WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Cordwainer Fish]

People see animal traits of any kind and it's either anime cat girls or full on furries with no room for any other ideas.

They need to read more C. J. Cherryh.

 

[Maxperson]

okay but what do they you know do? do they hang out with druids?

the lord of t-rexs would be horrible to fight but also super badass

They look out for the interests of their species. If someone was threatening a ton of dogs in some way, the Dog Lord would know about it and fix the problem.

 

[Incenjucar]

In all seriousness, there's a ton of possibilities when you have beings who are capable of talking to and somewhat commanding a whole kind of creature and who are motivated narrowly to help those creatures. A lot of evil plots can revolve around despoiling an environment - even something like a sewer if you want to bring in the Rat Lord - and the extreme focus of the help means that you get an NPC who will quickly step away from the story, so things can stay compact. Also a great way to weave something like familiars, werecreatures, and so on into an adventure.

 

[Maxperson]

In all seriousness, there's a ton of possibilities when you have beings who are capable of talking to and somewhat commanding a whole kind of creature and who are motivated narrowly to help those creatures. A lot of evil plots can revolve around despoiling an environment - even something like a sewer if you want to bring in the Rat Lord - and the extreme focus of the help means that you get an NPC who will quickly step away from the story, so things can stay compact. Also a great way to weave something like familiars, werecreatures, and so on into an adventure.

Or even with them as the antagonists furthering the goals of their species against civilization in some way.

 

[Marc Radle]

Sorry for what has become a bit of a thread derail ! The main point I was trying to make was that many of the books Kobold Press produces (including Deep Magic, Tome of Heroes, Vault of Magic, Tome of Beasts, etc.) are general D&D releases not Midgard specific

 

[Voadam]

Sorry for what has become a bit of a thread derail ! The main point I was trying to make was that many of the books Kobold Press produces (including Deep Magic, Tome of Heroes, Vault of Magic, Tome of Beasts, etc.) are general D&D releases not Midgard specific

Its true that things like the Creature Codex have specific set asides for information on the creatures in Midgard clearly separated from the generic creature infromation, and so I can see the intention to be a generic sourcebook with some Midgard add ons the way the 3e Monster Manual III had "in Faerun" and "in Eberron" sections for a number of monster entries, but I still mostly think of them as Midgard stuff. I generally think of them as Midgard specific because of inclusions of things like the Emperor of the Gouls as a unique NPC entry and the whole Darakhul Ghoul imperium. Kobold has done a bunch of stuff like books on feats or class options that I have not delved into but I would assume are generally setting agnostic, but a lot of kobold stuff I have has a lot of well integrated Midgard flavor to them, particularly the more descriptive they are.

This isn't a negative for me, I regularly feel free to use setting stuff in other settings if they feel appropriate like using Ravenloft monsters when I want a gothic horror monster in a non-Ravenloft game, or using Iron Ghouls in my 5e conversion Iron Gods game when there is a necromancer with different ghoul minions. I feel the deep Midgard connections, while still not being incompatible with other 5e D&D, makes them richer products to draw from.

I have for instance used the Midgard gnome-Baba Yaga story as a fun add-in part of when I ran the Pathfinder Reign of Winter (Baba Yaga heavily focused) Adventure Path in a non-Midgard setting.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Cutting things from this. I'm tired of you twisting things.

No. Then it goes on to point out that all of the cosmologies use the planes unless you change them. Then it lists the cosmologies. Then it talks about planar travel. Then it talks about planar portals. Then it talks about what each plane is about. Then it talks about other planes. Then the known worlds of the material plane. And then it's done.


At no point does it list planes and say, these are for the great wheel OR these are for the great wheel and nothing else(which they wouldn't because they've already told you they are all for all the cosmologies).

I can explain this a fifth or sixth time, but would it make a difference? It doesn't just "list the planes" it lists the planes... of the Great Wheel. I've explained this, again and again. It doesn't have to say "this is specifically for the Great Wheel" because it presents the Great Wheel as though it was the only version that actually mattered.

Bytopia the plane is not great wheel specific. Bytopia the name is what the great wheel calls the plane that is present in all 5e cosmologies.

