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(Trying to avoid making this a political discussion...) I'm curious about the likely commercial effects on TTRPG sales from recently announced tariffs. As a timely example, consider the impending release of the revised 5e Monster Manual; WotC's books for Canadian customers are printed in the...

This concern doesn't seem relevant for the case at hand. WotC can't claim intellectual ownership of Giant Eagles, Celestial or otherwise. You'd have a point if the Celestial Giant Eagles had been renamed.

Well, they're correcting an error. Giant eagles and the like were Magical Beasts in 3e; when 5e didn't include that monster type, intelligent and communicative animals should've been classified as something other than Beasts.

But there's a fundamental difference between Magic and Warhammer on one side, and D&D on the other. Magic and Warhammer have multiple competitive formats, and those formats are stricter than what a TTRPG uses because they're competitive. If you want to play Magic or Warhammer in different ways...

Yes; those are summaries. But look, there's more; whole books and boxed sets of stuff! Planes of Conflict (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | Planescape | AD&D 2nd Ed. | AD&D 2nd Ed. | Dungeon Masters Guild Planes of Law (2e) - Wizards of the Coast | Planescape | AD&D 2nd Ed. | AD&D 2nd Ed. |...

This is a really good point, and I'd argue was valid... until the publication of Planescape. The whole point of that product line was to make every part of the Great Wheel multiverse adventurable, and I'd argue that the difficulty of doing so with some areas required stretching creative muscles...

Come on, they didn't do anything of the sort. No one "pretended" anything. 5e D&D kept several elements of the planar cosmology from 4e just like they kept some other lore and mechanics from 4e, mixed in with stuff from other editions as they clearly said they were doing from the beginning of...

A couple of observations: In a standard D&D game, i.e. given availability of PHB spells and classes, verifiability is probably inevitable. If you have access to things like Plane Shift, Contact Other Plane, etc., you can eventually map out the universe/multiverse. Given that any symmetry that...

I really don't get what you're arguing for. How is anything you said not true of any fictional creation? Tolkien didn't study the pre-existing lifecycle of Elves, Herbert didn't conduct empirical research on the ecology of Dune, and Roddenberry didn't discover warp drive. They all just made...

I'm pointing out that if the real, actual Universe's structure is built on underlying symmetries, why is it offensive that a model of a fantasy multiverse might also be built that way?

As stated earlier, the structure of the Great Wheel cosmology is largely driven by underlying fundamental concepts. You know, a lot like the universe that we ourselves live in. You may be surprised by just how much progress has been made in the scientific understanding of our universe by...

It should be noted that all of these elements exist in 5e's version of the Great Wheel as well. Also, I don't want to keep harping on this, but I think a lot of folks are stuck on a proto-version of the Great Wheel concept as discussed in early 1e, when it was still in development. By the time...

Let me preface this by saying: I'm not trying to get anyone to like the Great Wheel or any other cosmological model that they don't already like. I have no interest in trying to "prove" that any model is somehow superior to any other. And I believe I understand your objections to the Great...

And others have played adventures in numerous multiplanar locations in the Great Wheel as a setting, in actual games. Which is only stated to demonstrate that your particular views on, and experiences with, the Great Wheel are not universal. You don't like the setting, that's fine, but it's...

I assume you're not familiar with 2e's Planescape setting, because almost nothing you've said above is true there. Chaos does not "stay nicely in its lane"; nor does Law, for that matter, nor Good nor Evil. It's repeatedly reinforced in the published materials that a constant push and pull...

As in, reread front to back? No, but what's your point? Because, after going back through all past DMGs, I'm fairly certain that the 2024 book is the very first DMG to even mention the term "sandbox". I can understand folks wanting more explicit support for teaching sandbox-style DMing. What I...

NM

Considering that the 2014 DMG didn't, AFAICT, mention sandbox campaigns at all, this shouldn't be a new concern. (Heck... over the decades, which of the DMGs actually have mentioned sandbox campaigns? You might be surprised if you keep reading this post!) Then be heartened! For it is, indeed...

How does the Cleric do that on a single turn? They can't use two spell slots, so is that a Channel Divinity healing of the Wizard or something? Sure, but the dragon wisely banished the Fighter first. However, in the 4-6 rounds you outlined, Weakening Breath would've saved 20-30 points of damage...