Quote from: Tyndale on November 13, 2022, 04:37:13 PM

Quote from: Eirikrautha on November 13, 2022, 03:19:30 PM
While the D&D team is racially, ethnically, gender, and cognitively diverse,...
It's seldom that you loudly declare that your own employees are retarded.  Bonus points for doing so in such a euphemistic manner, though...

While it pains me to defend WOTC on this, the term "cognitive diversity" is not talking about intellectual ability, but is just another example of weird corporate-speak.  They are, instead, talking about supporting groups of people to include individuals with different thinking "approaches" (my term) which avoids "group think" - essentially folks that can think outside of the box.  And as one who administers IQ tests for a living, this is good thing.

I'll lay you good odds that WOTC is not even remotely thinking of the same thing you are when using that term.

Quote from: Ocule on November 12, 2022, 03:34:45 PM

My biggest worry with this is that they try to erase legacy books or edit them with their mental sickness

Those comments make it clear that is their intent. Though being WOTC odds are that they just mean reprints of 5e stuff and possibly any 3 to 4e stuff they still have the files for that can be edited and 'fixed'.

Quote from: Omega on November 15, 2022, 05:46:31 AM

Quote from: Ocule on November 12, 2022, 03:34:45 PM

My biggest worry with this is that they try to erase legacy books or edit them with their mental sickness

Those comments make it clear that is their intent. Though being WOTC odds are that they just mean reprints of 5e stuff and possibly any 3 to 4e stuff they still have the files for that can be edited and 'fixed'.

The would have to be releasing the older content updated for 6E before they would be edited.  They put up their everything is racist on the DMsguild and didn't even bother to read the content in the first place to place a smear in the first place.  And even then there are plenty of other methods to get the older content.  Since they put that message I no longer buy from DMsguild the old 4E and earlier content from WotC and go elsewhere.

Quote from: Zelen on November 11, 2022, 12:54:18 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 11, 2022, 12:19:21 PM

Quote from: Chris24601 on November 11, 2022, 09:33:57 AM
Unfortunately, few outside of other woke disciples have put much effort into a non-5e alternative, instead putting their energies into recreating their own preferred and houseruled TSR-era D&D clone.

There's a niche out there for those willing to seize it for something that delivers on the modern D&D experience without the woke garbage piled on top.

You won't replace D&D with a lightly better version of D&D. The game to replace D&D will be as radically different from D&D as D&D was to the skirmish wargames that inspired it.

Pathfinder did pretty well for awhile. Even though Paizo squandered their market lead by going even harder into Leftist psychopathy. Conditions are actually shaping up for a repeat.

And that is why I'm sticking with Pathfinder 1st edition, and will not be getting Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition. That, and because Pathfinder 1E is basically extended Dungeons & dragons 3rd edition, which so far is the most realistic version of D&D despite it's complicated nature. Pathfinder 1E sadly also had a few woke elements, but in the past they limited it to just a few minor things, and they still let people see things from another perspective (the Giantslayer adventure path had a village with half-orcs that were discriminated against, but which also had many half-orcs join their full orc cousins on a assault against said village, just because they wanted to fit in and didn't want to be "like the weak humans". Plus Tieflings are discriminated against, but also have an innage urge to visit the hells, meaning that there most certainly is some influence due to their demonic blood (which makes sense). They were more liberitarian than woke.

Honestly, it is refreshing to see people with common sense on a forum. Though then again, I spend much of my time on reddit and on discord servers, and realized that those are apprarently very hardcore leftist.

As a advant Pathfinder 1st edition fan, seeing as they extended upon 3rd edition and PF 1E is basically D&D 3.75, wich other roleplay games are rather popular now? So far it seems like D&D is the only "mainstream one" that is promoted, outside the now very woke Pathfinder 2E (which is nothing like the 1st, and while it is fun in someways, it lacks the amazing customization and gritty feel of D&D 3rd and Pathfinder 1E). Any recommendations? I'd like to have one where there are still players to find for, because right now it seems everyone only plays D&D 5E.

