Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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Agreed.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
While I understand why you might feel like some products are cash grabs, you don't have to buy them. So far, they haven't updated any of the core three books, and the only ones that you need to play with.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
I agree.
Brendan
How in the F can someone be upset about something that is OPTIONAL.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
I'm not really sure. Maybe people think that it will eventually become the only option?
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
So a few things here stick out to me:
1) Despite many people asking for specifics, OP has yet to actually state what specific changes and events are bothering him, and hasn't articulated exactly what about those changes are bothersome. This leads me to believe that OP generally spends much of their time inside an echo chamber, with a group of people without diverse opinions who aren't used to dealing with people who may have different opinions.
2) OP also seems to never consider that maybe the people making many of these decisions, like Perkins and Crawford, actually have motivation beyond 'corporate greed'. Like 'Hey, I see how some of these things are problematic and I want to fix them'.
3) The Dragonlance case seems complicated. It may be related to problematic depictions of races like tinker gnomes, gully dwarves and kender. It may be related to something else. Weis and Hickman having a contract canceled is not a slight inconvenience for them. All of this will be litigated. Dragonlance just wasn't really a good setting anyways. I read all the books when I was younger. But reading them now, they were poorly written, with lame characters, generic plots. There was nothing about the setting that made it particularly more compelling than other generic fantasy settings.
4) The problems being addressed are actually somewhat subtle and complex, and contrary to popular belief, are not as simple as 'People think orcs represent black people.' In fact, that is not the problem at all.
5) OP seems to draw a comparison between people wanting WOTC to be more aware of complex racial issues and implications, and WOTC agreeing, to the satanic accusations of the 80s, which is frankly ridiculous
To be fair, that has been the argument from some people who are against this. To test the waters and then when the next edition comes out, this is the standard rule instead of optional.
Not that I agree with the argument but I've seen this brought up even here on these forums when the new linage system was first announced.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
Understood but..
Hasn't just about every recent edition of D&D - especially 5th edition, included OPTIONAL rules. Grim rest variant. Superhero/Arcade variant. Each different than what the rules say in the PHB. A variant for this. A variant for that.
1st, WotC would actually have to turn the currently optional rule into the default in an official book, in an edition that isn't out yet. Hardly something to get up in arms about, but I get it.
2nd, WotC would actually have to remove and stand against ALL options/variants that would allow someone to play as they always have been.
Again, I see no issue.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
I don't either. I do think that the pushback is a bit of an overreaction and I'm happy to see more options for character creation.
But I can also understand the pushback too. I am not someone who personally likes change in my life and it can be hard for me to accept when change happens sometimes. I was even hesitant when Tasha's and these new variant rules were announced. Said so on these forums. But after seeing some more information and seeing others opinions on the matter I've come to accept and even be excited for Tasha's now. So there is no issue from me.
People were always going to be against changes to the current system, even if they were optional. I'm hoping time and more experience with using these optional rules will help simmer down some of the heat people have over them.
"Meddle not in the affairs of dragons, for thou art crunchy and taste good with ketchup."
Characters for Tenebris Sine Fine
RoughCoronet's Greater Wills
I guess I get it, but still.
1) I don't play adventurers league and
2) While I may be very wrong and will own up to it if so, I'm thinking Adventurer's League represents about 2% of the D&D playerbase - therefore, hardly an issue to have to work around.
All things Lich - DM tips, tricks, and other creative shenanigans
This, because otherwise it leads to this:
You're asserting legal representations as undisputed fact, even the articles you cite are careful to use the words "allege" of the defendant and "claims" of the plaintiff. The only publicly accessible record with any present legal standing is the complaint Weis and Hickman filed in federal court. I'm not sure what the rules of procedure are specifically in the District of Western Washington for civil cases during COVID; but the ballpark rule suggest WotC should be filing their response sometime around mid November, like right around when Tasha's is being released. Lawsuits are an adversarial process, literally a "those folks say this" "these folks say that" and the law rules on what if any way there is to remedy this dispute. All anyone outside of lawyers and parties have at this point is Weiss and Hickman's literal claim. WotC may well have a very different account of W+H's efforts to accommodate WotC editorial direction regarding sensitivity reader feedback etc. Same goes for parroting the complaint's assessment of Nic Kelman, itself largely based on a burnt MtG artist's takedown of the Kelman in _Medium_ (read actual press and interviews of Kelman at the time of the publication of Girls, you'll see it's more nuanced, Kelman wasn't trying to celebrate abhorrent behavior but address it. Nabokov and Lolita were used as reference in those discussions, I think that punches way about Kelman's weight, but Brett Easton Ellis's American Psycho or that 90s movie Kids are apt analogies of "should art do that?"). Given all that, the poor backgrounding you start with just makes your Nazi analogy absurd in its overblownness to the point that I evidently just made up a word or at least a formulation my spellchecker to address it ("overblownness?" to paraphrase Beckett, does such a word exist? It does. Now).
From a legal perspective (disclaimer: not a lawyer!) I find the contract law demands interesting if not compelling, and I do have some sympathy for Weiss and Hickman feeling both creatively and financially strung along if their story is accurate (which I have no means to determine either way). This gesture toward Dragonlance being some sort casualty of bungled culture war appeasement I think actually harms their case (it opens the door to WotC to exposing conduct on the plaintiffs part that can show good cause to walk away from the deal without WotC having to move to introduce such possible records into the case). It does fire a salvo into the court of public opinion, exciting a certain demographic of fans etc. And in that regard it certainly has worked since at least a few fans on this very forum have spent significant word count venting outrage in support of the complaint. Maybe there will be some sort of GoFundMe or Kickstarter to support some other creative endeavor to make up for lost work.
