Esper had some concerns, after the MM 6E came out he's done.
A lot of people are done now with anything 6E puts out.
So he haz hurt feelz. Whatever.
Which lore? D&D has undergone numerous retcons over the decades. What are the tourists upset about this time?
I say welcome to the club.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 27, 2025, 10:55:39 AMWhich lore? D&D has undergone numerous retcons over the decades. What are the tourists upset about this time?
The lore doesn't differ that much in the long run dude. Jettisoning all the lore to serve leftarded dilating idiots doesn't serve anyone but the left in turning D&D into a culturally insignificant after thought.
Sure other people will play D&D but without official VTT support and printed goods, it becomes a backwater like Car Wars or Battletech.
Who is he and why should I care?
Quote from: blackstone on February 27, 2025, 11:44:33 AMWho is he and why should I care?
He puts out Lore videos on D&D, second to AJ Picket.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2025, 11:42:58 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 27, 2025, 10:55:39 AMWhich lore? D&D has undergone numerous retcons over the decades. What are the tourists upset about this time?
The lore doesn't differ that much in the long run dude. Jettisoning all the lore to serve leftarded dilating idiots doesn't serve anyone but the left in turning D&D into a culturally insignificant after thought.
Sure other people will play D&D but without official VTT support and printed goods, it becomes a backwater like Car Wars or Battletech.
That seems to be going around a lot in ttrpgs. I think it's a good thing honestly. These decades old publishers and IPs have insane first mover advantage. They need to die so that new ones can finally enter the market.
Unfortunately, I haven't seen anything that looks like it could be fun to play.
Quote from: HappyDaze on February 27, 2025, 10:31:22 AMSo he haz hurt feelz. Whatever.
Don't be so hasty. This is a good thing.
Because this:
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 27, 2025, 01:06:50 PM...
That seems to be going around a lot in ttrpgs. I think it's a good thing honestly. These decades old publishers and IPs have insane first mover advantage. They need to die so that new ones can finally enter the market.
...
The fact that WotC shills are removing themselves from the bandwagon is a good sign.
Granted WotC has a lot more own-goals to make in order to lose their massive advantage, but there is a growing undercurrent in the hobby that is not going in WotC's direction, and they ignore it in the long run at their peril...
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2025, 10:14:17 AMEsper had some concerns, after the MM 6E came out he's done.
A lot of people are done now with anything 6E puts out.
Is this the same guy who got in over his head back in December?
https://www.therpgsite.com/pen-paper-roleplaying-games-rpgs-discussion/esper-the-bard-entered-the-culture-war-unarmored/msg1296634/#msg1296634
Eh, good riddance.
Good.
D&D is too close to a monopoly. Having everyone branch out is how the marketplace creates new and fun stuff to try and buy.
I'm thrilled whenever somebody gives up on the 900lb gorilla.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on February 28, 2025, 12:52:05 PMGood.
D&D is too close to a monopoly. Having everyone branch out is how the marketplace creates new and fun stuff to try and buy.
I'm thrilled whenever somebody gives up on the 900lb gorilla.
I agree that D&D is a monopoly that has hugely held back the hobby for decades, but I feel like it's too late for this loss of power to matter. The zeitgeist has shifted to something that I find not even remotely interesting as games were 20-30 years ago. All the games with interesting ideas were cancelled long ago and what remains feels shallow, soulless and nostalgic for the most boring bits of the 70s and 80s.
Why is anybody posting about this loser when EGG Jr passed away?
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 12:58:23 PMQuote from: weirdguy564 on February 28, 2025, 12:52:05 PMGood.
D&D is too close to a monopoly. Having everyone branch out is how the marketplace creates new and fun stuff to try and buy.
I'm thrilled whenever somebody gives up on the 900lb gorilla.
I agree that D&D is a monopoly that has hugely held back the hobby for decades, but I feel like it's too late for this loss of power to matter. The zeitgeist has shifted to something that I find not even remotely interesting as games were 20-30 years ago. All the games with interesting ideas were cancelled long ago and what remains feels shallow, soulless and nostalgic for the most boring bits of the 70s and 80s.
