D&D 5E (2024) PHB 2024 - General Impressions and Random Things I Noticed

[Micah Sweet]

I don't think we can say that definitively.

They didn't take the horror out of Ravenloft, and they didn't change Ravenloft to appease anyone.

 

[Shardstone]

I don't think we can say that definitively.

Yes we can. Hickman worked on it. The project is high quality. The Van Richten's book was also high-quality, and every artist talked about how they brought their own ideas of horror into it. I've read the darn thing front to back and it even has OSR-style rules for "survivor" characters who want a TRUER horror experience. This is NEVER talked about. NEVER! Survivor rules are GREAT, and allow you to experience a truly visceral and terrifying horror game in D&D, but instead people pretend like the Core and 5E typical baseline ruins the whole thing. In reality, the book allows you to play a Dark Fantasy of D&D OR you can play with Survivor mode and have a true horror game.

The book is quality. Curse of Strahd is quality. They may not fit your tone of horror, but they are fun horror games, and I'm sick of this tired argument about WotC trying to appease """"people""""" which we ALL KNOW is a VAGUELY CODED POLITICAL STATEMENT. NOTHING is being stripped for appeasement in Ravenloft.

Not to mention Radiant Citadel, Eve of Vecna, Rime of the Frostmaiden, and Descent into Avernus -- for their individual flaws -- have horrific evil in them! You literally burn the souls of the dead to go into a giant bloody scab to fight back demons in DiA. In Rime of the Frostmaiden, you have a NUMBER of horror tropes in the stories that make for brutal and terrifying sessions, including villages sacrificing people to appease their bloodthisty frost-goddess AND cannibalism! In Eve of Vecna, there is a literal FLESH MARKET the players find in the second chapter. Radiant Citadel has big boy adult politics in the main hub itself, as well as dark tyrannical angels, genocidal forces, and tradiitonal Southern Gothic Horror (literally) darkness. All of this NEVER gets talked about. Instead all I ever here is how the content is being made """"""""PG"""""""""""".

Like cmon man. I'm tired of pretending that some opinions are valid. They aren't. It is objective that WotC still includes adult themes and content in their games. Just because it's not called attention to in their press releases doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yes we can. Hickman worked on it. The project is high quality. The Van Richten's book was also high-quality, and every artist talked about how they brought their own ideas of horror into it. I've read the darn thing front to back and it even has OSR-style rules for "survivor" characters who want a TRUER horror experience. This is NEVER talked about. NEVER! Survivor rules are GREAT, and allow you to experience a truly visceral and terrifying horror game in D&D, but instead people pretend like the Core and 5E typical baseline ruins the whole thing. In reality, the book allows you to play a Dark Fantasy of D&D OR you can play with Survivor mode and have a true horror game.

I'm not talking about quality. As a guide to various kinds of horror in D&D, VRGtR is a good supplement. What it isn't, and what it doesn't allow you to do, however, is adventure in the Ravenloft setting as it was envisioned and presented at any point in its decades-long history prior to the publication of VRGtR. It is a different place that uses a lot of the same proper nouns for no good reason (I don't consider, "people will pay us" as a good reason. As a horror supplement, its a great and worthy addition to 5e. As a Ravenloft setting book, I find it awful and deeply regret spending money on it.

 

[Shardstone]

I'm not talking about quality. As a guide to various kinds of horror in D&D, VRGtR is a good supplement. What it isn't, and what it doesn't allow you to do, however, is adventure in the Ravenloft setting as it was envisioned and presented at any point in its decades-long history prior to the publication of VRGtR. It is a different place that uses a lot of the same proper nouns for no good reason (I don't consider, "people will pay us" as a good reason. As a horror supplement, its a great and worthy addition to 5e. As a Ravenloft setting book, I find it awful and deeply regret spending money on it.

I lost my entire post just now, so I have to do a summary, apologies.

Things changing does NOT mean that things are being taken out to appease people. Artists love to revise ideas and take their own spins on them. VtR is such a work where WotC wanted to do a reimagining, which can often inflame the imagination. For what it's worth, I MUCH prefer the NEW Ravenloft to the Core, which I thought was an absurd and whacky concept that killed the entire setting for me.

You already have countless books for your Ravenloft. Let artists do new things, and stop accusing them of trying to appease a certain crowd just because they are doing new things.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I lost my entire post just now, so I have to do a summary, apologies.

Things changing does NOT mean that things are being taken out to appease people. Artists love to revise ideas and take their own spins on them. VtR is such a work where WotC wanted to do a reimagining, which can often inflame the imagination. For what it's worth, I MUCH prefer the NEW Ravenloft to the Core, which I thought was an absurd and whacky concept that killed the entire setting for me.

You already have countless books for your Ravenloft. Let artists do new things, and stop accusing them of trying to appease a certain crowd just because they are doing new things.

I have no objection to new things, I just vastly prefer they be actually new. VrGtR isn't Ravenloft, and shouldn't be pretending to be so they can manipulate fans into giving them money. Make new things, and don't present them as if they were the old things.

 

[Shardstone]

I have no objection to new things, I just vastly prefer they be actually new. VrGtR isn't Ravenloft, and shouldn't be pretending to be so they can manipulate fans into giving them money. Make new things, and don't present them as if they were the old things.

This is just fundamentally an unartistic opinion.

 

[DavyGreenwind]

I also noticed that you regain all your spent Hit Dice on a long rest now. So that's nifty.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is just fundamentally an unartistic opinion.

You're welcome to believe that. And in fairness to your position, I'm a scholar and a simulationist, not an artist.

 

[pukunui]

I also noticed that you regain all your spent Hit Dice on a long rest now. So that's nifty.

Yeah. Half hit dice was a bit fiddly, and I find it rarely ever matters anyway.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

You're welcome to believe that. And in fairness to your position, I'm a scholar and a simulationist, not an artist.

Do you like John Carpenter’s “The Thing”? Monty Python and the Holy Grail? Blade Runner? West Side Story? Any Marvel movie? The new Dune movies? Or literally any movie/TV adaptation ever?

New creative IPs are great. Reboots and sequels to pre-existing IPs can be (and often are) overdone, poor quality products. But it would be ridiculous to say that unless the new books are completely new settings, they’re unimaginative cash-grabs, because there are plenty of examples of amazing pieces of media that are derivative of previous works/incarnations of an older work.