Bards are an interesting break from the Core 4 classes, but they actually blend them. 5E allows them to steal a handful of spells via Magical Secrets.  They are handy, if you don't have a Rogue.  They can engage in Melee.  D8 hit die.

Damn, wrong thread..........

Quote from: Razor 007;1079721Damn, wrong thread..........

Damn those viking skalds are raiding this thread.

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1079679The last two WoTC adventure books had a genderfluid nature druid (NO!  Nature Gods are about nature, and promoting a mental illness kills breeding potential, stop!  Get some help)

For me it's not the existence of homosexual and 'gender fluid' NPCs that bugs me, it's the Seattle 2019 attitudes of the surrounding societies.

I'd be fine with a 'gender fluid' Cleric of Loki, regarded as aberrant by all 'right thinking' folk. Likewise homosexual characters who have to keep it secret, deal with societal disapproval etc - or you can have a society like ancient Greece where certain forms of male homosexuality are approved of, but the adult male still need to have a wife, breed, be manly - not be a catamite, etc.

I'm currently running 'Watchers of Meng' for Primeval Thule. Oola, Mistress of the Whip is a 'Magnificent Bastard' NPC, a slaver in debt to some bad guys, who are holding & torturing Rien, her female lover. There is no indication that their society approves of the Oola-Rien liaison, in fact it feels like part of Oola's general alienation. I find that works well - the players themselves are free to decide what they think of Oola.

Quote from: S'mon;1079740I'd be fine with a 'gender fluid' Cleric of Loki, regarded as aberrant by all 'right thinking' folk. Likewise homosexual characters who have to keep it secret, deal with societal disapproval etc - or you can have a society like ancient Greece where certain forms of male homosexuality are approved of, but the adult male still need to have a wife, breed, be manly - not be a catamite, etc.

But why, if you are setting a game in an a-historical place like the Forgotten Realms, is the beliefs of our own history relevant? D&D-land is not Medieval Europe, for all that it borrows a few tenuous trappings (and they are pretty tenuous). Our own past is full of racial, sexual, and gender-based injustice and history, and I have no problem mining that for themes in my own games, especially as characterisations of evil societies, but if they aren't the point of your setting, why have them?

Different argument entirely when your game is historical, but when I am playing in fantasy-land I tend to discard as much of the essential awfulness of human nature as I can, unless it is relevant to the game I want to play.

So I ran a game where the PCs were members of a society built on ubiquitous slavery, because I wanted that to be part of the sensibility of the game, but I made it gender-equal because gender wasn't relevant to the sorts of stories I was interested in telling (and the characters are lizard-gerbils on a planet with no night, its confusing enough already without throwing gender in). In my current 5E game I am much more interested in people's relations with the Gods, religion, and alignment, than I am in racism, sexism, or that sort of thing, so I've focussed on the dubious nature of alignments and the self-interests of the gods, and given slavery a pass for a campaign.

Different foci for different games.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1079593Omega, I stand corrected. I totally forgot about most of those movies which is shameful because I absolutely love the Rocketeer.

Unfortunately I believe IDW got ahold of the license and plan to totally fuck it up.

Quotemaking sure we stay true to the spirit of the character for both old and new fans alike.

In Rocketeer Reborn, eighty years have passed since Cliff Secord first found an experimental jetpack and soared through the skies as a high-flying hero. Now, decades later, The Rocketeer is all but forgotten to most people, a legend of a bygone era.

Theres allready talk that a proposed new movie will also gender swap the Rocketeer and she will also be black because INCLUSION! (Tokenism)

Hopefully neither of these will see light and the folk working on these things are given real projects to work on and act in that dont need to co-opt someone elses works to make a "statement".
But dont count on it.

Quote from: hituro;1079765But why, if you are setting a game in an a-historical place like the Forgotten Realms, is the beliefs of our own history relevant? D&D-land is not Medieval Europe, for all that it borrows a few tenuous trappings (and they are pretty tenuous). Our own past is full of racial, sexual, and gender-based injustice and history, and I have no problem mining that for themes in my own games, especially as characterisations of evil societies, but if they aren't the point of your setting, why have them?

Different argument entirely when your game is historical, but when I am playing in fantasy-land I tend to discard as much of the essential awfulness of human nature as I can, unless it is relevant to the game I want to play.