No. WotC is trying to find the "new customer", namely the 8% politically active left that makes up the Seattle bubble the developers are mired in. It's not selling and their latest iteration is a failure. Hasbro did not mention D&D as a separate entity in Q4 2024 financial release.
What is going on is Hasbro is about a decade behind the times and is chasing the M-She U and Disney Star Wars demographics. People are far left, don't have human values and generally despised by humanity. You know all the kids who would kill animals or try to sexually assault a girl, that is the lefts market. Not people going their own way but moral fucking degenerates that should be jailed for societies safety.
Let me give you an example of how well its going, my hobby shop had a copy of the Radiant Citadel up a few weeks after release in 2022. I stopped by said hobby shop to see if its still there, yup still there. I asked the hobby shop owner to remove the chance of it being a reorder, nope he said he ordered it by mistake and hasn't been able to get rid of it yet. Radiant Citadel is a race marxist trash piece of work, still up there untouched. According to sales figures, its the lowest selling module to date for 5E.
Quote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 01:17:23 PMWhy is anybody posting about this loser when EGG Jr passed away?
What had he done for me lately? Neither of these blokes matters a bit to me.
Modern rpgs just suck imo. Nothing looks interesting compared to what they were making 20-30 years ago. D&D going bankrupt doesn't change that.
Quote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 03:09:16 PMQuote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 01:17:23 PMWhy is anybody posting about this loser when EGG Jr passed away?
What had he done for me lately? Neither of these blokes matters a bit to me.
Now I know you're just a trolling asshole.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 03:11:19 PMModern rpgs just suck imo. Nothing looks interesting compared to what they were making 20-30 years ago. D&D going bankrupt doesn't change that.
Yes but being licensed out OR if Hasbro goes under during the recession and D&D is sold to someone else, it changes quite a bit.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 28, 2025, 03:48:44 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 03:11:19 PMModern rpgs just suck imo. Nothing looks interesting compared to what they were making 20-30 years ago. D&D going bankrupt doesn't change that.
Yes but being licensed out OR if Hasbro goes under during the recession and D&D is sold to someone else, it changes quite a bit.
I'm completely burnt out on medieval fantasy and have been for decades. It doesn't matter who owns D&D, I don't like the genre.
Unfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Quote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 03:17:02 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 03:09:16 PMQuote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 01:17:23 PMWhy is anybody posting about this loser when EGG Jr passed away?
What had he done for me lately? Neither of these blokes matters a bit to me.
Now I know you're just a trolling asshole.
Believe what you like. My life will change not at all because of it.
Esper says he will still play and support 5e --he just ins't going to shill for WOTC
his channel was supported by WOTC, at least to some degree, for a long time
rumor on the street is that WOTC has told the top 5e content YT guys that they won't be getting sponsorships, advertising support, bot views, fake subs, etc. going forward, and rebellion is brewing
in other words, struggling Hasbro is cutting off the gravy train
or at least that is the rumor
AJ Pickett and Esper the Bard have each posted many videos on YT for years and years, exposing 5E players to the greater depths of lore found in 2E and 3E / 3.5E. Tremendously more lore depth, than what WOTC has released for 5E. A good lifeline to decades of lore, now seemingly abandoned by WOTC.
They have a place in the community.
Esper seems fine. I dropped AJ years ago when he went off on a couple live streams about how Americans should not be allowed to have guns.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 04:10:12 PMUnfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Dude, there's a gorillion RPGs out there. Take the time to investigate what's happening with the small press, the indie guys and the free games and you will find something you like. But if not one game excites you, the problem is you.
Quote from: Spinachcat on March 01, 2025, 05:02:34 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 04:10:12 PMUnfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Dude, there's a gorillion RPGs out there. Take the time to investigate what's happening with the small press, the indie guys and the free games and you will find something you like. But if not one game excites you, the problem is you.
The problem is him.
Quote from: Spinachcat on March 01, 2025, 05:02:34 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 04:10:12 PMUnfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Dude, there's a gorillion RPGs out there. Take the time to investigate what's happening with the small press, the indie guys and the free games and you will find something you like. But if not one game excites you, the problem is you.
