D&D General What the Melf's Guide to Greyhawk Cover Might Look Like

Below is a quick mockup of the potential cover of Melf's Guide to Greyhawk based on the Jeff Easley art revealed at Gary Con, using the current D&D 5.5E trade dress. The fonts aren't quite right, but it gives an approximate look at what the book may look like when it is released.

 

[Mournblade94]

I'm afraid you are mistaken, and forgetting the online climate from 2016 to 2023 or so.

Hell, there was an article complaining the 5.5 PHB is classist!!

There's also claims that D&D is a Colonialist fantasy because you get points for killing monsters and taking treasure so people will take lots of things out of context to make a case for it.

 

[Scribe]

There's also claims that D&D is a Colonialist fantasy because you get points for killing monsters and taking treasure so people will take lots of things out of context to make a case for it.

Yes. I look at it more as the Wild West era, in its initial configuration but there are a whole bunch of arguments for how its this, or that, and how fundamentally its wrong or bad or whatever.

I mean I remember seeing some comment once, some designer was outraged and wanted to know if it was OK to just call it the Racist Game.

So yeah, to bring it back to your point, people absolutely would have complained if there was not a commentary on the games past, just like people complain that there WAS a commentary on it, just like there is STILL complaints about the game now being classist, or whatever.

Long story short? People will always complain, the demographic just changes, so toss them on ignore, and move on with ones life.

 

[Mournblade94]

A history of D&D that ignored that some of the stuff in the book, including some of the footnotes that made it into print, was wildly inappropriate by today's standards isn't a history book; it's a whitewash.

You've said that a few times. The history could be empirically just as well covered with out it so I find the preface apology unnecessary. We would know just as much of the history of the development if it did not diverge off topic. I know you disagree and I'm fine with that.

Look at the Amazon reviews[/URL]. In an era when people will review bomb things into oblivion for daring to have black hobbits in their TV shows (before anyone had actually seen a single episode) and similar non-issues, no one is particularly upset about this book, which gets 79% five-star reviews.

And I left a 4 Star Review like 3 years ago or something. The preface apology is why I didn't give it a 5. So I wasn't particularly upset just annoyed.

If a very, very mild statement that racism and sexism are bad and have always been bad is this upsetting to you, that's something you're just going to have to learn to live with.

That's a convenient way to paint my position as if I'm OK with racism or sexism but that's not the case at all. I just don't need to hear writers go on about it all the time. I mean the sexism and racism has been taken out with 5.5 so who cares what I say about the Origin Book, Wotc Actually solved a problem and people have switched their angst to AI now, since that is no longer D&D's Problem.
Posting about it on a forum is an appropriate magnitude of response for something as minor as a "writer did something annoying in a book". I'm living with it just fine. Like I said I wrote a 4 star Review. I didnt even mention Tondro's apology in it.

 

[Mournblade94]

so you do not see how staying silent on something for fear of creating a controversy or it negatively impacting sales is cowardly?

No I do not. They didn't have to bring it up at all and the history STILL Would have been complete. We weren't doing a sociological study. I Don't remember Applecline referencing social environments in his excellent 4 volume RPG history and it seemed pretty complete to me. Nobody would call Evil Hat Cowards in that regard with their track record. Nobody should call WOTC Cowards either as they took the sexism out of the editions long ago. They just brought on the diverse creators so it is clear they would not be cowards because they didn't bother to take up page count with commentary on the evils of the early days.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

You've said that a few times. The history could be empirically just as well covered with out it

You own the book. You can see in the reprinted notes they included problematic comments by the authors.

The choice then is A) remove that from the book so no one knows that Gygax, the open sexist, was a sexist, B) not talk about it and imply that it's no big deal or C) talk about it.

You clearly didn't want to own a history book and probably shouldn't buy them.

I find the preface apology unnecessary.

Yeah, we get that. And, as stated, that's a minority view.

I know you disagree and I'm fine with that.

Obviously.

That's a convenient way to paint my position as if I'm OK with racism or sexism but that's not the case at all.

I always repeatedly bring up things that aren't an issue for me at all and say I lowered my Amazon review of a book because they were included.

I just don't need to hear writers go on about it all the time.

Yes, in one small passage, one time.

I mean the sexism and racism has been taken out with 5.5

Woo hoo! We did it, everyone! There's never going to be a problem with this again until WotC publishes another Spelljammer book!

Posting about it on a forum is an appropriate magnitude of response for something as minor as a "writer did something annoying in a book". I'm living with it just fine.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

There's also claims that D&D is a Colonialist fantasy because you get points for killing monsters and taking treasure so people will take lots of things out of context to make a case for it.

Hexcrawls are built around the idea that there's an unexplored frontier that the player characters have the moral right to wander into and plunder, killing anyone who objects. And once you have done this enough, you get to build a home there.

If that's not colonialism, nothing is.

 

[Mournblade94]

You own the book. You can see in the reprinted notes they included problematic comments by the authors.

So we're in agreement. The history could have been presented just as well by not including the apology because they printed everything for the reader to make their own determination. Since Jason Tondro is not a qualified historian his analysis is not particularly valuable anyway. Better to let the reader parse out the history. Surely the reader is smart enough to know sexism happened more often in the past. Do you really need a random writer to tell you?

You clearly didn't want to own a history book and probably shouldn't buy them.

I have plenty of history books written by people that are experts in history. This book is not so much an analytical history as it is a rote reporting of records. Shannon Applecline and Ben Riggs as the most common examples have written history books on the game and the differences are distinct. There is not any analysis going on in the Origin book. So yes I do buy and own many history books. The Origin Book is really just an ordering of documents. A coffee table accounting of history. Its like calling a coffee table photo journal of King Tut's Tomb a history book.
As I've already pointed out The Writers expertise was not in history (you can check his credentials if you like) or writing history. But he is qualified to talk about the games development.

I always repeatedly bring up things that aren't an issue for me at all and say I lowered my Amazon review of a book because they were included.

You're welcome to extrapolate what I'm saying as bigotry but you'd be disingenuous if you did. It gets brought up here because the messaging moved that way.

Woo hoo! We did it, everyone! There's never going to be a problem with this again until WotC publishes another Spelljammer book!

They hired diverse creators. That is what is said is needed to solve the problem.

I don't know what that gif means.