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I feel this is the crux of it. As I mentioned way upthread, I tend to run a no-holds-barred game. I've included slavery, religious persecutions, racial persecutions, sexual exploitation, infanticide, torture, mutilation, drug addiction, insanity, various paraphilias, cannibalism, human...

Absolutely this. You can fragment society in any number of dimensions in order to provide a framework for conflict. But published D&D campaigns do not treat the structure of religions, or of taxation, or of the right to bear arms, or of social mobility, or of gender roles, as specially...

Nobody is stopping you from publishing whatever you like. If the market does not support your product - for whatever reason - it's not the market's problem, it's yours. If you receive lots of criticism of your product, one reason might be that lots of people have taken offense at it. Yes, lots...

Well, let's hope that this thread doesn't also suffer from an untimely demise. This approach - to simply remove references to slavery - actually seems entirely reasonable to me. If a kingdom is "wicked" in a canonical setting - say the Great Kingdom in Greyhawk, or Thay in the FR - it would...

It was. Ovid composes a letter from Dido to Aeneas in the Heroides, although I don't think he mentions her hair colour. In the opera Dido and Aeneas I do seem to recall Dido wearing a blonde wig when she's in disguise, although I might be misremembering. Lots of classical authors seem to use...

I'm not sure whether Ovid Virgil was inventing Dido's appearance from whole cloth, or whether he was drawing on some earlier tradition. Mythologically, Dido is probably an historicized version of the goddess Tanit - the tutelary deity of Carthage. And Tanit is Astarte/Ishtar/Inanna/Aphrodite -...

Well, at least one famous person from Antiquity who spoke an Afro-Asiatic language has been frequently portrayed as blond in Western representations. But it does make me suspicious of the limitations of the cultural perspective of the artists.

I'm generally in the no holds barred camp, as far as admitting to the existence of the full spectrum of human prejudice, cruelty and depravity; but avoidant of explicit descriptions, wary of sensationalism and titillation etc. At least in my own games. But I'm not sure that the D&D rules are...

After the RoP debacle, I can't say I'm holding out much hope. Unless the Tolkien Estate releases the rights to other works, we'll have to wait until they enter the public domain. There's an interesting breakdown of that legal minefield here: link

I recently participated in a (+) thread regarding Amazon's Rings of Power, which I found worthwhile as it forced me to consider aspects of the show which I regarded in a positive light. I later participated in an "all opinions welcome" thread on the same subject, where I could air ... other...

J.K. Rowling successfully tapped into a dormant strand of children's literature and evoked a nostalgia reminiscent of writers such as Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransome and PL Travers. Her formula - which is quintessentially British - somehow captured (or informed) the zeitgeist. But Harry Potter -...

I like this, as despite its simplicity, it pretty much encapsulates everything. I rather like alignment - not because it makes any sense (it doesn't), but precisely because of its ambiguity and its flexibility. That said, I feel that D&D alignment kind of positions the self or the individual...

Good: The Northman by Eggers. Total flop at the box office, but I thought it was awesome. The White Lotus. This show is a blast; I felt Season 2 was even better than Season 1. Poignant, funny, sexy, whimsical, surrealist. Jennifer Coolidge and F Murray Abraham are awesome. Avenue 5. Hugh Laurie...

I think this process was kind of emergent for Tolkien too - he was, in a sense, both a gardener and an architect. I remember an account of when the Ringwraiths first appeared in LotR during its initial draft - he didn't actually know who they were, or what their purpose was. They just...

The show is ditching part of its directorial team for season two and bringing in some new ideas: Here Although the extent to which this can allay bad writing remains to be seen; hopefully they can bring some coherent storytelling and character development.

RoP unsurprisingly flopped at Golden Globes without a single nomination in any category. Emmys are up next month - wonder how they'll go.

I see the AI wisely chose to ignore around half of the rules in the DMG.

My palate leans dry and astringent rather than sweet. So... Two shots of The Botanist gin (from freezer) Two shots Campari Stirred over ice, and garnished with a slice of grapefruit.

I agree that the score is very solid, as are the designs of the locations - in terms of their aesthetic (especially architectural) consistency. Unfortunately, the result (for me) when the score is juxtaposed with poor writing, characterization and acting is a kind of cognitive dissonance which...

Miriel originally intended to send 500 men on 5 ships, before 2 were burned, so 300 would make sense. It's a shame the showrunners didn't exhibit, enormous, breathtaking ships (missing an opportunity for a visual spectacle and emphasizing Numenor's technology); or have a larger number of smaller...