The problem is that they don't make the kinds of games I like anymore. It's all dumb zoomer shit now. My tastes go for stuff made in the 80s thru 2000s. Star*Drive, Dark•Matter, Conspiracy X, WitchCraft, All Flesh Must Eaten, etc. They just don't make games like they used to.
Seriously, have you actually tried searching in genres outside of your vaunted medieval fantasy? They all suck compared to where they were 20-30 years ago. It's all creepypasta gig economy bullshit that is completely conceptually divorced from what came before. No shit it's gonna suck. These dumb zoomers don't study the classics and just ape the dumb corporate slop currently available.
All the cool and interesting non-fantasy games that I'd like to play were canceled 20-30 years ago.
But go ahead and blame me for not being a dumb mindless consumer who eats whatever slop is currently being sold. That's totally helpful.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 01, 2025, 09:11:52 AMThat's totally helpful.
It's about as helpful as continuing to rant against the present as you suck down your memberberries.
Quote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 03:17:02 PMQuote from: HappyDaze on February 28, 2025, 03:09:16 PMQuote from: blackstone on February 28, 2025, 01:17:23 PMWhy is anybody posting about this loser when EGG Jr passed away?
What had he done for me lately? Neither of these blokes matters a bit to me.
Now I know you're just a trolling asshole.
Not really. I'm also not phased by Gygax JR dying. He wasn't a big deal.
I'm more interested by what this YouTuber has to say than Gygax Jr does.
Quote from: Jaeger on February 27, 2025, 02:37:56 PMThe fact that WotC shills are removing themselves from the bandwagon is a good sign.
Some are being forcefully removed by wotc leveraging youtube.
Others are jumping ship like the rats they are and will be looking for some new boat to infest.
Quote from: HappyDaze on March 01, 2025, 10:56:26 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 01, 2025, 09:11:52 AMThat's totally helpful.
It's about as helpful as continuing to rant against the present as you suck down your memberberries.
Ok, true.
I'm trying to do something constructive instead. I'm currently working on original fiction and managed to get some writing done today. I feel so relieved that I did something
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 01, 2025, 09:11:52 AMQuote from: Spinachcat on March 01, 2025, 05:02:34 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 04:10:12 PMUnfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Dude, there's a gorillion RPGs out there. Take the time to investigate what's happening with the small press, the indie guys and the free games and you will find something you like. But if not one game excites you, the problem is you.
The problem is that they don't make the kinds of games I like anymore. It's all dumb zoomer shit now. My tastes go for stuff made in the 80s thru 2000s. Star*Drive, Dark•Matter, Conspiracy X, WitchCraft, All Flesh Must Eaten, etc. They just don't make games like they used to.
Seriously, have you actually tried searching in genres outside of your vaunted medieval fantasy? They all suck compared to where they were 20-30 years ago. It's all creepypasta gig economy bullshit that is completely conceptually divorced from what came before. No shit it's gonna suck. These dumb zoomers don't study the classics and just ape the dumb corporate slop currently available.
All the cool and interesting non-fantasy games that I'd like to play were canceled 20-30 years ago.
But go ahead and blame me for not being a dumb mindless consumer who eats whatever slop is currently being sold. That's totally helpful.
I actually think that you have a point, so why don't you create the game that you want to play? Seriously. I'm sure it won't be easy, but why not just do it? You'll never know how it turns out, unless you try.
Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on March 01, 2025, 10:00:49 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 01, 2025, 09:11:52 AMQuote from: Spinachcat on March 01, 2025, 05:02:34 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 04:10:12 PMUnfortunately, every other genre sucks ass.
Dude, there's a gorillion RPGs out there. Take the time to investigate what's happening with the small press, the indie guys and the free games and you will find something you like. But if not one game excites you, the problem is you.
The problem is that they don't make the kinds of games I like anymore. It's all dumb zoomer shit now. My tastes go for stuff made in the 80s thru 2000s. Star*Drive, Dark•Matter, Conspiracy X, WitchCraft, All Flesh Must Eaten, etc. They just don't make games like they used to.
