"Fans who've boycotted company for over a decade upset company ignores them."

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.

Tyranny of Dragons; was 3rd Party, by Kobold Press.

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 12:09:53 PM

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.

And to that, I say Bravo!!!

Quote from: Bedrockbrendan on December 01, 2024, 01:15:26 PM

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).

Pundit replied to Omega, who clearly referred to Curse of Strahd. Pundit - can you confirm Brendan's suggestion? Did you accidentally conflate the two books, and were thinking of Van Richten's Guide when the previous posters were talking about Curse of Strahd?

Quote from: Man at Arms on December 01, 2024, 07:07:18 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on December 01, 2024, 12:09:53 PM

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.

And to that, I say Bravo!!!

I'm burned out on medieval fantasy. Everything outside of the OSR is fucked. Uninspired slop. At some point in the late 2000s rpg writers started phoning it in. The only rpgs that sound even vaguely interesting to me are dead ones from the 80s through the 00s. I can probably count on one hand the number of RPGs written after 2010 that sound interesting to me.

It's that goddamned edition treadmill. If you don't keep marketing your game forever, then the community will die off. Nobody can be bothered to do that outside corpos, and corpos inevitably fuck it up. It's fucking stupid.

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.

The original was not Victorian either.

Both old and new harken more to a sort of pre-Victorian feel. Almost late Renaissance. The sequel, Gryphon Hill had a bit more Victorian feel.

What 2e really could have used was an adaption of Ravenloft to the Masque of the Red Death setting.

Quote from: Omega on December 01, 2024, 08:43:02 PMThe original was not Victorian either.

Both old and new harken more to a sort of pre-Victorian feel. Almost late Renaissance. The sequel, Gryphon Hill had a bit more Victorian feel.

What 2e really could have used was an adaption of Ravenloft to the Masque of the Red Death setting.

Victorian is the right word if you're referring to "Gothic Horror" which didn't come about until the Victorian period really. So yes, while we might be mincing words and saying most of the Ravenloft domains are renissance, Ravenloft has *Always* been Gothic Horror.

I left D&D years ago in the early 2000s.

When I saw there was a 22 page conversion book, I had my doubts.

Tried it out and I didn't like it.

Haven't bought a WoTC product directly since.

Quote from: Orphan81 on December 01, 2024, 10:30:51 PMVictorian is the right word if you're referring to "Gothic Horror" which didn't come about until the Victorian period really. So yes, while we might be mincing words and saying most of the Ravenloft domains are renissance, Ravenloft has *Always* been Gothic Horror.

  While the Gothic novel is a product of the late Georgian/Regency/Early Victorian period, many of the early novels were set in medieval or anachronistic eras. The later Gothic, from which Ravenloft draws its main inspiration--Dracula, Frankenstein, etc.--was more contemporary. These differences, combined with the D&D underpinnings, are one of the reasons Ravenloft is so delightfully anachronistic in many cases.

Greetings!

Hmmm. I can't say I have ever *depended* on WOTC to properly provide whatever I need to run a Gothic-inspired adventure--or even really *expected* WOTC to do so.

I've read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as well as Shelly's "Frankenstein" books. I have a good half a dozen Gothic novels on my bookshelf. I also have books by Anne Rice. I've read them all.

Why rely on WOTC or expect them to do better than the primary source material to begin with? If you want genuine inspiration, drink yourself from the original water hose that inspired the genre to begin with.

Once you have a basic knowledge and a good grasp on the scenery and details that form the foundations of the original Gothic writers themselves--you are fully equipped. WOTC is thus really only needed then for the game-mechanics details as appropriate for the module.

I realize that some gamers may buy the modules expecting to be fully held by the hand in this regard in every way--but honestly, reading several of the original primary source books provides much stronger inspiration, colour, and sign-posts than the feeble scratchings that WOTC provides in the restricted page-counts of some adventure module.

Don't people actually read these books in school anymore? In similar genres, I'm reminded of "The Sea Wolf" and "White Fang" by Jack London; other books in historical genres such as "The Scarlet Letter", "Moby Dick", "The Headless Horseman", "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fennimore Cooper, all so many fine authors and fantastic books.

Having a basic American literacy in these classics provides a person with a solid foundation from which the aspiring DM can run appropriate genre adventures quite well, being thus well-versed in the genre vocabulary, the story themes, character development, story elements and structure.

Whether running adventure modules with a Gothic scene, or a rugged frontier theme, a small, insular town, wilderness borders, or living and working on the great sea in sailing ships, all of the original genre books are inspiring and very helpful in my experience.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Has any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

Quote from: SHARK on December 02, 2024, 02:32:17 PMGreetings!

