For point 2, why don't you do some reading on the hiring practices of TSR and then get back to me on this one. I was there, the game was open to anyone and everyone. Whatever they could do to sell or get talent they did. If you want to go revisionist history, then please pontificate about it, I'm all ears.
Why are people like this? If you have resources available, I am happy to read them instead of expecting you to regurgitate them, but what am I supposed to be looking for on their hiring practices? If you have a coherent point or argument, just make it. I will do the additional reading if you can point me in the right direction. So far, in googling Wizards of the Coast hiring practices, I am getting personal testimonial that there is racism within the company. I'm getting WotC company pages. I'm getting random stories and glassdoor reviews. Is that what you wanted me to see? If so, what is the connection to woke extremism and content? Or are you merely saying the company isn't racist in response to Zonlos2_0?
You are not a rogue in real life. Your viewpoints don't get sneak attack bonuses if you male them opaque.
Ok, so you are lazy. Who is Darlene in relation to TSR and what did she contribute?
It's your position we're talking about. If you won't articulate it, I won't know what it is. I am not here to be tested or play guessing games. Like I said, if you want to make a coherent point, I will do the background reading. If you want to be cagey and make it a guessing game, then I'm not putting in the time to try to make an argument on you behalf.
For point 2, why don't you do some reading on the hiring practices of TSR and then get back to me on this one. I was there, the game was open to anyone and everyone. Whatever they could do to sell or get talent they did. If you want to go revisionist history, then please pontificate about it, I'm all ears.
Why are people like this? If you have resources available, I am happy to read them instead of expecting you to regurgitate them, but what am I supposed to be looking for on their hiring practices? If you have a coherent point or argument, just make it. I will do the additional reading if you can point me in the right direction. So far, in googling Wizards of the Coast hiring practices, I am getting personal testimonial that there is racism within the company. I'm getting WotC company pages. I'm getting random stories and glassdoor reviews. Is that what you wanted me to see? If so, what is the connection to woke extremism and content? Or are you merely saying the company isn't racist in response to Zonlos2_0?
You are not a rogue in real life. Your viewpoints don't get sneak attack bonuses if you male them opaque.
Ok, so you are lazy. Who is Darlene in relation to TSR and what did she contribute?
It's your position we're talking about. If you won't articulate it, I won't know what it is. I am not here to be tested or play guessing games. Like I said, if you want to make a coherent point, I will do the background reading. If you want to be cagey and make it a guessing game, then I'm not putting in the time to try to make an argument on you behalf.
You can't prove your position, I was there. I gave you the name of person you could research very very very very easy. Do a DuckDuckGo for "Darlene TSR". Get back to me when you have started your basic education of TSR. I'll continue with the history lesson. What I don't like are people going full on racist accusations about a company and they don't know their hand from a potato in the ground on it.
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
For point 2, why don't you do some reading on the hiring practices of TSR and then get back to me on this one. I was there, the game was open to anyone and everyone. Whatever they could do to sell or get talent they did. If you want to go revisionist history, then please pontificate about it, I'm all ears.
Why are people like this? If you have resources available, I am happy to read them instead of expecting you to regurgitate them, but what am I supposed to be looking for on their hiring practices? If you have a coherent point or argument, just make it. I will do the additional reading if you can point me in the right direction. So far, in googling Wizards of the Coast hiring practices, I am getting personal testimonial that there is racism within the company. I'm getting WotC company pages. I'm getting random stories and glassdoor reviews. Is that what you wanted me to see? If so, what is the connection to woke extremism and content? Or are you merely saying the company isn't racist in response to Zonlos2_0?
You are not a rogue in real life. Your viewpoints don't get sneak attack bonuses if you male them opaque.
Ok, so you are lazy. Who is Darlene in relation to TSR and what did she contribute?
What does the woman who drew the original map of Greyhawk have to do with the price of potatoes? The conversational context here is:
Wellofworlds: Complaint about Hasbro's "woke extremism".
Zenlos2_0: Request for an explanation of woke extremism, allegation of 50 years of racism.
Portential (you): Mysterious statement about TSR's hiring practices.