Seriously, have you actually tried searching in genres outside of your vaunted medieval fantasy? They all suck compared to where they were 20-30 years ago. It's all creepypasta gig economy bullshit that is completely conceptually divorced from what came before. No shit it's gonna suck. These dumb zoomers don't study the classics and just ape the dumb corporate slop currently available.
All the cool and interesting non-fantasy games that I'd like to play were canceled 20-30 years ago.
But go ahead and blame me for not being a dumb mindless consumer who eats whatever slop is currently being sold. That's totally helpful.
I actually think that you have a point, so why don't you create the game that you want to play? Seriously. I'm sure it won't be easy, but why not just do it? You'll never know how it turns out, unless you try.
He's been told that many times, and he keeps saying he's getting to work on it. Hopefully he can really start to spend more time working on it and less time bemoaning the good old days.
I'm sorry for wasting your time
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 02, 2025, 07:44:52 AMI'm sorry for wasting your time
Don't be sorry. I think you have a point. There is less innovation in the ttrpg industry lately. That's why I say you should create the game you want to create. Who knows? Maybe people will play it.
Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on March 02, 2025, 08:29:31 AMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 02, 2025, 07:44:52 AMI'm sorry for wasting your time
Don't be sorry. I think you have a point. There is less innovation in the ttrpg industry lately. That's why I say you should create the game you want to create. Who knows? Maybe people will play it.
I quite agree. I'd be interested in seeing what he produces and I encourage him to get to it. If he's running into trouble with actualizing ideas, then start threads that can solicit useful input to grease the brain and then, again, get to it.
He's not wrong about me. It is a me problem. This is an autistic special interest of mine.
I wouldn't call it a strict lack of innovation so much as a loss of diversity and regression in places, particularly for genres outside of D&D.
For example, the traditional conspiracy technothriller genre with psychic superspies, chupacabra, greys, Rosicrucians and templars has been completely supplanted by Cthulhu derivatives and creepypasta.
The space opera genre is still stuck in the 60s-70s New Wave unless it's an Alien/Outland pastiche, despite attempts to modernize and diversify the genre like TSR's Star*Drive.
Because of copyright law lasting for longer than human lifetimes and making no provision for orphaned or abandoned works, once a game dies then nobody else is allowed to iterate on its ideas, forcing them to reinvent the wheel over and over. That's assuming they know and care enough to try.
The hobby has insane first mover advantage and brand loyalty. When a game does decline and die, then nobody is interested in making or playing a spiritual successor.
When most of TSR's settings were canceled after the WotC buyout and only sporadically referenced later if at all, nobody sold spiritual successors. There's no spiritual successors to Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, Ravenloft, Dragonlance, Birthright, etc. They died and fans simply bemoaned the lack of support. And that's for a hugely popular IP like D&D.
The best we ever got was Pathfinder when 4e came out, and only because 4e was a miniatures game pretending to be an rpg. But Golarion is just another generic Faerun pastiche.
When World of Darkness got rebooted twice (once in 2004 and again in 2018), nobody cared enough to make spiritual successors despite the immense flame wars online. Back in the 90s we had visionary writers like C.J. Carella and Steve Brown who made their own contemporary fantasy games in response to WoD just because they thought it wasn't suitable for their purposes. But it seems like vision has completely vanished from folks since then. You'd expect the bridge burning and vitriol to inspire a few heartbreakers, but we only hear crickets.
The indie market for 3d printed miniatures games is more diverse.
I'd like to make my own games, but the more I learn from the history of the hobby the unhappier I become. I'm disheartened, intimidated...
Ttrpg publishing is a crapshoot. It's impossible to determine whether something will stick. Ghosts of Albion, Masque of the Red Death, StokerVerse and Vaesen all tried to do Victorian Era horror but they all got cancelled.
I'm better off writing prose, posting it on YouTube with text-to-speech, getting popular that way, then getting a TTRPG adaptation. That worked for the Magnus Archives, which is a bunch of creepypasta with the framing device that it's interviews recorded and archived by the not!Talamasca.