Hmmm. I can't say I have ever *depended* on WOTC to properly provide whatever I need to run a Gothic-inspired adventure--or even really *expected* WOTC to do so.

I've read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as well as Shelly's "Frankenstein" books. I have a good half a dozen Gothic novels on my bookshelf. I also have books by Anne Rice. I've read them all.

Why rely on WOTC or expect them to do better than the primary source material to begin with? If you want genuine inspiration, drink yourself from the original water hose that inspired the genre to begin with.

Once you have a basic knowledge and a good grasp on the scenery and details that form the foundations of the original Gothic writers themselves--you are fully equipped. WOTC is thus really only needed then for the game-mechanics details as appropriate for the module.

I realize that some gamers may buy the modules expecting to be fully held by the hand in this regard in every way--but honestly, reading several of the original primary source books provides much stronger inspiration, colour, and sign-posts than the feeble scratchings that WOTC provides in the restricted page-counts of some adventure module.

Don't people actually read these books in school anymore? In similar genres, I'm reminded of "The Sea Wolf" and "White Fang" by Jack London; other books in historical genres such as "The Scarlet Letter", "Moby Dick", "The Headless Horseman", "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fennimore Cooper, all so many fine authors and fantastic books.

Having a basic American literacy in these classics provides a person with a solid foundation from which the aspiring DM can run appropriate genre adventures quite well, being thus well-versed in the genre vocabulary, the story themes, character development, story elements and structure.

Whether running adventure modules with a Gothic scene, or a rugged frontier theme, a small, insular town, wilderness borders, or living and working on the great sea in sailing ships, all of the original genre books are inspiring and very helpful in my experience.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK, you can't realistically expect the average person these days; to have ever read any classic literature.  There is very little appreciation for such things, among the average populace.  We live, in a different time now.  Shucks, the average student reads at a rather low level.

Quote from: blackstone on December 02, 2024, 01:36:10 PMI left D&D years ago in the early 2000s.

When I saw there was a 22 page conversion book, I had my doubts.

Tried it out and I didn't like it.

Haven't bought a WoTC product directly since.

I still have the much shorter conversion booklet they gave out at GenCon. And think got from RPGA the "24" page booklet. I put 24 in quotes because for god unknown reasons they count the cover, back and the index as pages. The actual conversion rules dont start till page 3. 4 of the remaining 21 pages are just lists of name changes. One page is just a big illustration.

Theres a reason why the other conversion booklet was pared down to fewer pages. But it just did not interest me and so passed on 3e. 4e's marketing repulsed me and so passed on that too.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on December 02, 2024, 04:07:41 PMHas any other publisher created decent gothic horror settings for OSR?

  Daniel James Henley's A Ghastly Affair line is pretty much raw, uncut Gothic on an OSR foundation.

Quote from: Man at Arms on December 02, 2024, 05:50:11 PM

Quote from: SHARK on December 02, 2024, 02:32:17 PMGreetings!

Hmmm. I can't say I have ever *depended* on WOTC to properly provide whatever I need to run a Gothic-inspired adventure--or even really *expected* WOTC to do so.

I've read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" as well as Shelly's "Frankenstein" books. I have a good half a dozen Gothic novels on my bookshelf. I also have books by Anne Rice. I've read them all.

Why rely on WOTC or expect them to do better than the primary source material to begin with? If you want genuine inspiration, drink yourself from the original water hose that inspired the genre to begin with.

Once you have a basic knowledge and a good grasp on the scenery and details that form the foundations of the original Gothic writers themselves--you are fully equipped. WOTC is thus really only needed then for the game-mechanics details as appropriate for the module.

I realize that some gamers may buy the modules expecting to be fully held by the hand in this regard in every way--but honestly, reading several of the original primary source books provides much stronger inspiration, colour, and sign-posts than the feeble scratchings that WOTC provides in the restricted page-counts of some adventure module.

Don't people actually read these books in school anymore? In similar genres, I'm reminded of "The Sea Wolf" and "White Fang" by Jack London; other books in historical genres such as "The Scarlet Letter", "Moby Dick", "The Headless Horseman", "Last of the Mohicans" by James Fennimore Cooper, all so many fine authors and fantastic books.

Having a basic American literacy in these classics provides a person with a solid foundation from which the aspiring DM can run appropriate genre adventures quite well, being thus well-versed in the genre vocabulary, the story themes, character development, story elements and structure.

Whether running adventure modules with a Gothic scene, or a rugged frontier theme, a small, insular town, wilderness borders, or living and working on the great sea in sailing ships, all of the original genre books are inspiring and very helpful in my experience.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK, you can't realistically expect the average person these days; to have ever read any classic literature.  There is very little appreciation for such things, among the average populace.  We live, in a different time now.  Shucks, the average student reads at a rather low level.