squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
He's certainly drifted away. Too bad.
The state of Post-OSR content
- Thread starter Yora
- Start date
Alexander Moonbeam
*eyeroll*
My guess would be that it was either that:
•Having a villain who was missing an eye and a hand would be "ableist" (even if he's an all-powerful immortal wizard).
•Stranger Things did not set up the expectation that Vecna would be missing an eye and hand, therefore that's not an important trait.
Or perhaps both.
I can buy #2 but I don't understand #1. Isn't showcasing a disabled NPC as powerful the opposite of ableist? Or do you mean specifically because he's a villain?
I dunno, maybe you're right about those being their reasons, but if so those are garbage reasons. Especially #2: chasing pop culture is dumb. And yes, WotC is clearly trying to jump on the pop culture "multiverse" bandwagon already, which is also dumb. But I'm preaching to the choir...
Beoric
8, 8, I forget what is for
I guess there is an "Evil Cripple" trope, but it is used so infrequently now I didn't remember it until I went to TV Tropes just now - because I was initially going to post that I wasn't aware of such a trope and wanted to double-check. I think this one is currently so underused, and so balanced by the recent inclusion of many disabled heroes and ordinary folks, that I have trouble classifying it as problematic. For every Mr. Glass there is a Professor X or an Odin.
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The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Okay okay, you guys have been going at this for a couple of weeks now because (I guess?) WOTC slapped the trigger-word on the cover of one of their latest books. But honestly, D&D's existed in a multiverse since at least 1e AD&D. Further compounded by Spelljammer with it's Crystal Spheres and Planescape. Manual of the Planes was a 1.5e product you Unearthed Arcana-hating dinosaurs! There were Boot Hill conversion rules in the old RAW DMG. One of my favourite Dragon adventures was one where you had to retrieve the Mace of St. Cuthbert from 1980's London! Chill out on the 'I liked them before they sold out and got cool' thing. For what I can tell about most of you fellow 40-50-something bros, you liked it when it was cool, then continued liking it when it was no longer cool nor haram, then when it was briefly cool again, then still liked it when it was kind of immature and passé and then more recently when it was once again, le cool. Some of you came back to an earlier edition in your old age and are clinging to it with the zealotry of the recently Reborn in Jaysus.
"But I held on to the Whitebox through thick and thin, along with my cuddly Mr. Teddy!" you wail and clutch your pearls. Fine, you love a deeply flawed but vibrant product written by college students who were just throwing shit at the wall to see what stuck. It's cool. I happen to like 'Sad Wings of Destiny' more than 'Ram it Down', but I don't go around pretending like 'Painkiller' isn't the best fucking thing ever and telling the fresh crowd that everything after 'Stained Class' sucks balls and so do they for liking it.
FUCK
Sorry to go off on you Hemlock. It's (obviously) not you man. It's this edition war bullshit. So friggin tiresome. I'm glad I'm part of a living hobby that hasn't disappeared into obscurity. I'm glad there's a big, filthy, greedy corporate machine out there, pumping out new stuff, bringing joy to new generations and keeping my favourite pastime relevant into my old age. I don't own any of the 5e books. My 4e books are absolutely pristine having seen no use past the introductory adventure. But damn, I'm glad someone wrote them and enough people bought them so they could pay dudes to make more of it and inspire fresh generations of game designers. I hope some of them trickle down to this forum, pick up some awesome tools and tricks and won't feel intimidated by hostile evangelists!
Chill out on the hating and gate-keeping, is what I'm saying dudes. TSR was just as cheezy as WOTC. Just look at some of those cringy old adds James Maliszewski likes to post on Grognardia from time to time. AD&D/BX/whatever is not the fucking alpha and omega. The 70's/80's were better because you were children and everything was easier and your friends were all around you every day.
I just watched Star Wars eps 1-3 with the kids and saw it through their eyes. Those movies aren't half as bad as I remember them.
Toxic ownership is so uch.
