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The future of D&D is digital.

Cynthia Williams: The woman now in charge at Wizards of the Coast...
https://www.geeknative.com/139128/cynthia-williams-the-woman-now-in-charge-at-wizards-of-the-coast-holds-a-patent-for-finding-items-missing-in-the-mail/

Quote"Joining the team whose passion and imagination created such iconic games as MAGIC: THE GATHERING and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a dream come true. With best-in-class developers, designers and producers, the opportunities at Wizards of the Coast for creative storytelling and innovative game play are limitless. I look forward to working with Chris, Tim, Hasbro and the entire Wizards of the Coast team to build on their incredible momentum and deliver exciting new experiences for our fans globally."

At this point it's obvious WotC wants to move the D&D brand into the digital sphere to where the big AAA gaming bucks are.

And they brought in a Ceo who has never payed Magic or D&D to do that. But is supposedly really good at that corporate synergy thing to grow brands.

We will see how all this unfolds in the next 5 years as they roll out the D&D movie, tv series, and video games.

If successful we'll likely see a The table top side of D&D take a firm back seat to the Entertainment side.

Similar to Marvel Comics vs. Marvel Entertainment... So long as the mega bucks keep coming in they won't care much about what the print side of things is doing. It'll be just an IP farm for the digital money makers that bring in the real cash.

The push to move the D&D Brand as a big money maker beyond the RPG is officially On...


A glimpse of the corporate culture she is coming from:
https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

Quote"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."

Make of that what you will...

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
The future of D&D is digital.

Cynthia Williams: The woman now in charge at Wizards of the Coast...
https://www.geeknative.com/139128/cynthia-williams-the-woman-now-in-charge-at-wizards-of-the-coast-holds-a-patent-for-finding-items-missing-in-the-mail/

Quote"Joining the team whose passion and imagination created such iconic games as MAGIC: THE GATHERING and DUNGEONS & DRAGONS is a dream come true. With best-in-class developers, designers and producers, the opportunities at Wizards of the Coast for creative storytelling and innovative game play are limitless. I look forward to working with Chris, Tim, Hasbro and the entire Wizards of the Coast team to build on their incredible momentum and deliver exciting new experiences for our fans globally."

At this point it's obvious WotC wants to move the D&D brand into the digital sphere to where the big AAA gaming bucks are.

And they brought in a Ceo who has never payed Magic or D&D to do that. But is supposedly really good at that corporate synergy thing to grow brands.

We will see how all this unfolds in the next 5 years as they roll out the D&D movie, tv series, and video games.

If successful we'll likely see a The table top side of D&D take a firm back seat to the Entertainment side.

Similar to Marvel Comics vs. Marvel Entertainment... So long as the mega bucks keep coming in they won't care much about what the print side of things is doing. It'll be just an IP farm for the digital money makers that bring in the real cash.

The push to move the D&D Brand as a big money maker beyond the RPG is officially On...


A glimpse of the corporate culture she is coming from:
https://news.microsoft.com/features/microsoft-to-acquire-activision-blizzard-to-bring-the-joy-and-community-of-gaming-to-everyone-across-every-device/

Quote"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."

Make of that what you will...

Bolding, growing mine:

It has been for years, some of uss have been saying this for a while, they want to move away from the TTRPG into a brand.

Quote"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."

Wokefying D&D even more, and they will not a get any pushback from Hasbro, remember who is the big kahuna there now.

Considering how bad D&D: Dark Alliance was, I suspect we have a little time.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
The future of D&D is digital.
...

Make of that what you will...

There's a small chance -- too small for comfort but still real -- that this could be good for the rest of us. The more D&D becomes a generic lifestyle/entertainment brand, the less meatspace tabletop games will be their competition. I'd love to be just an uncool nerd again.

They're going to outsource the development of DnD to Green Ronin. Good news: Jeremy Crawford will hopefully be out of a job. Bad news: Chris Pramas is a total knob.

Or would the Marvel comics model be worse?

Either way or a different way this sucks. Future generations are going to be shown a shit DnD.

Quote from: horsesoldier on February 03, 2022, 01:48:32 PM
Future generations are going to be shown a shit DnD.

Won't be the first time. 2e caved to censorship and was ruined by splatbooks. 4e's only saving grace was it was a decent (if overcomplicated) small-scale wargame if you stuck to the core books; the supplements just added a bunch of nonsense and the adventure modules were lazy and slapped together  -- Halls of Undermountain only included the first level, and The Stone of Sakkara was flat-out unfinished: you had to download the map from the Web after you bought the module.

It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
At this point it's obvious WotC wants to move the D&D brand into the digital sphere to where the big AAA gaming bucks are.

And they brought in a Ceo who has never payed Magic or D&D to do that. But is supposedly really good at that corporate synergy thing to grow brands.

That's been their strategy for many years. Chris Cocks was the previous WotC CEO, and he took over in 2016 coming from Technical Sales at Microsoft.

QuoteLeeds will be replaced by Chris Cocks, who most recently served as Vice President, OEM Technical Sales at Microsoft Corporation, where he led a global sales and technical engagement team. Prior to his eight-year tenure with Microsoft, Chris served as Vice President of Educational Games at LeapFrog, where he led a cross-discipline team to drive hardware planning, software design and development, marketing and channel management. He began his career in brand management at Procter & Gamble and served in product management and marketing leadership positions in Xbox and MSN, including work on hit franchises like Halo and Fable, prior to joining Leapfrog.

Source: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160411006121/en/Hasbro-Announces-New-Leadership-for-Wizards-of-the-Coast

Greg Leeds was the CEO from 2008 to 2016. He was previously head of international marketing at Hasbro.

QuoteGreg Leeds, who has headed Hasbro's international marketing for the past seven years, is moving to WotC headquarters in Renton Washington and assuming the presidency of Wizards of the Coast.  Prior to developing Hasbro's global brand management methodology as head of International Marketing, Leeds headed up Hasbro's Boys group.

https://icv2.com/articles/games/view/12229/new-wotc-president
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-leeds/

A CEO isn't necessarily supposed to be a gamer or game designer. They're someone who handles the business side of things.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 02:02:04 PM
It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

Oh, totally. It's especially bad in less popular genres like urban fantasy, where your only options are between V5 (which has a huge idiosyncratic mythology baked in that I have zero interest in) and Shadowrun (which is post-apocalypse cyberpunk urban fantasy... when I'm just looking for modern urban fantasy). V5 is experiencing a similar issue as D&D because the owner Paradox wants to whore the IP out for cheap video games and apparently television shows too... or at least they were before they decided to stop funding new games in favor of just churning out DLC for existing games, so I have no clue what's up with them now.

Quote from: Geeky Bugle on February 03, 2022, 01:28:29 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
The future of D&D is digital.
...
The push to move the D&D Brand as a big money maker beyond the RPG is officially On...
...

Bolding, growing mine:

It has been for years, some of us have been saying this for a while, they want to move away from the TTRPG into a brand.

Oh for sure.

IMHO the new Ceo represents them doubling down on making it work.

Despite massive growth Magic still brings in twice as much cash as D&D. But on paper D&D is by far the more exploitable IP.

They can just see those millions sitting out there for them, waiting, and they want...

Quote from: Geeky Bugle on February 03, 2022, 01:28:29 PM

Quote"Gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platforms," said Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "We're investing deeply in world-class content, community and the cloud to usher in a new era of gaming that puts players and creators first and makes gaming safe, inclusive and accessible to all."

Wokefying D&D even more, and they will not a get any pushback from Hasbro, remember who is the big kahuna there now.

While I expect the dial to be turned up a bit - IMHO what will really get them in the end is their internal culture and hiring practices.

The more they embrace the Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, ideology internally, the more their focus shifts from their core mission: making good content for D&D.

And as they shift their hiring priorities to qualities other than talent and merit, they will slowly rob themselves of their ability to service their core fan base.

The fall of WoW to Final Fantasy as King of the MMO's is a good example of this. But it is a process that will play out over years...

Quote from: Ghostmaker on February 03, 2022, 01:28:29 PM
Considering how bad D&D: Dark Alliance was, I suspect we have a little time.

Yes. If I was a betting man I think her hire was very much to get everyone's act together. WotC has invested heavily in the digital space for D&D. It needs to start really paying off for them to justify the expense...

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 01:33:05 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
The future of D&D is digital.
...

Make of that what you will...

There's a small chance -- too small for comfort but still real -- that this could be good for the rest of us. The more D&D becomes a generic lifestyle/entertainment brand, the less meatspace tabletop games will be their competition. I'd love to be just an uncool nerd again.

Ditto, besides...

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 02:02:04 PM

Quote from: horsesoldier on February 03, 2022, 01:48:32 PM
Future generations are going to be shown a shit DnD.

Won't be the first time. 2e caved to censorship and was ruined by splatbooks. 4e's only saving grace was it was a decent (if overcomplicated) small-scale wargame if you stuck to the core books; the supplements just added a bunch of nonsense and the adventure modules were lazy and slapped together  -- Halls of Undermountain only included the first level, and The Stone of Sakkara was flat-out unfinished: you had to download the map from the Web after you bought the module.

It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

100% Agreed, this will end up opening space for the small fish to grow.

Yeah, this has been pretty heavily telegraphed. I mean WoTC ain't a game company they're an IP/Marketing company.

But what's interesting, which I know is just anecdotal, but my kid, who is a big 5e fan, does not like the direction things are going with 5e DND.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 02:29:55 PM
That's been their strategy for many years. ... 

I know. Mentioned it a few times in the past.

I must have worded something funny in my OP as people are assuming the idea is somehow new to me...

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 02:29:55 PM
A CEO isn't necessarily supposed to be a gamer or game designer. They're someone who handles the business side of things.

Exactly.

They don't care about Dungeons and Dragons the game.


So it is the right time for this:

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 02:02:04 PM
...
It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

It will take a while for people to get there, but it is necessary...

These guys explain why far better than I could:

We Don't Need D&D:
https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2022/01/we-dont-need-d.html

The Game VS the Brand:
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2022/01/20/the-game-vs-the-brand/

It's not terribly unusual for corporate executives to have minimal knowledge of the base product. The defining part of those positions is providing leadership, navigating corporate culture, and maximizing returns. WotC doesn't need an executive that plays/runs/writes games, they need one that can run a corporate division for the parent company.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 01:33:05 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 01:17:14 PM
The future of D&D is digital.
...

Make of that what you will...

There's a small chance -- too small for comfort but still real -- that this could be good for the rest of us. The more D&D becomes a generic lifestyle/entertainment brand, the less meatspace tabletop games will be their competition. I'd love to be just an uncool nerd again.

The MBAs have arrived to gut the service/product to comply with market trends and projected directions of public demand and adjust the customer targeting accordingly.
We are all Runequest/Palladium/Traveller now. The 2nd tier counterprogram is the new center.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 03:50:54 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 02:29:55 PM
That's been their strategy for many years. ... 

I know. Mentioned it a few times in the past.

I must have worded something funny in my OP as people are assuming the idea is somehow new to me...

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 02:29:55 PM
A CEO isn't necessarily supposed to be a gamer or game designer. They're someone who handles the business side of things.

Exactly.

They don't care about Dungeons and Dragons the game.


