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It's all very easy to blame others for your own misfortunes, but why not look at yourself first?
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Mar 1, 2021 20:38
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I find d&d 5e to be bland and inoffensive, i don't think it's too much of a disaster, i just wish it hadn't eaten up most of the streaming boom But then i'm kind of a traveller grog
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Mar 1, 2021 20:48
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Panzeh posted:I find d&d 5e to be bland and inoffensive, i don't think it's too much of a disaster, i just wish it hadn't eaten up most of the streaming boom With the lasting popularity of shows like Firefly, you'd think someone would have pulled off a Traveller stream successfully by now.
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Mar 1, 2021 20:53
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Plutonis posted:It's all very easy to blame others for your own misfortunes, but why not look at yourself first?
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Mar 1, 2021 20:53
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Xiahou Dun posted:I loathe the “D&D causes brain damage” thing because it’s ableist and facile, but it is true that only playing certain kinds of games exclusively can lead people to have some very weird and unhelpful expectations.
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Mar 1, 2021 22:10
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Panzeh posted:I find d&d 5e to be bland and inoffensive, i don't think it's too much of a disaster, i just wish it hadn't eaten up most of the streaming boom I think D&D is pretty bad, but who cares abut that. I don't have to like every game, and I know plenty of games I don't like that are made by good people. My problems with WotC come down to 2 things: 1. Mearls, Zak S, etc. 2. They keep doing this cynical cycle where they "hire" (give temporary contracts to, not permanently employ) marginalized designers, make a big deal about it, then treat them like crap and stay quiet when the designers leave in disgust. They count on the fact that they will get more good press for the hiring than bad press for the inevitable parting of ways. Like, I've been quiet about this on Twitter because I don't want to poo poo on anyone's parade, but it baffles me how anyone could look at the press about their upcoming Ravenloft book and take WotC's claims seriously after we saw the same discourse when Orion Black was hired and we know how that turned out. Jimbozig fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Mar 1, 2021 |
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Mar 1, 2021 22:11
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Splicer posted:TSR era D&D is a very different beast to 3.x+ D&D. Paizo became The Other D&D by piggybacking on WotC's work and grog outrage, with changing as little as physically possible being considered a good thing. That's a very different situation to trying to steal market share from D&D (and now Pathfinder) with "The game everybody knows, but good". On the one hand I agree and also with theironjef that the modern pressures are different, on the other hand even TSR D&D supplied a Monster Manual and Keep on the Borderlands, etc, which are usually the kind of thing significantly missing from newer games which significantly increase the inertia involved. quote:e: Which is why I really wish the not poop version of SotDL would come out so it wouldn't be "Do you want to play D&D but good? OK first off, please ignore all the poop jokes no wait come back" Ditto.
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Mar 1, 2021 23:32
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Tsilkani posted:It's like one of those kitchen claw monotools that's only good for shredding pulled pork and nothing else, but it's a terrible shredder and doesn't really work. We haven't tortured this metaphor nearly enough, so: It's a kitchen claw monotool for shredding pulled pork that doesn't work for shredding pulled pork, and also the people using it insist on using it for literally everything, and every time you suggest that perhaps a whisk would be a better tool to whip cream, the pulled pork claw monotool people scream at you that the pulled pork claw monotool works just fine for them and the majority of people who cook and that by pointing out whisks exist you are alienating everyone from cooking, and those same people refuse to buy pots or pans or plates or cutlery because they insist the pulled pork claw monotool is just as good as any of those if they just do this One Weird Trick they figured out. Lemon-Lime fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Mar 2, 2021 |
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Mar 1, 2021 23:52
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Honestly, the big thing holding D&D back, from a purely design-focused standpoint, is that there are at least a half dozen different opinions amongst the fandom as to what D&D "should" be: A dungeon crawl simulator that focuses heavily on resource management? A Colossal Cave Adventure-style puzzle game except with a human responding to your prompts? A medieval fantasy world simulator? A tactical, grid-based fantasy combat game? A tabletop wargame where you control individual units? A free-flowing RP system where you hardly ever touch the dice? The fact that D&D is to RPGs what Kleenex is to tissues means that all of these things are essential D&D qualities to someone based on when they got into the game and how fast and loose their group played with the rules, and a new edition of the game can definitely excel at some of these things, but it can't excel at all of them. WotC has been clear that they're trying to manage the D&D property as safely as humanly possible, which leads us with a game that tries to be everything to everyone but ends up not being particularly good at any one thing it's trying to do. I think there's potential for an actually decent system amongst the mechanics of 5e, but it would need to be redesigned with a central focus on what it wants to achieve in order to realize that.
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Mar 2, 2021 00:23
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They tried that though, and it was called 4th Edition. And then people got upset that it was "Just like World of Warcraft" and so we bounced back from a game focused on tactical combat and some semblance of balance to... 5th Edition. But I suppose the thing is that, D&D being a big ol' stew of a little bit of everything is one reason it's so popular.