BogWitchKris: Request for explanation of mysterious statement.
Portential (you): accusation of laziness and demand to know who Darlene is and what she did.
Since we're discussing racism and hiring practices, are you suggesting Darlene was only hired because she was white? Because I see absolutely no evidence of that, but I don't see any other possible connection between the current topic and your statements.
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
There's absolutely nothing about Darlene I can find that has any relation to anyone being racist or not racist. Googling her former full legal name + racism (Darlene Jean Pekul racism) gets absolutely nothing relevant. You have yet to even remotely explain why you think she has any bearing on the conversation. There's no evidence she was ever racist or that anyone was racist against her or for her. You might as well be demanding we learn who Bob Ross is.
For point 2, why don't you do some reading on the hiring practices of TSR and then get back to me on this one. I was there, the game was open to anyone and everyone. Whatever they could do to sell or get talent they did. If you want to go revisionist history, then please pontificate about it, I'm all ears.
Why are people like this? If you have resources available, I am happy to read them instead of expecting you to regurgitate them, but what am I supposed to be looking for on their hiring practices? If you have a coherent point or argument, just make it. I will do the additional reading if you can point me in the right direction. So far, in googling Wizards of the Coast hiring practices, I am getting personal testimonial that there is racism within the company. I'm getting WotC company pages. I'm getting random stories and glassdoor reviews. Is that what you wanted me to see? If so, what is the connection to woke extremism and content? Or are you merely saying the company isn't racist in response to Zonlos2_0?
You are not a rogue in real life. Your viewpoints don't get sneak attack bonuses if you male them opaque.
Ok, so you are lazy. Who is Darlene in relation to TSR and what did she contribute?
What does the woman who drew the original map of Greyhawk have to do with the price of potatoes? The conversational context here is:
Wellofworlds: Complaint about Hasbro's "woke extremism".
Zenlos2_0: Request for an explanation of woke extremism, allegation of 50 years of racism.
Portential (you): Mysterious statement about TSR's hiring practices.
BogWitchKris: Request for explanation of mysterious statement.
Portential (you): accusation of laziness and demand to know who Darlene is and what she did.
Since we're discussing racism and hiring practices, are you suggesting Darlene was only hired because she was white? Because I see absolutely no evidence of that, but I don't see any other possible connection between the current topic and your statements.
I'm stating quite succinctly that TSR took whatever talent they could get, and didn't care about race, gender etc. I gave you one example of an early contractor who did a lot of contract work for TSR early on. TSR had one of the first females CEO's. What you are doing is looking back in time 40 years ago with a very sclerotic lens where everything is sexist and everything is racist. Women had just started entering the workforce a few years before TSR was founded. TSR initially got it's spread through colleges, not through mass marketing or advertising on television shows, they weren't that rich. They hired locally, Darlene was a local girl less than 30 miles away from Lake Geneva. Lake Geneva at that time was over 95% white. And believe it or not, during those times, they tended to hire locally, because its what they could get.
When it comes to gencon, hobby shops and play for D&D, everyone was welcome, and no one would be turned away. Why? Because playing D&D made you a target at school, so you'd get who you could get to play. No clue on college at that time, I got introduced to 1E by brother home from college.
I highly suggest you don't pretend that 40 years ago, was today, things change in 40 years. If you want to pretend that TSR was racist, go ahead, but expect when you run into people from that time, you are going to get an earful.
Lets continue with your education on D&D, who was Jennele Jaquays and what was her contribution to D&D?
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
There's absolutely nothing about Darlene I can find that has any relation to anyone being racist or not racist. Googling her former full legal name + racism (Darlene Jean Pekul racism) gets absolutely nothing relevant. You have yet to even remotely explain why you think she has any bearing on the conversation. There's no evidence she was ever racist or that anyone was racist against her or for her. You might as well be demanding we learn who Bob Ross is.
You might have misread, I'm stating TSR for its time wasn't racist. You hear those claims from younglings parroting what they read on Twitter, from people with slanted agendas to libel the old work. Why you got me, maybe they are threatened by past work or maybe they have no talent and want to get clicks to become an influencer and its easy target to go after people who are dead. I was just giving him an example of female contractor at TSR as an example they hire who they can get. Mind you women didn't start entering the work force till the 60's and it didn't come close to picking up steam in the 70's when TSR started. You got people who weren't alive in the 70's trying to state everything then was just horrible from a 2020 lens, and it is just so skewed its beyond parody.