Avi
A FreshHell to Contend With
I think the editions wars are small fry to the can of worms you just unleashedEp 1-3 aren't awful. Only Ep 2 is truly bad.
squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
I get everything you are saying, but for me personally, no. There has been zero benefit gained by the post Gygax D&D. I stopped buying anything after UA---even B/X was a total dead-end for me. It was obvious to my youthful brain then as it is now---none of that great tide product was compatible with the D&D I loved. I wasn't/am-not angry...but I just tuned out starting in 1981 and stopped consuming even though we continued playing for the rest of the decade. I love AD&D/OD&D and weep when I see what it became.
In truth, many of the fan-made OSR products are more exciting than all the late-TSR/WotC garbage-barge output...to me, at least. The real deal is back...in some slightly altered fashion.
I was fine with ALL of the Star Wars episodes until the one-two punch of pure excrement that was Rogue One and the Last Jedi. Seriously, after Rogue One I didn't think I would watch another in the franchise...but Ron Howard's Solo was genuinely good, and Abrams pulled the finale back on target.
Look, this is a big arc in human existence---one of the life lessons we all need to absorb and understand: corporate/human greed sucks all the life and vitality out of individual creative endeavors. Popularity kills things. It happens over, and over, and over in our lives. It is the birth-rise-death cycle writ large. Can't you see it? The hollowness?
What's perhaps most interesting is why? Why is more so often less? What disappears exactly? What dies?
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The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
You keep saying B/X, but I'm wondering if you mean BECMI?
The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Surely you jest? Surely you have this backwards...
Even Episode 2 isn't bad once you get your head around the way George Lucas uses dialogue: he once compared his dialogue to his sound effects. George Lucas is famous for his clear and distinctive sound effects (lightsabers vrooom, blasters pew pew, TIE Fighters... scream). The conversations between Anakin and Padme may be painfully adolescent to listen to, but you know what? It's painful because they're making bad-but-realistic choices, and George Lucas doesn't leave you in doubt as to what's happening. ("I killed them. I killed them all!" Padme just sort of shrugs this off, but the audience is not required to do so. We know this leads to a bad place.)Ep 1-3 aren't awful. Only Ep 2 is truly bad.
I have no problem with actual multiverses. I do have a problem with meaningless buzzwords and poor design. *Touting* a product (or movie) as "multiversal" without making any effort to draw upon that rich multiversal legacy you mention here is... just, why?
WotC-adjacent product Exploring Eberron (non-WotC-backed sequel to a setting book done by the same guy they hired to do the setting book) actually has a multiversal origin for Githyanki and mind flayers, and it's fantastic! They're refugees from an aborted timestream.
I have no problem with WotC *actually* writing multiversal content. But if they release their next book with "metaverse" in the title I'm going to gag. (Edit to add: There's no way it would feature an actual metaverse; this isn't cyberpunk. It would be pure buzzword-chasing.)
I am well aware that TSR made design mistakes too--I didn't like the Dark Sun v2 revision or Skills and Powers or the way weapon specialization restrictions relaxed over time, although arguing that those were *mistakes* per se would be hard to do without more thought than I've invested. From my perspective, this isn't an edition war for the sake of ego: it's people who are passionate about RPG design venting stream about other people's bad designs. Which is very much on brand for Ten Foot Pole, no?
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The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
But I'm here to talk about adventure design. I can't speak for 4 and 5e, and I understand that the OGL lead to a ridiculous amount of terrible adventure writing, but there were still excellent adventures written for 3e which I strongly urge you to download from your favourite purveyor of pirated products and give a read, including: 'In the Bell of the Beast', 'The Forge of Fury', 'The Vault of Larin Karr', 'Crypt of the Devil Lich'. I understand 'Rappan Athuk' goes back a waaaays, but it was initially published for 3e and we plaid it from top to bottom in that system and loved the hell out of it. Hell, even 'Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil' was pretty rad; check out this badboy:
#fun.
so cling to your system of choice all you like. I won't tell you you're wrong. I'm just saying, adventure writing isn't dead. Maybe alive and breeding out of control. But not dead...
The1True
My my my, we just loooove to hear ourselves don't we?
Except he does occasionally review stuff from later editions. Usually with strong reservations. But he does give them a fair go usually. I think the stated mission was to weed out the mountain of garbage products claiming 'OSR' DNA; which are not limited to any one particular edition of the game. Admittedly, the vast majority are retro-clone-compatible products, but he's never limited himself to a particular edition and I appreciate that greatly and think that's why a lot of people who play later editions feel welcome here.
