Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:33:01 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:38:46 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 13, 2024, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AMD&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

That hasn't been true for decades.  D&D was expanded way beyond pseudo-Medieval Europe fantasy decades ago.  Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-tur, Spelljammer and Planescape all came out 30+ years ago. 

Don't forget Dark Sun. And while it's only been around for 20 years, Eberron is very much D&D too.

Eberron WAS basically Victorian Europe with some extra parts, more than the rest. 

I always viewed it as a late 1920's noir-steampunk setting with a jungle Drow continent down south.

I sat in a room with Bill Slaviseck brainstorming names for the campaign setting book for an hour one afternoon. When we started, the placeholder name was Eberron, but we were trying to see if we could come up with something that could, as we would say "sell like hotcakes".

Obviously we failed.

Quote from: M2A0 on September 13, 2024, 08:36:59 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 13, 2024, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AMD&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

That hasn't been true for decades.  D&D was expanded way beyond pseudo-Medieval Europe fantasy decades ago.  Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-tur, Spelljammer and Planescape all came out 30+ years ago. 

Core rulebook D&D has been pseudo 14th century Europe right up until 2008 when 4E catapulted us into core rulebook Tieflings & Dragonborn.

WotC didn't jump the shark until it tried to compete with WoW.

You mean 14th century Europe like this?

WotC has never been focused on presenting fantasy medieval Europe except when LotR was in theaters as the hot fantasy property (seriously... look at the elf and dwarf stylings in 3.5e; never say WotC won't try to cash in on fads when they can).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 13, 2024, 09:33:25 PM

Quote from: M2A0 on September 13, 2024, 08:36:59 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 13, 2024, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AMD&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

That hasn't been true for decades.  D&D was expanded way beyond pseudo-Medieval Europe fantasy decades ago.  Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-tur, Spelljammer and Planescape all came out 30+ years ago. 

Core rulebook D&D has been pseudo 14th century Europe right up until 2008 when 4E catapulted us into core rulebook Tieflings & Dragonborn.

WotC didn't jump the shark until it tried to compete with WoW.

You mean 14th century Europe like this?

WotC has never been focused on presenting fantasy medieval Europe except when LotR was in theaters as the hot fantasy property (seriously... look at the elf and dwarf stylings in 3.5e; never say WotC won't try to cash in on fads when they can).

Yes, and? Redgar was brought into the fray to combat your examples.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:34:26 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 06:27:59 AM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 12, 2024, 08:52:43 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 03:08:23 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 12, 2024, 02:24:18 PMin what's more or less a medieval European setting

There's your problem. D&D has not been that in a long time, and now it's just making it more obvious.

I see that we've finally reach Stage 3 of woke infiltration.

Stage 1: Nobody is changing the game, you're just being paranoid.

Stage 2: That's just one change, it doesn't even affect your game.

Stage 3: That change happened a long time ago, why are you complaining about it now?


Just like clockwork.

Yeah, remember D&D before nonhumans, polytheism, planar travel, casual magic, and a whole bunch more made it not-Europe? But shit, tacos and sushi just don't fit. /s

D&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

And yes, tacos and sushi DON'T fit.  That's the fucking problem.  They LOOK wrong.  They LOOK out of place.  Pumpkins, despite not really existing in a medieval European period DON'T LOOK WRONG.  I bet most people don't realize they weren't actually in Europe, because they look like they COULD be.  But a fucking hamburger that looks like it came from Burger King?  A hard shelled taco that looks straight from taco bell?  Those draw the eye and screams "This feels wrong".  Like seeing a picture of a medieval city and there's an airplane flying in the distance.  It LOOKS completely out of place.

Not understand this is just stupidity or willful ignorance.

You're aware that 5e has a very non-European Monk class along with the Samurai subclass for fighters and quite a few other Asian-based things too.

As for aeroplanes, have you seen the elemental airships of Eberron? Oh, they have a train too. And that setting is totally D&D.

