If you're not concerned about the blatant social engineering of your kids, but hot and bothered about a far-fetched hypothetical theft of a wicked cool adventure, you may have your priorities bass ackwards.

This really should come as no big surprise...  Just look at the muck they've been flinging out for 5e over the last couple of years. Nu Ravenloft was a joke.

So I'm only too happy that they have decided to leave Dark Sun alone. Imagine a 'new' setting after those bedwetters got their hands on it. Luckily that won't happen now.

Would you even want a remake of "Dark Sun" by the people currently working at WoTC?  Better to get no Dark Sun than a ruined/spoiled/worthless version of it.

There is nothing stopping me from using Dark Sun material from AD&D2e and 3.5 for Savage Pathfinder. I'd rather Wizards not make new Dark Sun content quite frankly. I can make my own well enough.

I think that certain properties are much better off in the hands of third party folks les watered down pablum be the result.

When the drive to not offend takes precedence over the drive to entertain, only blandness can result.

It is disappointing.  Not sure why I still had hope but here it is.

The evil wizards can't be too evil.  Desperate fights can't be too desperate.   

I stopped buying WotC stuff when they made it obvious they would rather have "representation" (whatever the fuck that means) than make useful products. Is this adventure fun? Irrelevant! It has twelve black lesbian elves with degrees in Marxist Theory!

The current batch of writers are either tier 1 garbage or they're so hogtied editorially they are unwillingly producing garbage. Either way they can all fuck off.

I had a typo above.  It should have read "third party" not "their party" comrades.

Yes, I have lost all confidence in them handling things other than magic proms and Harry Potter lite stuff.

The issue for me is that the game is supposed to draw on history, myth and archetypes.  But since a lot of history is cyclical or has recurring themes, all these folks can see is the most recent connection temporally.

In other words, instead of Egyptian slaves building the pyramids or Romans/Greeks all the current posse can link Dark Sun is apparently the AmericN sour in the 1850s.

So because of that, we have to dump all other historical inspiration.  It is really pathological and limiting...

Quote from: Dapig on February 27, 2023, 11:40:33 AM
I had a typo above.  It should have read "third party" not "their party" comrades.

Yes, I have lost all confidence in them handling things other than magic proms and Harry Potter lite stuff.

The issue for me is that the game is supposed to draw on history, myth and archetypes.  But since a lot of history is cyclical or has recurring themes, all these folks can see is the most recent connection temporally.

In other words, instead of Egyptian slaves building the pyramids or Romans/Greeks all the current posse can link Dark Sun is apparently the AmericN sour in the 1850s.

So because of that, we have to dump all other historical inspiration.  It is really pathological and limiting...

As others have said here, they are trying to turn D&D into a product that busy soccer moms and woke hipster dads can buy for their kids without thinking and without the fear of getting canceled by other parents. (Hasbro is a toy company after all.) History is inconvenient to that goal. Which is a shame because kids generally like learning about history, whether fictionalized or actual, in all its brutality, glory, and humanity. In fact, the more messed up it is, the more most kids want to learn about it, in my experience.

Quote from: rytrasmi on February 27, 2023, 11:57:46 AM

Quote from: Dapig on February 27, 2023, 11:40:33 AM
I had a typo above.  It should have read "third party" not "their party" comrades.

Yes, I have lost all confidence in them handling things other than magic proms and Harry Potter lite stuff.

The issue for me is that the game is supposed to draw on history, myth and archetypes.  But since a lot of history is cyclical or has recurring themes, all these folks can see is the most recent connection temporally.

In other words, instead of Egyptian slaves building the pyramids or Romans/Greeks all the current posse can link Dark Sun is apparently the AmericN sour in the 1850s.

So because of that, we have to dump all other historical inspiration.  It is really pathological and limiting...

As others have said here, they are trying to turn D&D into a product that busy soccer moms and woke hipster dads can buy for their kids without thinking and without the fear of getting canceled by other parents. (Hasbro is a toy company after all.) History is inconvenient to that goal. Which is a shame because kids generally like learning about history, whether fictionalized or actual, in all its brutality, glory, and humanity. In fact, the more messed up it is, the more most kids want to learn about it, in my experience.

Yeah.  You can see it come together.  More magic proms and Harry potter and less Conan , King Arthur and other cool stuff.

But there is more to it than that.  The whole biological essentialism thing and others is surely a politixal thing divorced from marketing.

Quote from: Rafael on February 27, 2023, 03:19:53 AM
I don't think this is necessarily a political move - but something more worrisome:

For the last few years, there's been a certain push in WotC's marketing to bring D&D to preteens. It's reasonable to assume that's going to be their long-term strategy, especially if they continue to have difficulties with their more mature audience.

In difference to most of you, I've almost never cared/been seriously upset about most gaming industry stuff; I'm pretty worried about this situation, though: The push towards a pre-teen audience comes with WotC's push to tighten the legal conditions of using their products in a public space.

