D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[TiQuinn]

And that means you deserve to be made fun of?

WotC wasn't making fun of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

WotC wasn't making fun of them.

Clearly not a universally-shared opinion.

 

[Remathilis]

Consider the most recent dust up with the 50th anniversary book, from someone who is currently a "senior designer/product lead" for D&D:

'It never occurred to me l’d rouse the ire of the grognards. It’s obvious now that I look back on it, but I just don’t take those critiques seriously even now. I consider those people not worth listening to, so I didn’t anticipate their “outrage".'

To be completely clear--I am not saying anything about the content of complaints people made about the 50th anniversary book. I do think there is some oversensitivity, some amount of looking for things to whine about.

But at the same time if a self-described grognard feels they are looked down upon or considered out of the times or...not worth listening to...by WotC and the 5e community more broadly. That isn't entirely in their head.

Yeah, that was made about the intro to the OD&D history book and the complaints were that Gary said some rather offensive things, and that shouldn't be representative of what the game is. The grognards in question were people who said "how dare you say someone is sexist because they say sexist things?" So I gotta agree with WotC on this. I don't think it would have been a good idea to republish those things without commentary.

So if that's the best you got, I'm sticking with my conclusion.

 

[Remathilis]

Not a fan of mockery in any context, personally.

D&D. Serious Business .

I'm going to take it you are not a fan of Hackmaster parodying AD&D then? Because Thaco is about on par with Hackmaster's mockery of OS D&D, right down to percentile ability scores and nuclear winter fireball.

 

[Remathilis]

What about that "I'm a monster" ad campaign when 4e was spinning up?

Yeah, it was laughing at gnomes, the joke race of D&D, getting put in the MM with all the actual dangerous monsters. The actual books treated them with respect.

4e might have made some missteps, but mocking gnomes isn't one of them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D. Serious Business .

I'm going to take it you are not a fan of Hackmaster parodying AD&D then? Because Thaco is about on par with Hackmaster's mockery of OS D&D, right down to percentile ability scores and nuclear winter fireball.

I suppose I didn't feel targeted that time, and Hackmaster actually had a lot of interesting and cool ideas. I never got the impression that any level of contempt or any value judgement was implicit in Kenzerco's rules.

What can I say? I'm a complicated guy.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, it was laughing at gnomes, the joke race of D&D, getting put in the MM with all the actual dangerous monsters. The actual books treated them with respect.

4e might have made some missteps, but mocking gnomes isn't one of them.

Gnome fans seemed not to appreciate it.

 

[Remathilis]

I suppose I didn't feel targeted that time, and Hackmaster actually had a lot if interesting and cool ideas. I never got the impression that any level of contempt or any value judgement was implicit in Kenzerco's rules.

What can I say? I'm a complicated guy.

Yeah, it's only mockery when it comes from a company you don't like and will use anything they do as a cudgel against them

Not that complicated at all, actually.

 

[Remathilis]

Gnome fans seemed not to appreciate it.

Both of them were devastated until PHB 2 came out and made them playable again less than a year later. Complaint can be directed to @Snarf Zagyg

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah, it's only mockery when it comes from a company you don't like and will use anything they do as a cudgel against them

Not that complicated at all, actually.

Hackmaster was also more than 20 years ago, and Kenzerco was never the same level of influence as WotC. I've become more sensitive about these things as I get older and the "jokes" keep piling on and IMO sometimes grow more mean-spirited. Maybe I should have had more of a problem with it back then?