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I intentionally left Greyhawk out of the examples because it has a very unique aspect: it's canonically been both types at various points. The classic era (pre FtA) is Despair coded. The 3e era feels more hopeful. When Greyhawk is mentioned in earlier 5e products (Yawning Portal is a good...

I think that was what I was trying to get across. My view on humanity has shifted in the recent past and it's made me wrestle with the fundamental nature people in a D&D setting. D&D has moved towards a generally more positive view of society; species are viewed with equality, acceptance of...

This is a long and somewhat rambling essay. Recent World Events have gotten me thinking about worldbuilding and the nature of D&D settings. Without going into details, I will simply say my view on the state of the world isn't as bright as it was a decade ago. (No further elaboration will be...

Well that's the problem with DMs banning whole books carte blanche. I might not have liked the twilight cleric, but that was no reason to ban the necessary ranger updates, the better summon spells, and the lineage rules. But a lot of DMS toss the infants away with the dirty water.

The Customize Your Lineage rules were a direct response to the race controversy, and. Madame Luna's Tarokka Deck of Souls referring to a halfling Vistani was part of the reaction to Curse of Strahd. Tasha was partially used as the first opportunity to put some of the changes they referenced in...

While I agree that there are some rather low quality (Spelljammer) and higher quality (Strahd) I find most of the books are just that. I also don't think I've seen an RPG company who isn't roughly on par with that. Nor do I feel the quality overall had dropped with editions.

It's pretty amazing that 5e was the best selling edition, let alone RPG, when it only has four years of good books. And in that era theme is still Tome of Foes and the Waterdeep modules.

I mean, right now Enworld is divided into people who champion each edition or half-edition of D&D, two editions of Pathfinder, Level Up, Tales of the Valiant, countless indie games like Shadowdark, and all manner of OSR games. We barely can talk about the game without collapsing into factions...

Eeyore is a downer and a pessimist, but he generally wants the best for his friends. Micah wants WotC to fail so that games he enjoys more will fill the void. That's not a pessimist, that's a polemic.

You're still claiming tyranny of the majority and that your preferences should be catered to. I may want a DM to run Eberron for me instead of Dragonlance, but they have as much obligation to cater to that as a DM running Level Up for you instead of 5.5. if I know 100 DMs and none will run...

I mean, are you assuming that there is a majority of players who have a metaphorical gun-to-their-head and are being forced to play 5.5 against their will? I don't believe that. First, I think the buy in level for 5.5 is far greater than the number of people who frequent Enworld or Reddit or...

Yes, I picked an intentional hyperbolic, no middle ground example so we wouldn't bog down the example with attempting to square the circle on it. I didn't want people to focus on solving the example and miss the point.

But at a certain point, you have to decide which fans are the priority. Let's take a purely hyperbolic example for the sake of simplicity. Let's say there is a certain demographic of D&D players who want D&D to keep the classic downwards AC/Thac0 system that existed in D&D since inception...

I know, I've seen some of it. But I don't have the same enthusiasm for it like I did before.. Andor was great. I even liked Asoka despite not being a devoted Rebels guy, but I'm perfectly fine playing wait and see now and what little memorabilia I bother with is purely nostalgic stuff. I don't...

So like talking to the monsters to avoid fighting them was part of that? Which means that the "talking to monsters instead of killing them" is a part of OS play and not something teens invented yesterday? Just being clear on that.

You telling me all those OSR people who tell me the adventure wasn't about killing everything in sight were lying?!?

As any OS player will tell you, the goal of D&D is to circumvent encounters in order to attain gold while using as little resources as possible. Part of smart play was to talk to monsters rather than fight them (as combat is a fail state) usually under the guise of tricking, bribing or hiring...

Here's the thing about fandom. You either go with it or you bow out. I was a huge Star Wars fan but the sequel trilogy left a bitter enough taste in my mouth that when it was said and done, I had less interest in following the new projects with the gusto I had a decade ago. I accept that the new...

Sorry, was referring to the Reddit group.

This is a circlejerk post, right?