D&D Beyond to delist two books next week.

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I suspect part of this at least has to do with AL. When you run an AL game at a (say) game store or a convention, it isn't really *your* table. People who have their own tables probably see Sage Advice as, well, advice. GMs who run AL games need to stick to the official interpretations.
 
I suspect part of this at least has to do with AL. When you run an AL game at a (say) game store or a convention, it isn't really *your* table. People who have their own tables probably see Sage Advice as, well, advice. GMs who run AL games need to stick to the official interpretations.
Yes. It's a plague upon mankind.

Seriously, though there has to be some way of running this kind of organised play without it poisoning gaming in this kind of way.
 
Don't think that those 'but it doesn't say that in book!' types are a generational thing. I remember friends like that as a teen and you can find them all over the Dragon letter columns and Old-school D&D-only forums to this day.

Babymode does seem to be a direction they may be heading but I'm not expecting a huge corp like Hasbro to get provocative in such a puritan time either.
The existence of isn't generational. The volume of, with the explosion of RPGs, I think is unique to this generation.
Yeah, I'll just keep my actual physical books and keep not bothering with D&D Beyond then. WotC still doesn't have the authority to come round my house and take my now superseded books from me.
In my third 5e campaign now. I'm ready to wrap it up and go back to better (imo) games after this. I've found, to my dismay, that it works remarkably well with WotC's canned campaigns, but I'm less a fan once I'm doing it entirely homebrew. Maybe that's me, maybe that's them, but either way, it's not working out, and from a "fluff" perspective, I've regretted my last few purchases by them (with Fizban's being the only book I've gotten in the last 5 or 6 releases that I actually liked at all).

I'm better off dropping that money on older PDFs/PODs/used books for my D&D fix.
 
Seriously, though there has to be some way of running this kind of organised play without it poisoning gaming in this kind of way.

We can certainly explore this in another thread. :hehe:

I've attended a few ALs as a player myself, and of course there are all sorts of players, but there are a large number of players who see D&D as a game to *win at*, and who select scenarios based on the loot they know are within. During one session when the official magical items store opened there was a mad rush. :shock:

I guess when your perspective of D&D is like a computer RPG where you try to level up and get all the best items so your character is *better* than other people's, "fairness" becomes important to you.
 
I don't really care why or what they're changing I'm just kind of surprised they are being removed from purchase digitally. I mean if the logic is "We have better rules now" or "We have updated lore to a different timeline/setting/whatever" then why sell older versions of D&D at all? If those aren't the reasons just put a "Not current or valid for Adventure League play" note on the description and keep selling away.
 
This seems kind of funny to me because I could easily tear away about half of the players handbook and happily game away with it for years to come. I do feel sorry for everyone that's been ripped off though... Never trust the big money-printers to do the right thing.
 
Also not sure when alignment, easily one of the most disliked and widely ignored elements of D&D, often completely ignored in most OSR rulesets, became such a sacred cow.

I don't think that people's issue with the removal of alignment is due to the love of alignment itself (although I'm sure that is partly the case for some traditionalist types who see it as integral to what the game is about), but WHY it is being removed. Which seems to be tied to the sanitation process of removing anything that certain people might choose to take offense to, such as the idea that certain races or creatures are inherently or usually evil, or typically engage in "evil" practices that can no longer even be mentioned in the game, such as slavery or cannibalism.
 
I don't think that people's issue with the removal of alignment is due to the love of alignment itself (although I'm sure that is partly the case for some traditionalist types who see it as integral to what the game is about), but WHY it is being removed. Which seems to be tied to the sanitation process of removing anything that certain people might choose to take offense to, such as the idea that certain races or creatures are inherently or usually evil, or typically engage in "evil" practices that can no longer even be mentioned in the game, such as slavery or cannibalism.

Yep, that seems to be the main issue.

I ignore alignment, have individual creatures (including "monsters") act as individuals, and have humanoid crossbreeds beyond simple half-elves, but I have been playing that way for decades now. It isn't because I find the older rules offensive in any way. It just always made more sense to me, from an in-universe-but-logical sort of perspective. By the same token, though, cannibalism, slavery, and other such things most definitely exist, because they would, realistically.

