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I didn’t dislike the movie overall either and I think that was more a testament to the likability of Momoa and Bautista, plus a soft spot for buddy cop movies. I also liked the over the top ridiculousness of the car chase scene, even if the FX were a bit hokey.

But here’s the rub - if you watch them play Critical Role, everyone at that table is managing their character via a tablet. In person and digital aren’t mutually exclusive.

I watched The Wrecking Crew this week with Momoa and Bautista, and there’s a scene where they do a knockoff of the Oldboy hallway fight, and it’s just so bad. It needed a better editor or coordinator or something because it just looked like a wrestling match where a punch misses by a mile and...

I think it was the last Christopher Reeve Superman movie, Lex Luthor says: “Nobody wants war, Superman. I just want to keep the threat alive.” And I think that’s the issue with those kind of proclamations - they are ultimately self-serving, which is really just another form of evil. The...

Well there was that buhurt thread a couple of days ago and I swore it said butthurt at first. 😂

Another idea: how much of Greyhawk neutrality was merely an explanation for players doing murderhobo-y stuff in Gygax’s dungeons? “Oh we just let loose eight gods held in stasis within Castle Greyhawk, both good and evil? Ummm, yeah we meant to do that…NEUTRALITY!”

I think the problem with Greyhawk’s view on it is that it substitutes good and evil with a fantasy equivalent of military and political alliances. Good and evil just become pieces of a Cold War and none of the countries are really “good” - they are at best a form of neutral as well. For that...

It just really seems like the Too Much Good approach is ultimately too narrow a band of compelling threats at least for a D&D game.

The other point I’ll make about Vecna and Stranger Things is that has really only been relevant as far as name recognition goes. If one plays a D&D adventure expecting to see the Stranger Things versions of Vecna or Demogorgon, they’re going to be disappointed.

I think that’s fair. The module leans heavily into that association though I do think there’s been a lot of books and adventures and actual plays that have made Strahd a bit more of his own character, but I still get that POV. Vecna, and really liches in general, haven’t.

For me, those weren’t modules that I have very strong associations with. That’s why I feel Vecna has largely fallen flat. If I was going to pick an “uber” lich, it’d be Acererak, personally due to the popularity of Tomb of Horrors.

Two kids, both in college. They’ve both dabbled in RPGs and I’ve DMed for them but I don’t know how much they play independently of the games I’ve run.

Which is interesting because you would think a character like Strahd would be in a similar boat, but that’s not really the case. His personality is pretty strongly laid out even in the adventures.

I think those are good points. I don’t really consider Vecna to have much personality at all. The mythology of his artifacts is what made him interesting - not the NPC himself, and largely because of none of it has anything to do with his supposed domain: secrets. If you told me was Azalin or...

When I’ve considered Mordenkainen’s neutrality stance, I’ve never really thought it got down to the level of kingdoms and politics. It seems too mundane for him. IMO, it works best when he’s dealing with the balance of the Outer Planes: overreaching deities, cosmic threats, and the like. I...

It’s not to say that one couldn’t write a good Vecna adventure, or that even the one in the back of Perkins’ mind was a bad one. As far as we know the basic components were simply Vecna, Netheril, and time travel. That’s not a plot; that’s a writing prompt. They just opted for something...

If your goal is controlling what WotC does, then yes, you have no control. I’m just saying down that path lies the worst kind of grognard.

Sure, be wistful, but then get out and actively do something if it’s really a problem because ultimately my point is this is a broader hobby that allows more active contribution from its fans. There’s been a very strange trajectory of themes in the past couple of weeks - we’ve gone from people...

Yeah, I have to agree. That’s not a great way to view something that you enjoy, especially in such a unique industry where everyday fans have the ability to contribute creatively to it. Focus on what you do within your own game and if big corporate interests got you down, give money and time to...