D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[Dausuul]

Apparently this is a completely unfounded libel cooked up on Something Awful.

The details are hazy, and it certainly could be wrong, but it's not completely unfounded. Mearls took it on himself to investigate the allegations against Zak S* and asked for people to send him statements about their experiences with him. This is not something you should ever do unless you have been trained to do it.

On the specific allegation of doxxing by Mearls, if you search for it in the trash fire formerly known as Twitter, you find links that point to other links that point to other links and never lead to anyone with firsthand knowledge. However, a regular poster on this forum who knows the victim heard the story from her and summarized it thusly:

"The email in question [describing alleged abusive behavior by Zak S] was sent from an email address which she created specifically for the purpose of sending it to Mike Mearls. She did not use that email for anything else or tell anyone else about it, and shortly thereafter she received harassing emails from Zak at that address."

That's still secondhand information, of course, and assuming it's true, it still leaves open a wide variety of possibilities, from carelessness to hacking to deliberate malice. And it does not preclude the possibility that people inside WotC with an axe to grind seized on the whole business as an opportunity to push Mearls out; Mearls was removed from control of D&D and has now been unceremoniously laid off, which certainly seems like sufficient punishment. Nevertheless, this claim has a little more behind it than just the social media echo chamber.

(I would humbly ask that people not start speculating about what might have happened. We're never going to have a conclusive answer one way or the other. But I did want to point out what little we do know.)

*I should add that while the details about Mearls's behavior are hazy, those about Zak's are not. In recent years, we've gotten a number of firsthand accounts about Zak, some of which have been examined and confirmed in court. Most of this had not been made public at the time, so it doesn't bear directly on Mearls's behavior, but it does provide some context.

 

[Minigiant]

Then don't, or if you decide to do a re-make (which I don't see a non-greed point for doing, but whatever), make it clear that it is a re-make, and not just a mechanical update to the original.

That's the point. They will not re-release the 70s, 80s, and 90s version of D&D settings.

That's quite a different statement than you made previously. I hope you understand why folks called you on what you said before.M

And how "timeless" any particular piece of creative work is is not something that can be objectively declared like you have here. Your opinions above are just that.

It's the same statement written out clearer and longer.

And I never claimed to defined timelessness.

What I said and keep saying is that many pieces of art don't stay in the forefront forever unchanged. Only the timeless pieces. And usually because the art extremely beloved, high quality, is tied to a particular person and the original creator is dead.

What the heck counts as Gen X then? I'm 48, started on Metzer and played a lot of 1e and 2e, then a year or two each of 3e and 4e before moving back to 1e/2e, then 5e from 2014 to a little over a year ago when I switched to Level Up and the OSR. I've always considered my self Gen X.

Oops.

Meant gen Y and Z. Get was I deserve for being too lazy to type millennial.

5e is majority ages 12-45.

 

[DarkCrisis]

On the subject of dwarves and magic and race/class limitations….


That stuff was always “the typical player dwarf” etc. that rule like level limits was easily broken. You simply played a non-typical dwarf

 

[Minigiant]

On the subject of dwarves and magic and race/class limitations….


That stuff was always “the typical player dwarf” etc. that rule like level limits was easily broken. You simply played a non-typical dwarf

That's er.. missing the point

The "non-typical dwarf" in the 80s is an "uncommon" dwarf in the 00s and a "typical dwarf" in 2020s.

That's the lore change. That's the difference in narrative.
Meeting a dwarven wizard is no longer considered unusual.

It's like how orcs went from Evil to Mostly Evil to Any Alignment.

 

[Zardnaar]

On the subject of dwarves and magic and race/class limitations….


That stuff was always “the typical player dwarf” etc. that rule like level limits was easily broken. You simply played a non-typical dwarf

You can play Dwarf wizard for 23 years. I'm still waiting for the first one to be rolled up.

Not sure I've seen a Dwarf anything rolled up in 5E tbh.

 

[Ondath]

He may have defended Zack inadvertently eg not knowing all the information.