The recent changes from WotC along those lines, unfortunately, come more from an attempt to bypass criticism from people who look for social injustices, racism, etc. in every tiny thing. Like most businesses, though, chances are they are going to find that the Twitter outrage mob types don't really represent the majority of their customers, and they will never be satisfied by any changes. They are always looking for something to be offended by, and will work hard to find something else to get upset about.
 
Yep, that seems to be the main issue.

I ignore alignment, have individual creatures (including "monsters") act as individuals, and have humanoid crossbreeds beyond simple half-elves, but I have been playing that way for decades now. It isn't because I find the older rules offensive in any way. It just always made more sense to me, from an in-universe-but-logical sort of perspective. By the same token, though, cannibalism, slavery, and other such things most definitely exist, because they would, realistically.

The recent changes from WotC along those lines, unfortunately, come more from an attempt to bypass criticism from people who look for social injustices, racism, etc. in every tiny thing. Like most businesses, though, chances are they are going to find that the Twitter outrage mob types don't really represent the majority of their customers, and they will never be satisfied by any changes. They are always looking for something to be offended by, and will work hard to find something else to get upset about.

I doubt that most people care about any of this stuff, including the people taking offense at it, who general do so on behalf of hypothetical people they've never even met. Things like slavery, cannibalism and racism not only make sense from an in-world perspective, but add additional motivations for adventure (freeing slaves or captives waiting to become dinner for cannibal tribes) or bring interesting dynamics into play (dealing with racist dwarf NPCs who refuse to deal with elves or vice versa) that get stripped away with this sanitation.
 
I doubt that most people care about any of this stuff, including the people taking offense at it, who general do so on behalf of hypothetical people they've never even met. Things like slavery, cannibalism and racism not only make sense from an in-world perspective, but add additional motivations for adventure (freeing slaves or captives waiting to become dinner for cannibal tribes) or bring interesting dynamics into play (dealing with racist dwarf NPCs who refuse to deal with elves or vice versa) that get stripped away with this sanitation.
100%.

I’ve used evil dwarven bounty hunters, vengeful halfling warlocks, heroic Drow, orc scholars, at least one reformed devil (and it was treated as big of a deal as something like that should), an evil silver dragon, and humans in all manner of noble and villainous roles.

Part of the reason those things had an impact was because of the expectations set by the lore.

Distilling it all down to human cosplay as the baseline is boring, IMO.

In my game right now, one PC is a bugbear Paladin (he had me essentially let him randomly roll EVERYTHING including race and class). His whole backstory is that he was the slowest bugbear in his attack party so they left him for dead…but the knights that scattered his party showed mercy instead of killing him, so he lived on the fringes of society, learning a better way, sworn now to a human king, until rampaging gnolls wiped out his farm, so he took up an Oath of Vengeance.

To me and my table, this is a much more interesting dynamic than if he were just part of the bugbear population of the kingdom, happily living in harmony, until he decided to go off in search of adventure.
 
100%.

I’ve used evil dwarven bounty hunters, vengeful halfling warlocks, heroic Drow, orc scholars, at least one reformed devil (and it was treated as big of a deal as something like that should), an evil silver dragon, and humans in all manner of noble and villainous roles.

Part of the reason those things had an impact was because of the expectations set by the lore.

Distilling it all down to human cosplay as the baseline is boring, IMO.

In my game right now, one PC is a bugbear Paladin (he had me essentially let him randomly roll EVERYTHING including race and class). His whole backstory is that he was the slowest bugbear in his attack party so they left him for dead…but the knights that scattered his party showed mercy instead of killing him, so he lived on the fringes of society, learning a better way, sworn now to a human king, until rampaging gnolls wiped out his farm, so he took up an Oath of Vengeance.

To me and my table, this is a much more interesting dynamic than if he were just part of the bugbear population of the kingdom, happily living in harmony, until he decided to go off in search of adventure.

