Tabletop Roleplaying Games (D&D, Pathfinder, CoC, ETC.)

[Ghostse]

I have to wonder, what made Wizards think this was a good idea? Last time they did changes to alignment in 4e it was universally hated by everyone. Some much so that they retcon the hell out if it in 5e. What made them think that it would work this time?

The thing is I like 4e's alignment system from "Shut the fuck up and play" perspective so there isn't constant arguments about alignment, and thought it would have made an excellent "Optional Rules" addition, especially since Alignment really didn't matter much at all mechanically (or where it did, you could house rules to ignore it with no issues.)

I hated that they made it the default system because if you DO want Alignment to matter, its now more difficult.

 

[PaladinBoo]

I would say that right now, WotC is in the Bioware pre Mass Effect 3 stage. They think that they are hot shit. That anything they make is gold and will be universally loved by everyone. That they can get away with anything and their audience will think that their geniuses for it. As they say, the pride comes before the fall. When even Reddit is against your ideas and are calling you retarded that is usually the time to reevaluate your priorities and the direction you are going. Will Wizards do that? Probably not which will make Wizards fall from grace even funnier.

 

[BlazikenLover]

With how tied alignment is to mechanics (even after changing spells such as detect good and evil which now pings certain creature types instead of good and evil creatures) and lore doing away with it is utterly stupid. People who want grey or subjective "morality" don't get that good, evil, law and chaos are very real forces in D&D settings.
Those people upset me greatly because at most they got a surface level knowledge of D&D and believe parroting the same argument they read on an online forum or heard on a youtube video makes them smart.
You do not need to be super anal about how every little action your character takes will affect its alignment, it is more "my character is lawful good so he will take a detour to save a burning orphanage" and less "I killed this serial rapist we caught in the act, guess I am evil now". Or just dont use alignment on your setting and shut up about it, nobody cares fag.

 

[Ghostse]

I would say that right now, WotC is in the Bioware pre Mass Effect 3 stage. They think that they are hot shit. That anything they make is gold and will be universally loved by everyone. That they can get away with anything and their audience will think that their geniuses for it. As they say, the pride comes before the fall. When even Reddit is against your ideas and are calling you retarded that is usually the time to reevaluate your priorities and the direction you are going. Will Wizards do that? Probably not which will make Wizards fall from grace even funnier.

I think they are in the Pre-andromeda phase. This was their Mass Effect 3 moment; they had already caught flack from the diehards for some misteps (Orcs = blacks, Gay Magic Prom, etc) but it was only grumblings. This was where they fucked up hard enough the Proles are revolting. They've released ME3 but they quicklyDLC'ed the ending when people really started complaining; problem solved we're geniuses, pay piggies oinking contentedly since we sluiced in some fresh mud, journos back to tonguing our balls. Clearly our woke will work next time, we're on the right side of history.

They are headed for their Andromeda moment, and, I guess furthering the analogy, my thoughts is that will be the announcement of 6e in 2024. Or more likely, as play testers leak information in the run up to 6e being announced. Expect faces to be extremely tired.

 

[Techpriest]

Tbh this can all be blamed on industry shifts towards contract writers and corporate not giving a fuck. They really do not care about D&D outside of it making them money. They don’t care about who’s editing or writing because they don’t play it, they just look at profits. It sells on the name alone so who gives a fuck. Pretending that the suits haven’t caused this situation is ignoring the true roots of this problem: greed.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

I don't have my players write down their alignment, as Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are objective in the setting, I keep my own notes on where they would rate morally and ethically.

 

[Adamska]

Tbh this can all be blamed on industry shifts towards contract writers and corporate not giving a fuck. They really do not care about D&D outside of it making them money. They don’t care about who’s editing or writing because they don’t play it, they just look at profits. It sells on the name alone so who gives a fuck. Pretending that the suits haven’t caused this situation is ignoring the true roots of this problem: greed.

Kind of yes, kind of no.

They hire diversity idiots for peanuts and then treat them like shit until they break down and quit or the project's done. That's why the current stuff is dogshit.

Though the big dumb is still removing the word phylactery because a single person complained for the Jews they clearly never met.

 

[Ghostse]

Tbh this can all be blamed on industry shifts towards contract writers and corporate not giving a fuck. They really do not care about D&D outside of it making them money. They don’t care about who’s editing or writing because they don’t play it, they just look at profits. It sells on the name alone so who gives a fuck. Pretending that the suits haven’t caused this situation is ignoring the true roots of this problem: greed.

You're right about the contract writers but the rot is deeper.
Really this goes back to the writers strike in 2007, when hollywood realized that stuff with gay characters continued to sell no matter how shitty it as because of the push to support gay media. They also realized that new graduates would write for peanuts with no royalty demands if they let them inject their politics.
They could spend half of the effort and make 80% of the money. This lesson was then applied to other industries that employ creatives.
But the wheels are starting to come off.
I'll stop there before I go full Corkboard and red string about streaming letting them control what is available to watch and the push to memory hole everything pre-2018 as racist & sexist so their slop output doesn't have any competition.

tl;dr its the fault of the Jews and the Gays. Uncle Eddie was right all along.