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 15, 2022, 10:44:47 AM
As a advant Pathfinder 1st edition fan, seeing as they extended upon 3rd edition and PF 1E is basically D&D 3.75, wich other roleplay games are rather popular now? So far it seems like D&D is the only "mainstream one" that is promoted, outside the now very woke Pathfinder 2E (which is nothing like the 1st, and while it is fun in someways, it lacks the amazing customization and gritty feel of D&D 3rd and Pathfinder 1E). Any recommendations? I'd like to have one where there are still players to find for, because right now it seems everyone only plays D&D 5E.

Do you have a group? Are other members of your group interested in trying different systems?

There's a lot of games out there, but you need to get others on board to try different things. My group recently wrapped up a game and started running Stars Without Number. We wanted a change from the fantasy style and I think we're all excited for it. We also had some short games where we ran Dungeon Crawl Classics. You can also try out other titles like Savage Worlds, Shadowrun, etc.

Savage Worlds is a lot of fun too, can recommend.

Quote from: Corolinth on November 11, 2022, 06:23:17 PM

Quote from: Jaeger on November 11, 2022, 02:05:46 PM
Pathfinders big mistake was going in the wrong design direction from the start. Baizuo openly admitted that they did not fix any of the underlying math issues with 3.x - they just layered an employees house rules on top of the OGL that doubled down on the featapalooza aspects of 3.x.

This was not a mistake. This is the exact reason why Pathfinder succeeded. It turns out that, for all its faults, 3E is what people actually wanted to play.

I see it a bit different:

What people actually wanted to play was D&D, and 4e did not feel like D&D to them. At the time; PF was it.

Even by the end 3.x was a bloated handful by anyone's admission, and PF just doubled down on that. Clearly it had a few more years of life left in it, but 4e was such an epic own goal from WotC that it made PF the people's choice in spite of its issues, not because of them.

Not fixing the systematic issues of 3.x came back to bite them hard when 5e was released. Because 5e did feel like D&D to people and they dropped PF like a fat chick on prom night once the new hotness walked into the room.

There was no incentive to stick with a version of D&D that had become overly complicated and bloated.

Quote from: Zelen on November 10, 2022, 09:34:49 PM
Combination of OneDnD edition-war salt, plus WOTC deliberately hamstringing their creative output, is going to create a really nice opportunity for independent publishers.

This is the real kicker here.

WotC D&D's creative output was never great from the beginning. Even now they are still relying on nostalgia berry mining to keep sales up. The WotC dev team has not made anything new or original that anyone has clamored for more of.

So they are taking a creative ability that was not that great from the beginning, and stifling it even further.

This is good news.

That's the whole point - they know their creative team is bankrupt. Going to D&D One's virtual model means the playerbase will create their own content... limited to the parameters of their application.

Why be creative when they can just cage the peasants in and provide them with the basic cardboard and water for them to churn out that easy-to-make gruel?

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on November 15, 2022, 12:21:27 AM
My two cents for WotC is to egg them on.  When they put out racist comments, encourage them to go more.  Add in more purity spirals of death... 

This is pretty close to where I land, but only to accelerate what I consider to be the inevitable outcome of this.  That is, they'll continue to "bland-ify" their product until someone, somewhere, at some point, will raise their head and ask, "Wait.  Why is it that we play this again?  It kinda sucks."  This will come when some other new hotness comes out and other cancer injectors (to borrow the OP's clever terminology) like Critical Role and the other popular Sparkletrolls lose their luster.

The pendulum will swing back but corporate earnings will follow a bell curve.  Consider them near the top of the curve now, but when the players begin to lose their taste for the already tasteless, they'll spread out looking for other things.  Dwarves get +1 CON and +1 WIS and -2 CHA, what a cool concept! *giant eyeroll*

It's probably a long way off and it'll be a slow death and painful to watch for those of us inclined to mourn what might have been.

In the meantime, I'm playing Castles & Crusades and AD&D.  WOTC D&D is way dead to me.

Quote from: Corolinth on November 11, 2022, 06:23:17 PM

Quote from: VisionStorm on November 11, 2022, 12:33:33 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 11, 2022, 12:19:21 PM
You won't replace D&D with a lightly better version of D&D. *snip*

Yes you can. That's what Pathfinder did for years before 5e came along.

Quote from: Zelen on November 11, 2022, 12:54:18 PM

Quote from: hedgehobbit on November 11, 2022, 12:19:21 PM
You won't replace D&D with a lightly better version of D&D. The game to replace D&D will be as radically different from D&D as D&D was to the skirmish wargames that inspired it.