So it is the right time for this:

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 02:02:04 PM
...
It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

It will take a while for people to get there, but it is necessary...

These guys explain why far better than I could:

We Don't Need D&D:
https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2022/01/we-dont-need-d.html

The Game VS the Brand:
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2022/01/20/the-game-vs-the-brand/

Haven't watched those vids but...

Let my spell MY position, one I've held for a while as some of you might atest to.

D&D isn't the hobby, the hobby is role playing, D&D is just the biggest brand (currently) serving the hobby. Brands come and go, the hobby will remain as long as people wanting to play RPGs exist.

A brand can be toxic for the hobby, I think D&D has become toxic, as such the sooner it stops being the big fish in the pond the better.

WotC will not go broke (as in they will not file for bankrupcy), because they have the mega bucks of Hasbro behind. Neither will D&D fade into total obscurity anytime soon (the brand is now mainstream enough I dare say it will never fade into obscurity) if ever. But they can, and hopefully will be, replaced as the big fish in the RPG market, it has happened before, it will happen again IF WotC keeps on fucking the game.

This time around Wokefinder won't be the one to jump to the first position tho, I don't know who will but I hope it's one of the non-woke small publishers currently publishing games.

I think we can make some educated guesses tho:

WoD and all it's associated IP has been infected beyond salvation.
Hero is way too complex and you need to buy 2 bible sized books plus source books and do the work yourself. Only if they symplify shit and resume publishing full games like back in the day they might gain some traction and I still doubt they will jump to #1
GURPS is in the same boat as Hero.
DCC could be, IF they walk back from the woke precipice, I doubt they'll do so tho.
SW IS a strong contender, but they'll need a strong push to gain market share among those who like the D20 system.
Cepheus... Currently publishing games with different settings really fast...
BoL... Could be, it's a great system.
And of course we have all the OSR ecosystem... IF I were a betting man I would bet S&W/White Box FMAG are in an excellent position right now to take the crown.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 03:50:54 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 02:29:55 PM
A CEO isn't necessarily supposed to be a gamer or game designer. They're someone who handles the business side of things.

Exactly.

They don't care about Dungeons and Dragons the game.

I think that a CEO of a production company *shouldn't* necessarily be a creative designer. Many of my favorite books and movies often come from publishers/studios where the CEO is a business person rather than a creative type. The books and movies themselves were made by creative types who knows their stuff, but the production company CEO is instead someone who knows how to manage and back creative types instead of doing it themselves.

A bad CEO can be someone who thinks they're creative and micromanages their designers. A good CEO can be someone who steps back and lets them do their work while focusing on the budget, advertising, and so forth.

Obviously, opinions differ - but I like 5th edition compared to other D&D editions. I think Greg Leeds evidently did a good job of managing the creative team for that.

--

That said, D&D has never been my main game - so I'm also happy for it to fade. I doubt my favorite games will ever become market leaders, but maybe a more varied market will lead to more innovation.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 03:50:54 PM
The Game VS the Brand:
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2022/01/20/the-game-vs-the-brand/

The claim that OSR has had a big influence on 5e is fricking DELUSIONAL. They played YOU to give them good buzz, not the other way around.
If the RPG pundit is to claim 'consulation', I would consider said consultation a massive failure if the goal was parity to OSR style materials. 5e has some of the worst of OSR elements and some of the worst of all non-retro elements combined.

This reminds me of the old school Star Wars fans excited with The Force Awakens because they got rid of all the crap from the prequels. And sure they did, but it was pure nostalgia mush. The core at the center lacked any sort of creative spark, even a misplaced one.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 04:43:04 PMI think that a CEO of a production company *shouldn't* necessarily be a creative designer.

But they should be a creative person, with a respect of what they own. Disney wasn't an artist, but he was a dreamer interested in furthering animation. He took many risks and his monatary support of the field took it years into the future.

Compare that to Andrew Wilson, or Bobby Kotick for instance who are men without a soul. Who not only exclusively care about the money, but would destroy the entire industry if it meant more money in the short term.

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 04:43:04 PM
...
Obviously, opinions differ - but I like 5th edition compared to other D&D editions. I think Greg Leeds evidently did a good job of managing the creative team for that.

Personally I'd give more credit to Mearls for being lucky enough to be in the right place/time to be promoted to influence the game.

Leeds was just the suit who said: "Uhh, sure, let's do that."  But to his credit he did make that call...

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 04:43:04 PM
That said, D&D has never been my main game - so I'm also happy for it to fade. I doubt my favorite games will ever become market leaders, but maybe a more varied market will lead to more innovation.

IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 02:02:04 PM
Won't be the first time. 2e caved to censorship and was ruined by splatbooks.

4e's only saving grace was it was a decent (if overcomplicated) small-scale wargame if you stuck to the core books; the supplements just added a bunch of nonsense and the adventure modules were lazy and slapped together  -- Halls of Undermountain only included the first level, and The Stone of Sakkara was flat-out unfinished: you had to download the map from the Web after you bought the module.

It's probably time for the hobby to outgrow the One True Game anyway.

1: TSR caved but only in that they changed the names of some monsters and temp removed some classes and races. I suspect the change was also for marketing reasons as you can TM Tanrii and Baatezau and whatnod.

2e actually did not suffer a splatbook problem. Alot of the material in say the Complete Handbooks/Guides/etc were built off Dragon articles and player submissions. Much as the AD&D DMG was.

2: 4e D&D GammaWorld showed that 4e could be a decent RPG in the right hands. Unfortunately WOTC kinda lacks those.

3: As if that ever existed.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 03, 2022, 04:43:04 PM
Obviously, opinions differ - but I like 5th edition compared to other D&D editions. I think Greg Leeds evidently did a good job of managing the creative team for that.

Personally I'd give more credit to Mearls for being lucky enough to be in the right place/time to be promoted to influence the game.

Leeds was just the suit who said: "Uhh, sure, let's do that."  But to his credit he did make that call...

Well, yeah. That's my point. As CEO, Leeds' job was greenlighting, funding, and marketing the game - not doing the design himself. He didn't need to be a gamer or game designer to be a good choice.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 04:17:27 PM
WoD and all it's associated IP has been infected beyond salvation.

WoD has always been political in all the worst ways.

Vampire has an obnoxious counterculture narrative where it's impossible to advance without literally cannibalizing your elders and the fan favorite Sabbat (an apocalypse cult that wants to enslave mankind) is characterized by doing this.

Werewolf has an obnoxious environmentalist message that says human civilization is fundamentally evil and we need a return to anarcho-primitivism under eugenicists who periodically cull the weak.

Mage operates under the premise that science is a lie created by The Man to enslave humanity and everything will be better if we start believing in pseudoscience and homeopathy instead.

Wraith is about fighting slavery in the afterlife, because for some reason the writers didn't think playing dead people with evil split personalities was harsh enough.

Changeling is about how modern civilization sucks, growing up sucks, everything sucks so you might as well retreat into a delusion while you still can until you eventually wither up and die inside.

All of those are political statements. It's an insane franchise that sucks up all the market share in the urban fantasy genre.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PMWoD has always been political in all the worst.

Amen, amen, and a-frickin-men. WOD has always been only interesting by sloughing off the political stuff, and focusing on the leftovers as sort of a-political superheroics if that makes sense.

Sort of like separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat is absolutely a product of the chaff, but if you don't take it super seriously, the end results are pretty fun. But that is in part working against the desires of the system. The system wants you to take it super serial.

And because WOD is a product of its politics, NOW its all about the support of the Technocracy. Because in modern times the politics is that the people are dumb and can't be trusted with their own opinions, the Technocratic control over others is now seen as the good guys.

Edit: And through its connections to WOD, Exalted is fundementally an obnoxiously infuriating game.

There was also Hunters were Billy Jake huffs meth and drives a baracuda and triple shot gun bowie knife dynamite arrows gas can them sunsabiches.

Somehow this became a TV show on the CW only they filed the serial numbers off and then that mutated into some where fan service mocking fan service for fan service paradigm that I still haven't fully unraveled in my head.

Then they did that goofy Antideluvian demigod fantasy mythic fashion show diorama nonsense called Exalted.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 03, 2022, 03:54:39 PM
It's not terribly unusual for corporate executives to have minimal knowledge of the base product. The defining part of those positions is providing leadership, navigating corporate culture, and maximizing returns. WotC doesn't need an executive that plays/runs/writes games, they need one that can run a corporate division for the parent company.

Agreed. If they can run it well, listen to their people, and not tank stuff.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 07:46:50 PM
And because WOD is a product of its politics, NOW its all about the support of the Technocracy. Because in modern times the politics is that the people are dumb and can't be trusted with their own opinions, the Technocratic control over others is now seen as the good guys.

Oh, god, have they actually brought old Mage back? I can't even imagine the tortured retcons and mental gymnastics you'd have to do to it to make it palatable to the target audience these days.

Quote from: palaeomerus on February 03, 2022, 07:54:05 PM
There was also Hunters were Billy Jake huffs meth and drives a baracuda and triple shot gun bowie knife dynamite arrows gas can them sunsabiches.

...which is why Hunter was objectively the best oWoD game, even though nobody would admit it at the time. Don't @ me.

Also Demon: The Edgelord which at least finally made Vampire's backstory fit with the rest.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 08:31:28 PMOh, god, have they actually brought old Mage back? I can't even imagine the tortured retcons and mental gymnastics you'd have to do to it to make it palatable to the target audience these days.

Here it is off the presses. (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354689/M20-Technocracy-Reloaded?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_0_1830_0_0)

QuoteWelcome to the Future

As the third decade of the 21st century dawns, the Technocratic Union stands on the cutting edge of a future imperiled. As science and technology draw humanity closer than ever before, certain factions within the Masses display gross negligence, undermining the Union's work and endangering the world for shortsighted gains. Despite global telecommunications, new frontiers in virtually every field of study, and an understanding of the universe only dreamed of by earlier generations, humanity faces threats on all sides.

Can You Save It?

Climate change threatens to destroy life as we know it. Religious fundamentalism breeds terror around the globe. Diseases, once eradicated in the developed world through vaccination, have returned due to antivaxxer movements. Totalitarian, nationalist governments rise as the Masses succumb to fear of the other. The world stands on the brink of destruction, and it is up to the agents and operatives of the Technocratic Union to save it...or be its ultimate destruction.

Its difficult to root for rebels, when you are the authority.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:40:57 PM
Here it is off the presses. (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354689/M20-Technocracy-Reloaded?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_0_1830_0_0)

Thanks, I hate it.

If anything, the main change I would have made from the old setting would be to have a charismatic, edgy billionaire (maybe from South Africa IDK) become the leader of the Void Engineers, straining their relationship with the Technocracy further, with whispers that he or she is secretly a Son of Ether.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 08:31:28 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 07:46:50 PM
And because WOD is a product of its politics, NOW its all about the support of the Technocracy. Because in modern times the politics is that the people are dumb and can't be trusted with their own opinions, the Technocratic control over others is now seen as the good guys.

Oh, god, have they actually brought old Mage back? I can't even imagine the tortured retcons and mental gymnastics you'd have to do to it to make it palatable to the target audience these days.

