Quote from: tenbones on December 22, 2021, 12:08:38 PM
Again, the concern with WotC D&D brand is like complaining about not getting on the shit-rocket after it's already blasted off. (and you're standing there getting blasted by the Shit Rocket shaking your fist at it instead of getting out the blast radius.

The rocket has left the pad, people. Let it go.

There are plenty of older and better rocket parts laying around to build your own rocket and fly to BETTER BUILT WORLDS(tm)*

*this post is sponsored by Weyland-Yutani Corp

Personally I'm not worried. WOTC hasn't produced much of anything I want or need since 2001ish and my lack of purchases for their wares has reflected that.

Quote from: tenbones on December 22, 2021, 12:08:38 PM
Again, the concern with WotC D&D brand is like complaining about not getting on the shit-rocket after it's already blasted off. (and you're standing there getting blasted by the Shit Rocket shaking your fist at it instead of getting out the blast radius.

The rocket has left the pad, people. Let it go.

There are plenty of older and better rocket parts laying around to build your own rocket and fly to BETTER BUILT WORLDS(tm)*

  What tenbones said, with the additional notes that:

a) After how they've handled recent returns to older material, there's no hope for any of the IP to which they cling like a paranoid dragon;
b) Complaining about their stuff is just as likely to encourage them to double-down and use the complaints to sell to their new audience--"See how much the deplorables dislike it!"--as it is to cause a change. "Disliked by Pundit" may become the new "Banned in Boston."

   The last money WotC got from me was nearly three years ago, and that was for POD reprints of vintage 1E and 2E items. I've only bought one 5E product, back in 2016, and I regret it.

Yeah, agree with tenbones. Well said. It's unfortunate that WotC is balefiring stuff though. Trying to wipe out o' existance and memory.

Quote from: Willmark on December 22, 2021, 07:27:13 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 20, 2021, 10:51:55 AM
That said, in practical terms, this has no effect on my gaming and seems pretty minor in general. I realized I don't even own a copy of Volo's despite having played and DMed 5e for years. My son has a copy that I've borrowed a few times. If I had played 2e, I think the renaming would have had a more direct impact on my gaming in that I'd have to learn the new name mapping when referencing official material (i.e. "They're fighting a demon - OK, now I have to look under 'T'.") -- not to mention having to purchase additional products to get the material cut from the core rules.

Your stance is that renamed and relocated material is equivalent to excising existing text from various forms is equivalent or worse?

No, I'm not arguing that generality. I was speaking about the potential effect on my gaming of two specific cases: (a) the paragraphs cut from Volo's in 5e, and (b) the renaming and removing from core rules of demons and devils in 2e compared to 1e.

If it was the exact same material affected, then bowdlerization of an existing work is absolutely worse than sanitizing material in a new edition. But if comparing cases, it also matters how major and how central the material is. Even if you feel differently about the effect of these two specific cases, there presumably exists some line where the difference in material changes your opinion. A single deleted sentence in some supplement compared to sweeping changes in the core books, say.

To take a specific hypothetical case (c): suppose that in a future D&D 6th edition, the dwarf race were considered offensive to real-life Little People, and so were renamed as the Moradain, cut out of the core rules, and put in a supplemental book of expanded races like Tabaxi and Goliaths. Would you be saying "Well, that's not that big a deal -- what they did to Volo's in 2021 was far more important." ??

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on December 22, 2021, 01:02:16 PM
  What tenbones said.

Quote from: Thorn Drumheller on December 22, 2021, 01:09:26 PM
Yeah, agree with tenbones.

Wise board.

Quote from: tenbones on December 22, 2021, 12:08:38 PM
Again, the concern with WotC D&D brand is like complaining about not getting on the shit-rocket after it's already blasted off. (and you're standing there getting blasted by the Shit Rocket shaking your fist at it instead of getting out the blast radius.

The rocket has left the pad, people. Let it go.

There are plenty of older and better rocket parts laying around to build your own rocket and fly to BETTER BUILT WORLDS(tm)*

Quite. If gamers stop being a captive audience, they will either have to start competing again, or they will go out of business (and good riddance).

Hm, does this mean that purely evil beholders and mind-flayers are free IP now?

I don't want to come off as being unsympathetic.

I DO GET IT.