Hiring a single woman has absolutely no relevance to whether or not a company was racist. Or more to the point, whether the material published by said company had issues with racist portrayals of individuals and ethnic groups. It is, in fact, so far of topic that it raises the question of whether or not it's a deliberate attempt at distraction.
Hiring a single woman has absolutely no relevance to whether or not a company was racist.
Ok, so how about a solid example where TSR fired someone for being the wrong race, do you got one? Anything? Or do you have vague accusations from younglings, trying to become influences.
Lets give a softball. Oh my Gawd, Oriental Adventures are so racist! I watched the two wannabe influencers do their hack job, they didn't know much about the game and wanted an authentic reproduction of Asia for a fantasy game. Lets go with the name, which is what they went for their grift. The continent it takes place on is Kara Tur. If the game was labeled Kara Tur Adventurers, would that sell in Japan (one of the countries it was targeted to), probably not. If they labeled it Asian Adventures is that accurate is it 1500's Asia, no, no its not. Instead they went with the term "Oriental" because that term accurately describes the region of Asia it was based on. Oriental means of, from, or characteristic of Asia, especially East Asia. As to the wannabe influencer, I made it through 30 minutes of drivel and they were laying on thick. When they got to the part saying its racist to put Barbarian in the game, I had enough. The greatest conqueror in known history was Gengis Khan. He changed the world climate. There are over 20M male descendants from the man. His country spanned China to Europe. He was the quintessential Barbarian warlord.
So any other content that just drives you up the wall? Or did that take away wind in your sails? Because I'm willing to bet if you played the game in the 70's or 80's, you'd have a very different opinion.
You can't prove your position, I was there. I gave you the name of person you could research very very very very easy. Do a DuckDuckGo for "Darlene TSR". Get back to me when you have started your basic education of TSR. I'll continue with the history lesson. What I don't like are people going full on racist accusations about a company and they don't know their hand from a potato in the ground on it.
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
What position? I haven't taken one relevant to this. I've never claimed WotC or TSR had discriminatory hiring practices. I'm not sure I even understand what the relevance is. As I'm reading up on Darlene, I am still not seeing what argument you are making. I don't know that anyone was claiming that TSR or WotC were dens of absolute racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny such that no women, trans*, queer, black, indigenous and racialized people have been employed, under contract or other wise involved with these companies.
You say you will continue with the history lesson apparently against the narrative of racism within the company, but you haven't even started with that. You're just saying it's not true then providing the name of a woman who appears to be white from the Greyhawk/ TSR days, which is great, but doesn't impart a clear lesson. I am looking at some of her illustrations done for TSR and for Jasmine (which doesn't seem to be affiliated with TSR directly), but they aren't very clear in the images I have. I'm tying to find the comic strip version from Dragon Magazine, but it doesn't seem like something widely available. What little I am finding makes it seem like it wasn't well-received, but this happened slightly before I was born so I have little context to evaluate such claims.
You are acting like you are being attacked here. But I honestly can't make sense of the point you are trying to make and that's the extent of what I am saying here. It doesn't feel like this is going anywhere, so I'm bowing out. This feels like it's going to branch into the territory where threads get locked.
You can't prove your position, I was there. I gave you the name of person you could research very very very very easy. Do a DuckDuckGo for "Darlene TSR". Get back to me when you have started your basic education of TSR. I'll continue with the history lesson. What I don't like are people going full on racist accusations about a company and they don't know their hand from a potato in the ground on it.
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
What position? I haven't taken one relevant to this. I've never claimed WotC or TSR had discriminatory hiring practices. I'm not sure I even understand what the relevance is. As I'm reading up on Darlene, I am still not seeing what argument you are making. I don't know that anyone was claiming that TSR or WotC were dens of absolute racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny such that no women, trans*, queer, black, indigenous and racialized people have been employed, under contract or other wise involved with these companies.