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Mar 2, 2021 00:37
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I just ordered a stack of Pokemon singles for my kids on tcgplayer and they sent me someone else's order
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Mar 2, 2021 00:57
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Arthil posted:They tried that though, and it was called 4th Edition. And then people got upset that it was "Just like World of Warcraft" and so we bounced back from a game focused on tactical combat and some semblance of balance to... 5th Edition.
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Mar 2, 2021 01:18
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Plutonis posted:It doesn't help with the impression outsiders have of this forum as being full of spiteful indie designers who hate the biggest market share owner. To be fair, this is a lot of the indie dev community 
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Mar 2, 2021 08:03
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Splicer posted:TSR era D&D is a very different beast to 3.x+ D&D. Paizo became The Other D&D by piggybacking on WotC's work and grog outrage, with changing as little as physically possible being considered a good thing. That's a very different situation to trying to steal market share from D&D (and now Pathfinder) with "The game everybody knows, but good". I'm still kinda mad about The Forest Hymn & Picnic getting derailed so badly, it seemed like it was going to be such a wonderful game too KingKalamari posted:Honestly, the big thing holding D&D back, from a purely design-focused standpoint, is that there are at least a half dozen different opinions amongst the fandom as to what D&D "should" be: A dungeon crawl simulator that focuses heavily on resource management? A Colossal Cave Adventure-style puzzle game except with a human responding to your prompts? A medieval fantasy world simulator? A tactical, grid-based fantasy combat game? A tabletop wargame where you control individual units? A free-flowing RP system where you hardly ever touch the dice? I'd say the highlighted ones are the facets of D&D that have tended to come out the best in the official editions of the game, the first in most of TSR's editions, the latter in 4e, the others don't really work out too well because it's harder to have the rules reflect the intentions of those ones
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Mar 2, 2021 12:48
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Plutonis posted:It's all very easy to blame others for your own misfortunes, but why not look at yourself first? It's hard to see where yourself would be if something else is continually stood on top of you. That is something that I find somewhat interesting is how much the "stew" approach in DnD works. Being some things to most people is more helpful than saying "this is the only way in which the rules can be used". For instance you couldn't use Pendragon to play any game other than "Arthurian knights are huge drama nerds who go mad because a maiden turned them down". Josef bugman fucked around with this message at 13:20 on Mar 2, 2021 |
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Mar 2, 2021 13:16
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My copy of Glitch arrived today. I've not read any pdfs of it yet, cos i hate reading long books on my pc. So i'm excited to read my very expensive book i will probably never play
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Mar 2, 2021 14:04
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:My copy of Glitch arrived today. I've not read any pdfs of it yet, cos i hate reading long books on my pc. So i'm excited to read my very expensive book i will probably never play Tho "run or play one of my Jenna Moran games" is one of my post-covid resolutions. Do other people have post-covid resolutions?
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Mar 2, 2021 14:05
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Ettin posted:To be fair, this is a lot of the indie dev community Honestly the anglosphere tabletop industry is not that bad to work since other than a few translations on kickstarter you don't have to compete with other countries so much. A true globalization would have some starving third world designers I have in my circle write a sourcebook every month in exchange of just the living expanses that in the first world would be for a pet chihuahua or a guinea pig.
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Mar 2, 2021 14:24
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drrockso20 posted:I'm still kinda mad about The Forest Hymn & Picnic getting derailed so badly, it seemed like it was going to be such a wonderful game too
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Mar 2, 2021 14:26
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drrockso20 posted:I'm still kinda mad about The Forest Hymn & Picnic getting derailed so badly, it seemed like it was going to be such a wonderful game too Spill the tea, goon
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Mar 2, 2021 14:31
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Leraika posted:uh-oh, what happened to it? It kind of fell off my radar.
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Mar 2, 2021 15:04
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dwarf74 posted:Seems like he had some bad personal stuff hit over the summer, and then decided to redesign the whole game, and now there's been no updates since August. oh no
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Mar 2, 2021 15:05
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Leraika posted:oh no It's fine, I hope I get it sometime because "Frog and Toad Together, But With SotDL Rules" still sounds awesome. I think I will probably end up receiving Katanas and Trenchcoats before it at this rate. (Which is extremely late, but actually more active somehow).
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Mar 2, 2021 15:11
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Industry thread got me to dig out my Dogs in the Vineyard copy and my pile of notes for the one shot I planned on running back in like... 2015. Read back through parts of it and through my notes. GM itch arrived even though I'm not in much place to be GMing right now.
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Mar 2, 2021 17:52
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My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. I'd like other good monster manuals, because I'd like him to not grow too fond of D&D. What are some awesome books of monsters that are encyclopedic both in their coverage and in their descriptions. Should be kid appropriate for sex and violence and spookiness (as appropriate as the 5th Edition Monster Manual is, because that ship sailed). Needs beautiful color pictures, obviously. Should be in print. Any genre. Get at me.
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Mar 2, 2021 20:49
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it.