I don't believe this argument that the edition defines the adventure design. I don't believe you have to play AD&D RAW (which sounds kinda dirty) to write an old-school style adventure. I'm willing to accept that it helps, and maybe makes the process easier, but it is certainly not imperative.
sorry dude, I think I'm prosecuting a proxy-insurgency against Squeen and Prince through you. It's super passive aggressive.
Yeah, it is clearly not directed at me because just like you said about Bryce, I also give 5E a fair go. I just said nice things about Exploring Eberron, a 5E product, in the post that you just quoted!Except he does occasionally review stuff from later editions. Usually with strong reservations. But he does give them a fair go usually. ...
I don't believe this argument that the edition defines the adventure design. I don't believe you have to play AD&D RAW (which sounds kinda dirty) to write an old-school style adventure. I'm willing to accept that it helps, and maybe makes the process easier, but it is certainly not imperative.
sorry dude, I think I'm prosecuting a proxy-insurgency against Squeen and Prince through you. It's super passive aggressive.
And I am very open to house ruling AD&D, even moreso than when I was a teenager. As a teenager I used variant rules for magic resistance and spell points; but now I'm willing to be much more radical and potentially even throw out the Thief class as written and the whole saving throw system! I think Gygax had good design insights and goals, but that doesn't mean the solutions he found cannot be improved upon in order to better serve those goals. (E.g. I saw an Enworld post once where Gygax mentioned that he was currently toying with increasing falling damage from d6 per 10' to (1d6 + 2d6 + ... Nd6) for N = distance fallen / 10'.)
P.S. My current position on 5E is that I will run it for people who already know it, but I won't teach it. If you want to learn to play Dungeons and Dragons from me I'll be teaching you from the Rules Cyclopedia or AD&D. 5E is too complicated. That position may change once my 5E web app matures to the point where it can walk you through the rules and options.
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squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
No. I mean B/X. I bought it brand-spankin'-new when it hit the shelfs of my local bookstore in 1981 and was immediately disgusted that it was clearly not targeting adults as its audience. I hated (at 12) being talked down to. After UA (1985), it was---OK "fool me twice bozos..." and I never bought another TSR product, period.
I still have the pristine, unused books and module (X1). My group never played it....we were all about DIY OD&D for many years by then.
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squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
It's time to admit you and I have no common ground in our tastes. (And that's OK.)
Forget Star Wars---those two weren't even good movies by any measure. Is it any surprise that the directors of both were irreverent, self-aggrandizing 41-year-olds egotistical "golden-boys" when each film was made---who were never told "no, that's stupid...you have failed.".. Regurgitated hand-me-down trope-ish garbage with no sembance of a plot or character development. Video-game-ish Chaos On A Screen. Run here, run there. Total lack of movie making skill-craft. No understanding of how to tell a story. In way over their head(s). Irredeemable trash!
As Melan quite succinctly said recently: when you are so full of yourself...there's no room left to study the classics.
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squeen
8, 8, I forget what is for
You quoted me out of context here. "[For my preferred game style...] Zero benefit gained by post Gygax D&D..." FROM CORPORATE SOURCES.
I think the OSR has brought new life to the hobby...entirely in the DIY spirit that suits it best.
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
I think this article describes it very well. There was a vibe shift, and you opted out.
"This is to say, not everyone survives a vibe shift. The ones still clinging to authenticity and fairy lights are the ones who crystallized in their hipsterdom while the culture moved on. They “bunkered down in Greenpoint and got married” or took their waxed beards and nautical tattoo sleeves and relocated to Hudson. And by that law, those who survived this shift only to get stuck in, say, Hypebeast/Woke — well, they’ve already moved to Los Angeles to houses that have room to display their sneaker collections worth a small fortune. "
The Heretic
Should be playing D&D instead
That's not quite it. Also, there is room in the world for people with different opinions. We don't need to go around declaring that people of full of themselves if they like something that you don't like. Otherwise I could say you are full of yourself with 1e.