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

[Aqua Panda]

I'm not against a pacifist route in theory. I like rewarding players who come up with unique solutions and I'm fully willing to rewrite an encounter on the spot if a player really does something truly clever and unique. Ideally, the module would have several possible ways things could go down.

However, with current day WOTC, it'll be a "violence is totally bad guyz" cop-out that'll treat the players as infants who always need hand holding. I'm truly thankful I never got into Magic and Yugioh was my TCG vice of choice. I'd never be able to get past how woke they've become as a company the last ten years. At least the core rulebooks are relatively free of it.

As for the prom book, I'm not suprised. It's been a big trending thing in the sjw/twittter sphere to "reclaim" prom. Aka most of them didn't get asked to go in real life and they want to live it vicariously through role playing.

 

[thx1138]

I'm sorry if I'm dragging Articles & Happenings stuff into elsewhere, but Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast who own D&D, right?

Check this guy out, I got this notification today (yes I'm subscribed to project veritas, I love it):

Black dude there works for Hasbro, or rather he did, they fired him, right now in Hasbro there's an all out push on all fronts, not just internally but externally with products and projects, to push CRT and troonism, etc., this guy blew the lid off of it to Project Veritas. This update today is that he got canned for spilling the beans.

So Pacifist D&D, and the tumblr-like art, all of that shit, it's all coming from on high. The tranny that they hired as D&D brand manager (is that right? She put up some tweet about wanting to get her tits hacked off or something, I know that), that's probably part of it too.

 

[Corn Flakes]

So with 5e version of Draconomicon coming out, besides 5 gems, we are getting some new dragon species. Two already hinted at are Gleamstone, a feywild dragon, and apparently an elder brain thats hitched a ride on a dragon, reminiscent of the Brainstealer dragon. If they bring back anything, it would be cool for some of the catastrophic dragons to come back.

I'll bet you twenty internet dollars that they'll have some wishy-washy sidebar talking about how "oh, red dragons don't have to be evil!" or some shit like that.

 

[thx1138]

I'll bet you twenty internet dollars that they'll have some wishy-washy sidebar talking about how "oh, red dragons don't have to be evil!" or some shit like that.

I'll see you and raise. I bet they make an example monster that's just that: a lawful good Red Dragon.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

I'll see you and raise. I bet they make an example monster that's just that: a lawful good Red Dragon.

Which could be interesting.

In my homebrew the trading houses of one of the largest cities in the world has dragons on the board. Noble families hire dragons to sit on the board for decades/centuries, and it's gotten to the point that the exchanges, money lenders, and trading houses are divided up by color and crest, not by alignment.

Why?

Well, on a big pile of loot, some asshole will come by and stick his sword in your nose.

If you own 30% of the wool that year, you might not be able to roll around in it, but you can crash parties and rub everyone's nose in it forever and ever (and eat their race horse when nobody is looking so that your race horse takes the Hurr Derby).

A lawful good red dragon isn't that big of a deal.

But you can be they will NEVER had a CE gold dragon.

 

[Mooger Meng]

Which could be interesting.

In my homebrew the trading houses of one of the largest cities in the world has dragons on the board. Noble families hire dragons to sit on the board for decades/centuries, and it's gotten to the point that the exchanges, money lenders, and trading houses are divided up by color and crest, not by alignment.

Why?

Well, on a big pile of loot, some asshole will come by and stick his sword in your nose.

If you own 30% of the wool that year, you might not be able to roll around in it, but you can crash parties and rub everyone's nose in it forever and ever (and eat their race horse when nobody is looking so that your race horse takes the Hurr Derby).

A lawful good red dragon isn't that big of a deal.

But you can be they will NEVER had a CE gold dragon.

Didn't Ebberon do something like that back in 3.5? From what little I remember, that entire setting was big on moral ambiguity, and most of the big divisions were by nationality, not race - the dwarf didn't hate the elf because it's an elf, but because it's from that country over there that's been in an on/off war with for centuries that worships their ancestors that they raised to (positive-energy fueled) undeath.

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

Didn't Ebberon do something like that back in 3.5? From what little I remember, that entire setting was big on moral ambiguity, and most of the big divisions were by nationality, not race - the dwarf didn't hate the elf because it's an elf, but because it's from that country over there that's been in an on/off war with for centuries that worships their ancestors that they raised to (positive-energy fueled) undeath.

I don't know, to be honest. Ebberon didn't really interest me and I'd noticed the quality of writing for the campaign settings dropping like a rock, so what little I saw of Ebberon didn't interest me.

 

[Judge Dredd]

As for the prom book, I'm not suprised. It's been a big trending thing in the sjw/twittter sphere to "reclaim" prom. Aka most of them didn't get asked to go in real life and they want to live it vicariously through role playing.

There has been a trend over the last decade in the UK of importing American culture. Things like shops calling themselves "stores", or black friday but without the discounts. Included in that is trying to import high school proms.

