WotC WotC announces D&D Community Advisory Group

[MichaelSomething]

lack of tools for DMs and is WotC receptive to making changes to that end?

Wait, I thought we were in the age of DM empowerment??? Wouldn't the existence of "tools" only constraint DM and force them to play in prescribed ways???

 

[Charlaquin]

Commander used to be handled at arm's length from Wizards of the Coast, with a stand-alone Rules Council and an advisory group to them. After the Rules Council made a controversial ban decision, certain people took that way too seriously and started harassing them, to the point where some got death threats. At that point, they didn't want to do that anymore and handed control of the format over to Wizards who instituted the current Advisory Group.

Yes, I know

 

[sevenbastard]

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That sounds amazing, too bad I dont live in LA anymore. Actually who am I kidding I wasnt going to drive from Marina Del Rey to Burbank and spend a week in traffic.

 

[darjr]

Well now I gotta find a reason to be in LA. I think there might be fights close by.

 

[Lanefan]

an NDA is not sketchy

NDAs are sketchy by definition.

They should be banned in about 95% of the situations where they are commonly used.

 

[tetrasodium]

presumably I want to play D&D with some form of horror mixed in, not a different game, so there certainly are limits to how far your subsystems can / should go.

I am also not sure it needs subsystems so much as narrative. A fear or insanity subsystem is always a bit suspect to me in D&D, you cannot tell the player to be afraid because their fear score crossed some threshold, at least imo


we also have plenty of horror genre monsters in the MM without them having different mechanics. Ravenloft just expands that list.

If there are any mechanics, it would be around the darklords I guess. That might be a decent idea, for ‘generic’ monsters I am less sure


would have to check 3e, as to Dark Sun, they could have just as easily kept it on the regular 2e ruleset. It made sense to refluff the player side (reframe races, add new ones, add new (sub)classes, adjust the item list), but beyond that (attribute range, …)? Anything beyond that can be handled in the narrative

That absolute certainty in the OneTrueWay is exactly why wotc needs to do. Better at providing GMs with mechanical support than they have since 2014.

Deepest apologies for overstepping my lord. I didn't realize I was discussing d&d with the arbiter in charge of the OneTrueWay of d&d5e while me a mere individual who apparently has badwrongfun preferences was over here wanting some level of mechanical GM support rather than yet another 5e Ravenloft book stacked exclusively player mechanics plus narrative and art bits for the readers and art buffs being declared sufficient GM support based on page count.


As to 3.0 Ravenloft campaign setting I mentioned, I'd check out chapter 2 where they rework the races and classes a little to fit the themes and tone of Ravenloft and ~82-104 of chapter 3 where a bunch of magic and a few other things get added or reworked to fit the themes and tones. Darksun similarly had sections devoted to that kinda stuff but iirc it's a bit scattered and more nebulous or depends on 2e mechanics/play norm baselines that are just too different for useful comparison

I deliberately omitted the fear and curse pages because they go on and on and on and on like they were looking to GURPS for inspiration while writing those sections.

 

[mamba]

That absolute certainty in the OneTrueWay is exactly why wotc needs to do. Better at providing GMs with mechanical support than they have since 2014.

well, there is a reason I used ‘I’, which by definition does not make OneTrueWay.

while me a mere individual who apparently has badwrongfun preferences was over here wanting some level of mechanical GM support

yeah, a lack of support for DMs is basically every post of yours, unless it complains about how players can walk all over DMs due to WotC’s lack of support for DMs.

Should have known better than getting into a discussion with you, well, I am bowing out now

 

[MichaelSomething]

Two? Ya making me feel bad now . . .

Forgive my errors. Of course there would be more Enworlders in the council!

 

[tetrasodium]

well, there is a reason I used ‘I’, which by definition does not make OneTrueWay.

Go back reread your posts in this chsin. You started out arguing arguing that gms are supported with artwork and narrative lore so do not need anything mechanical like the mechanical player races (sub)classes and feats when those images and lore absent any mechanics appeal broadly across all groups including players art fans and people who only read the books. That grew into OneTrueWayism when you stopped pointing to things with appeal far beyond GMs for examples of gm support and scoffed at the idea on the grounds of what you want to play and feel are not needed over narrative elements that you want.

yeah, a lack of support for DMs is basically every post of yours, unless it complains about how players can walk all over DMs due to WotC’s lack of support for DMs.

Should have known better than getting into a discussion with you, well, I am bowing out now

Thanks for the back and forth taking my original comment about how I hope that this advisory group allows people on it to advocate for gms and be better listened to than the multiple examples of 5.5 player options hyped by wotc as something to "frustrating gms" or shift away from the 12 year streak of exclusive player focus that the Ravenloft book hype suggests is still the standard at wotc. We can only hope that this advisory group does better than to point at artwork and narrative lore and other broadly targeted elements like the reskinned monsters players fight readers read and art buffs get wty of when someone on it questions what in the next book is aimed at GM's.

Edit:silly typo noted below

 

[Byrd]

< tangent >
"...We can only hope that this advisory group dies better than..."

Ouch.
< /tangent >