Sorry, I'm rambling again.
I'm gonna try spending the rest of today working on my prose. That's what really makes me feel accomplished.
I'm going to respond to OP, not Box's latest post (which I don't disagree with), because I finally had time to watch the video and I had some thoughts.
To summarize for anyone who didn't watch, he begins making strong and clear statements for the first few minutes, then he offers off-the-cuff thoughts and observations. The initial part has him mentioning:
(1) From 1:30, he mentions how he feels betrayed by them and explicitly discusses the issues where orcs are no longer orcs and are now just people with light gray skin and two little tusks
(2) From 2:12, he claims that WotC seem all about making you play in their reality versus it being a "flexible game for everyone"
(3) At 3:00 he briefly calls out that real world politics are more and more in the game
(4) At 3:10 he points out that there's no monster-building guidelines in the 5.5 DMG or 5.5 Monster Manual
(5) At 5:15 he says he's done giving them money
(6) Much after this section, at 10:55, he speculates that maybe they'll be bought by Elon Musk
So, to a degree, this is meant to kind of appeal to people who are also fed up with WotC for many new and old reasons, but it does kind of seem like a laundry list of things. I definitely feel that core issues about their lore (of which he only brings up the total replacement of orcs) are only touched on, and I was expecting more of that. They are also much more representative of the core rot at WotC's creative direction for 5.5 and beyond, and they are explicitly because of the social messaging and politics that the people they pretty exclusively hired were up to. While you would never have guessed that Mexican orcs were on the menu- that's just funny that they managed to create the first actually racist orc depiction out of any major project- it's completely predictable that they would screw up any depiction that they could possibly deem "problematic", and a big part of that is so that they can smear anyone who stands up for anything normal as racist themselves. So by just touching on this issue, I think he doesn't want to dive headfirst into the pool. Similarly, his extremely brief touching on modern politics being injected into the game; we're free to read into that with how monsters have been reworked away from humanoid (with those that weren't just becoming humans with star trek foreheads), and we're free to remember how "race" has been replaced with "species" (species don't have racial modifiers in any way, those have been moved to backgrounds, a universally negative change only supported by a political urge), and we're free to also remember how "ki" is gone, renamed to "focus", along with the naming convention of the monk class (which you can tell they badly wanted to rename to martial artist or something), or how they issued errata just to delete sections of the 5.0 DMG that helpfully discussed how to create a culture for a new custom race.
But he doesn't go into that- just a quick mention, which to me seems like he just wants to avoid controversy (listing out even a few of these things would add much less than a minute to the video).
Further, I think these issues are much more important that transient annoyances like "they didn't tell us the monster formula". Well, 5.0 had a monster formula (to derive how challenging a monster is from its stats) that was provably not the one that they used for the monster manual, and they also changed that formula about a third of the way through 5.0 and didn't share that one either, so anyone hoping they would share the real one for 5.5 was already being far too optimistic. I think those are just kinda thrown on there to justify his personal decision to not chase WotC products.
Early in this thread, some posters speculated that WotC-friendly youtubers had been, in some cases, getting favorable ratings, boostings, etc., and that WotC was cutting this back. That's a perfectly plausible conspiracy theory, but I don't think we have any evidence to claim it yet. What I think we definitely are seeing is someone who is both personally ticked at how badly WotC has betrayed everyone's trust as custodians of a beloved game and set of associated stories, and has been hearing that story from many of the people around him.
As a content creator though, you can't create content about a void. Discussing WotC products could be replaced by trashing WotC products, or by praising some third party products, or else he's out of content to make. Pundit has his own line of non-WotC products, but he talks about D&D in several of his videos, because they are the giant in the room. What's this guy's plan?
By the way, being a lore guy for WotC is a tough job anyway. Even when they were making their beloved products in the 80s and 90s, it was still product set up to sell and nowhere nearly as artistic and deep as even an average DM could accomplish (in many cases by simply implementing something from a paperback novel as a setting). That those products are objectively the high water mark is already damning.