But dear God, nothing made me feel better than realizing that I never lost anything I loved about "D&D" that I hadn't already lost, when I was working on writing for it in 3.x - and that happened *YEARS* after the fact. I've been GMing D&D since the late 70's, but I, like *all* of you have had the displeasure of watching literally *everything* about my nerdy hobbies get poisoned by this ideology.

What I realized is we need to get through the grieving of what our feelings are about where the Brand is... because that's NOT *OUR* D&D. It never was, it never has been, and they've been telling us this from the start. Regardless of what Pundit says - or tried to do - if it wasn't clear then, it should be wholeheartedly crystal clear to everyone reading this: THEY DO NOT WANT YOU AS THEIR CUSTOMERS.

Nothing prevents you, or I, from running whatever we liked about D&D - whatever edition(s)_that might be. Just because a new edition comes out doesn't mean "this" is the only legitimate brand of D&D. Hell we've had tons of threads across many forums for years during edition wars, which definitely polarized the audiences - but to me this was a good thing.

If you liked 4e over every edition of D&D before or after - GOOD. Go play that. 4e stands as a perfect example of what I'm talking about, since it was rejected, largely, (regardless of the reasons) and it forced people to really think about what they actually liked and *wanted* from "D&D". It helped ignite the OSR, it caused many people disenfranchised with the system of 4e to look elsewhere.

We're faced with the same thing now, only this irrational desire to cling to the Brand over the "essence" of what you truly love about D&D, causes us to miss the point. Yes, people love certainty, people love being tribal - but at some point, you need to call the balls and strikes of reality.

D&D isn't a single system, or packet of rules. It's not what is dictated to us by a bunch of woke assholes at WotC, It's what we decide is what we want to serve up at our tables. I'm running Graybox Forgotten Realms, using Savage Worlds Pathfinder rules, and 90% of my reference materials, rules, and tables are coming directly from 1e/2e Forgotten Realms sources, which I modify to Savage Worlds rules.

It's giving my and my players the "D&D Experience" that we want. Again, all the material that came out post 3e is largely (not entirely) dreck.

I could this with a host of other systems, and nothing prevents anyone else from doing it. Is that not what we did in the early editions - we just called them "House Rules". This is a return to that mindset. DIY - because WotC isn't going to do it for you.

I'm running 1e Forgotten Realms - with even more t&a - using 5e rules. Also Primeval Thule and Odyssey of the Dragonlords, both 3rd party settings. WotC messing with 5e fluff does not affect me at all since I only use the crunch. I do have a problem with them messing with the core crunch though, which became a thing with Tasha's and causes problems using online tools. I guess the best thing would be for them to make a super woke 6e and treat 5e as a legacy system. The online tools are all third party so are not likely to go away.

Quote from: S'mon on December 23, 2021, 11:24:20 AM
I'm running 1e Forgotten Realms - with even more t&a - using 5e rules. Also Primeval Thule and Odyssey of the Dragonlords, both 3rd party settings. WotC messing with 5e fluff does not affect me at all since I only use the crunch. I do have a problem with them messing with the core crunch though, which became a thing with Tasha's and causes problems using online tools. I guess the best thing would be for them to make a super woke 6e and treat 5e as a legacy system. The online tools are all third party so are not likely to go away.

By not calling 50th Anniversary Woke D&D "6E", they will push Woke D&D as the update for 5E, and the 3rd Party Online Tools will implement the new update.

Quote from: S'mon on December 23, 2021, 11:24:20 AM
I'm running 1e Forgotten Realms - with even more t&a

For a more upbeat note, let's hear more about this.

Quote from: Thornhammer on December 23, 2021, 03:56:00 PM

Quote from: S'mon on December 23, 2021, 11:24:20 AM
I'm running 1e Forgotten Realms - with even more t&a

For a more upbeat note, let's hear more about this.

Well I feel it's well within the Ed Greenwood spirit.  Plenty of voluptuous sorceresses, virtuous paladinettes, buxom Roguesses and such. One PC fell in love with a Red Sonja expy NPC and got her pregnant before he got captured by the Tsathoggua cultists and turned into a gibbering abomination.
Game campaign pages in sig.

Edit: there is some beef cake for the female players too, though I find running the Romance Novel Cover Heathcliff/D'Arcy types a lot tougher, I have to actually think about what women want (generally, Colin Firth).

