Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
What annoys me is this 'well there aren't any black people so they're marginalized'. Motherfucker, what makes you think you HAVE to play the guy on the cover?

To quote M.C. Hammer's 'Addams Family Values', you can play what you wanna play. I wanna grab my hair and scream, 'STOP OBSESSING AND ROLL THOSE DICE!'

Right. This is exactly what I am saying, and what I've done. I claim that who is on the cover is relatively unimportant.

If we were back in the 1990s and some liberal posters were calling to not play TSR D&D because there were only white men on the covers, then this would be on point - especially if they were going over interviews of TSR designers line by line to determine their political stance. Instead, we're in 2021, and the complaint is that WotC *doesn't* put white men on the cover - and that calls for going line by line through designer interviews for their politics, and means people shouldn't play WotC D&D.

If Jaeger and others want to obsess and go over the politics of particular designers, that's their business. But I don't consider it relevant to my play, and I'm just going ahead and rolling my dice.

Quote from: jhkim on June 30, 2021, 12:17:10 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
What annoys me is this 'well there aren't any black people so they're marginalized'. Motherfucker, what makes you think you HAVE to play the guy on the cover?

To quote M.C. Hammer's 'Addams Family Values', you can play what you wanna play. I wanna grab my hair and scream, 'STOP OBSESSING AND ROLL THOSE DICE!'

Right. This is exactly what I am saying, and what I've done. I claim that who is on the cover is relatively unimportant.

If we were back in the 1990s and some liberal posters were calling to not play TSR D&D because there were only white men on the covers, then this would be on point - especially if they were going over interviews of TSR designers line by line to determine their political stance. Instead, we're in 2021, and the complaint is that WotC *doesn't* put white men on the cover - and that calls for going line by line through designer interviews for their politics, and means people shouldn't play WotC D&D.

If Jaeger and others want to obsess and go over the politics of particular designers, that's their business. But I don't consider it relevant to my play, and I'm just going ahead and rolling my dice.

The mistake that you and others made was conflating Cook saying it was basically a truism and turning it into a supposed requirement. Truisms and requirements are not the same thing.

Cook was sucking his own dick telling everybody how great he was because he was going against a truism stemming from his imagination. There has been no evidence of a memo, standard, or requirement for the art. If something like that existed, I suspect he would have indicated as such.

But this is what people like Cook do. It is classic virtue signaling, weak and pathetic. Politics aside, it is reason enough not to support a creative who constantly constructs platforms for themselves like this. At best, it shows insecurity. At worst, it is bigotry.

Quote from: FingerRod on June 30, 2021, 01:03:01 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 30, 2021, 12:17:10 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
What annoys me is this 'well there aren't any black people so they're marginalized'. Motherfucker, what makes you think you HAVE to play the guy on the cover?

To quote M.C. Hammer's 'Addams Family Values', you can play what you wanna play. I wanna grab my hair and scream, 'STOP OBSESSING AND ROLL THOSE DICE!'

Right. This is exactly what I am saying, and what I've done. I claim that who is on the cover is relatively unimportant.

If we were back in the 1990s and some liberal posters were calling to not play TSR D&D because there were only white men on the covers, then this would be on point - especially if they were going over interviews of TSR designers line by line to determine their political stance. Instead, we're in 2021, and the complaint is that WotC *doesn't* put white men on the cover - and that calls for going line by line through designer interviews for their politics, and means people shouldn't play WotC D&D.

If Jaeger and others want to obsess and go over the politics of particular designers, that's their business. But I don't consider it relevant to my play, and I'm just going ahead and rolling my dice.

The mistake that you and others made was conflating Cook saying it was basically a truism and turning it into a supposed requirement. Truisms and requirements are not the same thing.

Cook was sucking his own dick telling everybody how great he was because he was going against a truism stemming from his imagination. There has been no evidence of a memo, standard, or requirement for the art. If something like that existed, I suspect he would have indicated as such.

But this is what people like Cook do. It is classic virtue signaling, weak and pathetic. Politics aside, it is reason enough not to support a creative who constantly constructs platforms for themselves like this. At best, it shows insecurity. At worst, it is bigotry.

As far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for Monte Cook's existence is that he drove Larry Elmore to the hospital when Elmore suffered a heart attack.

