Quote from: jhkim on November 29, 2024, 07:35:38 PM

Quote from: Omega on November 29, 2024, 05:59:19 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMWitchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

They were inserting stuff as early as Curse of Strahd so barely 2 years in and it is cropping up already.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight is one of the few of the later books to have almost no wokeness in in. I -think- one character might be referred to as THEY. But thats as far as it goes really. None of the in your face stupid of everything from Curse of Strahd onwards.

Curse of Strahd was also their best-selling adventure, not even including the additional sales from the revised version of it published in 2020. I've never read it, so no comment on the content.

It sold well on name recognition. Reactions to the module were less enthusiastic.

The woke bits are in the first instance a nothing entry, same as in Tomb later. Completely meaningless and easy to miss. The other is a lesbian couple and its been so long I am not sure if it was prominent or a throwaway. There is also the insinuation that Strahd is now Bi.

Some people picked up on it but most were more annoyed at the mistreatment of Mordenkainen.

Nicklodeon and Cartoon Network and sy-fy have been making a business of hiring people who hate the product they are remaking for 24+ years.

Quote from: jhkim on November 29, 2024, 05:56:35 PMI don't think it makes sense to call casual players "tourists".

Yes, it's not a term I would generally use about anyone who wants to actually play RPGs, even if only casually and for a little while.

Quote from: Omega on November 29, 2024, 05:59:19 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 29, 2024, 07:24:57 AMWitchlight and Radiant Citadel) and at an increasing rate.

They were inserting stuff as early as Curse of Strahd so barely 2 years in and it is cropping up already.

Wild Beyond the Witchlight is one of the few of the later books to have almost no wokeness in in. I -think- one character might be referred to as THEY. But thats as far as it goes really. None of the in your face stupid of everything from Curse of Strahd onwards.

I'd say that it started with Candlekeep mysteries, which featured (among other examples) the adventure by Daniel Kwan, who had attacked Oriental Adventures as being stereotypical/cultural appropriation, and then went on to write an utterly generic adventure based on Kung Fu movies any white guy could have also watched.

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 30, 2024, 09:15:58 AMI'd say that it started with Candlekeep mysteries, which featured (among other examples) the adventure by Daniel Kwan, who had attacked Oriental Adventures as being stereotypical/cultural appropriation, and then went on to write an utterly generic adventure based on Kung Fu movies any white guy could have also watched.

I think Candlekeep was the first where wotc was actually openly pushing the agenda. And lying about wheelchair accessibility. Before that it was all just there and seems to have started with Curse of Strahd.

There was not anything in the Tyranny set and I have not read through Princes or Abyss in depth. I am guessing that they likely do not contain anything as the first 4 modules were all outsourced work. Kobold Press, Green Ronin and Sasquatch respectively.

Curse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 12:10:49 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on November 30, 2024, 09:15:58 AMI'd say that it started with Candlekeep mysteries, which featured (among other examples) the adventure by Daniel Kwan, who had attacked Oriental Adventures as being stereotypical/cultural appropriation, and then went on to write an utterly generic adventure based on Kung Fu movies any white guy could have also watched.

I think Candlekeep was the first where wotc was actually openly pushing the agenda. And lying about wheelchair accessibility. Before that it was all just there and seems to have started with Curse of Strahd.

There was not anything in the Tyranny set and I have not read through Princes or Abyss in depth. I am guessing that they likely do not contain anything as the first 4 modules were all outsourced work. Kobold Press, Green Ronin and Sasquatch respectively.

Curse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Yes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AMYes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

By "deconstructed" I presume you actually mean "has consumed only Marxist-approved media and doesn't even know what Victorian-style horror is outside of reading Wikipedia and TVTropes entries because the Victorian-era is superplusbad oppression of women and racism so actually learning about it would require disavowing their Woke credentials."

The management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

They're not Marxists. Actual Marxists would want them to lose ownership of their IPs and give it to the fans who actually care. These are corporatist fascists.

We need to reform copyright law and reduce terms to 20 years or so. Give D&D and Hasbro's other IPs back to the fans.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMWe need to reform copyright law

If you want to avoid redundancy, you could just put this in your signature, and it would probably drop your post count by 90%.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 01, 2024, 08:40:42 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AMYes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

By "deconstructed" I presume you actually mean "has consumed only Marxist-approved media and doesn't even know what Victorian-style horror is outside of reading Wikipedia and TVTropes entries because the Victorian-era is superplusbad oppression of women and racism so actually learning about it would require disavowing their Woke credentials."

Yes.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 01, 2024, 10:41:30 AMThe management of Hasbro has no fucking clue what they're doing. They're developing video games like Exodus in-house, licensing Transformers tabletop games to other companies, and attacking their customer base on social media.

They're not Marxists. Actual Marxists would want them to lose ownership of their IPs and give it to the fans who actually care. These are corporatist fascists.

We need to reform copyright law and reduce terms to 20 years or so. Give D&D and Hasbro's other IPs back to the fans.

I mean, I don't disagree that copyright law has problems, but in the case of D&D, we essentially already have the ability to create our own D&D. The OSR has literally thousands of products doing that very thing.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 12:10:49 AMCurse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Yes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

So what does it say that about the 5E customer base that this deconstruction has been their #1 selling module, that they sold a revised version of just four years later?

Quote from: jhkim on December 01, 2024, 12:27:44 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 12:10:49 AMCurse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Yes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

So what does it say that about the 5E customer base that this deconstruction has been their #1 selling module, that they sold a revised version of just four years later?

Their customers are stupid "sparkle trolls"

Quote from: jhkim on December 01, 2024, 12:27:44 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 03:35:05 AM

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 12:10:49 AMCurse of Strahd is wotc's first in house module and looks like thats the case from there on.

Yes, the Ravenloft book was awful; not just for the art, or the race/gender-swapping but because they completely "deconstructed" the concept of what Victorian-style horror should be.

So what does it say that about the 5E customer base that this deconstruction has been their #1 selling module, that they sold a revised version of just four years later?

I don't think that is the one he means. Curse of Strahd is broadly popular with old and new fans. The Van Richten Guide to Ravenloft is the one that didn't land as well with older fans of the setting (some seem to like it though). Really the biggest issue with it in my opinion is it moved away from a lot of stuff that I think worked about the old setting. Like shifting it from a focus on gothic horror to a multi genre horror game, which really kind of undermines the premise for me. Some of the stuff feels like it was written by checking off boxes as well. I think we had a pretty big discussion on it here already so people can probably reference that thread. Some of the changes I disagreed with but understand (getting rid of the core and making everything an island of terror, while it isn't how I like Ravenloft, I get that this makes doing monster of the week very easy and gameable).

Most customers buy something due to a combination of conformity and lack of options. "It's popular, so I have to buy it!" This doesn't mean they subscribe to the author's politics or have any brand loyalty.

Quality still matters. There's a lot of low quality stuff now, but it doesn't sell nearly as well as quality stuff did 10-20 years ago.