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 23, 2021, 03:13:01 PM

Quote from: S'mon on December 23, 2021, 11:24:20 AM
I'm running 1e Forgotten Realms - with even more t&a - using 5e rules. Also Primeval Thule and Odyssey of the Dragonlords, both 3rd party settings. WotC messing with 5e fluff does not affect me at all since I only use the crunch. I do have a problem with them messing with the core crunch though, which became a thing with Tasha's and causes problems using online tools. I guess the best thing would be for them to make a super woke 6e and treat 5e as a legacy system. The online tools are all third party so are not likely to go away.

By not calling 50th Anniversary Woke D&D "6E", they will push Woke D&D as the update for 5E, and the 3rd Party Online Tools will implement the new update.

Sadly, I believe you are right. I think I will aim to have my 5e campaigns ready to conclude late 23/early 24 so if necessary I can switch easily to OSR and Mini Six. I have plenty of players happy with whatever I run (partial exception for 4e!)

Quote from: tenbones on December 23, 2021, 10:50:02 AM
If you liked 4e over every edition of D&D before or after - GOOD. Go play that. 4e stands as a perfect example of what I'm talking about, since it was rejected, largely, (regardless of the reasons) and it forced people to really think about what they actually liked and *wanted* from "D&D". It helped ignite the OSR, it caused many people disenfranchised with the system of 4e to look elsewhere.

We're faced with the same thing now, only this irrational desire to cling to the Brand over the "essence" of what you truly love about D&D, causes us to miss the point. Yes, people love certainty, people love being tribal - but at some point, you need to call the balls and strikes of reality.

D&D isn't a single system, or packet of rules. It's not what is dictated to us by a bunch of woke assholes at WotC, It's what we decide is what we want to serve up at our tables. I'm running Graybox Forgotten Realms, using Savage Worlds Pathfinder rules, and 90% of my reference materials, rules, and tables are coming directly from 1e/2e Forgotten Realms sources, which I modify to Savage Worlds rules.

It's giving my and my players the "D&D Experience" that we want. Again, all the material that came out post 3e is largely (not entirely) dreck.

I might have different tastes, but I agree completely about lack of brand loyalty. In the past, I had no loyalty to TSR or Gary Gygax, and would do whatever I wanted. Currently, I have no loyalty to WotC. If game material is good, then I'll use it - if not, I'll adapt it or just use something else. I've run games using a mix of 1e, 3e, and 5e material using the core 5e system. Currently, I've been running in a homebrew setting with a bunch of differences from standard D&D.

Quote from: jhkim on December 22, 2021, 01:52:22 PM

Quote from: Willmark on December 22, 2021, 07:27:13 AM

Quote from: jhkim on December 20, 2021, 10:51:55 AM
That said, in practical terms, this has no effect on my gaming and seems pretty minor in general. I realized I don't even own a copy of Volo's despite having played and DMed 5e for years. My son has a copy that I've borrowed a few times. If I had played 2e, I think the renaming would have had a more direct impact on my gaming in that I'd have to learn the new name mapping when referencing official material (i.e. "They're fighting a demon - OK, now I have to look under 'T'.") -- not to mention having to purchase additional products to get the material cut from the core rules.

Your stance is that renamed and relocated material is equivalent to excising existing text from various forms is equivalent or worse?

No, I'm not arguing that generality. I was speaking about the potential effect on my gaming of two specific cases: (a) the paragraphs cut from Volo's in 5e, and (b) the renaming and removing from core rules of demons and devils in 2e compared to 1e.

If it was the exact same material affected, then bowdlerization of an existing work is absolutely worse than sanitizing material in a new edition. But if comparing cases, it also matters how major and how central the material is. Even if you feel differently about the effect of these two specific cases, there presumably exists some line where the difference in material changes your opinion. A single deleted sentence in some supplement compared to sweeping changes in the core books, say.

To take a specific hypothetical case (c): suppose that in a future D&D 6th edition, the dwarf race were considered offensive to real-life Little People, and so were renamed as the Moradain, cut out of the core rules, and put in a supplemental book of expanded races like Tabaxi and Goliaths. Would you be saying "Well, that's not that big a deal -- what they did to Volo's in 2021 was far more important." ??

Lemme ask a simple question.  What is in the 5e Volo's book that wasn't in previous works? Is there something that is only in the 5e book that is new being removed?