Quote from: blackstone on September 12, 2024, 08:13:10 AMAS far as the book is concerned, a picture says a thousand words.

I don't have to open it up to know it's garbage.

WoTC has a track record of garbage.

WoTC has DEI as part of it's game design and has stated as much.

Therefore...garbage.

As someone that owns the book and has read the first half (I still haven't read through all the spells for changes), I can tell you that the mechanical changes are largely positive and clearly written. OTOH, the art is not great with way too much Willy Wonka meets Tim Burton for my tastes.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 08:58:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 05:39:24 AMLike I said, there's a real possibility that there might be more depictions of "women of color" in the PHB than there are actual women-of-color playing D&D.

Does this bother you? If so, why? If not, why mention it twice?

Because it is enormously representational of the ideological agenda driving the decisions about the game. It's propaganda, meant to damage the hobby.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 09:21:48 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 08:58:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 05:39:24 AMLike I said, there's a real possibility that there might be more depictions of "women of color" in the PHB than there are actual women-of-color playing D&D.

Does this bother you? If so, why? If not, why mention it twice?

Because it is enormously representational of the ideological agenda driving the decisions about the game. It's propaganda, meant to damage the hobby.

Does it actually impact the play of the game? If so, how?

I can agree that it's propaganda, but as far as "meant to damage the hobby" goes, can you be more specific? How does this damage the hobby? Keeping in mind that you have pointed out a strong divide between playing the game (which you have referred to as the hobby) vs. the "lifestyle" of D&D, how does this impact playing the game?

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 09:21:48 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 08:58:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 05:39:24 AMLike I said, there's a real possibility that there might be more depictions of "women of color" in the PHB than there are actual women-of-color playing D&D.

Does this bother you? If so, why? If not, why mention it twice?

Because it is enormously representational of the ideological agenda driving the decisions about the game. It's propaganda, meant to damage the hobby.

There was a time when seeing a black person, or a woman (or both) in media wasn't something I put much thought into. Nowadays, there's always the thought in the back of my head, is this an artistic choice, or a politically ideological one? Is this product going to lecture me about how I should feel guilty because of my skin color? What other activist nonsense might I be subjected to?

Quote from: Ratman_tf on September 12, 2024, 09:50:30 AMIs this product going to lecture me about how I should feel guilty because of my skin color?

I haven't seen anything in the 2024 PHB that does this.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 09:34:55 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 09:21:48 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 08:58:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 05:39:24 AMLike I said, there's a real possibility that there might be more depictions of "women of color" in the PHB than there are actual women-of-color playing D&D.

Does this bother you? If so, why? If not, why mention it twice?

Because it is enormously representational of the ideological agenda driving the decisions about the game. It's propaganda, meant to damage the hobby.

Does it actually impact the play of the game? If so, how?

I can agree that it's propaganda, but as far as "meant to damage the hobby" goes, can you be more specific? How does this damage the hobby? Keeping in mind that you have pointed out a strong divide between playing the game (which you have referred to as the hobby) vs. the "lifestyle" of D&D, how does this impact playing the game?

Inserting political propaganda doesn't damage the hobby?

Well fuck me, now I've seen it all.

WoTC D&D under Mearls did actually grow the hobby, & I saw more black players including black female players here in London, especially when Tomb of annihilation came out. I don't know how that held up with Crawford's plunge into rainbow-themed Seattle Wokeness.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on September 12, 2024, 11:43:25 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 09:34:55 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 09:21:48 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 08:58:07 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 12, 2024, 05:39:24 AMLike I said, there's a real possibility that there might be more depictions of "women of color" in the PHB than there are actual women-of-color playing D&D.

Does this bother you? If so, why? If not, why mention it twice?

Because it is enormously representational of the ideological agenda driving the decisions about the game. It's propaganda, meant to damage the hobby.

Does it actually impact the play of the game? If so, how?

I can agree that it's propaganda, but as far as "meant to damage the hobby" goes, can you be more specific? How does this damage the hobby? Keeping in mind that you have pointed out a strong divide between playing the game (which you have referred to as the hobby) vs. the "lifestyle" of D&D, how does this impact playing the game?

Inserting political propaganda doesn't damage the hobby?

Well fuck me, now I've seen it all.

Don't just say it damges the hobby; tell me how it damages the hobby--which Pundit typically claims is the actual playing of the game,

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 11:56:07 AMDon't just say it damges the hobby; tell me how it damages the hobby--which Pundit typically claims is the actual playing of the game,

How?