Finally, I think his later reference about Musk buying it was conversation-bait. While Musk himself did make a couple memes about it as part of calling Hasbro out for a recent book where they shit all over the original creators and do white guilt apology bullshit, that breeze has blown past. It's not implausible that Hasbro might spin off WotC- or that WotC might spin off D&D. But if they do this, it would probably not be to some right-wing culture warrior. The best case there would be some Chinese company that hires people you've never heard to implement something that sounds like it came out of the 90s- and that could easily go south too.
Until something that isn't cultural poison makes a solid case of stepping into the middle of modern gaming and saying "here's my core rule books with ten classes and a design precept that I'm gonna defend strongly, here's my splatbooks you can add to that", and have this thing be at least 80% of the scope of D&D in every direction, TTRPGs are going to remain in orbit around whatever dead husk is currently named D&D. The closest we saw to that was when Paizo made Pathfinder as a way to challenge 4e, and that schism featured Paizo (who would later be the first to rename "phylactery" and delete "race") as the "return to tradition" heroes who continued to support 3.5's design concepts, including, at that time, races with attribute penalties, good, evil, law, and chaos as cosmic forces, and many other aspects of their Golarion setting that they would, just a few years later, decry as being insufficiently progressive and delete.
So should something like that form, it would get followers, but it would need to actually be trying to make a game that directly competes with D&D- it might be inspired by some OSR pieces, but it wouldn't properly be OSR, is what I'm saying. And it would be a huge effort, and I don't think anyone is even working in that space really.
Quote from: Venka on March 02, 2025, 11:04:14 AMSo by just touching on this issue, I think he doesn't want to dive headfirst into the pool. Similarly, his extremely brief touching on modern politics being injected into the game; we're free to read into that
I got that sense too. He's obviously bothered by the woke stuff but doesn't want to offend anyone. It reminds me of how JK Rowling first addressed the transgender issue with sensitivity and kid gloves but is now throwing haymakers. Either this guy will back down when the mob comes for him (as they always do when they don't receive full, unquestioning conformity) or he will say f*%# it and start lobbing grenades like JK Rowling. Either way, I'm glad he has shown some integrity by pushing back against the soulless corporation that is Hasbro/WotC. He could have sold his soul, but he chose to call out the BS instead.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on February 28, 2025, 03:11:19 PMModern rpgs just suck imo. Nothing looks interesting compared to what they were making 20-30 years ago. D&D going bankrupt doesn't change that.
I think we're getting too flooded with new games that add nothing new to rp. There's a bazillion remakes of D&D, which amount to adding in house rules. I know. I have a sort of D&D game, but mine will never see the market. It's just for my table. I'm not arrogant enough, or talented enough to consider publishing the drek.
That, or we're just too fucking old and have seen it all. New games arrive and we shrug it off saying something like - oh, another damned this or that game.
Back to the main topic - don't even know who in the blue hell that dude is, nor why I should even listen to him.
Quote from: Jason Coplen on March 03, 2025, 11:45:23 AMThat, or we're just too fucking old and have seen it all. New games arrive and we shrug it off saying something like - oh, another damned this or that game.
I decided to read the ttrpg adaptation of the
Magnus Archives, a creepypasta anthology audio series, just to see how it differs from past horror ttrpgs. I'm looking through the chapter on monsters and npcs. Although it started publishing in 2016, the actual writeups feel like they'd be quite at home in the 2nd edition
Chill rulebook or the 1st edition
Nightlife rulebook (both from 1990). There's a lot of well worn tropes here: evil twins, mind control parasites, parasites that eat you alive to reproduce, neverending hallways, monsters that flay and steal your skin to impersonate you, literal spider women that weave metaphorical webs of manipulation... there's even vampires that lure victims telepathically and then suck out their insides with lamprey-like tongues.
I used to think that creepypastas had a reputation for being more "creative" than pre-internet horror, but it seems I was completely wrong. This is the kind of material that would be perfectly at home in an 80s horror anthology or novel.
Quote from: Jason Coplen on March 03, 2025, 11:45:23 AMBack to the main topic - don't even know who in the blue hell that dude is, nor why I should even listen to him.