The Technocracy are now the good guys. I'm serious.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 04:17:27 PM
WoD and all it's associated IP has been infected beyond salvation.

WoD has always been political in all the worst ways.

Vampire has an obnoxious counterculture narrative where it's impossible to advance without literally cannibalizing your elders and the fan favorite Sabbat (an apocalypse cult that wants to enslave mankind) is characterized by doing this.

Werewolf has an obnoxious environmentalist message that says human civilization is fundamentally evil and we need a return to anarcho-primitivism under eugenicists who periodically cull the weak.

Mage operates under the premise that science is a lie created by The Man to enslave humanity and everything will be better if we start believing in pseudoscience and homeopathy instead.

Wraith is about fighting slavery in the afterlife, because for some reason the writers didn't think playing dead people with evil split personalities was harsh enough.

Changeling is about how modern civilization sucks, growing up sucks, everything sucks so you might as well retreat into a delusion while you still can until you eventually wither up and die inside.

All of those are political statements. It's an insane franchise that sucks up all the market share in the urban fantasy genre.

If you need vampires, theriantropes, etc as PCs then I have good news for you Actual Fucking Monsters by Grim Jim.

If you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 07:46:50 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PMWoD has always been political in all the worst.

Amen, amen, and a-frickin-men. WOD has always been only interesting by sloughing off the political stuff, and focusing on the leftovers as sort of a-political superheroics if that makes sense.

Sort of like separating the wheat from the chaff. The wheat is absolutely a product of the chaff, but if you don't take it super seriously, the end results are pretty fun. But that is in part working against the desires of the system. The system wants you to take it super serial.

And because WOD is a product of its politics, NOW its all about the support of the Technocracy. Because in modern times the politics is that the people are dumb and can't be trusted with their own opinions, the Technocratic control over others is now seen as the good guys.

Edit: And through its connections to WOD, Exalted is fundementally an obnoxiously infuriating game.

Yeah, I'm currently working on a systemless setting urban fantasy and I pretty much state outright that certain secret societies attract vigilante superheroes. It's an easy way to keep the PCs independently motivated.

I should probably make random generation tables for generating characters and NPCs.

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 08:40:22 PM

Quote from: palaeomerus on February 03, 2022, 07:54:05 PM
There was also Hunters were Billy Jake huffs meth and drives a baracuda and triple shot gun bowie knife dynamite arrows gas can them sunsabiches.

...which is why Hunter was objectively the best oWoD game, even though nobody would admit it at the time. Don't @ me.

Also Demon: The Edgelord which at least finally made Vampire's backstory fit with the rest.

Apparently H5 (or whatever) is going to essentially retrofit the premise from HtV. This is going to make the title nonsensical, as the Reckoning was a major in-game event, I guess.

Thankfully, I don't actually care about this shit. I'm not going to waste my time writing screeds about the company sucks and shit. I'm working on my own urban fantasy settings and it's so freeing to just make shit up as it comes to me without worrying how it all fits together.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:40:57 PM

Quote from: Cat the Bounty Smuggler on February 03, 2022, 08:31:28 PMOh, god, have they actually brought old Mage back? I can't even imagine the tortured retcons and mental gymnastics you'd have to do to it to make it palatable to the target audience these days.

Here it is off the presses. (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/354689/M20-Technocracy-Reloaded?src=hottest_filtered&filters=0_0_1830_0_0)

QuoteWelcome to the Future

As the third decade of the 21st century dawns, the Technocratic Union stands on the cutting edge of a future imperiled. As science and technology draw humanity closer than ever before, certain factions within the Masses display gross negligence, undermining the Union's work and endangering the world for shortsighted gains. Despite global telecommunications, new frontiers in virtually every field of study, and an understanding of the universe only dreamed of by earlier generations, humanity faces threats on all sides.

Can You Save It?

Climate change threatens to destroy life as we know it. Religious fundamentalism breeds terror around the globe. Diseases, once eradicated in the developed world through vaccination, have returned due to antivaxxer movements. Totalitarian, nationalist governments rise as the Masses succumb to fear of the other. The world stands on the brink of destruction, and it is up to the agents and operatives of the Technocratic Union to save it...or be its ultimate destruction.

Its difficult to root for rebels, when you are the authority.

The irony here is that since the game world operates on consensus reality, all those problems were created by the Union in the first place. I don't know how it's even supposed to make sense. This is an aspect of Mage that I've always despised as someone who is concerned with issues like pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism.

I got banned from a chatroom last year for arguing with a guy who kept promoting dangerous pseudoscience that a moment on Google would disprove. He kept saying stupid shit like "blood transfusions can transmit cancer" and "television screens produce UV rays that give you sunburn." But I was the one who got banned. I really know how to pick them, don't I?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 04:17:27 PM
WoD and all it's associated IP has been infected beyond salvation.

WoD has always been political in all the worst ways.

Vampire has an obnoxious counterculture narrative where it's impossible to advance without literally cannibalizing your elders and the fan favorite Sabbat (an apocalypse cult that wants to enslave mankind) is characterized by doing this.

Werewolf has an obnoxious environmentalist message that says human civilization is fundamentally evil and we need a return to anarcho-primitivism under eugenicists who periodically cull the weak.

Mage operates under the premise that science is a lie created by The Man to enslave humanity and everything will be better if we start believing in pseudoscience and homeopathy instead.

Wraith is about fighting slavery in the afterlife, because for some reason the writers didn't think playing dead people with evil split personalities was harsh enough.

Changeling is about how modern civilization sucks, growing up sucks, everything sucks so you might as well retreat into a delusion while you still can until you eventually wither up and die inside.

All of those are political statements. It's an insane franchise that sucks up all the market share in the urban fantasy genre.

If you need vampires, theriantropes, etc as PCs then I have good news for you Actual Fucking Monsters by Grim Jim.

If you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

I have copies of AFM and the AFM Companion, thank you. It's not designed for campaigns tho. PCs are expected to die fairly quickly like the villains in a horror movie, because that's literally what they are.

That works when I'm in the mood for that. Sometimes I'm in the mood for stuff with a number of different character options, factions, etc.

I've checked out games like WitchCraft and Everlasting. I've come to the conclusion that I should make the setting I want on my own, with inspirations from those games I liked.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PMIve heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

There are different systems that run the setting. The setting baed on a series of books: Monster Hunter International (MHI).
The main thesis of MHI is as follows:

• Guns = Good 100% of the time
• Monsters = Bad 99.9% of the time

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 09:07:58 PM
The irony here is that since the game world operates on consensus reality, all those problems were created by the Union in the first place. I don't know how it's even supposed to make sense. This is an aspect of Mage that I've always despised as someone who is concerned with issues like pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism.

I got banned from a chatroom last year for arguing with a guy who kept promoting dangerous pseudoscience that a moment on Google would disprove. He kept saying stupid shit like "blood transfusions can transmit cancer" and "television screens produce UV rays that give you sunburn." But I was the one who got banned. I really know how to pick them, don't I?

Its also basic human psychology that if you try to censor people or try to disprove them aggressively or from a point of fear, you come off looking as unstable, and make the other person more entrenched in their position. Not that I believe that justifies you being banned. Im always for minimal bans.

Im more bothered by Science-worship, and intelectualism-elevation.

edit: Thinking about it, psuedo-science and intelectual elevation are pretty intrinsincly linked.

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

This thread is a natural progression from the previous thread I started, titled; "From WOTC to Hasbro".

Yes, please do carry on....

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

There is more than one product but the one I have is Savage Worlds. The RPG & Employee handbook is HERO.

The premise is that monsters, ghosts, demons, old things, and other supernatural critters exist and and dangerous and the government pays bounties called PUFF if you kill them. This has led to mercenary groups that track and exterminate monsters, some of whom would pay someone a kickback for a good lead. Not ALL monsters are going to get you a bounty, some live on reservations as as long as they stay there or don't hurt anyone they tend to be left alone. Some just aren't worth that much and so aren't worth the trouble.

MHI follows one such group of a cursed family and their hired hands, some of whom are ex military who hunt monsters and split the bounty for a living and they use special equipment and training and allies to get this done. One of the guys running this business is a werewolf and his daughter and her husband became vampires and ran off.

The werewolf mostly stays in human form and is immune to being hunted because the government also recruits monsters for special forces and black ops teams and they can get you off the bounty list if you otherwise behave. The blackops groups are of course run by scum bags and the worst of the worst who claim they have to do what they do to keep humanity safe. One of the black ops guys is a Frankenstein's monster possessed by a demon who acts as an enforcer and a cleaner for the government.

There are several novels mostly written in first person from the point of view of an accountant who joined MHI after being attacked by a werewolf and accidentally killing it and thus getting a bounty for it along with recruitment offers. He cozies up to the bosses' granddaughter and is told at one point that the universe has plans for him that he probably will not be able to walk away from when it goes down. They fight lovecraft critters, and vampires, a Portugeuse sorcerer, get hired by a billionaire dragon whose hoard is a financial portfolio, and at one point they shake down some royalty redneck elves in a trailer park for answers bribing them with cigarettes and munchies. They get a real troll to do IT for them. They have a mysterious helicopter pilot. They bitch about the government, competitors, each other, the government, the dark forces at work in the world, dark secrets, and they talk about guns a lot. It's a little fast and loose and self-indulgent but usually engaging.

It's pretty fun.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

Quote from: palaeomerus on February 04, 2022, 12:19:24 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

There is more than one product but the one I have is Savage Worlds. The RPG & Employee handbook is HERO.

The premise is that monsters, ghosts, demons, old things, and other supernatural critters exist and and dangerous and the government pays bounties called PUFF if you kill them. This has led to mercenary groups that track and exterminate monsters, some of whom would pay someone a kickback for a good lead. Not ALL monsters are going to get you a bounty, some live on reservations as as long as they stay there or don't hurt anyone they tend to be left alone. Some just aren't worth that much and so aren't worth the trouble.

MHI follows one such group of a cursed family and their hired hands, some of whom are ex military who hunt monsters and split the bounty for a living and they use special equipment and training and allies to get this done. One of the guys running this business is a werewolf and his daughter and her husband became vampires and ran off.

The werewolf mostly stays in human form and is immune to being hunted because the government also recruits monsters for special forces and black ops teams and they can get you off the bounty list if you otherwise behave. The blackops groups are of course run by scum bags and the worst of the worst who claim they have to do what they do to keep humanity safe. One of the black ops guys is a Frankenstein's monster possessed by a demon who acts as an enforcer and a cleaner for the government.

There are several novels mostly written in first person from the point of view of an accountant who joined MHI after being attacked by a werewolf and accidentally killing it and thus getting a bounty for it along with recruitment offers. He cozies up to the bosses' granddaughter and is told at one point that the universe has plans for him that he probably will not be able to walk away from when it goes down. They fight lovecraft critters, and vampires, a Portugeuse sorcerer, get hired by a billionaire dragon whose hoard is a financial portfolio, and at one point they shake down some royalty redneck elves in a trailer park for answers bribing them with cigarettes and munchies. They get a real troll to do IT for them. They have a mysterious helicopter pilot. They bitch about the government, competitors, each other, the government, the dark forces at work in the world, dark secrets, and they talk about guns a lot. It's a little fast and loose and self-indulgent but usually engaging.

