Search results

The justification in D&D for using violence against villains is almost invariably because they pose a threat to the PCs or to allies who the PCs are protecting. That's the justification for almost all violence, in history and in fiction. It's not peculiar to any culture or ideology - it's a...

Not sure I see the problem with the Ishtar illustration. Those features could easily be ancient Sumerian. As for the Egyptians, I guess is depends on what era those pharoahs were supposed to represent. The Ptolemaic dynasty was Macedonian/Hellenic. But that's probably not a good representation...

This shows how varied the campaign settings and experiences have been for D&D. Because I have honestly never read or played in a campaign where dwarves and elves colonize the lands of humanoids. On the contrary, dwarves are typically clinging to fading glory in ancient halls, resisting the...

Every culture regards foreigners they feel threatened by that way. The Romans said the same of the Celts. The Persians said the same of the Scythians. The Egyptians the same about the Libyans. The Chinese the same about the Mongols and the Koreans. The history of humanity is one of dread and...

I'm not denying that. I'm pointing out that there were other public anxieties around D&D and other entertainment properties at the time, all with some variation on the themes that young people can't distinguish fantasy from reality, escapism is unhealthy, and depictions of violence make people...

Is there any more evidence that D&D causes racism than that it causes satanism, rape, and murder? I'm saying the Satanic panic was only part of the opposition to D&D by parents, schools, etc. in the 80s. Here in Canada, there was little public anxiety over satanism. But there was a backlash...

Do you think WotC's defence of demons and occult magic in D&D should be that people who believe in supernatural evil are dumb and wrong? Because most of the U.S. population (70 per cent) does indeed believe supernatural evil exists, including a lot of people in the populations WotC is trying to...

Here are just some of the historical conquerors of the Levant: Hittites, Egyptians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Crusaders, Turks. Every invasion brought slaughter and oppression. It's not as though the Arabs themselves were welcomed as peaceful liberators when they...

You've never had adventures where the PCs defeat a dragon (other) to defend the dwarven town (in-group)?

Actually, my takeaway is that 90 per cent of the artists for D&D books never read those entries. When have you seen illustrations of hill giants with reddish-brown skin? Or dull orange goblins? Or ogres with blackish-brown skin? Or gnomes with wood brown skin? And contrary to the AD&D...

But isn't "it" essentially monsters, and the purpose they serve in myth and stories? To defeat the monstrous 'other' that threatens the in-group. Remove that from a game like D&D and what you have left is unrecognizable. The line between orcs, ogres, and ettins is pretty arbitrary. To me...

But if that's true of racial essentialism in D&D, then it's true of fantasy violence and demon-worship in the game as well. The presumed inability of players to distinguish between the fantasy world and the real world has been the justification for all of the moral crusades against the game.

Yes, in my experience D&D players solve virtually every problem with lethal force. And in the campaigns I've run with few humanoids, it's evil humans who are put to the sword. You see this even in milqtoast adventures like Lost Mines of Phandelver. The PCs reach Phandalin and hear there are...

Humans tend to be altruistic and compassionate to those in the in-group (typically around 300 people). However, attitudes to those in the out-group are very different. When human communities were struggling just to survive (so for most of our history), rates of intra-group violence were very...

Agreed. That's because they're written with two different audiences in mind - DMs who will be running them at the table, and people reading them as game fiction. From Paizo's POV, it's better than the format be appealing to the second group and that the first group muddles through when it comes...

A considerable portion of Paizo's audience of subscribers (I've heard around half) do not actively play an RPG. And even those who are actively in a game don't use most of the books they purchase. When you consider that a subscriber to the Adventure Path line alone will receive six complete APs...

I'm not a fan of bloat either (you'll note I don't have any player option books in my wish list). But I don't see adventures as bloat. They don't make the game more complex and unwieldy.

No. But heist movies are a genre. And looting a dungeon is pretty much a heist.

1 new DM supplement (monsters, NPCs, downtime, magic items, etc.) 1 campaign in a book (like they have now, but better organized) 6x 64 page adventures covering levels 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12 that can be run independently or strung together into a campaign 1 setting book (Dark Sun >...

I think if WotC were to publish another edition of D&D, it would actually be mechanically simpler than 5E, and lean into PC background and storytelling. That seems to be what most new players coming to the game from streamed games are looking for. One thing that WotC learned from the Next...