The changes they are making to 6e are clearly pointing to a dumbing down of the game. Spell lists simplified. Druids and summons simplified. Odds are this is just a forerunner of how bad it may get.

It may be that they are not targeting the pre-teens.

They are targeting a lower and lower IQ range.

We see warning signs in 5e Advantage because basic math is just too hard. More and more summons are "fey" or "Spirits" rather than actual creatures. And when they die they just "go home" awwwwww.

Quote from: Rob Necronomicon on February 27, 2023, 08:18:48 AM
This really should come as no big surprise...  Just look at the muck they've been flinging out for 5e over the last couple of years. Nu Ravenloft was a joke.

So I'm only too happy that they have decided to leave Dark Sun alone. Imagine a 'new' setting after those bedwetters got their hands on it. Luckily that won't happen now.

Side topic. I have Curse of Strahd and the woke insertions are mostly nothings. One is so nothing Im not even sure what the fuck the point was. Overall it is surprisingly not a bad presentation.

Van Richten's though. THAT is trash. Some good ideas in there completely lost to the butchering of so many Domains of Dread.

Quote from: Tasty_Wind on February 26, 2023, 12:31:48 PM
someone in the OSR needs to make "the Obsidian Helios" or something along those lines.

There are a few alternatives out there (Chaalt, Last Sun, Cinderheim, Dragon Kinds, etc.) , but I've been thinking of writing my own.

So far, only a couple of posts and vague ideas.

Not sure about the name yet.

Red Sun Rising?
Rise of the Red Sun?
Blues for the Red Sun?

Quote from: Omega on February 27, 2023, 12:38:26 PM

Quote from: Rafael on February 27, 2023, 03:19:53 AM
I don't think this is necessarily a political move - but something more worrisome:

For the last few years, there's been a certain push in WotC's marketing to bring D&D to preteens. It's reasonable to assume that's going to be their long-term strategy, especially if they continue to have difficulties with their more mature audience.

In difference to most of you, I've almost never cared/been seriously upset about most gaming industry stuff; I'm pretty worried about this situation, though: The push towards a pre-teen audience comes with WotC's push to tighten the legal conditions of using their products in a public space.

The changes they are making to 6e are clearly pointing to a dumbing down of the game. Spell lists simplified. Druids and summons simplified. Odds are this is just a forerunner of how bad it may get.

It may be that they are not targeting the pre-teens.

They are targeting a lower and lower IQ range.

We see warning signs in 5e Advantage because basic math is just too hard. More and more summons are "fey" or "Spirits" rather than actual creatures. And when they die they just "go home" awwwwww.

Please give me shorter spell lists and simpler summons. I would rather have simple B/X or ACKS spell lists that I can expand with flavour, rather than endless spell lists that already do everything, have "joke" spells or other entries totally inappropriate to the mood if game I'm trying to run, shortcut half the challenges far sooner than I want the party to have a workaround, etc etc.

(Note: I haven't been following 6e, and I don't really intend to, so I guess it's possible they're messing that up somehow? But there's nothing inherently wrong with it.)

Quote from: Omega on February 27, 2023, 12:38:26 PM
We see warning signs in 5e Advantage because basic math is just too hard.

It's less that math is hard and more that math (particularly all the +1s and +2s on a d20 check) is less likely to actually be interesting.

I used to think as you do while developing my system. I much preferred static modifers for things. However, because of my stated position of "question everything" I vowed to at least give advantage/disadvantage a test.

I'm still a little bummed that my static modifiers got nuked so horribly. The moment I knew it was all over was when, at a critical moment one of the players rolled a 3 on the die (they needed an 11+) and it looked like a TPK, but then was reminded they had advantage...

They did their second roll. Wouldn't you know it? Natural Twenty. The day was saved and it was all anyone could talk about. Nothing less than a +8 bonus would have made a difference in that outcome... there was no way any level of static bonuses was going to compete with that endorphin hit.

Indeed, it was one of the player's comments that really made me understand the appeal (they were unfamiliar with 5e so their choice of description was really telling). They said they really enjoyed having the "saving throw vs. failure" in the game.

Saving Throw vs. Failure. When seen through that lens it's not "the math is too hard" it's "this is another dramatic moment in the gameplay."

"I screwed up, but maybe this next roll can save me."

The "snatching victory from the jaws of defeat" (and visa versa) are moments in the gameplay where memories can happen. No one remembers the attack that was going to hit anyway or the near certain failure that fails. But they for damned sure remember the moment they were saved from certain defeat or when clear victory was snatched away.

That is the power and advantage of the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanics... not really making the math easier (which is arguable... the probability for multiple dice is usually harder to grokk the odds for than static modifiers to a single die).

People still bought WotC stuff after 4e?