It's pretty fun.

I know the novels Larry Correia no?

But I only knew about the HERO based game.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM
Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?[\B]

Seriously challenge D&D?

Hell no.

Although one could argue that at its peak VAMPIRE/WoD got within shouting distance.

But that's not my point.

My point was that D&D was less dominant over the hobby on the whole. Those other games were widely played and part of the general RPG conversation. And available at your local FLGS.

Whereas now days the general RPG conversation is all about 5e, the clone's upgrade, or the Kickstarter flavor of the month.

The hobby no longer has a solid 2nd tier of visible and relatively popular go-to games for those who might want to try something different from D&D.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PM
Vampire has an obnoxious counterculture narrative where it's impossible to advance without literally cannibalizing your elders and the fan favorite Sabbat (an apocalypse cult that wants to enslave mankind) is characterized by doing this.

Mage operates under the premise that science is a lie created by The Man to enslave humanity and everything will be better if we start believing in pseudoscience and homeopathy instead.

Wraith is about fighting slavery in the afterlife, because for some reason the writers didn't think playing dead people with evil split personalities was harsh enough.

All of those are political statements. It's an insane franchise that sucks up all the market share in the urban fantasy genre.

1: I have or had 1st ed Vampire and back then the Sabbat had not literally sucked all the fun out of the setting yet.

2: I have Mage 1st or 2nd and back then the Technocracy had not literally sucked the fun out of the setting yet.

3: I have Wraith 1st or 2nd and back then the er... whatever... had not literally sucked the fun out of the setting yet.

4: White Wolf went downhill sometime around the advent of the edition treadmill and 2e. And by 3e things were not so much downhill as leaping off a cliff.

x: I have Orpheus, WW RPG and the first installment is fine. Then the second installment... yep, you guessed it. Sucks all the life from the setting. I havent actually gotten to the third part of the set because the 2nd was so freaking depressing. And yeah its political as all hell as the government and law and media and everything else are turned against the PCs. It didnt even get a chance to go downhill. They skipped straight to CLIFF!

x2: Same with Aberrant. Trinity comes along and, yep, things somehow got actually bleaker and more political.

Quote from: Omega on February 04, 2022, 02:20:04 AM
x: I have Orpheus, WW RPG and the first installment is fine. Then the second installment... yep, you guessed it. Sucks all the life from the setting. I havent actually gotten to the third part of the set because the 2nd was so freaking depressing. And yeah its political as all hell as the government and law and media and everything else are turned against the PCs. It didnt even get a chance to go downhill. They skipped straight to CLIFF!

x2: Same with Aberrant. Trinity comes along and, yep, things somehow got actually bleaker and more political.

What sucks the life out of a setting seems difficult to argue - but this last is is objectively backwards. Trinity came out in 1997, two years *before* Aberrant. I briefly got into Aberrant - I liked the concept, but the execution was terrible from the start. (My old pages are here (https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/aberrant/).)

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 12:20:36 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM
We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

   The difference is like the difference between a product holding 75-90% of the market--dominant, but with some room for other products to serve niches--and it holding 99% of the market, where it suffocates nearly everything else.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 04, 2022, 09:43:05 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM
We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

   The difference is like the difference between a product holding 75-90% of the market--dominant, but with some room for other products to serve niches--and it holding 99% of the market, where it suffocates nearly everything else.

Well, that and the scope and nature and economics of the niche side of the market is highly diluted compared to what it was, at least in market share.  It was easier for Vampire to hang onto a chunk because it had less competition for second place--less games out there really pushing for second place and far less games period. 

As cheap as it is to put a game out there now, that dilutes it even more.  Heck, for all I know, home brews may be taking a bigger share now. 

The main difference in my home brew stuff now compared to the late 80's or mid '90s (besides having more experience) is that I can put together the materials to do it a whole lost easier.  For my first try at a game in the late 80's, I had to do layout a character sheet very carefully by hand, type it, and then pay a dime a sheet to get it photocopied.  My current try has a character sheet that has evolved 6-8 times in 18 months, and when I want another one I print it for a fraction of a penny.  (And a dime was still actual money in the 80's for some of us, when it was a repeat thing.)  I'm not even published, but my home brew is taking about 20 gamers and growing out of the market for other games right now.  How many people are doing something similar, or maybe using an old rule set and then house ruling it in a similar way?  We don't really know, because they aren't buying, and they aren't playing on online platforms to be counted.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 12:20:36 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

Right, but that wasn't the point being made, so my question stands. From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

The question of modern D&Ds supremacy is to why.

Is it like a Mad Max situation? Everything else has dried out, leaving D&D the emperor of a dead hobby?
Is it like alien terraforming? Where tons of casual fans have forced gatekeepers to adapt to them?
Is it like fractured government? More mini nations of other hobbies exist that people go to instead (CCGs, Minis, etc)?

In theory, while still niche, the TTG industry has grown from squat to squat and a half over the 2020s.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 04, 2022, 10:33:37 AM
The question of modern D&Ds supremacy is to why.

Is it like a Mad Max situation? Everything else has dried out, leaving D&D the emperor of a dead hobby?
Is it like alien terraforming? Where tons of casual fans have forced gatekeepers to adapt to them?
Is it like fractured government? More mini nations of other hobbies exist that people go to instead (CCGs, Minis, etc)?

In theory, while still niche, the TTG industry has grown from squat to squat and a half over the 2020s.

I would say terraforming.  For the uninitiated Role-Playing games and D&D are synonymous.  So, as 'nerd culture' goes mainstream 'D&D' becomes part of the lexicon of the cool kids.  Which is inexorably tied to D&D as lifestyle brand.  It's the name that's important, the larger hobby isn't particularly relevant.

I knew a lot of people in the 90s who were big into role playing games, but never played D&D.  And asking someone in that environment 'Do you play D&D?' meant AD&D, 2nd Edition.  A Vampire player would say 'no.'  These days I run into a lot of newer players who are playing PF, WoD, or something else and still say they play D&D.  The brand is becoming one and the same with the product, like a Band-Aid. 

As a result, anyone coming into the hobby is going to be pushed towards D&D because that's what comes up on Google.  They aren't walking into a game store to be confronted with dozens of options.         

D&D as a brand has escape velocity. It transcends just TTRPG's and will always be the McDonalds of TTRPG's.

This notion of "dethroning" it is pointless. It's as pointless as making (or rooting for) a burger joint JUST to compete with McDonalds to "outburger" them.

The reality is you have to support your game-companies of choice/start your own, and be an active part of that following. Which means quality production, good content, and constant outreach. You know? Just like we did during the Basic to AD&D era. You gotta do that with those other systems. Those of you of that vintage can remember when YOU KNEW every D&D group within a 20-mile radius. You *had* to cultivate new players. People have gotten soft, and pretend it's hard to find players. What they really mean is they don't want to put for the effort required to find or evangelize people off the D&D McBurger Menu.

Well... like it or not, that's reality. Just keep eating at the D&D trough, or find something better and don't look back.

I'm not blind to the fact that when it comes to TTRPG's that D&D is the sky all other TTRPG's lives under. What amazes me is the amount of clinging people do to this brand that has no reason to be on most people's main menu for consumption. It becomes more bizarre when the most vitriolic threads based on the current direction of the D&D Brand is literally telling us that *we* are not the desired customer-base.

I get that people (which includes me) have cherished memories of the bygone days of D&D when it was great. But the mechanics at best are stale - the best editions are behind it (which could more easily take elements from later editions you like and pin them on, or go OSR). The settings we loved are fucked up now and not well supported. The content they're making are watered down re-hashes of content we already have - because it's *not* made for us.

There are tons of settings and systems out there that can do "D&D Fantasy" better than D&D itself. At minimum that's what the OSR is there for, right? But I say why even stop there?

I'm glad D&D is going mainstream. I hope it goes so mainstream people start dressing like their characters, sing songs about it, open D&D themed restaurants, D&D Monopoly, D&D Nerf weapon, D&D Hip-Hop, whatever,  because it'll get oversaturated and run its natural course. And it appears it's on that trajectory.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 05:10:35 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 03:50:54 PM
The Game VS the Brand:
https://grumpywizard.home.blog/2022/01/20/the-game-vs-the-brand/

The claim that OSR has had a big influence on 5e is fricking DELUSIONAL. They played YOU to give them good buzz, not the other way around.

Oh the irony. The biggest champion of that view came right here, from our very own leader.

There were literally dozens of threads championing 5e as OSR influenced back in 2014. This thread I link to below is not the worst or best of them. It's pretty average in fact. But it will give yuu a taste. And then if you click back to the threads near there, you will see pages and pages of threads where, usually, someone here mentions the victory for the OSR that DNDNext/5e represents.

Thread D&D Basic: I Told You So (https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/dd-basic-i-told-you-so/)

So yeah, this place right here was the epicenter of promoting 5e as OSR inspired. The people who "played" others about it were...us. The people posting here.

By the way I don't feel played at all. 5e does in fact harken back to some of the stylistic choices of 1e that I like, and I don't think it's a false sense at all. In the context of 3e and 4e, the layout and language and style choices and setting call-outs and focus on rulings and house rules and options over Rules As Written and Basic rules for free and the starter set, it is all legitimately OSR inspired in my view. I don't think Pundit was playing anyone by touting these things and advocating for them. But if you do think it was all just WOTC playing people, then you know who shares some of that blame. Us. This message board and it's users. This was the hub of that discussion in the key release years.

Quote from: Mistwell on February 04, 2022, 12:55:07 PM

Oh the irony. The biggest champion of that view came right here, from our very own leader.

I never saw him as my leader, I like the platform and discourse but I don't like pundits content or "public" persona.

But so much of OSR is nostalgic gut feeling over any sort of design. Its more united by hate then love.

And I run an OSR game, but I see it as a extreme outlier.

QuoteIn the context of 3e and 4e, the layout and language and style choices and setting call-outs and focus on rulings and house rules and options over Rules As Written and Basic rules for free and the starter set, it is all legitimately OSR inspired in my view.

STW/WWN/Godbound have good sections going into how to manage expectations and how to generate good house rules/ new content. 5e just has big sections of content missing altogether, with no such good advice. Your taking absense of effort as intentional.

But 5e is FULL of rules and elements that people HATED in 4e/3e, just given a coat of 1e style presentation.

Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: Omega on February 04, 2022, 02:20:04 AM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 03, 2022, 06:55:37 PM
Vampire has an obnoxious counterculture narrative where it's impossible to advance without literally cannibalizing your elders and the fan favorite Sabbat (an apocalypse cult that wants to enslave mankind) is characterized by doing this.

Mage operates under the premise that science is a lie created by The Man to enslave humanity and everything will be better if we start believing in pseudoscience and homeopathy instead.

Wraith is about fighting slavery in the afterlife, because for some reason the writers didn't think playing dead people with evil split personalities was harsh enough.

All of those are political statements. It's an insane franchise that sucks up all the market share in the urban fantasy genre.

1: I have or had 1st ed Vampire and back then the Sabbat had not literally sucked all the fun out of the setting yet.

2: I have Mage 1st or 2nd and back then the Technocracy had not literally sucked the fun out of the setting yet.

