D&D 5E Planescape shows up in the wild. Tease from Chris Perkins.

[Kurotowa]

While I find the constant negativity of some fans exhausting . . . to be fair, they may not be fans of 5th Edition D&D, but are fans of older versions of the game. D&D isn't just a game, it's a lifestyle hobby that many of us have incorporated into our identities. So . . . to have something you love, live, and breathe change in ways that doesn't make you happy, can be a bit upsetting in a greater way than simply, "I don't like this new thing".

But still, those fans would better serve their own mental health by listening to Elsa and just . . . let it go. Continue to play the D&D you want to play, we are spoiled with options between the five major editions, all of the OSR and fantasy heartbreakers out there . . . the beauty of this game, this hobby is that you are EXPECTED to tinker with the rules, with the settings, with the lore, the tone and style, with every aspect of the game, in any way that you want.

I think the big complicating factor is fan communities. If you're a fan of something, and either it changes or you change and you no longer enjoy it, it's not the hardest to walk away. But if that something has a fan community, and you've been a part of the community and put down social roots, it's a lot harder to walk away from that.

People will try to hold on to the social bonds of that fan community that means so much to them. But that means constant grating exposure to the thing they used to love, which now brings only pain. And they reflect that pain back into the community as a stream of toxic resentment. Thus, the hate-watcher.

 

[Reynard]

I think the big complicating factor is fan communities. If you're a fan of something, and either it changes or you change and you no longer enjoy it, it's not the hardest to walk away. But if that something has a fan community, and you've been a part of the community and put down social roots, it's a lot harder to walk away from that.

People will try to hold on to the social bonds of that fan community that means so much to them. But that means constant grating exposure to the thing they used to love, which now brings only pain. And they reflect that pain back into the community as a stream of toxic resentment. Thus, the hate-watcher.

Another thing is being a fan of the game itself but not of the company. Some people take criticism of or outright hostility toward WotC as an attack on D&D and that isn't necessarily the case.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I mean it's quite literally baked into the fabric of the planes. It would be a massive departure.

Kinda. Mostly the Lawful Good planes, but they’re painfully boring with alignment, so…

No, optimism is the opposite to experience.

Not remotely.

Mechanus is the Lawful Neutral Plane, if Mechanus isn't about Lawfulness, then what is its theme?

Mechanistic Order, and weird Angel robot things. I never think about alignment when thinking about Mechanus. I think of modrons and cosmic clockworks and imagining the multiverse as a very precise orrery that is ultimately logical. Mathematical, even.

You can still love D&D and think WotC has failed the property over the last few years. You can love D&D and think the OGL debacle irrevocably broke our trust.

Tbh I doubt anyone annoyed is referring to you. Haven’t really seen you disrupt thread after thread ad nauseam with an unending barrage of vitriol.

Those who have been doing that are behaving reasonably, on any level.

Because for with 5E they went back to supporting Open Gaming in good faith, creating a robust and vibrant publishing ecosystem.

Sure. To maximize profit and the chances of 5e managing to succeed, because they didn’t really think it would.

The community, however, is in ruins. As an OGL community.

And maybe that was the goal the whole time. Of some folks anyway.

No, it was simply the fallout of a screwup, caused by dumb short term thinking and/or not getting feedback from 3pp with a description of a contract, rather than sending out a contract that anyone on the D&D team absolutely could have told them was not going to fly.

But no part of it was not wotc acting primarily in the interest of profits.

 

[briggart]

Alignment is honestly not that important in planescape. It was far more about strange philosophies

Well, I think that the issue of whether "good", "evil", "order", "chaos", are human constructs or actually objective facets of reality is a fundamental philosophical question. Whether that is true or not in the setting, is bound to affect which strange philosophies will be more interesting/fun to explore.

 

[Zaukrie]

You can still love D&D and think WotC has failed the property over the last few years. You can love D&D and think the OGL debacle irrevocably broke our trust.

One can also not go in every thread and repeat themself over and over... And over and over.

 

[Parmandur]

Another thing is being a fan of the game itself but not of the company. Some people take criticism of or outright hostility toward WotC as an attack on D&D and that isn't necessarily the case.

Why would one be a fan of a publicly traded corporation...? Sometimes, if we are lucky, they make good products thst are of interest. A company itself is never "good" in se.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One can also not go in every thread and repeat themself over and over... And over and over.

D&D has so much to offer to people who are willing to step beyond WotC. It is so frustrating that the company has such a tight grip that so few people even consider going outside their box, and so much of the D&D talk revolves around what WotC is doing or just assumes their version of the game is the "real" one and nothing else matters. People get upset with their choices because they're so powerful that hardly anyone considers just doing things differently on their own.

It honestly drives me crazy sometimes. Even I'm taken in by it (otherwise, I wouldn't be upset about it).

 

[Kurotowa]

Why would one be a fan of a publicly traded corporation...? Sometimes, if we are lucky, they make good products thst are of interest. A company itself is never "good" in se.

I try to draw the important distinction between WotC the corporate entity that cares for naught but profit, and the current D&D development team which is made up of creative talent who care deeply about the game and try their best to produce good material for it. The former deserves constant guarded suspicion. The latter is made up of real people that I try to treat with respect when I disagree with them, while offering due praise when they prove why they're professional paid game designers and I'm not.

 

[Parmandur]

I try to draw the important distinction between WotC the corporate entity that cares for naught but profit, and the current D&D development team which is made up of creative talent who care deeply about the game and try their best to produce good material for it. The former deserves constant guarded suspicion. The latter is made up of real people that I try to treat with respect when I disagree with them, while offering due praise when they prove why they're professional paid game designers and I'm not.

I'd say that's fair. But enjoying Jeremy Crawford.or Chris Perkins work sure ain't "trusting" WotC further than I can throw their office building.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'd say that's fair. But enjoying Jeremy Crawford.or Chris Perkins work sure ain't "trusting" WotC further than I can throw their office building.

Three groups I never trust.

1) Landlords+bosses

2) People who don’t like music

3) People who run publicly traded multi-million dollar companies.