When a company caters to a specific minority portion of their customers, they alienate the rest of them. The result is less customers, former customers going to other products, negative feedback vis social networks, and declining sales. A splintered fanbase also results from this as well.

Ask Disney how their DEI program has worked out. They've destroyed Star Wars and the MCU.

You see, before all of the DEI nonsense in the gaming industry, it didn't matter who you were or what you believed. The only thing that mattered was that we were gamers, period.

With the injection of DEI and political correctness, the gaming community became factionalized by the way of politics. Fucking politics. Now, according to the DEI true-believers, if you don't think or act according to what they consider "acceptable", you're not a gamer. Not only that, if you do not change your ways, you will be vilified and ridiculed via social networks.

By their criteria, I'm not a gamer.

Fuck them. I can guarantee I've been in this hobby longer than most of them have been alive.

And about everything they've said about the TTRPGs in the past are outright lies and gaslighting.

TTRPGs have ALWAYS been inclusive. It didn't matter who you were or what you believed. I've know black, Asian, gay, bi, and who knows what else when it comes to the TTRPG community going way back into the 80s.

So the whole thing about TTRPGs have only been for white guys is a myth and nothing more.

DEI and political correctness has splintered the TTRPG community and I'm not sure it will ever recover.

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 10, 2024, 12:14:23 AMI just can't muster up any give a shit about this.  Okay, hard shelled tacos are ahistorical.  Most D&D campaigns aren't historical and aren't even trying to be historical.  The Sword Coast in Forgotten Realms is sort of Medieval Europe.  They also wanted to do fantasy conquistadors so the new world analogue was discovered and colonized about 130 years before the current time in the setting.  So do they have chilis and tomatoes on the Sword Coast?  Yeah.  Maybe.  I guess.  They could.  Is it historical?  Not really at all.  Does that matter?  Forgotten Realms has never been anything like historical so not really.  I might be able to muster up some give a shit if we were talking about Dark Ages Call of Cthulhu.  For D&D?  No.

According to Aurora's Whole Realms catalog, yes Faerun has tomatoes, and coffee, and tortillas.  Pretty sure there are chiles or similar spices too (obviously imported from Maztica).  The problem IMHO is there's a difference between TRYING to make foods look like they fit and saying screw it, just put modern-day food because "durr it's fantasy".  Worst of all is the people claiming it's just racism because pumpkins and tomatoes don't look out of place (despite being anachronistic) but tacos, spaghetti, sushi, and hamburgers look completely off.

Quote from: S'mon on September 12, 2024, 11:50:11 AMWoTC D&D under Mearls did actually grow the hobby, & I saw more black players including black female players here in London, especially when Tomb of annihilation came out. I don't know how that held up with Crawford's plunge into rainbow-themed Seattle Wokeness.

Tomb of Annihilation came out in 2017.

I don't claim to know the reasons, but the hobby in general has grown a lot since then. Currently, my local game conventions are bigger than ever - at least, since I moved to the SF Bay Area area in 2000. They're struggling to deal with the huge numbers of attendees. Board and card games have also been booming.

The total value of RPG-related Kickstarters has also been growing:

2017: $2.41M 5E , $5.87M other
2018: $7.46M 5E , $8.69M other
2019: $9.71M 5E , $8.05M other
2020: $15.81M 5E , $7.92M other
2021: $37.91M 5E , $21.74M other
2022: $23.96M 5E , $10.95M other
2023: $30.05M 5E , $13.65M other

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vS6Wy80RS--1MqiTusMQ6PAx1_V2-AxfvxfU4GNz89_Ep8s0iolTEqVhj2tDMIg_gcdI4iikhm-6uGt/pubhtml?gid=1056221799&single=true

https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/280234/rpg-kickstarter-geeklist-tracking?itemid=9436297

From an industry panel discussion, I've heard that the rate of growth has slowed, but it's still growing. (This can be seen by the anomalously high 2021 peak in Kickstarter funding, but still growth after that.)

Quote from: blackstone on September 12, 2024, 12:28:48 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 11:56:07 AMDon't just say it damges the hobby; tell me how it damages the hobby--which Pundit typically claims is the actual playing of the game,

How?

When a company caters to a specific minority portion of their customers, they alienate the rest of them. The result is less customers, former customers going to other products, negative feedback vis social networks, and declining sales. A splintered fanbase also results from this as well.