3: I have Wraith 1st or 2nd and back then the er... whatever... had not literally sucked the fun out of the setting yet.

4: White Wolf went downhill sometime around the advent of the edition treadmill and 2e. And by 3e things were not so much downhill as leaping off a cliff.

x: I have Orpheus, WW RPG and the first installment is fine. Then the second installment... yep, you guessed it. Sucks all the life from the setting. I havent actually gotten to the third part of the set because the 2nd was so freaking depressing. And yeah its political as all hell as the government and law and media and everything else are turned against the PCs. It didnt even get a chance to go downhill. They skipped straight to CLIFF!

x2: Same with Aberrant. Trinity comes along and, yep, things somehow got actually bleaker and more political.

Those things I described were present since first edition. Maybe they were more heavily emphasized in later editions or maybe groups just didn't read the books, but they were always there.

I actually recall hearing some employees providing a reason for why the direction shifted into metaplots. During the 90s the RPG market was going through a crunch due to increasing competition from video games, from which it still has never really recovered. Roleplayers didn't buy into the supplement treadmill, they just bought a few books and then made up the rest themselves. The marketing department decided the best way to combat this was to lean even harder into the supplement treadmill and introduce metaplot that changed the settings over time, in the form of the "Year of X" branding. This wasn't successful. Then the company decided to reboot the games, which was apparently fairly successful (VtR rulebook apparently sold 100,000 copies at its height IIRC, which is supposedly a success in the newly shrunk marketplace). But the problem was that the market just wasn't interested in urban fantasy games, so nothing they did really solved the ongoing shrinkage.

Then White Wolf got bought so that the WoD IP could be whored out in video games based solely on the reputation of the cult classic VTMB (which is a boneheaded decision for multiple reasons), dissolved, sold again (still based on VTMB's cult status), and now their current owner has cancelled new game production indefinitely to focus on DLC for their existing properties. The WoD video game brand has never been successful and I've heard other video game devs outright call it cursed.

Paradox has churned out some shovelware games made under license with other companies, and these have consistently stunk and failed to tap into what made VTMB a cult hit. Most of them are text-based adventure games and these have none of the charm that Troika's writing did. Troika's writing worked because it was written by a non-fan who liked to poke fun at the conventions of the IP and generally wrote in a irreverent manner, and because it was also just dialogue with the rest of the game providing the visual and audio components. The text games are painfully overwrought and pretentious slogs because they have to include descriptions too and were written by diehard fans who treat the game books as holy writ. The diehards will eat that shit up, but there's nothing there to hook a casual gamer just browsing through the markets.

The 3D games were awful. Earthblood has a terrible reception on Metacritic. Bloodhunt is a generic free to play battle royale game. Battle royale games are simple to make and will invariably make money as long as the quality isn't completely terrible, which is why the market is oversaturated with them. But it's a complete waste of the WoD IP and pretty much everybody agrees on this. The gratuitous Spanish in the game also confuses Spanish speakers (as most players know nothing about the IP since they just go through battle royale games like candy) who think the bruja class is a spellcaster class when it isn't. The game received such a horrible reception that it got temporarily delisted from Steam.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 12:20:36 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

It's a niche within a niche, even. There are a ton of things that the company could do to open up the IP to a wider and more profitable audience, but they refuse to do these things. If anything, Paradox is actively doubling down on everything that critics had previously criticized. Changeling: The Lost was widely praised for it's extremely diverse and open-ended setting that gives a lot of customizability to players while not crushing them with a bazillion years of irrelevant backstory politics, to the point where it exceeded the marketing department's expectations for it. No other game has done that AFAIK. If they applied the same formula to their other games (and got rid of that gratuitous Spanish, among other things), then I suspect it would attract much needed new blood to this insular and toxic fandom.

But that's no going to happen, at least not for V5. Hunter: The Reckoning, however, is apparently being retooled to something more like Hunter: The Vigil. Which is strange, considering that the "Reckoning" was an in-game event that doesn't apply to hunters outside the Imbued but they're keeping the name anyway for the brand name value.

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PMFuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's.

Yeah you show em. Don't ask questions. Just consume product and get excited for next product.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on February 04, 2022, 09:43:05 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM
We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

   The difference is like the difference between a product holding 75-90% of the market--dominant, but with some room for other products to serve niches--and it holding 99% of the market, where it suffocates nearly everything else.

But the difference is like 90% of a market place of 100 and 99% of a market place of 1000.

You can still find your 10 people that want to play your particular game.

Heck there is even room in current gaming for thirsty sword lesbians and thats far more niche then Vampire.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 10:21:16 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 12:20:36 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

Right, but that wasn't the point being made, so my question stands. From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

Would you prefer "hilariously challenged?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

   There is a Savage Worlds version

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 03:59:23 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 10:21:16 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 12:20:36 AM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 03, 2022, 11:24:52 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on February 03, 2022, 05:27:40 PM
IMHO, the RPG hobby was as its best when D&D was not as strong as it is now, and the #2 RPG was a different genre from D&D.

In the 90's there was D&D, then we had Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC still banging around.

All talked about, all actively played, with dedicated fanbases. And all available on the shelves at your FLGS...

Now we just have D&D, and D&D's clone, with the flavor of the month rotating the other top three positions...

Not that we'll ever really get back to the swinging 90's... the d20 OGL has done it's work. But IMHO the hobby as a whole is better off when D&D is not the 80'000lb gorilla it is now taking all the air out of the room.

Was there ever actually a year in the 90s where Vampire/Wod, Shadowrun, WFRP, CP2020, d6Starwars, 7thSea, L5R, Deadlands, MechWarrior, mektonZ, and CoC seriously challenged DnD?

Its most likely just nostalgia.

From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

I don't see it in Jaeger's post.

We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

Right, but that wasn't the point being made, so my question stands. From where do you get the "seriously challenged" part?

Would you prefer "hilariously challenged?

I would preffer you were accurate as to what was being said and then argue against or for it.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 04, 2022, 04:10:13 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

   There is a Savage Worlds version

Is it in DT? I might consider risking my wife's ire to buy it. Not so much with HERO (Except Lucha Libre Hero, that book is priceless).

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 04:23:12 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 04, 2022, 04:10:13 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 09:07:04 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 03, 2022, 08:57:44 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 03, 2022, 08:56:58 PMIf you want to hunt monsters in a modern setting then you need to wait till I'm done with my take on it.

Or do Monster Hunter International.

Ive heard good things of it. It's based of off Hero no?

   There is a Savage Worlds version

Is it in DT? I might consider risking my wife's ire to buy it. Not so much with HERO (Except Lucha Libre Hero, that book is priceless).

  Dunno ordered it off Amazon about 8 months ago.  I like Larry (not so much his books, a whole bunch of gun porn and a dude who is an accountant wishing he was a fighter in those) so I got it with some other stuff last year when I went a bit nuts on increasing the size of the library.   The book is good though, and gives backstory to the organization and its members and where players might fit in.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 04:21:53 PM
I would preffer you were accurate as to what was being said and then argue against or for it.

I guess we will both just have to learn to live with inaccuracy.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:44:35 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 04:21:53 PM
I would preffer you were accurate as to what was being said and then argue against or for it.

I guess we will both just have to learn to live with inaccuracy.

Then you'll also have to learn to be called out on it won't you?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 05:12:08 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:44:35 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on February 04, 2022, 04:21:53 PM
I would preffer you were accurate as to what was being said and then argue against or for it.

I guess we will both just have to learn to live with inaccuracy.

Then you'll also have to learn to be called out on it won't you?

So we are agreed?

I will continue to post as normal and you continue to call me out for my many many inaccuracies.

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 05:17:08 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

2014 5e is a great game.  :P

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 05:17:08 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

Greetings!

*LAUGHING* Well said, my friend!

I don't have a problem with people not preferring 5E. It has flaws, for certain. I also *detest* the political SJW bullshit that WOTC is pumping into recent supplements. I know you like SW, for example.

Just the kind of frothing, seething hatred of 5E gets a bit much for me. The constant drumbeat of "5E is terrible! Everything about the game is shit, whaa, whaa, whaa." You know? I think that is an extreme assessment, and also an unfair and inaccurate assessment.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: S'mon on February 04, 2022, 05:32:03 PM

2014 5e is a great game.  :P

It's kind of funny given the subject of the thread.  It traditionally takes Microsoft at least 3 iterations/expansions of a new feature to turn it into something worth using.  Apparently, it takes WotC about that many to turn it into something no longer worth it.

2014 is the same turgid game of today.

Don't any of you OSR fanatics complain about healing surges, encounter powers, purely beneficial races, multiclassing, munchkining or anything else you complain about 2e-4e, but defend in 5e because its core maths are worse then 1e and it lays out its data less clearly.

Quote from: jhkim on February 04, 2022, 03:16:02 AM
What sucks the life out of a setting seems difficult to argue - but this last is is objectively backwards. Trinity came out in 1997, two years *before* Aberrant. I briefly got into Aberrant - I liked the concept, but the execution was terrible from the start. (My old pages are here (https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/aberrant/).)

huh, you are correct. My copy of Trinity is one of the old Aeon books it looks like they had to cut up and rebind to sell due to that little TM issue. For me Trinity hit the shelves after Aberrant and Adventure..

And yeah Aberrant itself went downhill fairly fast too. WW was obsessed with its conspiracy theories and eeeeevil governments. Same with Trinity. It starts off ok. But halfway through the core book it starts downhill and never really stops.

Same for WW's Gamma World book. Its GW in name only and is really Nano World as its nano-tech and ideology wars taken to the nth degree. And it just gets bleaker with the expansion books. Still one of the best GM guidebooks though as it packed alot of advice and tips for GMs old and new to any RPG really. That it was in the hands slacker hacks like Baugh and Lizard dragged it down with the rest. Remember kids. The designers didnt write those rules "because the players will do it for us"...

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 05:17:08 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

Everyone will be equally special.  So now, no one will be special.  All flavors are now vanilla.

Quote from: S'mon on February 04, 2022, 05:32:03 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 05:17:08 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

2014 5e is a great game.  :P

The printings of the PHB that still cite the contributions of all those involved, are the best 5E D&D.

Quote from: Omega on February 04, 2022, 07:58:56 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 04, 2022, 03:16:02 AM
What sucks the life out of a setting seems difficult to argue - but this last is is objectively backwards. Trinity came out in 1997, two years *before* Aberrant. I briefly got into Aberrant - I liked the concept, but the execution was terrible from the start. (My old pages are here (https://darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/aberrant/).)

huh, you are correct. My copy of Trinity is one of the old Aeon books it looks like they had to cut up and rebind to sell due to that little TM issue. For me Trinity hit the shelves after Aberrant and Adventure..

And yeah Aberrant itself went downhill fairly fast too. WW was obsessed with its conspiracy theories and eeeeevil governments. Same with Trinity. It starts off ok. But halfway through the core book it starts downhill and never really stops.

Same for WW's Gamma World book. Its GW in name only and is really Nano World as its nano-tech and ideology wars taken to the nth degree. And it just gets bleaker with the expansion books. Still one of the best GM guidebooks though as it packed alot of advice and tips for GMs old and new to any RPG really. That it was in the hands slacker hacks like Baugh and Lizard dragged it down with the rest. Remember kids. The designers didnt write those rules "because the players will do it for us"...

