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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Retreater" data-source="post: 8614533" data-attributes="member: 42040">Ok. So I can tell you how I see them (as mostly an outsider who has seen the initial marketing and the big word-of-mouth promotions).Call of the NetherdeepMy opinion as an outsider ... Critical Role is a humorous setting run by comedic voice actors. The scenes I have heard about include a player thinking it would be HILARIOUS to wild shape into a goldfish and jump off a cliff. When my wife watches the animated series, there's a bard that is singing about having sex with stuff constantly. It's like watching Tenacious D&D. Which can be entertaining, sure, but it feels more like Harmon Quest than a real D&D game I'd want to play.Netherdeep's big reveal about the end boss ... [SPOILER]You face him down and try to turn him from his evil ways.[/SPOILER] That's certainly soft.Van Richten's Guide to RavenloftThe big thing I've heard about this one is that the way I used to run Ravenloft is bad, and I should feel bad about playing it and presenting it the way I've done for nearly 30 years. It's a very negative way of promoting a product. Some of this is from the official marketing, some of it from fans online. I'd rather just not run either setting now. I'm a middle aged white guy in the mid-western U.S., running games for the same population. The cultural zeitgeist of the recent years is that we need to let people tell the stories of their cultures - and I'm good with that. I just can't do it without appropriation.  Fizban's Treasury of DragonsI don't suppose this is soft or silly. I just can't imagine a world in which this would be useful to me. It's a book about dragons. What am I going to do, run an adventure with all these dragons in it? We've got plenty of dragons already, and this doesn't seem like it could possibly add anything to my game. It is as exciting to me as Gary's Book of Polearms.</blockquote>

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