Quote from: yosemitemike on Today at 09:16:07 AMPeople who "fix" art are worthless pieces of shit who should be collectively euthanized for the betterment of humanity.  Fuck these smug, self-important assholes.  I fucking detest these people.

They arent fixing anything. They are defacing it for their agenda. But of course the woke always twist words out of any meaning.

Police: "You shot him in the head?"
Woke: "I fixed him."

The 90s wave of this stupid did the same thing. A few old cartoons with black characters were either never shown again, edited out, or in a few cases replaced with a white person because apparently some (likely white) person bitched about it.

Quote from: jeff37923 on Today at 02:29:06 PMJust my two cents on Conan.....

Even a very cursory reading of the Conan stories by Howard would show that Conan was never a rapist. In all honesty, from reading about Robert E Howard, I sincerely doubt that he would have written about a hero who forced himself on women in his stories because Howard would have considered that to be villainous.

And the pulps probably wouldn't buy a story with a rape scene in it.

It is implied in one story. Think Red nails? But never acted on. But that is all the fuel the woke need in order to start screeching "wapist!" Look at some of the postings here on the Shield Hero anime. Same damn thing. In the anime no sich thing happens. In the original litenovel the character, who has been robbed and falsely accused of rape by a woman, briefly has some very dark thoughts. And then tosses that aside and moves on. But nooooo. He is teh horriblez wapist!

Quote from: yosemitemike on Today at 07:23:55 AMI can't say that I ever particularly cared about Greyhawk or found it's flavor of kitchen sink D&D fantasy to be all that different from Forgotten Realms at the table.

I have the World of Greyhawk box and it is not even a tenth as fantasy kitchen sink as Forgotten Realms. It has a defined structure and theme where FR totally lacks any such thing. Mystara is closer to FR in that respect.

Quote from: SHARK on Today at 07:38:18 AM

Quote from: Omega on Today at 03:09:48 AMNo. We have 24 years of wotc fucking things up. Pulling one dirty deal after another. Chasing agendas. Treating employees like dirt. Ripping off people and more.

It is sad seeing the Stupid Train that WOTC has been on. Eventually, though, most of us have reached a point where enough is enough. Fuck 'em, you know? And I have enjoyed 5E, especially the early years. I have defended 5E from the haters, as well. Unfortunately, though, as you well note, year by year, episode after episode, WOTC has become more Woke and more fucking stupid and terrible.

I don't think you're actually agreeing. Omega said that WotC have been fucking up for 24 years (since 3E launched). jeff37923 said that WotC has been fucking up for 15 years (since the launch of 4E). You're only saying that WotC has been getting more stupid the past 5-6 years.

Personally, I liked the 5E core - it's my favorite edition for core rules. However, I hated the early 5E adventures, and was mixed about supplements.

I'd been lukewarm to WotC for a while, though. I remember warning about the OGL back in 2000 -- noting that WotC was actually claiming more than what copyright gave them a right to. I gave the 3E rules a fair shot - reading and breaking down the rules, and played in a short campaign. But I quit it by 2003, completely ignored 3.5E and only played a bit of 4E because my nephews wanted to play.

---

To SHARK - do you think you were hoodwinked earlier and that WotC was terrible all along and you just didn't see? Or do you stand by your assessment of the 5E core and early books?

Quote from: jeff37923 on Today at 04:08:25 AMIf you think that the only reason that D&D book sales has dropped is because a new edition is coming out and not that the OGL has been threatened by WotC,

that the latest modules were pandering crap (magical coffee shop? WTF?),

that what was a game is now being pushed as a lifestyle brand (D&D fashion and shoes anybody?)

1: Sales have dropped for alot of reasons. The OGL blowup is a footnote now. Poor product is a more telling problem.

2: There is no such module other than what ammounts to a fan made one by one of the staff. Theres alot worse on DM's Guild and people think ALL of that is "official". The problem is sadly more mundane. wotc writers are fucking lazy and cant be dicked to actually do the job they were hired for. Graduates from the  White Wolf school of failure. "oh we didnt bother to write that rule. The players will do it for us!"

3: This again? No. wotc is not pushing D&D as a lifestyle. They are too incompetent for that. Fan made mercandise and 3rd party items have been around since the TSR days. D&D WOODBURNING SET? D&D CANDY? O-M-G!!! TSR is for making teh Lifestylez!!!111!!!. wotc has done just short of nothing aside from trying to monetize fan crafts.

x: wotc has put out one lacklustre product after another Spelljanner bombed, barely anyone is talking about Planescape, the last few modules aside from Wild Beyond the Witchlight have been messes and even Witchlight needs work because the writers couldnt be dicked to do their job. Then there's Phandelver and Below which is so fucking incoherent I'm surprised anyones actually been able to run it.