Pathfinder did pretty well for awhile. Even though Paizo squandered their market lead by going even harder into Leftist psychopathy. Conditions are actually shaping up for a repeat.

Pathfinder didn't replace D&D. Pathfinder was 3E winning the Edition Wars for the second time in a row.

Quote from: Jaeger on November 11, 2022, 02:05:46 PM
Pathfinders big mistake was going in the wrong design direction from the start. Baizuo openly admitted that they did not fix any of the underlying math issues with 3.x - they just layered an employees house rules on top of the OGL that doubled down on the featapalooza aspects of 3.x.

This was not a mistake. This is the exact reason why Pathfinder succeeded. It turns out that, for all its faults, 3E is what people actually wanted to play.

Yeah, you summed it up nicely. People loved 3rd edition, and Pathfinder was basically D&D 3.75. I love all the extra options they added, though I'd wish they had made a version at the end that combined all the content. However, that is a nitpick, and I'm already pretty happy we got more 3rd edition Dungeons & Dragons. It was the last system that Gary Gygax influenced (he didn't produce it, but he heavily adviced the creators), and he mentioned himself that he loved how realistic it was compared to his own D&D 2nd edition. I"m just glad his legacy endured in that way, as 5th edition is nice but it is basically a simplistic version of what he envisioned. With the downside that this simplistic version attracted the mentally ill normies as well, who made everything about race and gender.

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 15, 2022, 05:53:45 PM
It was the last system that Gary Gygax influenced (he didn't produce it, but he heavily adviced the creators), and he mentioned himself that he loved how realistic it was compared to his own D&D 2nd edition.

I remember conversing with Gary Gygax on EN World re the 3e adventure Lost City of Gaxmoor (written by his sons, I'd been running it); he did not express a high opinion of the edition.

Gygax was not involved with AD&D 2e, which came after he had been ousted from TSR.

Quote from: S'mon on November 15, 2022, 06:05:54 PM

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 15, 2022, 05:53:45 PM
It was the last system that Gary Gygax influenced (he didn't produce it, but he heavily adviced the creators), and he mentioned himself that he loved how realistic it was compared to his own D&D 2nd edition.

I remember conversing with Gary Gygax on EN World re the 3e adventure Lost City of Gaxmoor (written by his sons, I'd been running it); he did not express a high opinion of the edition.

Gygax was not involved with AD&D 2e, which came after he had been ousted from TSR.

Truly? I recall him messaging about 3rd edition: "Gary Gygax, author of the original Dungeon Masters Guide (1e) (1979), emailed Monte Cook to express his joy at its third edition counterpart, which taught him a few things about being a Dungeon Master.[3]" https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_3rd_edition

What changed? And I do recall that the team that worked on 3rd edition was noted by him as being very respectful and often asking him for advice.

Quote from: Omega on November 15, 2022, 05:43:55 AM
I'll lay you good odds that WOTC is not even remotely thinking of the same thing you are when using that term.

Oh, I'd actually take that bet as I suspect you are right.  Novel fads can be twisted to nefarious ends.  My only point is this concept is alive in the corporate world and is used in a "non-snowflake" agenda.  That is all.

Cheers,

Mark

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 15, 2022, 06:14:13 PM

Quote from: S'mon on November 15, 2022, 06:05:54 PM

Quote from: nielspeterdejong on November 15, 2022, 05:53:45 PM
It was the last system that Gary Gygax influenced (he didn't produce it, but he heavily adviced the creators), and he mentioned himself that he loved how realistic it was compared to his own D&D 2nd edition.

I remember conversing with Gary Gygax on EN World re the 3e adventure Lost City of Gaxmoor (written by his sons, I'd been running it); he did not express a high opinion of the edition.

Gygax was not involved with AD&D 2e, which came after he had been ousted from TSR.

Truly? I recall him messaging about 3rd edition: "Gary Gygax, author of the original Dungeon Masters Guide (1e) (1979), emailed Monte Cook to express his joy at its third edition counterpart, which taught him a few things about being a Dungeon Master.[3]" https://dungeonsdragons.fandom.com/wiki/Dungeons_%26_Dragons_3rd_edition

What changed? And I do recall that the team that worked on 3rd edition was noted by him as being very respectful and often asking him for advice.

I believe that was about the 3E DMG, not the game itself.