And it is present in all 5e Cosmologies because, just like the Plane of Fire or Mechanus, it is presented as true even though it isn't true for the World Axis. It is forcing it to be true for every cosmology.

That was not from the world axis. That was from 5e. The elemental chaos exists in 5e's great wheel as well. It now circles outside of the inner planes "wheel."

And this is the entire problem. It is such a problem that you can't even seem to understand the extent this ruins the World Axis.

 

[Chaosmancer]

When I was 13/14 I had already read Hiroshima with full colour photos age 10/11 at middle school.

1992 we had holocaust videos in History class and eastern front. Books in our high school Library included Battle of Berlin including what the red army got up to. I turned 14 in 92. Also did classics at school.

Year before I started D&D.


I'm not saying it belongs in game but more what I was getting taught at school. 1991 aged 12 we covered apartheid in social studies.

Do I need to explain the difference between a classroom and a game of DnD between friends?

1993 I was reading Wilber Smith aged 14/15.

Do I need to explain the difference between a book and a game of DnD again?

So yeah 13 year olds are probably a bit more resilient than you think.

Resiliency doesn't matter. That's not the point I'm making.

 

[humble minion]

They would make great warlock patrons too.

Kobold Press (it's not a thread derail this time, I swear!) did an Animal Lord warlock patron in Tome of Heroes. It's pretty good. If I was running it I'd probably allow a tiny bit more customisation of spells to specific animals. KP assigns patron spells based on whether a patron is a land, air, or sea creature, which is pretty reasonable given their space limitations, but it's one of those things I'd be flexible with at table. If your patron is Brother Ox you could probably talk me into having some of the minotaur horns spells from Deep Magic, for instance.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I trust them with it more than I trust someone else to decide what they should be trusted with.

I work with pre-teens. I don't.

I don't know. Maybe not. But you know what? That is a good reason for us to consider, perhaps, having the material with guidance on how it should or shouldn't be used, rather than leaving them to invent it for themselves (which I assure you they'll do anyway) and not have that guidance.

So wait, you don't trust people to decide which material should or shouldn't be in the game. But you DO trust them to provide guidance on how it should be used?

And you can't stop them from doing what they want to do, but that doesn't mean you should encourage it.

I don't even know what you're going for here. Games might have people reacting that way, but what makes you so sure that shallow and fast thoughts are "not the types of things that could benefit anyone"? What are your qualifications, exactly, to be an authority on what could benefit anyone, as opposed to what you think most likely to benefit the people you think are most likely to be playing?

I don't think the evidence is there to support this idea that the way people respond to issues like that would be "noot the types of things that could benefit anyone".

First reaction of many pre-teens when uncomfortable with a subject is to make jokes. Do you think mocking Sexual Assault would be useful?

Many pre-teens, in an attempt to be "mature" lean into the dark, morbid or violent. Do you think THAT would lead to good and beneficial things?

This isn't exactly rocket science here.

I've been watching moral panics come and go for a very long time. in practice, no matter what you personally intend, the entirely predictable outcome of advocating such policies is, in fact, sort of bad.

I don't think "absolutely cannot occur in official materials" is a good stance. "Shouldn't occur all over the place" might be pretty good. "Should only occur in official materials that have some kind of age/suitability warning" seems like a good idea, because we want people to be able to make informed choices. But I don't think keeping things out of official materials really solves the problems you want to solve, and I think it could enable problems we should be very wary about.

As a parent, I am all for making it easy for people considering getting things for their kids to vet the material and understand what they're getting into. But honestly, I trust people who don't think that's important more than I trust people who make sweeping proclamations about what "could benefit anyone".

Uh huh. So, how many books have you seen on shelves labeled "18+ content"? Are we going to have another "Book of Erotic Fantasy" or "Book of Vile Darkness" that we label as "not for kids"?

Meanwhile, what moral panic are you even talking about? There is no moral panic here. There is a discussion on what is appropriate for a general public release. There is no "predictable outcome" here. There is already content we do not depict in official Dungeons and Dragons materials. This is also specifically something that has ALREADY BEEN REMOVED. So, where is the problem? What is the moral panic about discussing the reasons something has already happened?

You are trying to make this discussion into something it absolutely is not.