 

[Corn Flakes]

Pulling this conversation over from the community watch thread since it's completely game-related...

Yeah. I guess I should be a bit more specific: I don't mind a wizard having like a cantrip-level shocking grasp for that "Oh shit I'm in melee" moment or even a weak plinking spell they can use a lot (not infinite but with high limits- even just say, limiting it to 5 minutes of casting per long rest (which is still 50 casts), just to prevent total abuse). But when the spell is infinite and as good or better than a ranged weapon, that's kinda broken.

My GM and I are adamant that if casters in 5e didn't all have access to damaging cantrips, there would be a lot more design space for Rangers to specialize as consistent damage dealers. Casters get to deal area damage and directed removal a few times per long rest, with plink damage and utility cantrips filling in the gaps, while the Ranger could be a step up in consistent damage from a ranged Fighter or a Rogue.

The spanner in the works for giving Ranger a ranged sustain niche, of course, is the fact that the Warlock class exists. I don't know whose brilliant idea was it to design a caster that could easily be flinging 1d10+4 force damage out to 300ft (picking Eldritch Spear and Agonizing Blast as their incantations) on a +6 attack modifier at level 2, doing that twice per turn at level 5 like a martial, but that's someone whose teeth I would love to introduce to my size 12 boots.

In Forgotten Realms, of course.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

Pulling this conversation over from the community watch thread since it's completely game-related...

My GM and I are adamant that if casters in 5e didn't all have access to damaging cantrips, there would be a lot more design space for Rangers to specialize as consistent damage dealers. Casters get to deal area damage and directed removal a few times per long rest, with plink damage and utility cantrips filling in the gaps, while the Ranger could be a step up in consistent damage from a ranged Fighter or a Rogue.

The spanner in the works for giving Ranger a ranged sustain niche, of course, is the fact that the Warlock class exists. I don't know whose brilliant idea was it to design a caster that could easily be flinging 1d10+4 force damage out to 300ft (picking Eldritch Spear and Agonizing Blast as their incantations) on a +6 attack modifier at level 2, doing that twice per turn at level 5 like a martial, but that's someone whose teeth I would love to introduce to my size 12 boots.

In Forgotten Realms, of course.

I've homebrewed it so Rangers in my campaign get Extra Attack x2 at level 13 and taking the Two Weapon Fighting Style and Dual Wielder feats give them extra offhand attacks in line with Extra Attack and Extra Attack 2, also removed the concentration requirement for Hunter's Mark/TCE ghetto version.

 

[Ghostse]

Pulling this conversation over from the community watch thread since it's completely game-related...

My GM and I are adamant that if casters in 5e didn't all have access to damaging cantrips, there would be a lot more design space for Rangers to specialize as consistent damage dealers. Casters get to deal area damage and directed removal a few times per long rest, with plink damage and utility cantrips filling in the gaps, while the Ranger could be a step up in consistent damage from a ranged Fighter or a Rogue.

The spanner in the works for giving Ranger a ranged sustain niche, of course, is the fact that the Warlock class exists. I don't know whose brilliant idea was it to design a caster that could easily be flinging 1d10+4 force damage out to 300ft (picking Eldritch Spear and Agonizing Blast as their incantations) on a +6 attack modifier at level 2, doing that twice per turn at level 5 like a martial, but that's someone whose teeth I would love to introduce to my size 12 boots.

In Forgotten Realms, of course.

Don't get me started on Warlocks and their 600feet of bullshit.
The mechanics of 5e are fine. The implementation of their classes is not.

 

[robobobo]

Gee, it's almost like there was an edition where the classes were really well balanced for fights by their general role and not because they were casters, but people shit all over it and now we have 5e. 4e rangers were absolutely not fucking around and extremely dangerous. I was playing a warlock and was pretty cozy with the amount of death I was dealing, but I still envied the ranger for some of the powers he had.

 

[ZMOT]

Gee, it's almost like there was an edition where the classes were really well balanced for fights by their general role and not because they were casters, but people shit all over it and now we have 5e. 4e rangers were absolutely not fucking around and extremely dangerous. I was playing a warlock and was pretty cozy with the amount of death I was dealing, but I still envied the ranger for some of the powers he had.

edition wars go back like everything, nerds love to argue.
don't want to sound like a shill, but pf 2e grabbed some of that, might be worth checking out (rules are free, so no need to give money to those pozzed tards).

 

[Bleacher]

I'm not sure why they're cucking the drow again. Non evil drow were a thing since AD&D if you prefer Greenwood's canon to Salvatore's.
They were not liked, or trusted, but they were a thing back then.
Then again, Drizzt's books sell like hotcakes so WoTC prefers Salvatore's canon in which the drow are always cartoonishly evil and Drizzt is oh so very special. This was a problem of their own making.
The same can apply to orcs and gnolls, they made everything edgy decades ago and now they're backpedalling with this woke nonsense.

