that absolutism is to be avoided.
That said, few if any on here who are in favour of newer, more sympathetic wording, have argued for an absolute. None of us have said "it must change". What we have asked is that people be sympathetic towards those who find the previous wording painful, just as we ask for sympathy towards anyone who is in pain (including those who find the new wording, or the fact that new wording has been introduced at all, painful). Kindness, sympathy, compassion, empathy, consideration... These are not absolutes.
On the other hand, "I don't like this change. I will never adapt my game based on the opinions, beliefs or pain of those at my table and would rather quit as DM than make any accommodations"... I agree, that's absolutism and that attitude should be avoided.