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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Selkirk" data-source="post: 6344411" data-attributes="member: 6775377">@<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/member.php?u=2067" target="_blank">Kamikaze Midget</a> i would label my feelings toward 5th as more disappointment rather than disgust <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />. i really was looking forward to it...and now that i have it i like the mechanics but the setting and art(the soul of the game) are so vanilla and bland that it's a real turnoff. gone are the geeky(and yes horny) enthusiasms of an earlier d&d generation of writers and artists...replaced by the very staid and conservative 'market driven' approach of the present group at wotc. and....they could have done better-the players involved (mearls/rodney thompson/jon schindette) all love the game that is evident but what they have produced is soulless.you either make provocative work or you make bland work...there isn't a middle ground. our memories of great film and music celebrate the original and distinctive voice...not the monotone corporate flatline of the marketeer. why invest such effort in something that claims to please all...as if this were something to strive for! did gygax think this way? obviously rhetorical <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />. which isn't  to say that they had to channel gygax but dammit the game is more than this moralizing asexual crap. why slap the fans(you know the people that actually bought and buy all the product) in the face with the holier than thou conservative jive-the tut tutting on top of a bland launch is what provokes.not to run this into the ground-but how did mike mearls become an expert on what women and people of color want? a few surveys? read a blog? a journal of cultural studies? do women and people of color really want characters (and worlds) that are sexless and utterly bland in appearance and shape? i would argue that this is wrongheaded and condescending on a number of levels.this is regression- a call for diversity which is actually a demand for sameness.  norman rockwell has replaced frazetta as inspiration. drow aren't decadent sadists but rather elves that just look different and have perhaps a cruel curl to the lip(but not too cruel... hey some of them are heroes too-as the product placement for ra salvatore's drizzt <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" /> tells me in the starter set). . why not present something exciting and sexy and the boring people can water it down...instead we start with the watered down and are told to spice it up-truly the lazy man's way to design a world.   but as you note ...i wasn't consulted and the decisions have been made...and i'll still play of course ( not with nuns <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />) but my visions are of heroes not my next door neighbor swaddled in a bedsheet !</blockquote>

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