Quote from: HappyDaze on September 14, 2024, 10:35:05 AM

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.

No, they're all unknown loser tumblr-refugees who were hired because they were cheap.

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 09:32:06 AMI would bet money that basically everyone saying the Heroes Feast art is good, or the old "it's fantasy so it doesn't need to make sense" or, worse, the "You can accept halflings and elves and dragons but draw the line at tacos?" is left leaning, while everyone saying no it's stupid and even fantasy worlds need to have logical basis to feel "real" is not.

It's dawned on me that a vast number of modern "gamers" is imaginitively bankrupt. 

Certainly the Nu-D&D people are completely imaginatively bankrupt, which is part of why the only setting they can ever imagine is really just 2024 Seattle in every social and moral sense.

But the main issue, the main reason, and the main answer to the question of "you didn't care about X in this older D&D edition, but you are going nuts over the Sushi??" is actually quite simple: because WE ALL KNOW that the ONLY reason for all this art is POLITICAL IDEOLOGY. 

EVERYTHING they do is for the purpose of spreading the totalitarian ideology. None of the things we're talking about in the new PHB would be in that book if it wasn't part of their overall "Narrative" of "this is how you must play D&D or you're a racist and someday we'll put you in a gulag if we get enough power".

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 15, 2024, 10:52:09 AM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 09:32:06 AMI would bet money that basically everyone saying the Heroes Feast art is good

I have never said that the Heroes' Feast art is good. I have repeatedly said that I don't care for most of the art in the 2024 PHB because of what I consider to be a "whimisical Willy Wonka meets Tim Burton" feel that I get from it. I have also said that I don't mind sushi and tacos being in D&D (nor would I oppose racially diverse vikings in the same) because most D&D worlds these days (meaning for the last 30 years) are far more cosmopolitan than they are authentically medieval European.

And we all know that is the agenda. The "cosmpolitanism" of the left-coast cities are seen as the ideal society, the only "just" society, the closest thing to a "non-fascist" society, and if you want to run any other setting culture you are a monster. New gamers must be taught that only THAT society is the good one, and the only one that it is right to portray.

You gave away your game, dude.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 15, 2024, 11:21:10 AM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 11:12:04 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 15, 2024, 10:52:09 AM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 09:32:06 AMI would bet money that basically everyone saying the Heroes Feast art is good

I have never said that the Heroes' Feast art is good. I have repeatedly said that I don't care for most of the art in the 2024 PHB because of what I consider to be a "whimisical Willy Wonka meets Tim Burton" feel that I get from it. I have also said that I don't mind sushi and tacos being in D&D (nor would I oppose racially diverse vikings in the same) because most D&D worlds these days (meaning for the last 30 years) are far more cosmopolitan than they are authentically medieval European.

So do you not feel that those things should make logical sense for the world to feel alive rather than a hodgepodge of just tropes?  For example, WHY should there be racially diverse vikings when they don't exist in a climate that would give them darker skin tones, because the "traditional" climate of Vikings has less UV radiation (which is why in the real world Africans have darker skin than Europeans)?

Having one or two might be interesting characters if they have a reason (brought there as a slave, got lost on a caravan from the east, etc.) to be there and be different.  But most people seem to just ignore any logic and say "it's fantasy so why not have subsaharan African vikings?"

Travel in D&D is easy. In Forgotten Realms, you can find Calishites in Icewind Dale and Thayan Red Wizards frequently show up in Baldur's Gate. Greyhawk as a setting paid much more attention to racial/ethnic movements, but not really much has been made of it in decades. Eberron has intermixed people from multiple continents since it appeared 20 years ago. None of these is ignoring logic...the settings just don't match the logic of medeival Europe.

That is not the society that gets presented in the art. The society presented in the art is a multicultural mix of a post-industrial post-modernist progressive regime where vast numbers of people from multiple different places have been incoherently and aimlessly mass-imported into a society, and where there is enforcement of eliminating ALL these culture's traditional values in favor of an ideological absolutism of "progressive" concepts.

In other words, it's not Anglo-Norman Britain mixing with Viking elements. It's Seattle in 2024 just recently getting a boatload of 50000 Haitian cat-eaters.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 15, 2024, 02:43:04 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 14, 2024, 10:35:05 AM

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.

No, they're all unknown loser tumblr-refugees who were hired because they were cheap.

Hate to say that you are wrong, but it looks like WotC has gone all in on the word/art salad of AI.

I strongly suspect the art is done with AI to get an idea, and then a real artist tweaks it.  It explains so much why they are bland, soulless art.

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 11:23:35 AMThere aren't "black vikings" but there might be a Calishite in Icewind Dale traveling or settled there; they won't look and behave like a Viking.

Really? Why not? They might be of the second, third or even later generation living in that area and have to some degree assimilated into the culture enough to behave like anyone else in the Ten Towns.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 15, 2024, 02:43:04 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 14, 2024, 10:35:05 AM

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.

No, they're all unknown loser tumblr-refugees who were hired because they were cheap.

You have some special knowledge of these people, or it this just an old man shaking his fist moment?