Yes, the monk was always a silly addition, which was there for no reason aside from Kung Fu being popular in the early 70s. But at least you could suggest that some character from the far east might have wandered his way to the main areas of the Greyhawk or FR lands. It doesn't require a post-industrial society to do that in small numbers.

As for Eberron, sure, it's essentially a fantasy/magic-driven version of post WWI modernity. Which was more cosmopolitan, though you still didn't have the mass popularization of foreign foods.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:36:49 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 13, 2024, 05:39:53 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 05:07:40 PMAlso, I was able to take a look at the new player's handbook and they have about at least 70 people listed as artists, many of which have what look like online handles instead of names. In comparison, the 2014 version has a lot but nowhere near as many.

So it looks like they basically contracted out to whatever random online artists and person on deviantART to do art, explaining why none of it looks cohesive

paying a lot of nobodies pennies is cheaper than paying a couple of great artists to do great art.

Also, it's plausible deniability for the use of AI.

When you were listed in the orignal 5e PHB, you didn't use your real name either.

I used the name that I was already famous for in the hobby, though not as famous as I am now.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:38:46 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 13, 2024, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AMD&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

That hasn't been true for decades.  D&D was expanded way beyond pseudo-Medieval Europe fantasy decades ago.  Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-tur, Spelljammer and Planescape all came out 30+ years ago. 

Don't forget Dark Sun. And while it's only been around for 20 years, Eberron is very much D&D too.

None of those places would have post-industrial societies with multicultural 2020s values.

Quote from: M2A0 on September 13, 2024, 10:23:05 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 13, 2024, 09:33:25 PM

Quote from: M2A0 on September 13, 2024, 08:36:59 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 13, 2024, 06:43:22 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 08:09:37 AMD&D has always assumed a somewhat medieval European society as its core.  That's been stated in every book since the beginning.

That hasn't been true for decades.  D&D was expanded way beyond pseudo-Medieval Europe fantasy decades ago.  Al-Qadim, Maztica, Kara-tur, Spelljammer and Planescape all came out 30+ years ago. 

Core rulebook D&D has been pseudo 14th century Europe right up until 2008 when 4E catapulted us into core rulebook Tieflings & Dragonborn.

WotC didn't jump the shark until it tried to compete with WoW.

You mean 14th century Europe like this?

WotC has never been focused on presenting fantasy medieval Europe except when LotR was in theaters as the hot fantasy property (seriously... look at the elf and dwarf stylings in 3.5e; never say WotC won't try to cash in on fads when they can).

Yes, and? Redgar was brought into the fray to combat your examples.

Yes, because scale, asymmetric spiked pauldrons, over leather (with spikes) SCREAMS 14th century Europe (vs. saying "we don't care enough about real armor to give you anything more than Diablo-esque ahistorical fantasy armor").

A reminder of what you're saying counts as 14th century European design ethos.


I don't even like the new art, but pretending it started with the 2024 PHB or even 4E is just revisionist. WotC D&D has ALWAYS been this way with butch female paladins (wearing what appears to be a kerchief top made of scale armor), bare-midriff loincloth wearing female wizards, gnomes with safety goggles, and metrosexual bare-chested sorcerers who've decided to make their clothing out of belts.

The "D&D's core has always been exclusively European fantasy/14th Century Europe" hasn't been the case in the quarter century since WotC bought it. The devs are literally on the record as saying they created Regdar to be a white male buttmonkey who gets killed a lot for their jollies... he's not proof of your claims, he's their joke on you.

WotC has always been pushing its progressive agenda; it just used to have a modicum of subtlety to its efforts.

There's two more 3E iconics who reinforce the point more:



3E had plenty of European-like characters, but it wasn't restricted to European-like characters.

I still haven't seen the 2024 PHB, so no opinion there.

Quote from: jhkim on September 14, 2024, 12:29:28 AMI still haven't seen the 2024 PHB, so no opinion there.

My daughter is 19. She's prime age and demographic for this edition. She doesn't care about the diversity aspect. She's into art and is strongly against AI art. She finds the art terrible because it's all posing art. People "looking into the camera." Her quote was it looks like they told people "make art that looks like it was made by AI but not actually made by AI."

