WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

I don't recall taking my argument to the logical extreme. That leap was all your own, and I don't appreciate my preferences being referred to as "stupid".

Okay. After cooling down, taking some time to think things over, I think I'm ready to start this over.

I stand by my statement. However, in retrospect, I probably would have worded it differently. I was overly hostile and should have pushed back on your statement in a more civil way, and not make you feel like I didn't respect you.

Let's go over your statement:

I value setting consistency over raw playability.

You admit that you think setting consistency is more important than "raw playability". Unless I misunderstand you, "setting consistency" to you means "no retcons or rethinking older settings, unless they add to the setting, in which case I don't care".

And I understand why you value "setting consistency". I really do. I think it's often nice to have. If a future edition published an Eberron book that said that the Mourning was caused by Mordenkainen having a wizard battle with Urza, I would be more than a bit miffed because a huge part of Eberron that should stay consistent is that the Mourning is never given a canon cause (and the additional complaint that I think that would be a bad explanation). Hell, I would be upset if my version of what caused the Mourning was made canon, not because I think my answer is bad, but because I love that Eberron has "mystery boxes" that the DM is required to fill. Setting consistency should be respected, to an extent.

But here's why you're wrong. And I don't mean "I disagree with your opinion" wrong, I mean provably, absolutely wrong.

D&D is a game. It's meant to be played, not just have its lore and books discussed and read. "Playability" is a requirement for the game. It's necessary. It's not something that's nice to have or annoying when you don't have it, like with setting consistency. When you don't have "playability", you can't have a game. You can have a game and settings without "setting consistency". They aren't necessary, they're just often nice to have.

Playability is necessary. It's non-negotiable. Setting consistency is, whether you like it or not, negotiable. You can have a game and a world without it.

And, as was said earlier, you can fairly easily have both. They're not in conflict. The only person making it seem like they are is you.

Sorry for the overly-dismissive and rude original comment. I hope this helps better explain my view and why I reacted so harshly to your statement.

 

[Scribe]

That sounds like a trap to me, but I'll bite. They would need to find a way to do it respectfully for today's market, but otherwise I have no issue. For the record, I would likely have the same reaction about gaming material based on any other religion. It just needs to be done respectfully.

Nah man, nah. I 100000000000000% dont want to bump into Jesus in my game.

 

[humble minion]

Nah man, nah. I 100000000000000% dont want to bump into Jesus in my game.

And that's fair. If you don't want to, your game shouldn't include stuff like that. But other people might (and there was a recent 3pp bible-based adventure where you did in fact hang around with Jesus).

This is all stuff that should be talked about in session zero, imho. At the end of the day, 'handled in a respectful manner' means respecting the people at the table, and all tables are different.

 

[Scribe]

And that's fair. If you don't want to, your game shouldn't include stuff like that. But other people might (and there was a recent 3pp bible-based adventure where you did in fact hang around with Jesus).

This is all stuff that should be talked about in session zero, imho. At the end of the day, 'handled in a respectful manner' means respecting the people at the table, and all tables are different.

Yeah, I've seen that....but I just dont think it can even be discussed on this forum without it going way off the rails, so I'll bow out of that line.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

That sounds like a trap to me, but I'll bite. They would need to find a way to do it respectfully for today's market, but otherwise I have no issue. For the record, I would likely have the same reaction about gaming material based on any other religion. It just needs to be done respectfully.

I understand your opinion. However, I think "respectfully" is an awfully difficult bar to achieve when it comes to a religion that is still being practiced in the modern day, and any inclusion of them will be controversial. Especially if they're given listed alignments, which could go poorly disastrously easily.

I think it's better to just avoid it. There's no need to tickle the dragon's tail.

Safer, sure, and I don't ever expect them to do it, but it wouldn't bother me personally.

Okay, but "it doesn't bother me" isn't the metric used to measure whether or not something should be included in a book. Neither is "because I like it". Whether or not something that could cause controversy is included in a D&D book typically has stronger justifications than that.

 

[Scribe]

Whether or not something that could cause controversy is included in a D&D book typically has stronger justifications than that.

Not only that, but what is gained with the inclusion of "real world religion X". In today's age, with today's temperaments, and today's mentalities, I cannot see how there is any way the gains are worth it. I'm not playing real life in a game of D&D.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Elon Musk is picking a fight with Apple.

Apple is one of Twitter's major advertisers, having spent $48 million dollars on the platform in 2021.

Genius!

 

[Faolyn]

And that's fair. If you don't want to, your game shouldn't include stuff like that. But other people might (and there was a recent 3pp bible-based adventure where you did in fact hang around with Jesus).

This is all stuff that should be talked about in session zero, imho. At the end of the day, 'handled in a respectful manner' means respecting the people at the table, and all tables are different.

If you buy a bible-based game, you know you are buying a bible-based game. You are choosing to buy a bible-based game. You know what you're getting when you buy it.

There is nothing about Planescape that inherently says "will contain your actual, real-world god."

You include a real-world god, you will upset people, even if you intend nothing but complete respect. Better to just stick with the fantasy gods and, if you really need to include a real-world god, write a 3pp product for it that actually tells you what you're going to get.

 

[Gradine]

I like Numenera, but I'm not really a fan of Monte Cook's prosaic writing style and some of his design choices, particularly with Invisible Sun. He tends to favor a lot of style over substance, especially when he names things in his games.

I like everything about Numenera except for everything related to its mechanics.

 

[Malmuria]

The PS supplement On Hallowed Ground took up placing real world pantheons among the planes, to the point of giving them alignments. For example, they give Shiva a NE alignment and put him in the negative energy plane, which makes nominal sense in great wheel logic but totally misunderstands the role of Shiva in the Hindu pantheon. Like with a lot of 2e products, it is writing about non Western cultures but not writing for people from those cultures (let alone writing by them). And I'm not even religious!