You can't defy expectations if there are no expectations, you can't go against the grain if there is no grain and you can't play against type if there is no type. I'm not even sure what a character's motivation for adventure is in a fantasy world if there are no evil creatures to vanquish and all creatures are just living in harmony with each other. Raiding a dungeon for treasure? Wouldn't that be stealing at that point if the creatures inhabiting it aren't evil and this is just their property? Where does culture go if everyone has the same norms, values and inclinations? What makes different races different?
 
You can't defy expectations if there are no expectations, you can't go against the grain if there is no grain and you can't play against type if there is no type. I'm not even sure what a character's motivation for adventure is in a fantasy world if there are no evil creatures to vanquish and all creatures are just living in harmony with each other. Raiding a dungeon for treasure? Wouldn't that be stealing at that point if the creatures inhabiting it aren't evil and this is just their property? Where does culture go if everyone has the same norms, values and inclinations? What makes different races different?

People in the real world went on adventures, hunted for treasure, stole from others, etc., despite the lack of evil creatures. Different species, different cultures, etc. in the real world all differ, but that doesn't make any of them inherently evil. They still fight and kill each other, though. A lack of "evil" doesn't mean that people or creatures all live in harmony and have the same norms, values, and inclinations. In a roleplaying context, all of that is only problematic if you are focused on playing "heroes," in some objective use of that term. The characters may think they are the good guys - as do most people in the real world - but that doesn't mean they objectively are.

Chimps and gorillas and bonobos and orangutans and humans are all great apes, but different species. We share some similar behaviors, but each species tends towards certain collections of behaviors. You can end up with a lot of individual variation within each group, though. Similarly, orcs and goblins and elves and dwarves and humans may all be "humanoids," but they are similar in some ways. Orcs may tend towards certain behavioral patterns more than elves do, but that doesn't mean that elves are all alike, or orcs are all alike, or that you can't have an elf and an orc that are closer to each other in terms of personality than two very different orcs, or two very different elves.
 
What I've read on the TBP, RPGSite and Reddit strikes me as hyperventilating nonsense.

People with hammers seeing nothing but nails.
You've been pointed to the claims of people saying Volo's is problematic. You've also been pointed to specific changes that have been made in response to these claims.

Are the problems raised ridiculous? Same as it ever was.
Is WotC's response ridiculous yet unsurprising? Same as it ever was.
Are people who have differing views going to battle? Same as it ever was.

Why are you acting like this is some strange new thing? This is RPG Internet 101 these days.
 
You can't defy expectations if there are no expectations, you can't go against the grain if there is no grain and you can't play against type if there is no type. I'm not even sure what a character's motivation for adventure is in a fantasy world if there are no evil creatures to vanquish and all creatures are just living in harmony with each other. Raiding a dungeon for treasure? Wouldn't that be stealing at that point if the creatures inhabiting it aren't evil and this is just their property? Where does culture go if everyone has the same norms, values and inclinations? What makes different races different?
Well, there will be an Evil "Other" to slaughter, it will be the place that doesn't fit into the "Utopia". See Blue Rose.
 
People in the real world went on adventures, hunted for treasure, stole from others, etc., despite the lack of evil creatures. Different species, different cultures, etc. in the real world all differ, but that doesn't make any of them inherently evil. They still fight and kill each other, though. A lack of "evil" doesn't mean that people or creatures all live in harmony and have the same norms, values, and inclinations. In a roleplaying context, all of that is only problematic if you are focused on playing "heroes," in some objective use of that term. The characters may think they are the good guys - as do most people in the real world - but that doesn't mean they objectively are.

I was speaking more in terms of classic expectations for heroic fantasy (particularly high fantasy) worlds, where one of the central tropes is good vs evil, and vanquishing the evil forces of chaos that threaten civilization from the world. If evil creatures flat out don't exist that genre (which is supposed to be the core that D&D is based around) goes out the window. People in real life might not be inherently evil, but evil people still exist, along with slavery (which still exists widespread around the world despite people thinking it's a thing of the past), racism and other things that are being purged from the game and part of the context of what we're discussing.