You say you will continue with the history lesson apparently against the narrative of racism within the company, but you haven't even started with that. You're just saying it's not true then providing the name of a woman who appears to be white from the Greyhawk/ TSR days, which is great, but doesn't impart a clear lesson. I am looking at some of her illustrations done for TSR and for Jasmine (which doesn't seem to be affiliated with TSR directly), but they aren't very clear in the images I have. I'm tying to find the comic strip version from Dragon Magazine, but it doesn't seem like something widely available. What little I am finding makes it seem like it wasn't well-received, but this happened slightly before I was born so I have little context to evaluate such claims.
You are acting like you are being attacked here. But I honestly can't make sense of the point you are trying to make and that's the extent of what I am saying here. It doesn't feel like this is going anywhere, so I'm bowing out. This feels like it's going to branch into the territory where threads get locked.
You came in on this:
Why are people like this? If you have resources available, I am happy to read them instead of expecting you to regurgitate them, but what am I supposed to be looking for on their hiring practices? If you have a coherent point or argument, just make it. I will do the additional reading if you can point me in the right direction.
I'm talking about TSR, earlier in the thread you went on WotC. Typically when you hear people complain about D&D its aimed at TSR, not WotC, and its almost always TSR is racist. It gets really old, really fast. I don't care one bit about WotC reputation, I don't really use much of their content save the core rules. WotC at least in 5E lacks flavor, some of their 3.0 to 3.5 though is very good from content perspective.
1) Wizards of the coast is back stepping to fourth edition with the new monster/npc setup. Very Boring.
2) The woke extremism that Hasbro has been pushing did not sound good.
3) UA is not even being used anymore, the survey are not open enough to allow everyone to give a opinion. A) UA not being used on D&D beyond.
4) To many races being created. I like a choice, but now it getting bad.
5) Last two book have been rehash of a different theme.
6) They are not even trying to put out decent story lines. Fey one just seems hacked with revisited themes. It looks boring.
I am not liking what I see. I been playing dungeon and dragons along time. I have played every edition, since first. i can honestly say, I feel disappointed.
1. While I was not here for 4e, I fail to see any major changes to monsters in the "new" statblocks. I am going through monsters in FTOD and TWBTW, and they are practically the same as the old ones. The only difference I can spot is that they got "typically" added in front of alignments, but calling that "new" is extremely stretching it. I am not sure what you are looking at that gives you a different impression.
2. I do not think Wizards is woke. If anything, Wizards is pretty moderate. On the other hand, from what I have seen, some people have moved so far to the right that they fail to distinguish the difference between moderates and liberals.
3. UA are still being created by Wizards, and surveys were open though? If you are complaining about the short time period to give feedback, they have always been this way. 3A. I wish Beyond would do UA too, but they got priorities, and I think a staff member said they reached this decision with Wizards.
4. I do not see how this is even an issue. Just do not use them if you do not want them. Complaining about having more choices in a game that encourages GMs to homebrew and deviate from RAW is like complaining about being offered too much food at a buffet. If you do not stuff yourself at a buffet to the point of sending yourself to the hospital, you do not have to use nor allow every single official or homebrew content at your table either. This is like complaining for the sake of complaining.
5. FTOD is literally what most old and new players are asking for; they want more versions of Monster Manuals tailored towards a specific theme or type of monster. I remember there was even a thread a while back on this forum, and some people even had fun coming up with names for various potential Monster Manuals.
6. TWBTW is not my cup of tea in terms of overall plot and theme, but I love the fact that there is less focus on combat and more on social encounters. Practically everything is a rehash of something else, and whatever you find new and refreshing is old and stale to someone else. Alice in Wonderland with a coat of D&D paint is new and refreshing to me, even though I do not really care for the paint. I have been running D&D like its a chess game, and for me, that can get a little old, and I want to spice things up with obstacles that martial prowess cannot overcome. TWBTW does not really deliver on that fully, but it is a step in the right direction and it gives me something to work with and expand on.
1) Wizards of the coast is back stepping to fourth edition with the new monster/npc setup. Very Boring.