Well, if that's the case, deciding to publicly defend the person and handle the situation without any of the sensitivity it would require is still not a good sign of public-facing leadership. Not to mention the fact that he still has not treated the topic in any meaningful way since the initial accusations surfaced.

I like Mearls's designs, I geniunely do, but I just don't think this is defensible in any way, nor is it sensible to shrug off Mearls's missteps as "Twitter mob". To me, it reeks of the usual "cancel culture ruins everything" schtick.

 

[Ancalagon]

You can play Dwarf wizard for 23 years. I'm still waiting for the first one to be rolled up.

Not sure I've seen a Dwarf anything rolled up in 5E tbh.

I've seen a fair few. A dwarven druid, a dwarven fighter, a dwarven bladesigner, a few others in shorter things (one shot etc).

I played a dwarven wizard in 3e, but not in 5e

 

[Ondath]

The details are hazy, and it certainly could be wrong, but it's not completely unfounded. Mearls took it on himself to investigate the allegations against Zak S* and asked for people to send him statements about their experiences with him. This is not something you should ever do unless you have been trained to do it.

On the specific allegation of doxxing by Mearls, if you search for it in the trash fire formerly known as Twitter, you find links that point to other links that point to other links and never lead to anyone with firsthand knowledge. However, a regular poster on this forum who knows the victim heard the story from her and summarized it thusly:

"The email in question [describing alleged abusive behavior by Zak S] was sent from an email address which she created specifically for the purpose of sending it to Mike Mearls. She did not use that email for anything else or tell anyone else about it, and shortly thereafter she received harassing emails from Zak at that address."

That's still secondhand information, of course, and assuming it's true, it still leaves open a wide variety of possibilities, from carelessness to hacking to deliberate malice. And it does not preclude the possibility that people inside WotC with an axe to grind seized on the whole business as an opportunity to push Mearls out; Mearls was removed from control of D&D and has now been unceremoniously laid off, which certainly seems like sufficient punishment. Nevertheless, this claim has a little more behind it than just the social media echo chamber.

(I would humbly ask that people not start speculating about what might have happened. We're never going to have a conclusive answer one way or the other. But I did want to point out what little we do know.)

*I should add that while the details about Mearls's behavior are hazy, those about Zak's are not. In recent years, we've gotten a number of firsthand accounts about Zak, some of which have been examined and confirmed in court. Most of this had not been made public at the time, so it doesn't bear directly on Mearls's behavior, but it does provide some context.

To me, the information you provided here is pretty strong proof that Mearls grossly mismanaged the situation, and the recently revealed facts about Zak's actions also fall in line with the alleged abuse. So again, it seems pretty insensible to shrug off what happened as "the Twitter mob cancelled a game designer".

And again, it might also be true that other factions within WotC used this as an excuse to oust Mearls and impose their vision of the game. I do think that is terrible. I genuinely dislike the direction the game took ever since Mearls stepped off of D&D. I am also following his Patreon since I do genuinely like his approach to game design. But all the while I am very discomforted by the fact that Mearls has never publicly taken responsibility for his missteps.

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, if that's the case, deciding to publicly defend the person and handle the situation without any of the delicacy it would require is still not a good sign of public-facing leadership. Not to mention the fact that he still has not treated the topic in any meaningful way since the initial accusations surfaced.

I like Mearls's designs, I geniunely do, but I just don't think this is defensible in any way, nor is it sensible to shrug off Mearls's missteps as "Twitter mob". To me, it reeks of the usual "cancel culture ruins everything" schtick.

Cancel culture got out of control tbh.

There's a reason the law has innocent until proven guilty aspect.

Twitter mobs still a problem but no one takes Twitter that seriously any more. Beats me why people ever did.

 

[Zardnaar]

I've seen a fair few. A dwarven druid, a dwarven fighter, a dwarven bladesigner, a few others in shorter things (one shot etc).

I played a dwarven wizard in 3e, but not in 5e

I gad a Dwarf player from 1998-2012. After he left its either none or none I can remember.

Purely anecdote I'm aware. Wizards also rare in my games (charisma classes replaced them).