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I said I like and use digital tools in the post you quoted, so no, I don't want it to stay as it is. I also don't want to lose what we have.

D&D typically dodges this little moral quandry by saying that the torture-plane is essentially created by the evil people themselves (cuz they like torture, and made a place where all the evil people go to torture each other).

And in 20 years, will you still have that access to that content? With corporate shenanigans, with edition transformations, with, idk, a world where net neutrality is gutted and every website we access outside of the walled garden of our internet provider costs a fee? In a world where you're a...

This kind of thought process always makes me a little sad. One of the virtues of an actual book is that other people can use it. "I have paid my money and gotten my use," sure, but your friends? Your family? How many of us found D&D by poking around bookshelves or learning at the table with an...

There's this kind of weird blind spot in the game that occurs with any timescale longer than about 24 hours. Because of the pacing of a lot of the official adventures, the game in practice doesn't actually want to pay attention to this timescale very much, but with other modes of gameplay that...

Well, hard in that it takes work and careful attention to details. It's part of why a good sensitivity consultant is absolutely worth their paycheck. :-)

Sure, but that's where an individual group can do things that a mass publisher can't. D&D-branded official content should avoid putting tables in a situation where they have to discuss editing or removing or working around the Bad Stuff in order to have fun (if only because people who don't want...

What's so deeply frustrating to me is that this culture shift is so piecemeal and incomplete. Like, I don't want to get into specific politics, but if you tune into practically ANY country's election coverage these days, you're likely to see proud bigots and predators who try to and often...

Pacing mechanics are useful for this. 4e had a few abilities that worked differently when you were bloodied, creating a sense of escalation as a combat goes on. The Escalation Die in 13th age is a good idea. Monster mechanics like villain actions from Flee Mortals or Mythic monsters from...

Just as a counter-example, my Dark Souls-themed gothic Snow White game has four players, and I've calibrated encounters to a VERY high level of challenge, and they eke out a narrow win each time, and they're loving it. Interesting fights, sure, but the threat of death is a lot of fun for them...

I think it'd be kind of cool to see the hexblade as a Fighter archetype that tapped into some Warlock vibes. Less about the pact, more about the curse - the OG hexblade was more of a gishy anti-paladin, a half-caster or eldirtch knight with a gloomy spell list whose most iconic abilities were a...

My thought has been that Carceri is a prison like Pandemonium is an asylum. It's not about breaking the law, it's about exerting power over others. Not a modern prison, just a hole in the ground to dump the multiverse's malconents, where they can all hurt each other instead of the rest of...

Yeah, I think "coy" is a nice way to put the attitude that D&D DMGs have had toward this. Especially, I think, the "running" side of things. DMGs have been more weighted to the "preparation" side, typically. Part of this is probably a bit of unstated "whatever works for your table!", which is...

Agreed! Also, I think the instructions are really two different play modes, so they're really talking about two different things. First, you have the "preparing the adventure" mode. That's a play mode that the DM usually does on their own. Imagining the arc of the coming session, creating some...

It is pretty contradictory as written. IMO, (1) is more explicit than it should be. "How might the adventure play out?" is a more useful angle than "How does the adventure play out?" And "Determine the potential encounters or events that could happen to the characters, from the beginning...

I'm broadly a fan, and very glad that they retreated from the "widespread acceptance" angle (for reasons similar to Pointy Hat!). I do lament a continual loss of diversity in the tiefling since 2e. "Something else" is a broad category, and ties into the social shame angle - something too awful...

Celestial is a good change for the sphinx. The D&D sphinx has been a divine protector of lost holy sites since 4e, and 5e inherited the 4e lore more than the lore before it. In this case, that is definitely a gain, since the 3e/2e/1e lore is oddly focused on unwanted sexual advances for...

Getting specific about what we "call" it is an exercise in marketing psychology. "3.5," after all, was coined in an era where tech language was starting to be embraced by the culture at large. "Essentials" was 4e's appeal to folks who felt its design wasn't true to D&D's roots. "One D&D" seems...

How high does the barrier to entry to play D&D need to be? I'm personally of the opinion that D&D should be fairly easy to play effectively. Not much to learn. Not much to discuss. Not much of a meta. I prefer an accessible game, a game that largely prioritizes broad accessibility over...

If so, that might be nice! Avoids the awkward "half your maximum hit points" wording, and if they're using the mechanic a lot, I totally see a reason for that. Bloodied was an unfortunate casualty of the HP wars, and it deserves a comeback.