Ask Disney how their DEI program has worked out. They've destroyed Star Wars and the MCU.

You see, before all of the DEI nonsense in the gaming industry, it didn't matter who you were or what you believed. The only thing that mattered was that we were gamers, period.

With the injection of DEI and political correctness, the gaming community became factionalized by the way of politics. Fucking politics. Now, according to the DEI true-believers, if you don't think or act according to what they consider "acceptable", you're not a gamer. Not only that, if you do not change your ways, you will be vilified and ridiculed via social networks.

By their criteria, I'm not a gamer.

Fuck them. I can guarantee I've been in this hobby longer than most of them have been alive.

And about everything they've said about the TTRPGs in the past are outright lies and gaslighting.

TTRPGs have ALWAYS been inclusive. It didn't matter who you were or what you believed. I've know black, Asian, gay, bi, and who knows what else when it comes to the TTRPG community going way back into the 80s.

So the whole thing about TTRPGs have only been for white guys is a myth and nothing more.

DEI and political correctness has splintered the TTRPG community and I'm not sure it will ever recover.

So, it really doesn't impact how you play the game. You might choose not to play it becuase you are offended, but if you choose to play it, you'll keep on playing like you always have.

Quote from: jhkim on September 12, 2024, 01:31:33 PMTomb of Annihilation came out in 2017.

I don't claim to know the reasons, but the hobby in general has grown a lot since then.

Yes D&D grew a lot during the 2020-21 Pandemic even though product quality was already declining. My point to Pundit was that there are actually a fair number of black female players now. Most are not purple haired Wokesters IME though.

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 12, 2024, 12:48:22 PM

Quote from: yosemitemike on September 10, 2024, 12:14:23 AMI just can't muster up any give a shit about this.  Okay, hard shelled tacos are ahistorical.  Most D&D campaigns aren't historical and aren't even trying to be historical.  The Sword Coast in Forgotten Realms is sort of Medieval Europe.  They also wanted to do fantasy conquistadors so the new world analogue was discovered and colonized about 130 years before the current time in the setting.  So do they have chilis and tomatoes on the Sword Coast?  Yeah.  Maybe.  I guess.  They could.  Is it historical?  Not really at all.  Does that matter?  Forgotten Realms has never been anything like historical so not really.  I might be able to muster up some give a shit if we were talking about Dark Ages Call of Cthulhu.  For D&D?  No.

According to Aurora's Whole Realms catalog, yes Faerun has tomatoes, and coffee, and tortillas.  Pretty sure there are chiles or similar spices too (obviously imported from Maztica).  The problem IMHO is there's a difference between TRYING to make foods look like they fit and saying screw it, just put modern-day food because "durr it's fantasy".  Worst of all is the people claiming it's just racism because pumpkins and tomatoes don't look out of place (despite being anachronistic) but tacos, spaghetti, sushi, and hamburgers look completely off.

Is it somehow better if they stick to a "medieval authentic" European range of foodstuffs? D&D is not even trying to be medieval Europe. It has polytheism and numerous non-human peoples, and that's OK--but tacos and sushi are going too far?

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 12, 2024, 01:39:28 PMSo, it really doesn't impact how you play the game. You might choose not to play it becuase you are offended, but if you choose to play it, you'll keep on playing like you always have.

No it doesn't impact the way you play, as long as you keep play among people who are friends you can trust. The problem is WoTC and others who adhere to DEI and political correctness is recreating the TTRPG community in their own image. They are making DEI and political correctness a part of their games. They are purposefully trying to weave DEI and political correctness into gamer IDENTITY.

It used to be it was just enough to say you were a gamer. Now, if you say you're a gamer in the TTRPG community, you have to adhere to DEI and political correctness, and if you don't, they don't want you playing their games. There are a few gaming companies and creators who have said as much.

For me, I could give two shits on what they think. Thank God there are other gaming companies, creators and communities who refuse to bow to their bullshit.

But that creates another problem: their adherence to DEI and political correctness doesn't create unity, but has splintered the TTRPG community, because not everyone buys into their bullshit.

Am I offended by what they put out? No. I think it's stupid, laughable, and should be ridiculed. But offended? Nope. I turned away from WoTC a long time ago, when 3E came out.

I don't know how else I can explain it.

Anyway, yes you can play and not affect the way you play, but God help you if gamers outside you circle of friends find out you don't fit into the definition of "gamer" as WoTC defines it.