I'm sorry Dragonlance seems to be getting the shaft, so to speak, for those who were truly invested in the setting. But I ask those who are fans, what does it matter? There are tons of support for that product available through community and reprints. Converting anything, as already mentioned, isn't that hard, especially for players who've been playing since that world's heyday. A lot of my favorite musicians used to play sold out arenas. Most of these days they play small clubs. I'm fine with that, it's probably better for my ears too.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
I would assume that fans of the DL material (which I am absolutely not -- I read the first book, thought the writing was dreadful, and never touched anything else W&H have ever done) -- for fans of the DL material, I say, I would think that the impression that WTOC hosed their favorite writers might bother them regardless of all the other "support" and "reprints" available. People don't like it when a big faceless heartless corporation works over their favorite actor/writer/movie star/athlete/whatever.
Again, I am on fan of W&H, and I honestly have no real horse in this race. But I can easily see how those who are fans of their work, would become understandably irate at WOTC acting the way they are alleged to have acted toward the authors.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
You're still doing it. You're reacting to allegations, not established fact. There were a number of people in that meeting when the project was ended, a few of whom now need to file a response with the court in about a month. It may well have been a risk analysis where WotC did figure settlement costs would be less than the agreed upon exit and opted to end the Dragonlance novels with H&W for any number of reasons. This actually happens to contract creatives frequently enough that professional creative associations train their memberships to be cautious of work for hire and contract creative production. So WotC made a business decision thinking in terms of their bottom line. The question is are they "insane" or "evil" as you put it; or is this particular business more complicated? It's entirely possible that the work product just couldn't be brought to WotC's expectations and rather than continue through what in some circles is called Development Hell, WotC opted to end it knowing bridge burning was going to happen. We'll see.
You're right, I largely wrote that last bit to work in "got the shaft" because Dragonlance. I can appreciate fans flocking to their defense of their favorite authors ... it's just that so much of the "fan outrage" I've followed on this case the past few days isn't phrased from a position of respect for Hickman and Weiss's contribution to Dungeons and Dragons. It's more in the cultural warrior formulation that some fans are losing a battle over dungeons and dragons. This thread was started by someone who never posted until this thread. How many people join a community with a gripe? I think the press coverage is largely at fault, not well informed by an understanding of contract dispute, but easy to latch onto the "sizzle" language in the suit about WotC diversity fumbles because there are people who will click that and wage internet war as result with more investment of time than they spend actually playing the game. Reddit was one of the few places that sorted out the reality of the Kelman "controversy," that controversy itself seemingly ginned up by a disgruntled former MtG contract artist.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Funny that... I stopped playing D&D in 1982 (ish) 'cause 1st edition was a complete disaster, great idea, crap execution compared to other games around at the time. What brought me back after about 27 years was 4th edition. 5th edition nearly put me off again.
So every change they make they'll piss someone off but probably find someone new instead.
I don't care much for mixing politics with tabletop gaming, but I don't see why Wizards making racial modifiers optional is controversial when homebrewers have functionally been doing the same thing since forever.
The only objection I could see is that some players [1] expect to be able to use just about any optional rule ever provided it's in a book somewhere. That's more a social issue between players and the DM rather than a problem with the rules though.
[1] In my experience, your mileage may vary, I know this is anecdotal
That's because that's a completely inaccurate representation of the argument. At no point has anyone attempted to argue that racist depictions of orcs and drow in D&D is going to result in people becoming racist in real life. What they have argued is that such depictions are offensive to a lot of people, not just ones who belong to the ethnic group being stereotyped and such depictions do nothing to add to the game and instead really detract from the enjoyment of those players. Since there aren't really a lot of counter-arguments beyond "but we've always done it that way" and "but orcs aren't real," there's little point in keeping it, since WotC changes game lore all the time anyway. And honestly, few companies jump on social issues just for the heck of it. Usually it's because they've done a cost-benefit analysis and have decided that trying to appeal to the group speaking out on the social issue is worth more than not doing so.
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.
It's not just one person: http://nkjemisin.com/2013/02/from-the-mailbag-the-unbearable-baggage-of-orcing/
https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/dungeons-and-dragons-orcs-racist/
https://medium.com/@scottgladstein/are-orcs-racist-1b37cdbf06da
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!
This is why Session Zero matters. Or at least discussing the tone with players beforehand so they know what to expect, and giving reasons for your rulings. So long as something is established beforehand I find most players will not complain.
I used to have anything-goes type settings, but some players will appreciate a few more restrictions if it keeps a certain atmosphere to your game.
I don’t think the argument was represented quite like that. Speaking just for myself, it’s more that racism existing in games doesn’t normalize it in real life, nor does it make it more acceptable. I get that it can be offensive or hurtful to those who feel - justified or not - it might be directed at them in some way, but that is not inherent in the theme being present. It takes, respectfully, a somewhat deliberate and willful outlook on D&D species (species, not even races) being presented as evil, brutish, stupid or whatever you want as a slight towards specific real life ethnicities, cultures or groups. I get these themes might be distasteful to some as well, but that arguably just means campaigns that touch on those are not for them. The bottom line to me is that any serious theme being represented can rub someone the wrong way - religion, militarism, politics, ethics and so on. That being possible however in no way imposes an intent behind them being incorporated in a game, nor does it have to suggest a moral or other opinion of them being present (never mind prevailing) among the players. On the flip side of all this, scrubbing sensitive themes from roleplaying games seems to run counter to the evolution and maturation of the genre. Nothing against the occasional hack & slash dungeon crawl, but a lot of us enjoy more serious themes being present - not to indulge in amoral attitudes, but because they are part of the human experience. Some RPGs go as far as embracing one or more of these themes at their core, and that is a good thing *provided it’s done well*. That, in the end, is what it comes down to: not that they are present, but how themes are presented and used.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].