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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JasonT" data-source="post: 1314523" data-attributes="member: 16097">I don't have a copy of 3.5 to check from, but if I recall, in the little list at the beginning of the new player's handbook, it actually does list "miniatures" and a "battle grid" as necessary items for playing, alongside dice and the rulebooks. Not "strongly recommended" but "necessary".Obviously it's still possible to play the game without miniatures, I just find it annoying that the books claim that it's not. I've heard people who are only marginally aware of RPGs talking about how D&D has "changed into a miniatures game". To me this is bad P.R. Good for the price & availability of miniatures, bad for the overall image of "what role-playing is."Of course, I can't deny it -- everyone has their own idea of "what role-playing is", and mine is just one opinion. There's vague, free-form rules systems which certainly don't require miniatures, and there's d20, which was always very miniatures-friendly and now, IMHO, has just crossed a little bit "over the line". Even people who come to D&D thinking "hey, this looks like a neat miniatures game" will end up absorbing some of the basics of role-playing."Come for the miniatures, stay for the role-playing"? I hope. Sure. Why not. Whatever gets people to play tabletop RPGs is good.I just don't want the nature of RPGs to get lost behind a cloud of miniatures. I think the idea of "role-playing" can stand on its own merits. You don't need miniatures to explain to people what role-playing is. They’re just a gimmick, albeit one that, of course, you can sell more of than RPG sourcebooks. Obviously this is extremely nit-picky of me but... (shrugs)As they are currently written, I admit, the "decency standards" aren't that bad -- I'm more worried about a sign of a possible trend in the direction of watered-down, censored things like "Yu-Gi-Oh", where they don't even use the word "gun" (not that I have anything in particular against "Yu-Gi-Oh"). Frankly, I am very wary of self-censorship, in particular the kind of "market censorship" imposed by stores like Wal-Mart. Why not? Censorship is wrong. Yes, when I was 6-8 years old, one of the (many) reasons I liked D&D was because it was full of demons & monsters and blood & guts. Rock on. I'm sure there are kids today who feel the same.I'm not suggesting that gore & scantily-clothed female characters (like those godawful Avalanche Press covers) is something Wizards should _encourage_. Frankly, when I play D&D, I like to play heroically with good-aligned PCs vs. evil NPCs, and I'd never have any cheesy pseudo-sexual content. But are RPGs really in such danger from negative publicity? Take the video game industry for example. Lo and behold that the most violent, messed-up games, the ones which get the most negative publicity from politicians (left- or right-wing) and parents' groups, are currently the MOST POPULAR! "Grand Theft Auto", "True Crime", "Counterstrike" -- yeah! I'd be SO HAPPY if politicians devoted as much air time to condemning tabletop RPGs as they do condemning violent video games. I mean this only half-sarcastically. Think of all the new players!It's good of Wizards to release what they consider to be morally responsible products. If they don't want to do any more "Book of Vile Darkness" type products, that's their decision. Maybe they figure that they're already "edgy" (ot "at risk") enough with demons, gods, magic, etc. And since the "decency standards" are so loose in their current form, maybe Wizards is going to be a benevolent master and just stamp out the occasional game which they feel is dangerously sleazy, like the "Book of Erotic Fantasy".But it is, frankly, short-sighted for them to clamp down on other d20 publishers in the process, for fear of negative publicity. Did "Vampire", the most popular game of the early-mid 1990s, suffer because it was full of sex & violence? No. It was a good game, and it attracted a whole new audience of new role-players. Is the market for D&D the same as the market for "Vampire"? No, but what I mean is, a RPG can be successful and still be "dark."Of course, I realize that the whole existence of "open d20" and the "OGL" exists at Wizards' discretion (like the entire collectible-card game industry) and they CAN do whatever they want with it. I'm not disputing reality. "Can" and "should" are different things, though.For the record, I think the open d20/OGL is the greatest thing Wizards did with 3rd edition. It's awesome and brilliant.But the "decency standards" sets a bad precedent, a precedent that says (insert sarcastic stupid voice here) "D&D IS FOR KIDS."Jason</blockquote>

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