 

[anti SJW]

 

[Wormy]

View attachment 2811383

I still have that old DM screen somewhere in my storage building.
Then the SJW's came along....

 

[Secret Asshole]

I might be able to shed some light on this as I live a Sunday's drive from both WotC and Paizo headquarters. A lot of their new employees in the past few years are either:
1. AGP trannies
2. Graduates from the Evergreen State College. Yeah, that Evergreen College.
3. AGP trannies from the Evergreen State College.
These are people who believe that all entertainment must be a tool for whatever political activism that is the favor of the month. These people also never were friends with or interacted with people who have different political views than them. These are the type of people who would cut people out of their life if they have a mild political disagreement with them.
Another reason (and probably the main reason) why they are doing this retardation is because of ESG, or Environmental, Social, Corporate Governance, Scores. The more "Diverse" and "Inclusive" your product and company are the higher your ESG Score will be which tells investors, specifically Blackrock and The World Economic Forum, that you are a good company to invest in. If you want to know why there is so much Woke shit in products and entertainment now it is because of ESG Scores. Remember, they don't give a shit about us, the paying customer. They care more about investors and making themselves appear investor friendly to investors like Blackrock and the WEF. Funny story, Disney has a high ESG Score and is considered one of the most investor friendly companies in the world while Tesla has a low ESG Score and considered one of the worst companies to invest in. LMAO\

Honestly, its only a matter of time before ESG is completely disregarded. The world's number 1 wealth firm basically removes ESG from all of its calculations:

ESG Ratings Scores ‘Very Rarely’ Help, Norway Wealth Fund Says

The world’s biggest wealth fund unveiled a tougher stance on assessing environmental, social and governance risk.

www.bloombergquint.com

A lot of companies realize ESG ratings only matter to ESG rating companies and to preserve the status quo of large corporations who are already leaders:

Sustainable Investing Is Mostly About Sustaining Corporations

Wall Street uses ESG ratings to boost “sustainable” labels on stock and bond funds—but what do these ratings really measure?

www.bloomberg.com

So it really is only a matter of time before the ESG is completely overhauled or abandoned. You can't keep sustaining massive losses and keep getting investment. That being said, WotC is a fucktarded company who you should never give money to.

 

[PaladinBoo]

Honestly, its only a matter of time before ESG is completely disregarded. The world's number 1 wealth firm basically removes ESG from all of its calculations:

ESG Ratings Scores ‘Very Rarely’ Help, Norway Wealth Fund Says

The world’s biggest wealth fund unveiled a tougher stance on assessing environmental, social and governance risk.

www.bloombergquint.com

A lot of companies realize ESG ratings only matter to ESG rating companies and to preserve the status quo of large corporations who are already leaders:

Sustainable Investing Is Mostly About Sustaining Corporations

Wall Street uses ESG ratings to boost “sustainable” labels on stock and bond funds—but what do these ratings really measure?

www.bloomberg.com

So it really is only a matter of time before the ESG is completely overhauled or abandoned. You can't keep sustaining massive losses and keep getting investment. That being said, WotC is a fucktarded company who you should never give money to.

Dude, this was the white pill I needed. Maybe the sooner this concept is gone maybe the sooner we will see less of this Woke shit in entertainment and what not. One can hope.

 

[ZMOT]

Dude, this was the white pill I needed. Maybe the sooner this concept is gone maybe the sooner we will see less of this Woke shit in entertainment and what not. One can hope.

that's just inevitable tho, that's why I was never really that blackpilled about it. you can only ignore basic market forces for so long before it catches up you, trying to supply demand that isn't there isn't the smartest long term strategy, no matter how hard you're propped up by VC and hedge funds.

 

[z0mb0]

All of these new friendly cultural updates make me want to run a game and just apply all of them to the highest degree. What would a party actually do when the world is so vulnerable and easy to insult and upset? I feel like it would turn into an evil game without me ever having to say a word.

I ran a vtm campaign with a similar thought in mind, it quickly became a slapstick comedy and the game has lasted 2 years now. But the creative ceiling gets hit fast.

I'm not sure why they're cucking the drow again. Non evil drow were a thing since AD&D if you prefer Greenwood's canon to Salvatore's.
They were not liked, or trusted, but they were a thing back then.
Then again, Drizzt's books sell like hotcakes so WoTC prefers Salvatore's canon in which the drow are always cartoonishly evil and Drizzt is oh so very special. This was a problem of their own making.
The same can apply to orcs and gnolls, they made everything edgy decades ago and now they're backpedalling with this woke nonsense.

It puts alot of extra un need steps in the dm's way to keep the world spinning and let the party stay in the zone with it being set up to anything can be anything. the party running into a band of bugbears on the road and having to figure out if theyre bandits or followers of the aggressive sale is funny once. bit tiresome after that.