And the fandom when I interacted wasn't great either. I left a decade ago due to disillusionment with the edition wars. In the time since I have occasionally tried to interact with WoD fans, but these interactions have always gone sour once I shared my reservations and misgivings. At best they'll politely tell me they don't think the problems are problems because they're completely indoctrinated to think everything is hunky dory (especially the newbies who aren't aware of the history at all), and at worst they're insanely petty thin-skinned douchebags who will dissect my most polite explanation of my thoughts sentence by sentence in order to belittle me when they could just say "I have nothing nice to say to you." Every WoD apostate I talk to recounts how similar douchebaggery drove them out of the community.

Some nicer people I talked to are disillusioned with the direction of the IP and are open to discussion. I've been trying to convince them to just give up on the IP and make their own shit, but they're still irrationally loyal to the brand despite despising the direction it's going in. I'm frustrated by this because that IP is probably one of the single easiest that you could make substitutes for because of how utterly generic the premise is. "Cliques of vampires and other monsters compete in the modern day."

Quote from: S'mon on February 04, 2022, 05:32:03 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 05:17:08 PM

Quote from: SHARK on February 04, 2022, 02:17:02 PM
Greetings!

D&D 5E is a great game. It's very much influenced by OSR elements, and is flexible, fun, and accessible.

Fuck all the crybabies and negative nancy's. It's easy enough to go play something else.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Yes. So flexible now all races will be the same. Culture doesn't matter in game or apparently out of game. Gender is fluid, and sex is irrelevant. Coming at ya in Nu-5e. Don't forget your X-cards!

heh - had to say it.

2014 5e is a great game.  :P

I'll actually give you that.

According to ICv2 (https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/50387/wotc-sold-over-950-million-tabletop-games-2021?), D&D publisher WotC made over $1 billion in total sales in 2021, including $952M in tabletop games.

WotC is the first (and only) billion dollar publisher in tabletop RPGs, although much of this revenue will also be due to Magic the Gathering. It is responsible for a staggering 72% of Hasbro's total operating profit.

Interim CEO Rich Stoddart indicated that tabletop games grew 44% and accounted for 74% of the $1.3B sales for WotC in 2021. The division at Hasbro is 'Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming', so the remained came from the Digital Gaming side of things.

Quote from: Shasarak on February 04, 2022, 04:16:14 AM
...
We always have had other games that are not DnD.

At some stage you just have to face the facts that games like Vampire target a niche audience.

Who said they weren't niche?

Not the point I made.

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 12:08:26 PM
D&D as a brand has escape velocity. It transcends just TTRPG's and will always be the McDonalds of TTRPG's.
.

In my opinion D&D is making the same mistakes we have seen made by other beloved "geek IP".

WoW was the king of MMO's. Even got a movie...  Yet right now it is in the process of getting its ass kicked by the Final Fantasy MMO.

That being said - being the first mover in rpg land does give it certain entrenched advantages. It's theoretical replacement would be a recognizable clone in many ways. And the changes to the RPG hobby at that point would likely mean it would not be a "big" as D&D at it's respective peak. Which I am fine with.

But D&D's self-destruction will be a long process...

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 12:08:26 PM
I'm not blind to the fact that when it comes to TTRPG's that D&D is the sky all other TTRPG's lives under. What amazes me is the amount of clinging people do to this brand that has no reason to be on most people's main menu for consumption. ...

There are tons of settings and systems out there that can do "D&D Fantasy" better than D&D itself. At minimum that's what the OSR is there for, right? But I say why even stop there?

Exactly - which is why I like the talk I'm seeing from various places online about leaving the "D&D Brand" behind.

We just don't need it.

Quote from: tenbones on February 04, 2022, 12:08:26 PM
I'm glad D&D is going mainstream. I hope it goes so mainstream people start dressing like their characters, sing songs about it, open D&D themed restaurants, D&D Monopoly, D&D Nerf weapon, D&D Hip-Hop, whatever,  because it'll get oversaturated and run its natural course. And it appears it's on that trajectory.

IMHO this may be what the many in the hobby need to happen in order for them to begin to disengage from the one true game.

As the main "Brand" gets more twee and vapid, the more space is made in the Hobby for other games to grow.

We shouldn't even try to push back against WotC for what they are doing to D&D - Their course is set. Nothing we do will make a difference.

The thing we can do that makes a difference is to keep talking about, supporting, and in some cases; creating the alternatives ourselves.

Yep.

I'm long past trying to rehabilitate D&D. The verdict is in: WE ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE ANY LONGER.

There is no reconciling that fact, there is no "fixing" it from within. The rocket has left the launchpad and you're either on it with the plebs, or you're tacitly looking for something else.

There a lot of reasons to court the 5e audience as a game developer (See the new Talislanta!) but if you have any kind of discerning tastes there is a veritable sea of games to explore that will give you whatever you think D&D is serving up to you - with more fidelity, and better consistency.

D&D today, is like Apple PC's. Junky under the hood but sleek in production, and highly user-friendly for those that don't know better. They're ubiquitous. Everyone has them because of brand-name and what they're told they're good for. Most IT nerds/gamers don't use them because they value function over form. Nevermind the cost. But if you're a casual user, they're great. And you'll pay a premium for that brand that gives sub-standard performance 1) They don't know better and don't want to know better 2) they likely have no other frame of reference. Nor is it required. Unless you're more into form over function or ulterior reasons*<----- this is the important part.

And they actively do not want my money nor me as a consumer, and that's okay.

Popularity doesn't track directly to quality. And everyone is entitled to their tastes - let's not pretend a McDonald's burger is better than a well cooked quality steak. I'll eat the shit out of a Big Mac, but I'll eat a steak first. I find zero value in identifying as a McDonald's consumer.

Quote from: tenbones on February 10, 2022, 12:31:51 PM
D&D today, is like Apple PC's. Junky under the hood but sleek in production, and highly user-friendly for those that don't know better. They're ubiquitous.

Nah, D&D is like Windows: junky under the hood but everybody uses it because everybody else uses it and everything supports it.

OSR games are like Linux: some assembly required, but worth it.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on February 04, 2022, 06:16:39 PM
2014 is the same turgid game of today.

Don't any of you OSR fanatics complain about healing surges, encounter powers, purely beneficial races, multiclassing, munchkining or anything else you complain about 2e-4e, but defend in 5e because its core maths are worse then 1e and it lays out its data less clearly.

But Shrieking Banshee, dont cha know its better because there are no expansions?

Quote from: Shasarak on February 10, 2022, 10:18:34 PMBut Shrieking Banshee, dont cha know its better because there are no expansions?

Which is funny because 5e still had more classes and archetype options in its base book, then 3e and 4e. And at least some of the better content came out later on for 3e/4e.

But man its so OSR inspired man. 5e is the Jesus toast of OSR. And at least that has more credibility by pure improbability.

Quote from: tenbones on February 10, 2022, 12:31:51 PM
I'm long past trying to rehabilitate D&D. The verdict is in: WE ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE ANY LONGER.

There is no reconciling that fact, there is no "fixing" it from within. The rocket has left the launchpad and you're either on it with the plebs, or you're tacitly looking for something else.

I don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was? For example, if I go out to a restaurant, my question is "Is the food delicious to me?" I don't look at the other people to see if they look like me, or if the marketing is directed at me. For example, my local taqueria has a target audience who are mostly Latino, which I am not. But they have delicious, cheap Mexican food. I'll also confess that I sometimes boba tea - and I'm definitely not the target audience for them either. (The target audience is mostly teens and young adults.)

In a game, I look at "Will I and my friends have fun playing this?" I don't research who the creators are or what the marketing campaign is. I look at reviews of the game itself and whether it sounds fun to play.

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2022, 10:55:17 PMI don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was?

Well Star Trek was made for people with a bit more of an attention span before, but a tolerance for cheesy special effects. Now its made like shlock. I was a target audience member before, and now I am not.

It makes no sense to withhold hope Il ever be a target audience member again and not get excited for any new releases or even bother expressing my discontent because it will change nothing is the TLDR.

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2022, 10:55:17 PM

Quote from: tenbones on February 10, 2022, 12:31:51 PM
I'm long past trying to rehabilitate D&D. The verdict is in: WE ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE ANY LONGER.

There is no reconciling that fact, there is no "fixing" it from within. The rocket has left the launchpad and you're either on it with the plebs, or you're tacitly looking for something else.

I don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was? For example, if I go out to a restaurant, my question is "Is the food delicious to me?" I don't look at the other people to see if they look like me, or if the marketing is directed at me. For example, my local taqueria has a target audience who are mostly Latino, which I am not. But they have delicious, cheap Mexican food. I'll also confess that I sometimes boba tea - and I'm definitely not the target audience for them either. (The target audience is mostly teens and young adults.)

In a game, I look at "Will I and my friends have fun playing this?" I don't research who the creators are or what the marketing campaign is. I look at reviews of the game itself and whether it sounds fun to play.

  Well, if the manager at that restaurant came over to you, spit in your tea and told you he hates it when you spend money at his restaurant, I think your opinion would change.   That is what tenbones means.   You ARE the target audience at a mexican restaurant, because the owner wants EVERYONE to come in there and spend money, he does not care if you are white, black, brown, asian, or alien.   Whereas D&D keeps doing their best to spit in tea.   

Quote from: oggsmash on February 10, 2022, 11:17:18 PM
Well, if the manager at that restaurant came over to you, spit in your tea and told you he hates it when you spend money at his restaurant, I think your opinion would change.

I think a more apt analogy is a restaurant that advertises a large selection of items but are conveniently always out of stock for the items you actually like whenever you're there and you're openly mocked for asking about them.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 10, 2022, 11:17:18 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2022, 10:55:17 PM
I don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was? For example, if I go out to a restaurant, my question is "Is the food delicious to me?" I don't look at the other people to see if they look like me, or if the marketing is directed at me. For example, my local taqueria has a target audience who are mostly Latino, which I am not. But they have delicious, cheap Mexican food.

  Well, if the manager at that restaurant came over to you, spit in your tea and told you he hates it when you spend money at his restaurant, I think your opinion would change.   That is what tenbones means.   You ARE the target audience at a mexican restaurant, because the owner wants EVERYONE to come in there and spend money, he does not care if you are white, black, brown, asian, or alien.   Whereas D&D keeps doing their best to spit in tea.

I can't see how this analogy fits.

There's no spit in anyone's tea. At my local taqueria, I can see them preparing my food, so I know they're not spitting in it - just as I know when I buy a game, I'm getting exactly the same game and service as everyone else, because I can compare the product I receive to others. In both cases, I'm getting exactly the same product and service as the target audience.

I have no idea what the owner of the restaurant wants. Maybe he hates it when people like me come in, and he complains about it in his social circles. I have never bothered to try to overhear the manager's conversations or look up his social media. For example, he might be the minority of strong right-wingers in my area, who hates liberals and thinks we should all fuck off. I don't know, and I don't care enough to find out.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 12:21:57 AM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 10, 2022, 11:17:18 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2022, 10:55:17 PM
I don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was? For example, if I go out to a restaurant, my question is "Is the food delicious to me?" I don't look at the other people to see if they look like me, or if the marketing is directed at me. For example, my local taqueria has a target audience who are mostly Latino, which I am not. But they have delicious, cheap Mexican food.

