Basements & Beards- Analogue Gaming Thread

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I would guess she has shuffeld some of her food expenses to other categories.

EDIT: The WotC drama is getting confusing

So one of the two companies in recent times to name themselves TSR (at least after they were forced to rebrand themselves) is suing WotC for libel and slander, aka because of this disclaimer you will find on any digital D&D product from before 5e:

We recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website, does not reflect the values of the Dungeon & Dragons franchise today. Some older content may reflect ethnic, racial and gender prejudice that were commonplace in American society at that time. These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed. Dungeons & Dragons teaches that diversity is a strength, and we strive to make our D&D products as welcoming and inclusive as possible. This part of our work will never end.

Naturally the money for this lawsuit is supposed to be crowd-funded, so it seems to be some weird keikaku to fleece old grognards who are tired of this SocJusShit.

[wulfenlord]

Yeah, read that, this Gygax spawn isn't really lulzworthy though nor does this Frankenstein TSR produce any RPG of value (even Spoonys first Patron Jolly Blackburn has more nerd-fame with HackMaster), the "case" will be dismissed, if it's even making it to trial in the first place.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

They haven't actually produced anything so far. Just some yet-to-be-released thing called GiantLands that is probably either some ripoff of D&D using d100s, or a ripoff of one of Gygax's post-D&D games (which all used d100s and never took off because spiteful hag Lorraine Willaims sued or threatened to sue any company associated with Gygax, causing the games to have a very limited production cycle).

The Kickstarter for the "Limited Edition Boxed Set" looks a bit suspect. It's easy to brag about getting 5,000% funded if your goal was only $100. What kind of goal for a physical release is this, anyways? How many boxed sets could you even make with 100 bucks?

And of course they're doing the whole "We are the true heirs of St. Gary's legacy", which was already tasteless when Paizo did it.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

This has been brought to my attention by my network of loyal minions:

Problematic D&D content razed to the ground until there's nothing but sunshine and rainbows

Hidden as "errata" (aka bugfixes and patches for tabletop RPGs), WotC has outdone themselves with sweeping retcons and revisionism in effectively all of their digital 5e releases.

The various races no longer have a default alignment in their statblocks (since that's apparently as racist as the fixed stat modifiers which they've also removed). I guess it was too problematic that a simple two-letter code could tell you the fundamental difference between an Orc (CE aka Chaotic Evil aka savage raiders) and a Hobgoblin (LE aka Lawful Evil aka disciplined raiders).

The dreaded Drow retcon has also arrived (remember, they're problematic because they're evil, black and run by women). Now they're evil because of the eeevil Lolth cult, and there are now two flavors of good Drow who are elusive, wonderful and unique.
On one hand I never really liked that bit D&D of autism where you can't have evil or even just mean dwarves and elves without having to come up with an entire new sub-race (Duergar and Drow, respectively).
On the other hand all those infamous players insisting on playing a Drizzt clone now have two official sources for their special snowflake Drow Ranger, and now they are essentially encouraged to lecture people about how Drow are just misunderstood.
Also apparently they solved the problem of Drow being totally supposed to be black by making them whiter (aka gray)

Volo's Guide to Monsters (basically some Monster Manual variant with in-universe descriptions by the titular shucklefuck) has been fucked the hardest, with entire paragraphs getting unpersoned with no replacement. Each and every instance of slavery, cannibalism and racism has been purged, as well as any paragraph that even hints at someone being inherently evil.
This is not only weird because all the text was already the subjective opinion of this Volo fellow, but this not only applies to races like Orcs and Drow, but also monsters like Beholders and Giants, who are now all nicer guys than they ever were before. Even fucking Mindflayers no longer stoop so low as to indulge in slavery. Good for them.
Gnolls are of course also nicer, which is extra odd because 5e previously retconned them into essentially demonic hellspawns
Apparently this guide did not include Aboleths. I would really like to see how they'd try to sanitize these fuckers. They're Lovecraftian tentacle fish who not only love to enslave people, but also mutate their slaves into weirdoes with transparent skin that can no longer breathe air. I guess they can retcon those into monstrous minions with no ties to slavery?

Also when rolling up random features of a city, you can no longer get brothels, apparently

Additionally, Orcs now have a new description that clarifies that stories of orc marauders are the ones who hear the call of Gruumsh, the one-eyed god of slaugher–but that not all orc chieftains are bent on destruction.

