WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Azzy]

And yet some of the best Drow books included it.

Ones not written by RAS Elaine Cunningham and the WotSQ books.

RAS doesn't really have the chops to do it well or even write a decent Drizzt book for the last 15-20 years.

"best".

No.

 

[Gradine]

My intention was that everything WotC is putting out is the top layer. This wasn't always the case, but for 5e, it mostly has been.

Stuff like that Not-Dark-Sun that was posted up thread fits into the middle layer.

 

[Faolyn]

And yet popular shows and book series have it.

I wouldn't include it in game outside of maybe referenced and even that's unusual.

Law & Order: SVU seems to do okay with having it be their central premise.

And how often is this something that happens to a main character on-screen?

See, that's the difference between a TV show and an RPG. On a TV show, it's a backstory, or to show who the Bad Guys is. In a game, it's something that can happen to one of the players--one of the players of a game that is supposed to be fun.

If you are the GM, would you be able to point to one of your friends at the table and say "the bad guy rapes you," and expect it to still be fun for that player? If your GM told you that your character was raped, would you have fun?

Also, a lot of times when rape is used in a show or book, it's done really, really badly.

 

[Faolyn]

How exactly is WotC forcing anyone to use anything?

By including it in the books as canon.

 

[Faolyn]

What about Drow novels? It's been in them.

Novels are not games.

 

[Lanefan]

So I'd actually like them to provide different models as options for the default. That's it. That's my end goal. More options to accommodate more people.

And that's a battle you're highly likely to lose.

Yes, and I'd like to have more options for the default.

There can only be one default, otherwise it's not a default.

That is my entire point, which then involved multiple pages of me being told that the World Axis is treated 100% equally compared to the Great Wheel, because you just change the names and pretend it works.

If we are going to claim that all Cosmologies are equally valid and equally supported, then I'd like to see at least one other cosmology detailed and supported in the DMG. Right now, there is one cosmology that is treated as true, and a few names thrown out to make it seem like the others actually exist.

The other names just point to things a DM can look up if she wants to see some different ideas. Fully presenting more than one in the DMG would add page count and probably only serve to confuse the issue.

Now were they to put out a splat book - either as its own thing or as part of a bigger Guide To Worldbuilding - in which several other cosmologies were fully presented and discussed, along with tips and ideas on how to build your own, that would be worthwhile. But it still wouldn't make Great Wheel any less the official default.

 

[Gradine]

The reason why slavery is included here is because it's a mistake to think of slavery as a historical relic. Slavery is still a thing. It looks different in a lot of cases, and it is often linked to trafficking (as well as SA), but it's not gone. To say nothing if the fact that many locales in the Americas have not done a great job reckoning with the horrors of the chattel slavery practiced there, nor in addressing the very real generational trauma that still exists from the ancestors of their survivors.

When you frame things in terms of preventing/exacerbating trauma, which is really what we should be talking about (rather than "offense"), then lumping slavery in with SA starts to make a lot more sense.

 

[Zardnaar]

"best".

No.

Have you read then or say any Drizzt books after 2004-6ish?

Drizzt books quality wise peaked in the 90's the Drow genre probably early 2000's.

Elaine Cunningham was better than RAS along with WotSQ books. ECs Elf books were also some if the better D&D novels.

For me it's about nuance, genre, execution and ultimately quality.

Villains gonna villain. That applies to everything that's evil btw (sa, slavery, genocide, murder etc).

 

[Alzrius]

By including it in the books as canon.

And how does that force you to use the material in your game?

 

[Velderan]

I'll give you number 3, but the others provide context and verisimilitude to a story with a close relationship with the history it was inspired from.

I get what they were going for, my question was it actually needed to sell the character? Was raping Sansa what made people hate Ramsay? Joffrey never raped her while she was held against her will in King's Landing and he was despised. Would the dothraki have appeared just as bloodthirsty if the woman they raped had begged for mercy and they killed her and laughed about it? Could Aegon have still appeared like a tyrant if he had the servant girl clean a spot on the ground and he kept pointing to a new spot that didn't exist before finally kicking the poor frustrated girl in the butt or something?

I've literally used that last bit for a NPC baron who ended up being the BBEG of a mid-level story arc and it worked to get the characters to hate him, while building sympathy for the poor servant who wasn't intended to be anything but the PCs went looking for her while finishing up that arc to make sure she was safe.