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I don't disagree that the portrayal or orcs has been problematic. I was querying the specific claim. Where does it literally justify killing orcs on site by saying they are unredeemable monsters?

Where does it say that? Because Orcs haven't been universally evil, never mind unredeemable, for decades, if ever.

Use first. I'm now at a point where I have enough 'good' RPG material that even if I did nothing else but run games for the rest of my life I still wouldn't use it all. So I won't buy any more physical product unless I can see myself actually using it in the near future. That said, it's...

The trailer looks good. That premise, however, is spectacularly stupid.

It has been a long time since I ran 3.5e. Here's roughly where we were at the end: Characters could be created using the PHB only. When using Eberron (which was most of the time), add the Expanded Psionics Handbook and the main Eberron Campaign Setting book. (If I were doing it again, I would...

I don't use all-evil orcs (or, actually, alignment at all). But I'll take a crack at it... Human societies have long grappled with how to deal with those who commit crimes. In the borderlands, most societies have hit upon exile as their punishment of choice. Of course, a fair number of those...

It does occur to me that the answer to getting a more nuanced take on just about any of the species may require only a single, simple change: drop alignment. Or, at the very least, drop it from the Monster Manual - individual monsters and characters appearing in adventures could still have it...

Thanks. Never say never, though. At the moment I'm not playing mostly because I don't have a group, and don't have any time to find a group. That's not a particularly big deal. I'm also really bothered by some of the stuff we've been discussing, but that's not unique either - in previous cases...

But how can you ever be sure?

I reject the notion that it's a linear scale. There are lots of things they could have done, moving in a variety of directions. As I said, Eberron strikes a good balance. It's also in "the middle", but it's a different middle from the one being used here.

At present I'm doubtful that there ever will be a next game. In light of recent conversations on a couple of other threads, I'm really not sure I'll ever feel confident returning. But if I do, it's almost 100% sure that I'll use some version of D&D, be that the 2014 version, the 2024 version...

So literally the only possibilities are "unthinking drones", "pit fiend bakers", or exactly what they've done with now? I don't believe that. I especially don't believe that when I look at Eberron.

I don't blame them for trying, either. Unfortunately, I consider their efforts to be an abject failure, worse than if they'd done nothing at all.

I find I can't get past the partial nature of the fixes. As long as they took the view that everything was strictly fictional and had absolutely no bearing on the real world, I didn't have an issue - orcs were orcs, not a stand-in for anyone in the real world, so depict them however you want...

I disagree. In fact, I think that's the opposite of the truth - you must design with your heart and your mind. If you start heart-first, you still need to marry it up with solid math or you get something gloriously attractive and completely unusable. If you start mind-first, you still need to...

I don't disagree with anything you say here. I was just noting the one example I'm aware of of an edition doing it well. (And, actually, I'll take the opportunity now to note that this is one of the biggest steps backwards that was taken with 5e, an edition that I generally do like.)

That I would be opposed to. I started playing back when I was 12; I wouldn't want the game to become something I wouldn't be happy introducing to my 12-year-old nephew (or my children in a few years). I like to think there's room for the sort of "mature themes" material I was envisaging. In...

The systems in 4e worked well. I wasn't a fan of that edition as a whole, but that bit of it (and especially the encounter building systems) were highlights.

This. Hasbro might be persuaded to part with D&D, if they find themselves in enough trouble and someone makes them a sufficiently good offer. More likely, I think, is that the same company that might make that offer would simply buy out the whole of Hasbro (D&D isn't the only valuable IP they...

I'm afraid I don't. I'm not sure it would be helpful anyway, as various factors complicate the numbers in odd ways - 4e was significantly impacted by DDI (which almost certainly cost a lot of book sales, brought in lots of money from subscriptions, but was also very expensive to develop and...