That's not really the main topic though. You've been told who this guy is- he's a youtuber that makes content relevant to 5e viewers. Which presumably doesn't include you (or really most of this forum). The reason it's relevant isn't that you should listen to him in the general case, it's that this is a guy who up until this point has been fine with WotC's version of D&D, by far the most popular TTRPG, and yet here is is being turned off enough by their latest shenanigans.
If you're some OSR guy, 5.0 had a few branches handed out- you could fashion a bridge, play 5e if you like. But 5.0 was not an OSR game. If you're a 3.X guy, 5e had a lot more for you- but 5e was never really like 3.X. If you're some 5.0 guy though, where you follow the 5.0 stuff and make content and run games, and now they are somehow losing you- that's not what they want, right? That's kind of interesting.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 02, 2025, 10:17:21 AMI'd like to make my own games, but the more I learn from the history of the hobby the unhappier I become. I'm disheartened, intimidated....
That's sad. Go and make your own games. I sat down and made my first RPG, because there was no game like it in the market. It's a niche game, and it's never going to revolutionize the industry, but I made the game that I wanted to play.
My only regret is that I put a content advisory i the first couple modules, because I was selling it on DriveThru. I think it would have gotten pulled without the notice for not being PC. I since then unburdened myself from DriveThru, and wish the disclaimers weren't there.
The point is, make the game YOU want to play. Make yourself happy first, and if others want to buy your work, that's great too.
Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 03, 2025, 10:22:32 PMQuote from: BoxCrayonTales on March 02, 2025, 10:17:21 AMI'd like to make my own games, but the more I learn from the history of the hobby the unhappier I become. I'm disheartened, intimidated....
That's sad. Go and make your own games. I sat down and made my first RPG, because there was no game like it in the market. It's a niche game, and it's never going to revolutionize the industry, but I made the game that I wanted to play.
My only regret is that I put a content advisory i the first couple modules, because I was selling it on DriveThru. I think it would have gotten pulled without the notice for not being PC. I since then unburdened myself from DriveThru, and wish the disclaimers weren't there.
The point is, make the game YOU want to play. Make yourself happy first, and if others want to buy your work, that's great too.
What game did you design?
Quote from: Sacrificial Lamb on March 04, 2025, 01:55:27 PMQuote from: Cathode Ray on March 03, 2025, 10:22:32 PMstuff
What game did you design?
It's called Radical High. It's about life as teens in the 1980s. Not just teens investigating stranger things lurking around (although it's designed to play that way), just regular 80s high school kids. It's the kind of game I wanted to play.
Physical editions are on eBay if you use keywords "Radical High RPG".
Quote from: Cathode Ray on March 04, 2025, 02:29:14 PMIt's called Radical High. It's about life as teens in the 1980s. Not just teens investigating stranger things lurking around (although it's designed to play that way), just regular 80s high school kids. It's the kind of game I wanted to play.
You should totally adapt that into a video game. Somebody made a video game titled "Class of '09" and it was pretty popular. It even got an animated pilot episode.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on February 27, 2025, 12:21:49 PMQuote from: blackstone on February 27, 2025, 11:44:33 AMWho is he and why should I care?
He puts out Lore videos on D&D, second to AJ Picket.
5e Lore? Like how now all elves are african american women?
Quote from: MerrillWeathermay on February 28, 2025, 07:37:59 PMEsper says he will still play and support 5e --he just ins't going to shill for WOTC
his channel was supported by WOTC, at least to some degree, for a long time
rumor on the street is that WOTC has told the top 5e content YT guys that they won't be getting sponsorships, advertising support, bot views, fake subs, etc. going forward, and rebellion is brewing
in other words, struggling Hasbro is cutting off the gravy train
or at least that is the rumor
It's like our very own USAID scandal!
Quote from: RPGPundit on March 06, 2025, 03:15:13 PMIt's like our very own USAID scandal!
Lol.
I don't think this is nearly as confirmed as the various USAID hard-to-believe-it-isn't-a-parody events are. If there were some leak or official confirmation that would be another thing; perhaps there is or will be.