Whereas I like to include human awfulness, because it makes for dramatic settings full of colour and conflict. A D&D campaign set in a world I would want to live in feels incredibly dull to me. I also don't like to read fiction set in happy-clappy worlds. Judging by the popularity of the Song of Ice and Fire and the Game of Thrones, I'd say I'm not alone.

And having your game material so strongly reflect the mores and fixations of educated white upper middle-class Seattle progressives in 2019 will rapidly make that material dated. Because at the level these books are now being tailored - to suit a very particular mindset and a very particular set of politics of today - they'll come across as embarrassingly dated in no time. The issues that the most politically active people on the internet wring their hands about change year to year. I doubt anyone will be making a big deal about transgenderism, something that affects a fraction of one per cent of people, in 10 years, let alone 30. The locus of social justice and outrage culture will have moved on.

Quote from: hituro;1079765Different argument entirely when your game is historical, but when I am playing in fantasy-land I tend to discard as much of the essential awfulness of human nature as I can, unless it is relevant to the game I want to play.

Yes.  I could run a fantasy game where the players overthrow the fascist SJW overlords, but it would be too depressing.  For the same reason, I don't run WWII era supes fighting Hitler, inner city gang violence games, or games about fighting hopeless pandemics.  We like our fantasy games a little more cheerful, rather than including some of the nastiest things of real life.  :cool:

Quote from: SHARK;1079682Greetings!

I often wonder why it seems to be *so* important for these SJW's to have characters that are homosexual, or trans. And also they have this screeching, sobbing need to have all of these adventures and supplements show *representation* of homosexual, and trans characters.

When you are supposedly playing some heroic character that crawls through dungeons fighting monsters and taking their loot--how is it in any way relevant who or what the sobbing SJW character likes to sleep with? Who really gives a fuck how "feminine" or "masculine" that you choose to "present" today? What relevance to the rest of the group, or the campaign world, is it whether such a "gender-fluid" character happens to feel feminine or masculine today?

How is that relevant to, "Hey, fuckstick, pick your warhammer up and attack those orcs waiting for us down the hallway!"

I think it is all way too much lip-biting and narcissistic navel-gazing that so many of these SJW's essentially want, they essentially demand--that the game is not being about adventure, plunder, and fighting monsters--but instead must be focused on their sexual identity, their sexual activities, and their constant, drama-filled social relationships with the nebulous community--which, in D&D, is at least theoretically medievalesque, and primarily focused on survival in a harsh and brutal world. But these SJW's all seem to want to make the entire D&D campaign culture somehow focused on themselves, prancing around and insisting that everyone be profoundly interested in such a character's social life and their own deep-seated psychological and family drama.

Really seems very strange to me for people allegedly, supposed to be playing a game.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

They're NPCs. They don't have an identity outside of their sexuality or newly made up gender. They can't play games. They have no real imagination. You're supposed to write their shitty erotic fan fiction for them and pretend they're not jerking off under the table.

Regarding the OP, I agree that many different branches of D&D can survive via the OGL, and this is a good thing. There should be games for people of different tastes and politics.

Quote from: Christopher BradyThe last two WoTC adventure books had a genderfluid nature druid (NO! Nature Gods are about nature, and promoting a mental illness kills breeding potential, stop! Get some help)

Quote from: S'mon;1079740For me it's not the existence of homosexual and 'gender fluid' NPCs that bugs me, it's the Seattle 2019 attitudes of the surrounding societies.

I'd be fine with a 'gender fluid' Cleric of Loki, regarded as aberrant by all 'right thinking' folk. Likewise homosexual characters who have to keep it secret, deal with societal disapproval etc - or you can have a society like ancient Greece where certain forms of male homosexuality are approved of, but the adult male still need to have a wife, breed, be manly - not be a catamite, etc.

I also find Seattle 2019 off-putting - but OTOH I also find the 1970s Wisconsin attitudes of early D&D equally off-putting. D&D has had a modernist trend for a long time.

It is hard to get around when playing D&D, in my experience, so mostly I just put up with it. In other systems, I prefer historical / alternate-historical settings.

For example, in my Vinland game, it was expected that adult males and females should marry and have a spouse - and generally their family arranged marriages. In D&D, though, I don't bother with adventurers getting treated as odd for not being married (or even looking to marry). I accept it's just part of the fantasy subgenre.

Quote from: Alexander Kalinowski;1079252...
Which is why I would want the RPG industry have more than one household name. Preferably a game that plays very differently and that isn't fantasy.