  Well, if the manager at that restaurant came over to you, spit in your tea and told you he hates it when you spend money at his restaurant, I think your opinion would change.   That is what tenbones means.   You ARE the target audience at a mexican restaurant, because the owner wants EVERYONE to come in there and spend money, he does not care if you are white, black, brown, asian, or alien.   Whereas D&D keeps doing their best to spit in tea.

I can't see how this analogy fits.

There's no spit in anyone's tea. At my local taqueria, I can see them preparing my food, so I know they're not spitting in it - just as I know when I buy a game, I'm getting exactly the same game and service as everyone else, because I can compare the product I receive to others. In both cases, I'm getting exactly the same product and service as the target audience.

I have no idea what the owner of the restaurant wants. Maybe he hates it when people like me come in, and he complains about it in his social circles. I have never bothered to try to overhear the manager's conversations or look up his social media. For example, he might be the minority of strong right-wingers in my area, who hates liberals and thinks we should all fuck off. I don't know, and I don't care enough to find out.

  It fits, you just do not have the same perspective Tenbones has.  I made it clear, the manager isnt trying to spit and you not know, he is walking over to your table, looking you in the eye and spitting.  Your opinion of the place would change instantly.    I can also assure you same as with race he could be super right wing, but guess what, right wing restaurant owners (and a bit of a clue here, LOTS of them are going to be right wing, especially on a California scale) do not care about politics at work.  They are not going to go on long social media rants about lefties, they are not going to ever let you know it, even if he has issues with someone's race/politics/whatever.   He is interested in providing good service, product, and making everyone feel welcome.    This is exactly what a business should do.  Wizards of the Coast has decided to go another way.  Bringing your politics up an into your workplace is fucktarded.  It is their business, so they can run it as they see fit.  Just because you do not see it the way tenbones does, well they have not said or done anything to make you feel on the outs.  Maybe they never will.  So be it. 

   I personally do not get into a producer's beliefs for the most part if they put out a good product.  If I did, in the current political landscape and all the support for the BLM organization, I wouldnt buy shit from big corporations.  Same with RPGs, so long as the producers do not lose their mind and keep it to some virtue signaling, so be it.  But there is a point where some customers will tap out and go elsewhere.   As for your restaurant analogy, I have a place similar where I live.  I used to be the only white face in the place.  The customers always looked at me like I was lost, and the only staff who could speak English was the owner.  He always had a quick word with me every time I was in there (he likely did this with every person coming in, as he was newly opened).  That went on for about a year.   Work schedule and newborn kid kept me from popping in for a year or so.  When I was able to go, he had expanded greatly, and the place had lots of white folks and black folks in along with what was before an almost homogenous crowd of Mexican customers.  The food, did not taste the same.  It was distinctly less spicy (and I know why, white people do not seem to understand the word HOT, and that was also on the menu now, as the owner had a menu that was half in english now) and did not taste the same.   A few years later he opened another location in a city down the road that was full of upper middle class white people.   I ate there, and it was pretty bland.   In essence the guy almost had to change his food to be more available to a wider audience.  I was no longer the target audience (I like spicy, flavorful food).  I stopped going.   Luckily there are taco trucks at damn near every gas station, so I found a replacement.

    This could also be the change tenbones is talking about, making the product more bland to be available to a wider audience, and honestly more the one I feel with regard to WOTC products.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
Work schedule and newborn kid kept me from popping in for a year or so.  When I was able to go, he had expanded greatly, and the place had lots of white folks and black folks in along with what was before an almost homogenous crowd of Mexican customers.  The food, did not taste the same.  It was distinctly less spicy (and I know why, white people do not seem to understand the word HOT

White American people. Try our English mustard & our Chicken Vindaloo.  ;D

In Britain spice is a macho thing, especially for a certain kind of (probably inebriated) chap - the hotter & more painful the better. But even our regular condiments like mustard are much harsher than the American or French versions.

Quote from: S'mon on February 11, 2022, 02:14:07 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
Work schedule and newborn kid kept me from popping in for a year or so.  When I was able to go, he had expanded greatly, and the place had lots of white folks and black folks in along with what was before an almost homogenous crowd of Mexican customers.  The food, did not taste the same.  It was distinctly less spicy (and I know why, white people do not seem to understand the word HOT

White American people. Try our English mustard & our Chicken Vindaloo.  ;D

In Britain spice is a macho thing, especially for a certain kind of (probably inebriated) chap - the hotter & more painful the better. But even our regular condiments like mustard are much harsher than the American or French versions.

  Been to England, ate some of the things they told me were spicy, and honestly though it was the only thing I did not have that was bland (to be fair, I was only there 2 days) was not what I would call close to hot or spicy.  Also to be fair, the shit I eat will kill a bear and sometimes I wonder why I do it.  But I did not eat anything that I would call crazy hot. But again, I might not be the best scale.   I am also going to say...I bet there are lots of people in England that are good to go with bland food a good deal of the time.  But it was a long time ago, and I have no idea how exposed to hot mexican food you are, I would imagine hot Indian food would be more common for you when it comes to crossing cultures.  I was also 5-6 pints deep into some dark draft, after not drinking or being on flat ground for 2 months, so there is also a chance I was just a bit numb.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 08:57:15 AM

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 12:21:57 AM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 10, 2022, 11:17:18 PM

Quote from: jhkim on February 10, 2022, 10:55:17 PM
I don't get this. Leaving aside who "we" is, why would I care whether I'm the target audience, or if I ever was? For example, if I go out to a restaurant, my question is "Is the food delicious to me?" I don't look at the other people to see if they look like me, or if the marketing is directed at me. For example, my local taqueria has a target audience who are mostly Latino, which I am not. But they have delicious, cheap Mexican food.

  Well, if the manager at that restaurant came over to you, spit in your tea and told you he hates it when you spend money at his restaurant, I think your opinion would change.   That is what tenbones means.   You ARE the target audience at a mexican restaurant, because the owner wants EVERYONE to come in there and spend money, he does not care if you are white, black, brown, asian, or alien.   Whereas D&D keeps doing their best to spit in tea.

I can't see how this analogy fits.

There's no spit in anyone's tea. At my local taqueria, I can see them preparing my food, so I know they're not spitting in it - just as I know when I buy a game, I'm getting exactly the same game and service as everyone else, because I can compare the product I receive to others. In both cases, I'm getting exactly the same product and service as the target audience.

I have no idea what the owner of the restaurant wants. Maybe he hates it when people like me come in, and he complains about it in his social circles. I have never bothered to try to overhear the manager's conversations or look up his social media. For example, he might be the minority of strong right-wingers in my area, who hates liberals and thinks we should all fuck off. I don't know, and I don't care enough to find out.

  It fits, you just do not have the same perspective Tenbones has.  I made it clear, the manager isnt trying to spit and you not know, he is walking over to your table, looking you in the eye and spitting.  Your opinion of the place would change instantly.    I can also assure you same as with race he could be super right wing, but guess what, right wing restaurant owners (and a bit of a clue here, LOTS of them are going to be right wing, especially on a California scale) do not care about politics at work.  They are not going to go on long social media rants about lefties, they are not going to ever let you know it, even if he has issues with someone's race/politics/whatever.   He is interested in providing good service, product, and making everyone feel welcome.    This is exactly what a business should do.  Wizards of the Coast has decided to go another way.  Bringing your politics up an into your workplace is fucktarded.  It is their business, so they can run it as they see fit.  Just because you do not see it the way tenbones does, well they have not said or done anything to make you feel on the outs.  Maybe they never will.  So be it.

Right after I saw him spit in my food, I would beat his ass.

 Point about the white people, I have noticed when crossing cultures they often take what they think of as hot, and find out other people have a different idea.  As  I think more about it, I might have been even deeper in those pints, I just remember we downed the first 4 in 30 mins, and the locals kept buying us drinks so I will have to get hold of the mustard at least and see.  Brand you would recomend?  As for Vindaloo, isnt that an Indian dish?

  Vindaloo looks hot, will try it next time I go to the Indian restaurant (they are nice enough to give a scale to the side and allow customization so people do not overstep)

The relevance of bringing up the "TARGET AUDIENCE" thing is that the people being referred to (i.e Old D&D players, many of whom GREW UP with the game or it had a huge impact in their lives) WERE the target audience--many of them for DECADES--but now they aren't, after they supported the game and became invested in it all that time.

They aren't just a group of entitled randos barging into a store or writing angry letters to a company demanding that their product cater to them, cuz they're so special and everything should be made with them in mind (WotC's new target audience would arguably be closer to this). But rather, many of them are the people who made the hobby originally, and now they're being pushed aside in favor of the new crowd, for whatever reason (partly political, partly financial and shifting demographics). So naturally they're gonna feel betrayed, even if maybe they shouldn't.

Greetings!

Indian food is fucking fantastic! I love it very much. Like Chinese food, and Mexican food, it has hotness dials generally from Mild, Medium, and Hot. I usually like the Medium to Hot range. Similar with the Mexican Hot ranges, some of the Indian and Chinese upper Hot ranges can be severe.

Indian food though. Just beautiful. The Saagg, the Chicken Tikka Masala, that Basmati Rice, the Garlic Naan bread, the Mango Lassi drink. Yeah, yogurt, mango, all mixed together and poured over ice. So delicious! Indian food has vegetables, rice, fish, chicken, lamb, with different sauces, spices, and recipes. Such good stuff!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

 I looked for any sort of ethnic food I could find where we were at (I think it was Portsmouth, but could have been Plymouth...it was a looong time ago and I remember a P in the name), but I do not know if I was in the wrong place, or if it may have been sparse in that city/town then (this was 1994).   It could have been the english mustard I tried in a pub, but I was racing to hammered, so I cant say.   I would like to try the mustard though.  S'mon, a brand you would recommend?


   While back on topic, I am sure Hasboro will continue to make lots and lots of money without me buying their stuff.   I hope it works out for them.

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 11, 2022, 02:50:50 PM
The relevance of bringing up the "TARGET AUDIENCE" thing is that the people being referred to (i.e Old D&D players, many of whom GREW UP with the game or it had a huge impact in their lives) WERE the target audience--many of them for DECADES--but now they aren't, after they supported the game and became invested in it all that time.

They aren't just a group of entitled randos barging into a store or writing angry letters to a company demanding that their product cater to them, cuz they're so special and everything should be made with them in mind (WotC's new target audience would arguably be closer to this). But rather, many of them are the people who made the hobby originally, and now they're being pushed aside in favor of the new crowd, for whatever reason (partly political, partly financial and shifting demographics). So naturally they're gonna feel betrayed, even if maybe they shouldn't.

Greetings!

Quite right, my friend. Tenbones was spot the fuck on, too.

Some people like to play obtuse and dumb though. It has become pretty obvious that the older D&D fan base is not the target audience, and how with the numerous examples of bullshit that WOTC produces recently being purposely designed to offend and irritate the older audience, in preference to catering to the "New Target Audience".

We all know what Tenbones meant.