And now apparently they want to mess with D&D Beyond and just this month removed the ability to buy single items from a book instead of the whole book. This on top of them removing older books from the shop. Rumor is that next to go will be the ability to post and share your own works.

Add on an unwanted new edition that wotc insists is really real not a new edition! A new edition that looks to totally overhaul things and relegate the DM to storytelling slaves.

Is it any wonder sales are down?

Quote from: Exploderwizard on Today at 01:32:34 PMWoke bullshit is like the dark side of the force. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.

Much like the path of those that crusade against it, right?

Just my two cents on Conan.....

Even a very cursory reading of the Conan stories by Howard would show that Conan was never a rapist. In all honesty, from reading about Robert E Howard, I sincerely doubt that he would have written about a hero who forced himself on women in his stories because Howard would have considered that to be villainous.

And the pulps probably wouldn't buy a story with a rape scene in it.

Quote from: SHARK on Today at 07:16:57 AM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 19, 2024, 05:08:45 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 19, 2024, 03:30:47 PM

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 19, 2024, 02:29:09 PM

Quote from: HappyDaze on May 18, 2024, 09:50:20 PM

Quote from: Votan on May 18, 2024, 03:28:27 PM

Quote from: Omega on May 17, 2024, 02:51:52 PMConsidering how much they despise Gygax and co for being "White and Male"... The odds of them handling Greyhawk with nay respect approaches zero.

Fair. But here is the thing, if it is done well then we can use the awesome stuff. If it is done poorly, it can be easily ignored. All real play settings must diverge from the cannon setting, anyway, because at some point the world events will be different or an area that the DM fleshed out will be done differently. So it is probably a net positive.

That's not a bad take on it, but you won't find too many here that are willing to give it a fair chance. Even if it is good, they'll have to reject it to follow their narrative.

Nice No Win Scenario you created, you get the Kobiyashi Maru Award for blaming the customer. Wear it with pride.

You're really going to try and claim to be one of their customers? My point is that most of the posters here have totally written them off and are not their customers, which you either missed or...well, you do have your narrative to stick to don't you?

Well, you are right, I am not one of their customers. I wrote off WotC back when 4E came out because they delivered a shit sandwich of a game and claimed it was filet mignon. Then when customers weren't buying the crap they produced, they blamed the poor taste and the grognardism of those same customers.

Kinda like what you are setting people up for here.

If you think that the Greyhawk material will be woke shit, for you it means that people with that opinion will be "following the narrative" because they can't possibly look at the past decade and a half of WotC pushing some of the lamest crap out under the aegis of the D&D IP with older material changed to conform to "modern audiences" and predict that this will be more of the same. Instead, it has to be because the customers who don't hand over their paychecks for more WotC crap must be brainwashed sheep.

Fuck off and go try to gaslight someone else with your bullshit.

Greetings!

Good stuff, Jeff! Yeah, 4E was fucking BS. I refused to buy any of 4E, or play that dogshit set of game books.

I returned to 5E D&D, because I felt that the developers at WOTC had turned their backs on the BS of 4E, and seemed to have a kind of epiphany, in seeking to return the D&D game to more or less its cherished "Old School" roots. Most of my gaming friends also agreed, and were all eager to embrace 5E and give WOTC a second chance after the disaster of 4E. Having design consultants like RPG Pundit, Zak S, S. John Ross, and others, that I all knew and was familiar with their quality, likewise inspired my hope and a renewed sense of faith.

The early years of 5E were solid, and good. My only major complaints of the early 5E was the internal dynamic of promoting the Player Characters as being more like superheroes than medieval fantasy champions. Gradually, however, as you well know my friend, the Woke morons gained ever more control within the halls of WOTC, and the stupid train started rolling. The shitty, Woke books, the anti-White racism, the terrible tweets and other social media posts, the fucked up interviews, culminating with WOTC's attempt at reneging on the OGL, well, that was the proverbial "Straw that Broke the Camel's Back" for myself.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Hey, SHARK!

I was hopeful during the 5E play test. I was even willing to overcome my dislike of the short rest/long rest stuff in the rules. Then I just took a hard look at how toxic and woke the organized play program of DnD was, and how WotC encouraged that toxicity. I also remembered the huge amount of money I had invested in 3.x (over $8000) that WotC wanted me to ignore in favor of 4E, which would have to have been ignored in favor of 5E. I can't afford to throw out the monetary equivalent of a newer used car every eight year just to chase my hobby.  The clusterfuck cavalcade by WotC which followed is a justification of my decision IMHO.

I absolutely love Traveller, but even My Favorite Game has got some fuck-ups in its past that I won't buy.

Quote from: Monero on May 18, 2024, 08:49:59 PM4e is objectively the best D&D game. D&D combat is pure dogshit save for 4e and there's nothing that the other editions do that 4e can't, while also having the best combat in all of TTRPGs.