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Mar 2, 2021 20:55
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Other monster manuals with color art that are good for browsing and fluff reading: - The recently-released RuneQuest Bestiary - The various Planescape Monstrous Compendiums (D&D, but DiTerlizzi art) - The Bestiary for Dragonlance Fifth Age (all Rebecca Guay art, 98% narrative fluff [DL5A was a rules-light narrative game]) - Not appropriate for a four year old, but Chaosium just published the big color two volume hardcover bestiary for Call of Cthulhu 7E - Also for CoC is the Petersen's Guide To The Cthulhu Mythos - DiTerlizzi has a big illustrated non-RPG book about Faeries
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Mar 2, 2021 21:07
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. Henry H Tryon's Fearsome Critters might be up your alley, though not techically a monster manual so much as a bestiary of the weird fictional monsters turn of the century lumberjacks would make up as jokes. Kid might appreciate the goofy Dr Seuss names at least. Sadly the illustrations are largely black and white sketches. e: Wow the physical version of this is rare. Maybe Fearsome Critters of the Lumberwood? Asterite34 fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Mar 2, 2021 |
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Mar 2, 2021 21:09
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CitizenKeen posted:What are some awesome books of monsters that are encyclopedic both in their coverage and in their descriptions. Monster Girl Encyclop- quote:Should be kid appropriate for sex and violence Nevermind.
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Mar 2, 2021 21:52
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13th Age has two excellent bestiaries; I think they're unobjectionable as far as content goes. Warhammer Fantasy 2e has a famous bestiary but I can't remember how PG-13 the content gets. It might not be kid-appropriate, although it isn't super-gritty.
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Mar 2, 2021 22:00
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Pocky In My Pocket posted:Tho "run or play one of my Jenna Moran games" is one of my post-covid resolutions. She has her own Discord now, if you're looking for a place that has a lot of people who want to join a game.
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Mar 2, 2021 22:04
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. The baby bestiaries that came out awhile back would be appropriate/fun/cute. Maybe Volo's Guide to Monsters?
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Mar 2, 2021 22:11
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. I read the Palladium Gods and Dragons books when I was 8 and I don't remember anything too bad outside of thinking some of the gods could put on some more clothes. On second thought, I don't think it fits your requirements because A: It's black and white art and B: If you don't want him growing fond of D&D you probably don't want him even getting a whiff of RIFTS 
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Mar 2, 2021 23:00
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. Dougal Dixon's speculative biology books After Man and The New Dinosaurs would be good ones(probably best to wait till he's a fair amount older to show him stuff like Man After Man or Nemo Ramjet's All Tomorrows though)
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Mar 3, 2021 00:18
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Beasts-Where-Find-Them/dp/1338216791 My 7 year old has this and loves it. Harry Potter flavored. The illustrations are beautiful. If he's reading, expect a whole day of breathlessly spouting monster and dragon trivia at you.  edit for more: https://www.amazon.com/Griffiths-Guide-Dragon-Masters-Branches/dp/1338540343/ This one is a companion book to a series of early-reader chapter books. It covers characters, locations, and dragons featured in the books. My boys love the series, and love this book too. Again, I've learned a lot of second-hand lore from the Dragon Master series this way  Since we're talking good illustrated books for kids, here's another couple recommendations. This version of The Hobbit has frequent and adorable illustrations. I read it to my then-4 and then-6 year old kids and they loved it. Every page (I think? maybe nearly every page) has an illustration, so it's easy to keep their attention as you read. Since then they've been obsessed with Lord of the Rings, especially after playing the excellent Lego Lord of the Rings game. https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Illustrated-J-R-R-Tolkien/dp/0544174224 They also looooove Legend of Zelda, and love this Link to the Past comic collection. https://www.amazon.com/Legend-Zelda-Link-Past/dp/1421575418/ canyoneer fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Mar 3, 2021 |
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Mar 3, 2021 00:29
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canyoneer posted:https://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Beasts-Where-Find-Them/dp/1338216791 or you could not give arguably the transphobe with the biggest platform in the world any money, so don't do that and don't buy it
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Mar 3, 2021 00:32
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Arivia posted:or you could not give arguably the transphobe with the biggest platform in the world any money, so don't do that and don't buy it oh yeah, I forgot about that. Skip it or get it from the library instead
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Mar 3, 2021 00:49
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CitizenKeen posted:My four year old kid loves my 5th Edition Monster Manual. He's memorized it. I have a copy of Dungeons and Drawings, which my six-year-old loves to read through. It's not as D&D-focused as you'd think, and the illustrations are gorgeous. I think it might be a bit grown-up or gruesome in places, but I haven't read the 5e MM so I don't know.
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Mar 3, 2021 00:55
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Oh, it's still WotC but they've produced like pop up art books for kids like Dungeonology.
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Mar 3, 2021 01:03
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If you don't mind a lot of worldbuilding for a game you might not have played (FFXIV), the Encylopedia Eorzea has a lot of fun monster designs and lore. Volume 2 has a lot about dragons.
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Mar 3, 2021 01:18
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