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Recent Posts

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I wonder if this is to encourage people to buy more current D&D products?  I’m sure there are plenty of people waiting for the “new” edition. Perhaps the projected quarter numbers for WotC are worse than expected?
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I am a millennial, and will generally defend my generation. That said, one of the criticisms of the millennials (and I presume zoomers as well) is that they have been utterly poisoned by the overuse of irony in pop-culture. They're a product of the late-stage artistic stagnation the major entertainment mediums are locked in, so their entire cultural frame of reference is genre subversion and deconstruction. Everything is "post"-something, and the dreaded "genre trope" is a bogeyman to avoid at all costs. Far too many younger players are positively allergic to sincerity, and are basically too insecure to play a character straight in a roleplaying game. They have to try and be the class clown and show how cool they are with their "quirky" ideas.

That said, don't be a doomer about it just yet. If you're willing to take up the GM-ing torch, some of this can be overcome by good leadership. First of all, don't run 5e. And I don't say that for any game system reasons. 5e is by design a game with no strong theme or tone of it's own. If you instead run something with a strong internal tone, like say Cyberpunk, Deadlands or Call of Cthulhu, you might be surprised at how willing even younger players are to fall in line with it. Generally speaking, GMs have a lot of power to set the tone of a game and players are likely to follow. For my Roll20 games I have a "table rules" post I put out with the game listing, and the first item is "play sincerely". I make it very clear up front that I have no time for joke characters or people who play ironically, and generally I get agreement with that from across generations. A lot of younger people are desperate for some sincerity in their entertainment, even if they don't consciously realize it. When players do try to get "quirky" I have NPCs react the way real people would, with eye-rolling and irritation, and treating them like children. When the overplayed joke starts to fall flat, people usually stop it.

Be quirky in return.

Play a human fighter with a wife, kids and extended family to support. He’s adventuring to get his family a better life. He has no interest in the other characters’ drama; he’s here to provide for his family and drama gets in the way of getting the job done so he can home and see them (also insist on plenty of downtime for precisely this reason).

A lot of the 5e groups I’ve experienced won’t have any idea what to do with that. It will (sadly, not literally) break their brains.

Yeah, I've done something similar in the past. Play a straight-laced, well-meaning, mature character, and play that character as intelligent and capable. The irony brigade can't deal with a Dudley Doright character who isn't being played as a joke. They'll try to make fun of you for a bit, but it won't work because your character exposes all their childish insecurities. You'll end up having to play the party's dad initially, but you'll also end up being the de facto leader, and after a while they'll start falling in line.

EDIT: You do have to be a little bit careful with this approach. Playing a realistically good person is way more difficult than playing a self-serving dickhead or a stereotype. I have seen people try this and fall horribly flat because they aren't good leaders. Trying this approach and failing is one of the reasons for the "lawful stupid paladin" stereotype.
3
The way WotC is marketing this is just weird.  It's like they are trying to have their cake and eat it too.  They want to make a new edition but they don't want to alienate all of the 5e players.  So it's 5e but it's also not 5e.  It's the same but different.  It's okay if things go away because they will still be there?  What the fuck?  Either it goes away or it doesn't go away.  Is it 5e again or is it different?  If it's 5e again, why does anyone need it?  Are they removing things or not?  Why can't they just tell us what this product is going to be?

Easy: they have no fucking clue what they're doing. Not in marketing. Not in game design. Not in anything.

WoTC is a company that has a chronic case of cranial rectum-itis.
4
I don't want to defend anyone at WOTC, but I actually agree with Perkins on this. If I were designing the game, I'd take it down to 4 base classes (Fighter, Cleric, Mage, Rogue) and make everything else a variant on one of those. Either through subclasses or by feat selection. Then again, I bailed out of the 5E ship years ago.
Even the Cleric is just a D&D-ism that is barely retained anyway as Bards now have Arcane healing.

All you really need are three classes; Fighter (fighty guy), Mage (casty guy) and Expert (skill guy); and free multi-classing between them.

Cleric is a Figher/Mage with a focus on healing spells. Paladin is also a Fighter/Mage with twice the levels in Fighter as Mage. Ranger is a Fighter/Expert with a focus on Nature, Barbarian is the same, but has way more levels in fighter than expert. Druid is a Mage with Nature/Shapeshifting focus. Etc.

Beyond that, you just need some subclass specifics like “Str vs. Dex based” Fighter options… with Rage, Unarmored Defense, and Unarmed strikes in the list somewhere for Fighter, Skill Tricks for the Expert (ex. Nature abilities, Mechanics/Locks/Traps, Social, Stealth), and spell school and/or power source focus for the Mage and you could more than cover all the D&D classes and have much broader options in general.

I know you mean well, but thank goodness I don't play this fucktard edition. Even with the so-called fixes you propose, IMO it still sounds like a convoluted mess.

Lipstick on a pig.

Keep it original. Keep it Old School. OSR forever.

(mic drop)
5
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6
  NYC CRIME DOWN!!! Come on guys jhkim said so....though it is strange they have the NATIONAL GUARD stationed in the subways....

Greetings!

Yep, Ogg, National Guard troops in New York subways, homeless tent cities everywhere, videos over and over of city streets filled with needles, whores, crime, and homeless fucks shitting in the sidewalk--but our cities are fine, Ogg. CRIME IS DOWN, YOU BIGOT! ;D

Our cities are eroding and turning into dangerous shitholes. That's right. Keep voting the DEMOCRATS into power. The nice, sweet, non-bigot Democrats have our best interests at heart!

People really need to wake the fuck up!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK
7
The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by Silverblade on Today at 10:43:42 AM »
So, by only comparing lifetime emissions, you are conveniently leaving out the environmental harm done in the process of strip mining for the minerals needed to make the batteries to make the EVs.  You can't be unaware of this problem since GeekyBugle has brought it up several times in detail.  I can only conclude that you are being deliberately disingenuous and deliberately presenting a false view of the costs.  In short, you are arguing in bad faith again.

If you dig to the core of the issue you will understand leftist and virtue signalers in general only bring solutions that help them. It’s why they only focus on air pollution because that directly affects them. The environmental damage from mining doesn’t affect their daily lives. It’s the NIMBY syndrome.

I guarantee if someone dropped a lithium mine in their backyard that will destroy their beautiful land and contaminate their ground water, they would resist mining for batteries. Who cares if third world people suffer if you can feel good about how you are “helping” the environment?  Throw a couple of other people’s tax money to feel good about yourself.

Energy is a trade off and most people would rather trade someone else’s pain than theirs.
8
The RPGPundit's Own Forum / Re: Greta is at it..AGAIN
« Last post by oggsmash on Today at 10:38:18 AM »
  Why is it people who say they are so against Carbon emissions are at the same time so for mass migration from the 3rd world to the West...where swelling the population is going to accelerate massively any carbon emissions?  Why are they always so so silent about China and India releasing emissions at MUCH MUCH higher levels than the west and especially the USA?   Almost as if they simply lie constantly to press some agenda they wont say out loud.
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  NYC CRIME DOWN!!! Come on guys jhkim said so....though it is strange they have the NATIONAL GUARD stationed in the subways....
10
Most VTTs will let a GM just start drawing on a grid if you want to do it old school, sure.  I'm personally subscribed to a couple patreon guys who do animated maps for a couple bucks a month, and there are mapping tools like Dungeon Alchemist that export into VTT formats with walls and lighting pre-configured depending on how much effort one wishes to put in.
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