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 01:11:00 PM
As far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for Monte Cook's existence is that he drove Larry Elmore to the hospital when Elmore suffered a heart attack.

I never knew that story. Score one for old Monte! Elmore is great.

Quote from: Valatar on June 28, 2021, 05:16:14 PM

Quote from: Mistwell on June 28, 2021, 05:01:36 PM
Hey old man yelling at the clouds, have you considered that Redgar getting his ass kicked was just a funny running in-joke in the company at that point and not some giant conspiracy to trash white men in general? I feel very confident Redgar getting his butt kicked on the cover of some books did not lead to "violence against whites" in general nor "critical race theory" in general.

While I don't disagree with this, I am curious whether you'd be quite as sanguine if they'd been intentionally making a black character get murdered in as many pictures as possible because he was foisted on them by corporate.

I think at the time they were doing it they would have done it to a beholder, if that's what they felt was being shoved on them and suppressing their artistic choices. It reads like, "these schmucks hired us for this artwork and our experience in this field, and then guys who knew nothing about this aspect of the field dictated to us how we'd do our job. So, we protested however we could."

Quote from: FingerRod on June 30, 2021, 01:03:01 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 30, 2021, 12:17:10 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
What annoys me is this 'well there aren't any black people so they're marginalized'. Motherfucker, what makes you think you HAVE to play the guy on the cover?

To quote M.C. Hammer's 'Addams Family Values', you can play what you wanna play. I wanna grab my hair and scream, 'STOP OBSESSING AND ROLL THOSE DICE!'

Right. This is exactly what I am saying, and what I've done. I claim that who is on the cover is relatively unimportant.

If we were back in the 1990s and some liberal posters were calling to not play TSR D&D because there were only white men on the covers, then this would be on point - especially if they were going over interviews of TSR designers line by line to determine their political stance. Instead, we're in 2021, and the complaint is that WotC *doesn't* put white men on the cover - and that calls for going line by line through designer interviews for their politics, and means people shouldn't play WotC D&D.

If Jaeger and others want to obsess and go over the politics of particular designers, that's their business. But I don't consider it relevant to my play, and I'm just going ahead and rolling my dice.

The mistake that you and others made was conflating Cook saying it was basically a truism and turning it into a supposed requirement. Truisms and requirements are not the same thing.

This is exactly the obsessing that I'm arguing against. You're trying to micro-analyze what Cook meant by "truism" and how that's different than a "requirement", but my point is that I don't care. I don't know exactly how TSR decided on their covers, and I didn't consider it an important thing to know in order to play TSR D&D. In general, I don't know the politics of most of the authors of RPGs I play.

Obviously, you're free to play whatever you like. If you want to go over the interviews or Twitter feeds of your RPG authors to see if they pass your purity tests, that's your business.

The bottom line is consistency. I don't obsess over author intent to decide what I'm going to play either way.

All I know is that all the available white manly men and hot redheads because WotC isn't using them means I can afford to have two of each on my book's cover! 

Quote from: jhkim on June 30, 2021, 01:31:23 PM

Quote from: FingerRod on June 30, 2021, 01:03:01 PM

Quote from: jhkim on June 30, 2021, 12:17:10 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 10:44:14 AM
What annoys me is this 'well there aren't any black people so they're marginalized'. Motherfucker, what makes you think you HAVE to play the guy on the cover?

To quote M.C. Hammer's 'Addams Family Values', you can play what you wanna play. I wanna grab my hair and scream, 'STOP OBSESSING AND ROLL THOSE DICE!'

Right. This is exactly what I am saying, and what I've done. I claim that who is on the cover is relatively unimportant.

If we were back in the 1990s and some liberal posters were calling to not play TSR D&D because there were only white men on the covers, then this would be on point - especially if they were going over interviews of TSR designers line by line to determine their political stance. Instead, we're in 2021, and the complaint is that WotC *doesn't* put white men on the cover - and that calls for going line by line through designer interviews for their politics, and means people shouldn't play WotC D&D.

If Jaeger and others want to obsess and go over the politics of particular designers, that's their business. But I don't consider it relevant to my play, and I'm just going ahead and rolling my dice.