Sad that some people still insist on putting their heads in the sand and playing dumb.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: VisionStorm on February 11, 2022, 02:50:50 PM
The relevance of bringing up the "TARGET AUDIENCE" thing is that the people being referred to (i.e Old D&D players, many of whom GREW UP with the game or it had a huge impact in their lives) WERE the target audience--many of them for DECADES--but now they aren't, after they supported the game and became invested in it all that time.

They aren't just a group of entitled randos barging into a store or writing angry letters to a company demanding that their product cater to them, cuz they're so special and everything should be made with them in mind (WotC's new target audience would arguably be closer to this). But rather, many of them are the people who made the hobby originally, and now they're being pushed aside in favor of the new crowd, for whatever reason (partly political, partly financial and shifting demographics). So naturally they're gonna feel betrayed, even if maybe they shouldn't.

And we're still the hobby, along with the new comers who do want to engage in it and not to change it for whatever political reasons.

D&D might have sparked the fire, but they can't put it out or choose the type of fuel it uses. WotC will keep on making money of off it but it will be as a brand and not as a game (and maybe way more money than before).

I just hope it reaches critical mass soon so it implodes back into a niche hobby like in the good old days.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 08:57:15 AM
guess what, right wing restaurant owners (and a bit of a clue here, LOTS of them are going to be right wing, especially on a California scale) do not care about politics at work.  They are not going to go on long social media rants about lefties, they are not going to ever let you know it, even if he has issues with someone's race/politics/whatever.   He is interested in providing good service, product, and making everyone feel welcome.    This is exactly what a business should do.  Wizards of the Coast has decided to go another way.  Bringing your politics up an into your workplace is fucktarded.

There are specific cases where a business is best to be politics-free. But there are also lots of times when being political helps build and reinforce one's target audience. For example, RPGPundit constantly brings up politics when promoting his games. I think it works for his model as a business, because his target audience is highly politically skewed. There are plenty of other politically-biased brands. You suggest that RPGPundit should make left-wing gamers feel welcome and not bring politics here, but as a business, I think it has worked for him. I suspect a lot of people who might otherwise never glance at his games have taken an interest in them.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
As for your restaurant analogy, I have a place similar where I live.  I used to be the only white face in the place.  The customers always looked at me like I was lost, and the only staff who could speak English was the owner.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
A few years later he opened another location in a city down the road that was full of upper middle class white people.   I ate there, and it was pretty bland.   In essence the guy almost had to change his food to be more available to a wider audience.  I was no longer the target audience (I like spicy, flavorful food).  I stopped going.   Luckily there are taco trucks at damn near every gas station, so I found a replacement.

    This could also be the change tenbones is talking about, making the product more bland to be available to a wider audience, and honestly more the one I feel with regard to WOTC products.

This is exactly what I was talking about in my initial reply. That has nothing to do with whether one is the target audience. In your example, you liked the food *better* when you were *not* the target audience - when it was primarily catering to Latino customers, which you are not. I'd say the same for games. If you don't like the game design, then don't play it. Conversely, if you do like the game design, it doesn't matter if you're the target audience or not.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 03:09:00 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 08:57:15 AM
guess what, right wing restaurant owners (and a bit of a clue here, LOTS of them are going to be right wing, especially on a California scale) do not care about politics at work.  They are not going to go on long social media rants about lefties, they are not going to ever let you know it, even if he has issues with someone's race/politics/whatever.   He is interested in providing good service, product, and making everyone feel welcome.    This is exactly what a business should do.  Wizards of the Coast has decided to go another way.  Bringing your politics up an into your workplace is fucktarded.

There are specific cases where a business is best to be politics-free. But there are also lots of times when being political helps build and reinforce one's target audience. For example, RPGPundit constantly brings up politics when promoting his games. I think it works for his model as a business, because his target audience is highly politically skewed. There are plenty of other politically-biased brands. You suggest that RPGPundit should make left-wing gamers feel welcome and not bring politics here, but as a business, I think it has worked for him. I suspect a lot of people who might otherwise never glance at his games have taken an interest in them.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
As for your restaurant analogy, I have a place similar where I live.  I used to be the only white face in the place.  The customers always looked at me like I was lost, and the only staff who could speak English was the owner.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 09:19:00 AM
A few years later he opened another location in a city down the road that was full of upper middle class white people.   I ate there, and it was pretty bland.   In essence the guy almost had to change his food to be more available to a wider audience.  I was no longer the target audience (I like spicy, flavorful food).  I stopped going.   Luckily there are taco trucks at damn near every gas station, so I found a replacement.

    This could also be the change tenbones is talking about, making the product more bland to be available to a wider audience, and honestly more the one I feel with regard to WOTC products.

This is exactly what I was talking about in my initial reply. That has nothing to do with whether one is the target audience. In your example, you liked the food *better* when you were *not* the target audience - when it was primarily catering to Latino customers, which you are not. I'd say the same for games. If you don't like the game design, then don't play it. Conversely, if you do like the game design, it doesn't matter if you're the target audience or not.

  You missed the point I made about the owner going out of his way to speak to me every time I was in there.  He did that, I am sure to make me feel welcome, because he has no target for his food.  the fact the place was on a strip with all hispanic businesses (one a grocery store, and I do not remember the other one) it was a Mexican customer was what was in that area.  It is the same if you go to a soul food place, they do not give a shit if you are white, they are making the food as is, and they also know something that seems to be escaping you, the entire public is their target audience. 

  But I also do not care if you get something that is not targeted to you.  Just dont conflate a restaurant with a company that feels like they get paid to virtue signal.  Businesses, if they have brains target people with MONEY, and they do not care what the people look like or think.   Pundit had a market specifically as a reaction to what WOTC did.  Just like my current favorite restaurant put a sign on the door 2 years ago. It read, "If you want to wear a mask inside, feel free to do so.  If you dont want to wear a mask you dont have to.  What you cant do is tell anyone else what to do."  Luckily the food is good.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 03:00:48 PM
I would like to try the mustard though.  S'mon, a brand you would recommend?

Colman's is the standard. I would advise trying it in a small amount and see if you like it on eg ham. Not that it is really super hot, but it is quite vinegary.

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 03:25:35 PM
  But I also do not care if you get something that is not targeted to you.  Just dont conflate a restaurant with a company that feels like they get paid to virtue signal.  Businesses, if they have brains target people with MONEY, and they do not care what the people look like or think.   Pundit had a market specifically as a reaction to what WOTC did.

Regarding Pundit - from your profile, you've only been around since 2015. Before then, Pundit had a fair amount of political content - not as much as today. At the start of 5e, he generally sided *with* WotC since they hired him as a consultant. Pundit was political well before WotC was. I joined ten years earlier back in 2006, and he was still political at that time, like his rants about the collectivist alignment in Blue Rose.

And I think that's fine. It's his site. He doesn't ban left-wing posters, which I appreciate, but he is clear in his politics and doesn't try to make them part of his target audience. Some businesses/authors do better by targeting only specific subsets of customers, whether that's by age, politics, culture, or other division.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 06:18:21 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 03:25:35 PM
  But I also do not care if you get something that is not targeted to you.  Just dont conflate a restaurant with a company that feels like they get paid to virtue signal.  Businesses, if they have brains target people with MONEY, and they do not care what the people look like or think.   Pundit had a market specifically as a reaction to what WOTC did.

Regarding Pundit - from your profile, you've only been around since 2015. Before then, Pundit had a fair amount of political content - not as much as today. At the start of 5e, he generally sided *with* WotC since they hired him as a consultant. Pundit was political well before WotC was. I joined ten years earlier back in 2006, and he was still political at that time, like his rants about the collectivist alignment in Blue Rose.

And I think that's fine. It's his site. He doesn't ban left-wing posters, which I appreciate, but he is clear in his politics and doesn't try to make them part of his target audience. Some businesses/authors do better by targeting only specific subsets of customers, whether that's by age, politics, culture, or other division.

The difference being that Pundit is a small indi creator doing his own thing, not an industry juggernaut carrying the most well known and iconic brand in the entire TTRPG hobby. And he caters to a niche audience who might not even know his products were it not for his politics, RPG rants and internet infamy--and doesn't even inject politics into his games, only his marketing in his own personal YT channels and online presence. While WotC dominates the entire market and holds one of the most beloved and historic brands in the hobby hostage as they crap all over it with woke garage progressively being injected into the game.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 06:18:21 PM

Quote from: oggsmash on February 11, 2022, 03:25:35 PM
  But I also do not care if you get something that is not targeted to you.  Just dont conflate a restaurant with a company that feels like they get paid to virtue signal.  Businesses, if they have brains target people with MONEY, and they do not care what the people look like or think.   Pundit had a market specifically as a reaction to what WOTC did.

Regarding Pundit - from your profile, you've only been around since 2015. Before then, Pundit had a fair amount of political content - not as much as today. At the start of 5e, he generally sided *with* WotC since they hired him as a consultant. Pundit was political well before WotC was. I joined ten years earlier back in 2006, and he was still political at that time, like his rants about the collectivist alignment in Blue Rose.

And I think that's fine. It's his site. He doesn't ban left-wing posters, which I appreciate, but he is clear in his politics and doesn't try to make them part of his target audience. Some businesses/authors do better by targeting only specific subsets of customers, whether that's by age, politics, culture, or other division.

      Sort of done with you on this.  You do not understand target audience as a reason to not buy, now you argue it helps business to target a specific audience (though before mentioning a restaurant was a borderline retarded example), you pretend that being political in 2006 about anything has jack shit to do with 2022 regarding rpgs.  Come on man, you being a wiseguy?

 To finish with the restaurant example, especially regarding mexican food....IT DOES NOT TARGET MEXICANS OR OTHER HISPANIC PEOPLE.   IT TARGETS PEOPLE WHO LIKE MEXICAN FOOD.  Not the same thing, at all.

Quote from: jhkim on February 11, 2022, 06:18:21 PM

Regarding Pundit - from your profile, you've only been around since 2015. Before then, Pundit had a fair amount of political content - not as much as today. At the start of 5e, he generally sided *with* WotC since they hired him as a consultant. Pundit was political well before WotC was. I joined ten years earlier back in 2006, and he was still political at that time, like his rants about the collectivist alignment in Blue Rose.

   He rejoiced over the death of St. John Paul II in 2005. Unless he's softened from that, I have trouble moving him off the 'People Who Hate You' list, and at best, consider him an 'enemy of my enemy'. :)

Quote from: oggsmash on February 12, 2022, 10:04:18 AM
To finish with the restaurant example, especially regarding mexican food....IT DOES NOT TARGET MEXICANS OR OTHER HISPANIC PEOPLE.   IT TARGETS PEOPLE WHO LIKE MEXICAN FOOD.  Not the same thing, at all.

You don't understand, Mexican food comes from Mexico, that means that it's interchangeable with food from all Hispanic cultures, and that it caters to Hispanics (in general) specifically, as opposed to just people who feel like eating Mexican food that day. Rice and beans with pernil (pork shoulder) and fried plantains or mofongo (mashed plantains), and burritos with Pico de Gallo and guacamole are all the same to Hispanic people, and cater to them specifically.  ;)

Hmm, now I feel like eating cross-culturally appropriated fried plantains with guacamole and Pico de Gallo.  :P

Pico De Gallo makes food taste better.