There's a Reek of Wrongness about the current art. There are a few pieces from 2014 where I felt the same but to a much lesser extent.

The reality is WotC went Full Woke when they removed Mearls, a relatively moderate Left Liberal, and they think me and most of my players can't leave the Hobby soon enough. Though ironically it's their banning of half races that most pissed off a player, a liberal half Chinese woman who used to write for them and is friends with Salvatore. Woke anti-Racism is of course just Racism.

Quote from: S'mon on September 14, 2024, 03:29:47 AMThere's a Reek of Wrongness about the current art. There are a few pieces from 2014 where I felt the same but to a much lesser extent.

The reality is WotC went Full Woke when they removed Mearls, a relatively moderate Left Liberal, and they think me and most of my players can't leave the Hobby soon enough. Though ironically it's their banning of half races that most pissed off a player, a liberal half Chinese woman who used to write for them and is friends with Salvatore. Woke anti-Racism is of course just Racism.

These are the kind of changes I have found myself pushing back on. The half races thing is pretty perplexing I think to liberals who came of age before the 2000s and liberals of a more moderate bent. I think you have to be kind of deep into academic theories on race to be bothered by it, and I think people who live in the world, have mixed backgrounds, and always appreciated having characters that came from two different cultures essentially are confused by the whole thing and why it should be perceived as a problem.

Quote from: jhkim on September 14, 2024, 12:29:28 AMThere's two more 3E iconics who reinforce the point more:



3E had plenty of European-like characters, but it wasn't restricted to European-like characters.

I still haven't seen the 2024 PHB, so no opinion there.

I am totally fine with stuff like this. Some of the art style of 3E wasn't to my taste but I liked the range of humanity in its art. Where some of the newer art loses me is it feels overly modern in a lot of ways, and I just don't get the vibe of a lot of it (that monk looks badass and would belong in my campaign, but a lot of the more recent stuff has a modern looking hairstyles, has characters who look extremely out of shape for being adventurers, and looks overly 'cozy'. The characters often look like they walked out of a star bucks. That said, D&D as run by WOTC hasn't appealed to me for a long time, so I am probably way outside the target age demographic for the current edition anyways

Quote from: M2A0 on September 13, 2024, 08:36:59 PMCore rulebook D&D has been pseudo 14th century Europe right up until 2008 when 4E catapulted us into core rulebook Tieflings & Dragonborn.

WotC didn't jump the shark until it tried to compete with WoW.

   I think the foundations were laid with 3E, when Jonathan Tweet and Peter Adkison decided that the point of D&D was to "feel like D&D," but it does take some time for the serpent to devour its own tail ...

Quote from: Tristan on September 14, 2024, 12:42:00 AM

Quote from: jhkim on September 14, 2024, 12:29:28 AMI still haven't seen the 2024 PHB, so no opinion there.

My daughter is 19. She's prime age and demographic for this edition. She doesn't care about the diversity aspect. She's into art and is strongly against AI art. She finds the art terrible because it's all posing art. People "looking into the camera." Her quote was it looks like they told people "make art that looks like it was made by AI but not actually made by AI."

Some of it is probably done by AI. Also, a lot of it is clearly done by taking stock photos and tracing over them.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 13, 2024, 11:51:00 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:36:49 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 13, 2024, 05:39:53 PM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 13, 2024, 05:07:40 PMAlso, I was able to take a look at the new player's handbook and they have about at least 70 people listed as artists, many of which have what look like online handles instead of names. In comparison, the 2014 version has a lot but nowhere near as many.

So it looks like they basically contracted out to whatever random online artists and person on deviantART to do art, explaining why none of it looks cohesive

paying a lot of nobodies pennies is cheaper than paying a couple of great artists to do great art.

Also, it's plausible deniability for the use of AI.

When you were listed in the orignal 5e PHB, you didn't use your real name either.

I used the name that I was already famous for in the hobby, though not as famous as I am now.

It is quite possible that the artists listed by their "online handles instead of names" are doing exactly the same thing.