2) The woke extremism that Hasbro has been pushing did not sound good.
3) UA is not even being used anymore, the survey are not open enough to allow everyone to give a opinion. A) UA not being used on D&D beyond.
4) To many races being created. I like a choice, but now it getting bad.
5) Last two book have been rehash of a different theme.
6) They are not even trying to put out decent story lines. Fey one just seems hacked with revisited themes. It looks boring.
I am not liking what I see. I been playing dungeon and dragons along time. I have played every edition, since first. i can honestly say, I feel disappointed.
1. While I was not here for 4e, I fail to see any major changes to monsters in the "new" statblocks. I am going through monsters in FTOD and TWBTW, and they are practically the same as the old ones. The only difference I can spot is that they got "typically" added in front of alignments, but calling that "new" is extremely stretching it. I am not sure what you are looking at that gives you a different impression.
2. I do not think Wizards is woke. If anything, Wizards is pretty moderate. On the other hand, from what I have seen, some people have moved so far to the right that they fail to distinguish the difference between moderates and liberals.
3. UA are still being created by Wizards, and surveys were open though? If you are complaining about the short time period to give feedback, they have always been this way. 3A. I wish Beyond would do UA too, but they got priorities, and I think a staff member said they reached this decision with Wizards.
4. I do not see how this is even an issue. Just do not use them if you do not want them. Complaining about having more choices in a game that encourages GMs to homebrew and deviate from RAW is like complaining about being offered too much food at a buffet. If you do not stuff yourself at a buffet to the point of sending yourself to the hospital, you do not have to use nor allow every single official or homebrew content at your table either. This is like complaining for the sake of complaining.
5. FTOD is literally what most old and new players are asking for; they want more versions of Monster Manuals tailored towards a specific theme or type of monster. I remember there was even a thread a while back on this forum, and some people even had fun coming up with names for various potential Monster Manuals.
6. TWBTW is not my cup of tea in terms of overall plot and theme, but I love the fact that there is less focus on combat and more on social encounters. Practically everything is a rehash of something else, and whatever you find new and refreshing is old and stale to someone else. Alice in Wonderland with a coat of D&D paint is new and refreshing to me, even though I do not really care for the paint. I have been running D&D like its a chess game, and for me, that can get a little old, and I want to spice things up with obstacles that martial prowess cannot overcome. TWBTW does not really deliver on that fully, but it is a step in the right direction and it gives me something to work with and expand on.
For #1 Stat Blocks they are cutting down on spell slots and replacing them with abilities. The argument is DM's aren't playing the monster to the CR level (I have to add spell abilities to make the monsters hard because they gave them weak spells in combat the opposite of their reason). In some cases they take existing spells and turn them into an ability with a recharge to get around counterspell. As an example they take Fireball and turn it into an ability that can't be counterspelled. You can look at Igwilv in the Wild and you'll get an idea on their direction. Much less spells (She's equivalent to Vecna in a lot of peoples eyes, but here she barely has any spells), more damage abilities, very similar to 4E versions of monsters. Its starting to feel a bit like a DPS monster and a spreadsheet with their new direction. I guess we'll Dragon Kill Points for 5.5E next /s
I'll wait for 5.5E to see what they do, there is a fundamental problem with the concentration mechanic and counterspell IMHO. But that's my take, I'm sure others have different takes.
It's your position we're talking about. If you won't articulate it, I won't know what it is. I am not here to be tested or play guessing games. Like I said, if you want to make a coherent point, I will do the background reading. If you want to be cagey and make it a guessing game, then I'm not putting in the time to try to make an argument on you behalf.
You can't prove your position, I was there. I gave you the name of person you could research very very very very easy. Do a DuckDuckGo for "Darlene TSR". Get back to me when you have started your basic education of TSR. I'll continue with the history lesson. What I don't like are people going full on racist accusations about a company and they don't know their hand from a potato in the ground on it.
Get back to me, when you have learned who Darlene was and what her contribution was to TSR. She is beloved by very many people who know her work.
What does the woman who drew the original map of Greyhawk have to do with the price of potatoes? The conversational context here is:
Since we're discussing racism and hiring practices, are you suggesting Darlene was only hired because she was white? Because I see absolutely no evidence of that, but I don't see any other possible connection between the current topic and your statements.