#NotAllOrcs

EDIT: This whole bit of self-censorship reminds me of an even more retarded version of the Lorraine Williams era of TSR, back when Half-Orcs were removed from the game (since they imply rape) and the Satanic Panic caused TSR to rebrand Devils and Demons into "Baatezu" and "Tanar'ri", all in order to be less "problematic". But at least those Not-Devils and Not-Demons got plenty of lore thanks to Planescape. What WotC is doing now is erase lore.

[Le Redditeur]

Finally a tacit admission that orcs are niggers. Good.

Because not even Tolkien went for that - niggers are the men from Harad, were, according to Aragorn, "the stars are strange" (because of the Equator), but nothing else he said about them.

[wulfenlord]

Also apparently they solved the problem of Drow being totally supposed to be black by making them whiter (aka gray)

Nah, it's worse. They are now individually speshul with wonderfully diverse hues of black, blue, and grey :3

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

(Dark) blue isn't really new. It's the standard in Pathfinder, and probably appeared in D&D proper because Pathfinder has no ounce of creativity in its bones..
Though I wonder if Pathfinder 2e kept that bit of elven lore where a regular (aka *white*) elf can become a Drow if he's just evil enough.

EDIT: Found it. This is a Drow from the AD&D 2e Monstrous Manual:


I'm also pretty sure Drizzt had to do something with his skin color to not be hunted down on sight, but who knows what's going on in this novels.

[wulfenlord]

So much cope(in regards to the castration of the upcoming D&D 5.5 monster manual)

The only thing that’s gone are three paragraphs that gave some flavor, sure. But they were by no means the only clue as to the monsters’ personality or habits or history. All of that information is largely untouched. A fact which head of D&D, Ray Winninger, explained in an update to the recent errata post. In a nutshell though, don’t worry– Mind Flayers are still evil monsters. They still colonized the Underdark and devoured brains and totally run Wizards of the Coast.

Lawl, see how sarcastic this is written by us soyboy allies journalists? There's no way this errata is the only the first in erasing history. Only literal Nazis would do that!

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

I'm starting to get worried that they might pull a 4e all over again and purge all PDFs of older edition stuff from digital distributors. They already have a "This product is probably problematic" warning label on them

I’ve previously noted that new setting products are a major area of focus for the Studio going forward. As part of that effort, our reminders that D&D supports not just The Forgotten Realms but a multitude of worlds are getting more explicit.

Looking forward to more setting support for Magic the Cuckening and Critical Role.

The only real changes related to alignment were removing the suggested alignments previously assigned to playable races in the PHB and elsewhere (“most dwarves are lawful;” “most halflings are lawful good”). We stopped providing such suggestions for new playable races some time ago. Since every player character is a unique individual, we no longer feel that such guidance is useful or appropriate. Whether or not most halflings are lawful good has no bearing on your halfling and who you want to be. After all, the most memorable and interesting characters often explicitly subvert expectations and stereotypes.

How can I subvert expectations and stereotypes if you're not telling me what those expectations and stereotypes are?

We also removed a couple paragraphs suggesting that all mind flayers or all beholders (for instance) share a single, stock personality. We’ve long advised DMs that one way to make adventures and campaigns more memorable is to populate them with unique and interesting characters.

It's a fucking Beholder. You use it for shit you need a fucking Beholder for. If you need something different you pick one of the 1 million other monsters.

These paragraphs stood in conflict with that advice. We didn’t alter the essential natures of these creatures or how they fit into our settings at all. (Mind flayers still devour the brains of humanoids, and yes, that means they tend to be evil.)

Oh, they tend to be evil?

And it seems Wizards are in some kind of contest with Paizo, who have recently decided to never speak of slavery in their setting ever again because it offended some special snowflakes

[Le Redditeur]

I'm starting to get worried that they might pull a 4e all over again and purge all PDFs of older edition stuff from digital distributors. They already have a "This product is probably problematic" warning label on them

Oh no that would be terrible whatever we will do to get those OCR high quality PDFs if WotC pulls them out of digital distributors we will never be able to acquire those PDFs ever again its over there's absolutely no way we can download them all in a huge package from anywhere and for free