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 15, 2024, 03:32:06 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 15, 2024, 10:52:09 AM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 09:32:06 AMI would bet money that basically everyone saying the Heroes Feast art is good

I have never said that the Heroes' Feast art is good. I have repeatedly said that I don't care for most of the art in the 2024 PHB because of what I consider to be a "whimisical Willy Wonka meets Tim Burton" feel that I get from it. I have also said that I don't mind sushi and tacos being in D&D (nor would I oppose racially diverse vikings in the same) because most D&D worlds these days (meaning for the last 30 years) are far more cosmopolitan than they are authentically medieval European.

And we all know that is the agenda. The "cosmpolitanism" of the left-coast cities are seen as the ideal society, the only "just" society, the closest thing to a "non-fascist" society, and if you want to run any other setting culture you are a monster. New gamers must be taught that only THAT society is the good one, and the only one that it is right to portray.

You gave away your game, dude.

Persecution complex much?

Have you considered that maybe the game leans towards cosmopolitanism is because they are trying to appeal to all sorts of audiences? Even within a group, but especially in a game store pick-up game, you get all types playing. If the setting mimics this, it's one less barrier for some.

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 15, 2024, 03:39:13 PMIt's Seattle in 2024 just recently getting a boatload of 50000 Haitian cat-eaters.

So, in your mind, adding one fantasy element to Seattle in 2024 gets you to D&D 2024...

That's some very odd thinking.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 15, 2024, 07:38:21 AM

Quote from: Omega on September 15, 2024, 01:25:34 AM

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.

Id be rather surprised of Tomb of Annihilation actually drew in more black people. It was oddly one of the few wotc did not push and tout for being oh so "inclusive". Or I somehow mercifully missed it.

I wouldn't.

The blacks I know care as little about wokism as everyone else and hate the way it turns good shows and sports to crap. If anything would get them into D&D it's be the removal of the social stigma (see Stranger Things, et al) and a solid non-wokism drenched campaign.

That's the truth of woke diversity policies... they're not even pushed by those they propose to "help" but by predominantly white women of the mentally-ill persuasion and white beta-males desperate for sex with said mentally ill women... all of whom feel immense guilt for their existences.

They hate themselves and want all reminders of how pathetic they are erased (ie. if no one can see good art and beauty then they won't realize how talentless and ugly they are).

So, no, actual non-woke adventures being what brings in black players is completely unsurprising to me.

Yes, I think that's exactly right. One of the black players I met playing Tomb of Annihilation later played a busty blonde topless Amazon warrior in my Wilderlands campaign, she had to fight an Italian guy for the character sheet with the sexy photo pic 😄

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 16, 2024, 01:55:18 AM

Quote from: RPGPundit on September 15, 2024, 03:32:06 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 15, 2024, 10:52:09 AM

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 15, 2024, 09:32:06 AMI would bet money that basically everyone saying the Heroes Feast art is good

I have never said that the Heroes' Feast art is good. I have repeatedly said that I don't care for most of the art in the 2024 PHB because of what I consider to be a "whimisical Willy Wonka meets Tim Burton" feel that I get from it. I have also said that I don't mind sushi and tacos being in D&D (nor would I oppose racially diverse vikings in the same) because most D&D worlds these days (meaning for the last 30 years) are far more cosmopolitan than they are authentically medieval European.

And we all know that is the agenda. The "cosmpolitanism" of the left-coast cities are seen as the ideal society, the only "just" society, the closest thing to a "non-fascist" society, and if you want to run any other setting culture you are a monster. New gamers must be taught that only THAT society is the good one, and the only one that it is right to portray.

You gave away your game, dude.

Persecution complex much?

Have you considered that maybe the game leans towards cosmopolitanism is because they are trying to appeal to all sorts of audiences? Even within a group, but especially in a game store pick-up game, you get all types playing. If the setting mimics this, it's one less barrier for some.

So you are saying that if the fantasy world doesn't resemble the real world enough that some people may not want to play? That fantasy campaign world that in no way resembles a 2024 cosmopolitan city is a barrier to play?

Whatever you are smoking I would advise you to stop.

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:29:09 PMSo, you're afraid others might not accept you because your idea of D&D is too fragile for tacos and sushi.

I'm not. can give two shits what others people think. Read my sig, tough guy.

Anyway, if can't seriously see the point, then I'm done with you.

Good day, sir.

Quote from: blackstone on September 16, 2024, 08:28:21 AM

Quote from: HappyDaze on September 13, 2024, 07:29:09 PMSo, you're afraid others might not accept you because your idea of D&D is too fragile for tacos and sushi.

I'm not. can give two shits what others people think. Read my sig, tough guy.

Anyway, if can't seriously see the point, then I'm done with you.

Good day, sir.

This guy has to be a troll.  This is just the same dumbshit leftist talking points I see on social media regurgitated.

Quote from: Nobleshield on September 16, 2024, 08:38:57 AMThis guy has to be a troll.  This is just the same dumbshit leftist talking points I see on social media regurgitated.

That's why I'm done talking in circles with him.