Chimps and gorillas and bonobos and orangutans and humans are all great apes, but different species. We share some similar behaviors, but each species tends towards certain collections of behaviors. You can end up with a lot of individual variation within each group, though. Similarly, orcs and goblins and elves and dwarves and humans may all be "humanoids," but they are similar in some ways. Orcs may tend towards certain behavioral patterns more than elves do, but that doesn't mean that elves are all alike, or orcs are all alike, or that you can't have an elf and an orc that are closer to each other in terms of personality than two very different orcs, or two very different elves.

The idea of everyone sharing the same norms, values, and inclinations is also in reference to all these types of distinctions you hint at here being removed as well, since different races can no longer be distinct from each of other or have behavioral tendencies, because people take offense with those too. And like I mentioned at the start of my post "You can't defy expectations if there are no expectations, (etc)." Yes, you can have individuals from the same race who have distinct personalities, but if you're no longer allowed to establish clear behavioral trends within each race then those distinctions won't stand out and make them unique, since all races are just equally capable of being individuals without racial inclinations.
 
I ignore alignment, have individual creatures (including "monsters") act as individuals, and have humanoid crossbreeds beyond simple half-elves, but I have been playing that way for decades now.
Yup. Me too. Like that Lawful Good oni.
"Yeah, I ate that baby. But it was gonna grow up to become Overlord Gorth, Scourge of the Living. Plus, the bounty was all legal -- I got this writ, see?"
 
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The existence of isn't generational. The volume of, with the explosion of RPGs, I think is unique to this generation.

I really doubt it, the net is a distorting mirror. I've been playing with a lot of players younger than me for the past number of years and aside from one older GM who was returing to the game I've yet to encounter a BTB rules lawyer.

D&D reddit is dominated by min-maxers and rule pedants, that doesn't mean they reflect the majority in RL. From what I've seen online most of the BTB types online actually hate 5e for being too 'loosey-goosey' rules-wise and prefer 1e, 3e, 4e and PF.

I mean judging by the majority of rpg forums you'd think the average player was obsessed with politics and rules minutiae, but I've yet to meet the former in the wild and the latter was more common when we were teens but as adults they seem much thinner on the ground.

I find younger generations strike me as significantly more puritan and eager to embrace various dogmas but I think one needs to be leery of too easy generalizations of people younger than you. Older people have been complaining about the younger generation forever, often the exact same complaints over centuries.

So while I do have some impressions and seem to detect some consistent behaviours, I try and guard against using personal anecedote as the basis for sweeping statements of youngins.
 
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I really doubt it, the net is a distorting mirror. I've been playing with a lot of players younger than me for the past number of years and aside from one older GM who was returing to the game I've yet to encounter a BTB rules lawyer.

D&D reddit is dominated by min-maxers and rule pedants, that doesn't mean they reflect the majority in RL. From what I've seen online most of the BTB types online actually hate 5e for being too 'loosey-goosey' rules-wise and prefer 1e, 3e, 4e and PF.

I mean judging by the majority of rpg forums you'd think the average player was obsessed with politics and rules minutiae, but I've yet to meet the former in the wild and the latter was more common when we were teens but as adults they seem much thinner on the ground.

I find younger generations strike me as significantly more puritan and eager to embrace various dogmas but I think one needs to be leery of too easy generalizations of people younger than you. Older people have been complaining about the younger generation forever, often the exact same complaints over centuries.

So while I do have some impressions and seem to detect some consistent behaviours, I try and guard against using personal anecedote as the basis for sweeping statements of youngins.
I don't necessarily mean "younger". Just "newer". Anecdotally, I know that more than a few new gamers aren't kids, per se, but people who got hooked because D&D is now a bigger part of the cultural zeitgeist, and either they weren't really aware of it before, or didn't know anyone who played it when they were younger, because it wasn't a mainstream.
 
I just spent 20 minutes searching online trying to find a Pinhead sock puppet to no avail. I may have to make one. It would bring me hours of joy to harass my kids with it.

Yeeeeeees.:devil: Perhaps the dark side of Etsy. And make the garage into a massive diorama, something like Mr. Roger's Neighborhood of Make Believe but with Cenobite hand puppets. Oooh, and don't forget the "Midnight Meat Train" trolley! :heart::skeleton:
 
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