You are joking right?  4E was arguably an ok stand alone combat game but in the context of a D&D campaign it was a major fucking drag that went on forever. I am speaking as someone who does own the 4E books and ran a campaign of it.

The overall problem with the system was centered on the concept of encountardization. Nothing with any meaning or importance shall endure beyond, or take place beyond the scope of the almighty encounter. There were no magical or other effects that had durations beyond the subjective confines of the encounter. Also, there was no way per RAW to end a ponderously long encounter than to grind all opponents hit points to zero. No morale or any power to remove an opponents ability to continue fighting other than the slow steady grind of hit points down to zero.  What they did with concept of minions was just stupid. Kobold minions, sure, but giant & balrog minions? On the DM side, creating NPCs and monsters from scratch was was WAY too much work without software. I do credit 4E for giving me a DM rule to live by: If the game requires specialized software to prep a game then it it isn't worth running.

Quote from: Brad on Today at 11:43:00 AMPlease expound on this...I am curious.

One of the GreyTalk (not CanonFire!, sorry, misspoke) contributors wrote a piece wherein he merged the 3 different wizards. I don't have the original thread but chatdemon at CanonFire! at least attempted to do a follow up that corrected Tasha the Grinning Mage (a relative of Zagig Yragerne, but he screwed up by making her her only 9th lvl whereas her tome The Lore of Subtle Communication, from Dragon #82, has Legend Lore in it, meaning she has to 12th lvl at minimum).

Natasha the Dark was a dual-classed Illusionist/Mage 7th/15th lvl from the Roger E. Moore adventure The Dancing Hut in Dragon #83. Natasha the Dark's spellbook isn't listed and if Moore (who didn't create Tasha, Gygax did) had intended for them to be the same, he would have put SOMETHING in the adventure to denote that, specifically Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter.

Iggwilv is (according to Gygax) at least 23rd lvl and because of her Demonomicon of Iggwilv includes Henley's Digit Disruption (a 7th lvl Cleric spell), she has to be at least a 16th lvl Cleric. We know she's also a Mage because the Demonomicon has Mage spells, the highest of which is Banishment which is an 8th lvl spell, so she has to be at minimum a 16th lvl Mage as well. Iggwilv was inspired by the Finnish crone Louhi. Further, in the 2nd Gord the Rogue novel, which was published by TSR, we get a description of Iggwilv's 'original' non-crone form:

'Iggwilv shook her head. "Not so fast, my prodigal. Is that any way for a devoted son to speak to his Dear Mother?" Even as she uttered this admonition, the ancient crone, one who had appeared a parody of every child's nightmare of a wicked witch, changed. Her features flowed and changed as her body grew and straightened. Scraggly, gray locks became flowing tresses of hair like spun gold, and face and form matched the radiance of this golden head.' - Artifact of Evil, p. 263

Given Iggwilv's power, and the fact she is forbidden from interfering in the mortal realm (WG6: Isle of the Ape), she would have to be a Lesser Goddess in status by CY576. Only those of that rank and higher cannot interact directly with mortals other than granting spells. This fits with her being inspired by Louhi. It also helps to explain how her son, Iuz the Old, came by his semi-divine status (he likely followed her path to achieve demigod status). Also, given the timescales necessary to do that, Iggwilv is WAY older than Zagyg and could never have been his apprentice. 

Natasha the Dark, on the other hand, is described thusly: 'A beautiful woman with alabaster skin and smoky black hair'.

Tasha, Natasha the Dark and Iggwilv all have to be different people simply from the fact Iggwilv and Natasha aren't even the same kind of Dual-classed Mages. Furthermore, if Natasha the Dark was Tasha the Grinning Mage, why wouldn't she have the spell Tasha was most famous for creating?

The worst part of this? Asshole leftard scum started dragging Gygax on Twitter after Tasha's Cauldron of Everything was published because of the backstory of how Tasha the Grinning Mage came to exist. Namely, a young girl wrote a letter to Gary (in crayon) wanting a spell to make her enemies laugh. Thus he created Tasha's Uncontrollable Hideous Laughter. But the assholes at WotC, following through on linking Tasha, Iggwilv and Natasha couldn't help but increase the sleaze factor because Natasha the Dark was drawn in very skimpy clothing.

The whole debacle is a lazy, nonsensical and creatively bankrupt attempt to do the least work possible and in the process fuck up 1 of the most powerful and interesting enemies in Greyhawk (Iggwilv) as well as do absolutely nothing with Natasha the Dark, let alone Tasha the Grinning Mage. And the cherry on top of the shit sundae is the claim that Tasha and Natasha HAVE to be the same because there can't be 2 famous Mages with names so similar in Greyhawk.

The only other thing is that there is a portrait in Rob Kuntz's The Original Bottle City of Ashat the Laughing Witch, so perhaps there was a Tasha who was a companion of Zagig at some point.