There's absolutely nothing about Darlene I can find that has any relation to anyone being racist or not racist. Googling her former full legal name + racism (Darlene Jean Pekul racism) gets absolutely nothing relevant. You have yet to even remotely explain why you think she has any bearing on the conversation. There's no evidence she was ever racist or that anyone was racist against her or for her. You might as well be demanding we learn who Bob Ross is.
I'm stating quite succinctly that TSR took whatever talent they could get, and didn't care about race, gender etc. I gave you one example of an early contractor who did a lot of contract work for TSR early on. TSR had one of the first females CEO's. What you are doing is looking back in time 40 years ago with a very sclerotic lens where everything is sexist and everything is racist. Women had just started entering the workforce a few years before TSR was founded. TSR initially got it's spread through colleges, not through mass marketing or advertising on television shows, they weren't that rich. They hired locally, Darlene was a local girl less than 30 miles away from Lake Geneva. Lake Geneva at that time was over 95% white. And believe it or not, during those times, they tended to hire locally, because its what they could get.
When it comes to gencon, hobby shops and play for D&D, everyone was welcome, and no one would be turned away. Why? Because playing D&D made you a target at school, so you'd get who you could get to play. No clue on college at that time, I got introduced to 1E by brother home from college.
I highly suggest you don't pretend that 40 years ago, was today, things change in 40 years. If you want to pretend that TSR was racist, go ahead, but expect when you run into people from that time, you are going to get an earful.
Lets continue with your education on D&D, who was Jennele Jaquays and what was her contribution to D&D?
You might have misread, I'm stating TSR for its time wasn't racist. You hear those claims from younglings parroting what they read on Twitter, from people with slanted agendas to libel the old work. Why you got me, maybe they are threatened by past work or maybe they have no talent and want to get clicks to become an influencer and its easy target to go after people who are dead. I was just giving him an example of female contractor at TSR as an example they hire who they can get. Mind you women didn't start entering the work force till the 60's and it didn't come close to picking up steam in the 70's when TSR started. You got people who weren't alive in the 70's trying to state everything then was just horrible from a 2020 lens, and it is just so skewed its beyond parody.
Hiring a single woman has absolutely no relevance to whether or not a company was racist. Or more to the point, whether the material published by said company had issues with racist portrayals of individuals and ethnic groups. It is, in fact, so far of topic that it raises the question of whether or not it's a deliberate attempt at distraction.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
Ok, so how about a solid example where TSR fired someone for being the wrong race, do you got one? Anything? Or do you have vague accusations from younglings, trying to become influences.
Lets give a softball. Oh my Gawd, Oriental Adventures are so racist! I watched the two wannabe influencers do their hack job, they didn't know much about the game and wanted an authentic reproduction of Asia for a fantasy game. Lets go with the name, which is what they went for their grift. The continent it takes place on is Kara Tur. If the game was labeled Kara Tur Adventurers, would that sell in Japan (one of the countries it was targeted to), probably not. If they labeled it Asian Adventures is that accurate is it 1500's Asia, no, no its not. Instead they went with the term "Oriental" because that term accurately describes the region of Asia it was based on. Oriental means of, from, or characteristic of Asia, especially East Asia. As to the wannabe influencer, I made it through 30 minutes of drivel and they were laying on thick. When they got to the part saying its racist to put Barbarian in the game, I had enough. The greatest conqueror in known history was Gengis Khan. He changed the world climate. There are over 20M male descendants from the man. His country spanned China to Europe. He was the quintessential Barbarian warlord.
So any other content that just drives you up the wall? Or did that take away wind in your sails? Because I'm willing to bet if you played the game in the 70's or 80's, you'd have a very different opinion.
What position? I haven't taken one relevant to this. I've never claimed WotC or TSR had discriminatory hiring practices. I'm not sure I even understand what the relevance is. As I'm reading up on Darlene, I am still not seeing what argument you are making. I don't know that anyone was claiming that TSR or WotC were dens of absolute racism, sexism, ableism, misogyny such that no women, trans*, queer, black, indigenous and racialized people have been employed, under contract or other wise involved with these companies.