The mistake that you and others made was conflating Cook saying it was basically a truism and turning it into a supposed requirement. Truisms and requirements are not the same thing.

This is exactly the obsessing that I'm arguing against. You're trying to micro-analyze what Cook meant by "truism" and how that's different than a "requirement", but my point is that I don't care. I don't know exactly how TSR decided on their covers, and I didn't consider it an important thing to know in order to play TSR D&D. In general, I don't know the politics of most of the authors of RPGs I play.

Obviously, you're free to play whatever you like. If you want to go over the interviews or Twitter feeds of your RPG authors to see if they pass your purity tests, that's your business.

The bottom line is consistency. I don't obsess over author intent to decide what I'm going to play either way.

I am not obsessing over anything. What I am saying is you lack reading comprehension. You are the one who took his quote and turned it into:

"Cook's comment is that TSR created a corporate requirement that *only* white men appear on the cover. Maybe Cook does hate white men, but I think it is possible to be against a corporate requirement for only white men on the cover, and not hate white men."

I was directly addressing you. You incorrectly defined his comment.

Quote from: Shasarak on June 29, 2021, 10:58:27 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on June 29, 2021, 10:31:29 PM
I hope we can all agree that those covers were the very lowest point for cover "art" in the D&D editions.
At the time, I didnt' think much about them, but in hindsight... ugh.

It was not meant to be "art" it was supposed to represent an actual physical tome that white men would carry around the world with them as they conquered and oppressed the noble savage.

Yes!!!  Yes!!!  Ha!!!

Quote from: Batjon on June 30, 2021, 09:53:31 AM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on June 30, 2021, 08:08:37 AM
Monte Cook is a hack. His opinion isn't worth a cupful of cold spit.

Oddly, I rather liked the 3E cover. Minimalism is sometimes a good thing.

The BECMI covers were kind of interesting. The Basic and Expert covers only showed the hero from the back, not the front -- so you could imagine any kind of face on him. Companion set had the guy in full armor and you couldn't tell who he was.

I always took that as an inference of 'imagine this is YOUR character, make him who YOU want him to be'.

This is how I see it as well on those covers.  They do not show the character's face so you can fill it in inside your imagination in an attempt to say this could be your character.

But Batjon, how are you supposed to know what character to make if the book does not explicitly show you what character to make?

Complete freedom would result in madness! Cats and Dogs living together!

Wont anyone think of the children?

The more I dig the more I regret it but I went ahead and pre-ordered Giantlands; I didn't know about the kickstarter shenanigans.

I'm going to keep my order report on when and if I get it and review it.

The thread has been a good read.

I have yet to be impressed by anything either of the cooks have done, Zeb or Monty. I'm still aggravated at Zeb bending the knee to the church ladies, and the rise of the Forgotten Realms kickng Grayhawk to the curb.

Looks like they fired the guy that posted this:

https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1410569117195816963



https://twitter.com/TSR_games/status/1410772470211043329

Quote from: tenbones on June 21, 2021, 10:17:48 AM
I hate to say this, hah, but it's telling that a few years ago this would have been exciting to even ponder "TSR" (fill in whatever that means to you) is coming back.

The moment I saw the thread and went to their website, my first reaction was to laugh. None of it surprises me. We're through the looking glass. I just assume anything presented is tainted now. The question is "to what degree"? YMMV.

That is always the problem with each wave of these moral guardians. They poison the well so badly that you literally can not look at anything without a bit of suspicion. Especially if it can be read as part of the agenda routine. Even if it was not intended to be.

And now Giantlands has left TSR and has been fished out to another company to complete.  What a mess.

<edit>
Ah Batjon, I now see what you mean.
Reading the announcement on discord, didn't realise that Dinehart is taking Giantlands with him. heh
So what happens with the preorders people made?
They still have a channel for it on the discord so confusing to say the least.
<edit>

Their discord is still going strong though and likely easier to manage anything that goes off the rails.
A logo change and a stricter control by mods of topics.
Also seems like a nice way to connect with older D&D edition lovers.

I'm fine with that as Twitter displayed, once some perceived slight has been made, it becomes a pile-on of tit-for-tat and kills off any meaningful discussion of the game itself.