This sounds both entirely realistic and depressingly limited at the same time. The mindset of the American RPG community, looked at as a whole, not gonna lie, is baffling.

The D&D type of fantasy rules the roost in the US for some very good reasons. Being the first RPG chief among them - but the others area also important factors as to why no one has been able to unseat D&D despite its IP holders blunders.

Out of curiosity - would you happen to know the top RPG's in germany and how they compare to the top 5 in the US?

Just curious, no biggie if you don't know.

Quote from: Stegosaurus;1079645..
However, it is an unfortunate fact that many of these low interest gamers are incredibly vocal online and more than happy to fill out surveys that will influence the direction the hobby takes.....

Replace "low interest gamer' with: "Member of the D&D 'community'." And you have exactly the kind of situation that they are trying to create. And we really want to avoid!

i.e. People who don't actually play the game defining and policing its content.

And most of whom are of a different worldview than most who actually play the game.

Quote from: SHARK;1079682Greetings!

I often wonder why it seems to be *so* important for these SJW's to have characters that are homosexual, or trans. And also they have this screeching, sobbing need to have all of these adventures and supplements show *representation* of homosexual, and trans characters.
...
Really seems very strange to me for people allegedly, supposed to be playing a game.

SHARK

Simple.

Because it drives away the normies.

Quote from: Snowman0147;1079449Some how I imagine CoC is a lot more weirder in Japan.

I first read this and thought "Why would that be?", and then I remembered that Cthulhu has tentacles...

Quote from: jhkim;1079819I also find Seattle 2019 off-putting - but OTOH I also find the 1970s Wisconsin attitudes of early D&D equally off-putting. D&D has had a modernist trend for a long time.

I guess Lake Geneva attitudes can occasionally grate, but in the early stuff they didn't take themselves too seriously. When it comes to the 1990s, the one thing that always bugged me was the art, use of real people in stuff like this



It's both titillating, hilarious, and weirdly offputting - especially that sporran!

What is between her legs?

Quote from: Christopher Brady;1079679Given that 10% of these stores are closing a year, soon they won't be existing for the Indies to sell their books.

That's Amazon and online competitors. Just like game stores or book stores, comic stores will have to offer more than comics on shelves. Fortunately, the better stores have been doing that, diversifying products on shelves (mugs, shirts, games, etc) so they can compete by becoming an "entertainment venue" for comic book fans.

Of course, there is also the severe decline in reading among (at least) Americans. That can't be good for comic sales either.

Quote from: Razor 007;1079719The Hobby has Participants, and Supporters.  Some people are both.

Good observation.

Quote from: Omega;1079767Theres allready talk that a proposed new movie will also gender swap the Rocketeer and she will also be black because INCLUSION! (Tokenism)

As of last June, it may be an animated show for Disney Junior.
https://sciencefiction.com/2018/06/15/weve-got-first-look-animated-rocketeer-reboot/

Eh, it is like any time you deal with self-righteous zealots, always go for their past and their 'precious', and soon they'll come back to the table contrite and ready to talk reasonably. Just like my recommendation to "go after Exalted" when there was another TheBigPurple dust-up about cheesecake art? Same same.

For this, just go after Josh Whedon stuff, tumblr/twitter, slash/ship fiction, etc. Wanna do a ship fiction between West Wing show and drow of the Underdark, followed by heroic dungeon raids clearing them out? Go ahead. Buffy & Angel & Supernatural speaking twee as they slay She-Ra, My Little Pony, & Rainbow Brite 'zombie hordes' from conquering Earth? Rock on. Bring the dungeon back to Gilmore Girls? Go right ahead.

I have no dog in this fight beyond getting people to stop scheming & fronting and being real, seeing the humanity of the other across the table. And if one side is in scorched earth policy, there is only one solution to get them back to the table to talk: scorch earth their homeland at the same time. MAD (mutual assured destruction) assures peace; like Dr. Strangelove, how I learned to love the bomb.

Go forth and speak twee in the dungeon! And bring the dungeon back to Grey's Anatomy.

Quote from: S'mon;1079872I guess Lake Geneva attitudes can occasionally grate, but in the early stuff they didn't take themselves too seriously. When it comes to the 1990s, the one thing that always bugged me was the art, use of real people in stuff like this

If real people in TSR art bugs you then do not look at the Spellfire card game.