You say you will continue with the history lesson apparently against the narrative of racism within the company, but you haven't even started with that. You're just saying it's not true then providing the name of a woman who appears to be white from the Greyhawk/ TSR days, which is great, but doesn't impart a clear lesson. I am looking at some of her illustrations done for TSR and for Jasmine (which doesn't seem to be affiliated with TSR directly), but they aren't very clear in the images I have. I'm tying to find the comic strip version from Dragon Magazine, but it doesn't seem like something widely available. What little I am finding makes it seem like it wasn't well-received, but this happened slightly before I was born so I have little context to evaluate such claims.
You are acting like you are being attacked here. But I honestly can't make sense of the point you are trying to make and that's the extent of what I am saying here. It doesn't feel like this is going anywhere, so I'm bowing out. This feels like it's going to branch into the territory where threads get locked.
You came in on this:
I'm talking about TSR, earlier in the thread you went on WotC. Typically when you hear people complain about D&D its aimed at TSR, not WotC, and its almost always TSR is racist. It gets really old, really fast. I don't care one bit about WotC reputation, I don't really use much of their content save the core rules. WotC at least in 5E lacks flavor, some of their 3.0 to 3.5 though is very good from content perspective.
1. While I was not here for 4e, I fail to see any major changes to monsters in the "new" statblocks. I am going through monsters in FTOD and TWBTW, and they are practically the same as the old ones. The only difference I can spot is that they got "typically" added in front of alignments, but calling that "new" is extremely stretching it. I am not sure what you are looking at that gives you a different impression.
2. I do not think Wizards is woke. If anything, Wizards is pretty moderate. On the other hand, from what I have seen, some people have moved so far to the right that they fail to distinguish the difference between moderates and liberals.
3. UA are still being created by Wizards, and surveys were open though? If you are complaining about the short time period to give feedback, they have always been this way.
3A. I wish Beyond would do UA too, but they got priorities, and I think a staff member said they reached this decision with Wizards.
4. I do not see how this is even an issue. Just do not use them if you do not want them. Complaining about having more choices in a game that encourages GMs to homebrew and deviate from RAW is like complaining about being offered too much food at a buffet. If you do not stuff yourself at a buffet to the point of sending yourself to the hospital, you do not have to use nor allow every single official or homebrew content at your table either. This is like complaining for the sake of complaining.
5. FTOD is literally what most old and new players are asking for; they want more versions of Monster Manuals tailored towards a specific theme or type of monster. I remember there was even a thread a while back on this forum, and some people even had fun coming up with names for various potential Monster Manuals.
6. TWBTW is not my cup of tea in terms of overall plot and theme, but I love the fact that there is less focus on combat and more on social encounters. Practically everything is a rehash of something else, and whatever you find new and refreshing is old and stale to someone else. Alice in Wonderland with a coat of D&D paint is new and refreshing to me, even though I do not really care for the paint. I have been running D&D like its a chess game, and for me, that can get a little old, and I want to spice things up with obstacles that martial prowess cannot overcome. TWBTW does not really deliver on that fully, but it is a step in the right direction and it gives me something to work with and expand on.
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For #1 Stat Blocks they are cutting down on spell slots and replacing them with abilities. The argument is DM's aren't playing the monster to the CR level (I have to add spell abilities to make the monsters hard because they gave them weak spells in combat the opposite of their reason). In some cases they take existing spells and turn them into an ability with a recharge to get around counterspell. As an example they take Fireball and turn it into an ability that can't be counterspelled. You can look at Igwilv in the Wild and you'll get an idea on their direction. Much less spells (She's equivalent to Vecna in a lot of peoples eyes, but here she barely has any spells), more damage abilities, very similar to 4E versions of monsters. Its starting to feel a bit like a DPS monster and a spreadsheet with their new direction. I guess we'll Dragon Kill Points for 5.5E next /s
I'll wait for 5.5E to see what they do, there is a fundamental problem with the concentration mechanic and counterspell IMHO. But that's my take, I'm sure others have different takes.
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