I fail to see why. Nobody likes them. I assume in the US that kids just turn up, dance, and maybe have a good time. In the British version, it's based on US dramas so it's all about making everybody's life as miserable as possible for a day we're told is hugely important for reasons no one will explain.

Seeing this weird obsession extended into RPGs is weird to me. What the hell is so special about prom?

 

[Shokaract]

As for the prom book, I'm not suprised. It's been a big trending thing in the sjw/twittter sphere to "reclaim" prom. Aka most of them didn't get asked to go in real life and they want to live it vicariously through role playing.

How I see the prom situation playing out in some playgroups.
"Finally the time has come for the party to enjoy the fruits of their labor from the grueling study year. As you enter the hall, you see that the dancing has already started, with a large group at the center of the hall slow dancing to the soothing music emanating throughout."
Wizard/Sorcerer of the group: "I cast fireball at the center of the dancing group"

 

[Gingervitis]

There has been a trend over the last decade in the UK of importing American culture. Things like shops calling themselves "stores", or black friday but without the discounts. Included in that is trying to import high school proms.

I fail to see why. Nobody likes them. I assume in the US that kids just turn up, dance, and maybe have a good time. In the British version, it's based on US dramas so it's all about making everybody's life as miserable as possible for a day we're told is hugely important for reasons no one will explain.

Seeing this weird obsession extended into RPGs is weird to me. What the hell is so special about prom?

Gonna be honest, I don’t know. Virgin zoomer here, but prom was just an excuse for a party. And I had a good time. I still remember my friend’s ADHD meds wearing off during prom, and the fucking sick break dancing the one Asian kid did, the one person who could do a pokemon promposal and still make it a complete chad move.

 

[Morethanabitfoolish]

Didn't Ebberon do something like that back in 3.5? From what little I remember, that entire setting was big on moral ambiguity, and most of the big divisions were by nationality, not race - the dwarf didn't hate the elf because it's an elf, but because it's from that country over there that's been in an on/off war with for centuries that worships their ancestors that they raised to (positive-energy fueled) undeath.

They did.

Alignments are blurred, so that it's possible to encounter an evil silver dragon or a good vampire. Traditionally good-aligned creatures may wind up opposed to the heroes, while well-known agents of evil might provide assistance when it's least expected.

Dragons specifically a glance at the book for those in Eberron (because of course they get a book to further flesh out their place in the world) shows random NPCs like a narcissistic chaotic neutral gold dragon that's brought a tribe of goblins under his control so he has minions to venerate him and serve his selfish whims and a lawful evil silver dragon that is so convinced only they understand a certain area of study that they murder other dragons who progress too far in the same field.

While people in setting pray to gods they're less entities and more blobs of divine power so there's not the discerning nature of an actual mind behind it when it comes to who they grant power to. As such you can have clerics whose alignments are mismatched from the one suitable for the deity. There's also a new creature that are fallen celestial servants who can grant abilities from the Domains they were aligned with to their cultists.

The default continent of the setting to play on had also recently been through a war that ended when one nation was magic nuked into inhabitability through methods unknown (research gone wrong, saboteurs, new magical weapon a nation used, no-one's sure) and a peace was forged in the wake of that so there's recent bitterness, a hefty number of refugees, a lot of ex-military sorts short on work and so on to stir up trouble which transcends the racial thing. Racism is still a big barrel of problem especially with some of the newer races (shifters are descended from lycanthropes which one of the churches tried to wipe out as a species, changelings are descended from doppelgangers and are therefore dodgy shapeshifting fucks and a reason to be paranoid whenever anyone you know acts out of character and warforged are literally creatures only deemed to be free willed sentients recently and as untiring construct people may in fact be coming for your jobs) but people are more likely to pick a fight over a foreign accent than someone's species.

As regards things like the poster you replied to was talking about there are Dragonmarked Houses, who are essentially corporations trying to obtain full scale control over certain areas of trade. Their upper echelons are prime targets of infiltration for all manner of long-lived creatures as it's about as luxurious as it gets and lets them wield a lot of power. The setting also introduced a spell, developed by Rakshasha, that lets magical disguises trump True Seeing, though you do have to have been in the same form for a long period for it to work.

 

[Gingervitis]

How I see the prom situation playing out in some playgroups.
"Finally the time has come for the party to enjoy the fruits of their labor from the grueling study year. As you enter the hall, you see that the dancing has already started, with a large group at the center of the hall slow dancing to the soothing music emanating throughout."
Wizard/Sorcerer of the group: "I cast fireball at the center of the dancing group"

God, now you just reminded me of another prom story.

Spoiler: Autism

For context, my friends and I were the nerds, though we weren’t complete social outcasts. Just mildly autistic (a mixture of actual autism and internet autism). Enter Nick. Nick had long hair (he swears he never used conditioner, though I call bullshit), was a pretty grumpy person at time, and wore sandals to school every day, come sleet or shine. The archetypal weird white kid.

So the day before prom, he’s walking to his car with Frank, another friend of our’s and a perennial victim of our stupid antics. The two of them were joking around and talking. Nick, being the socially gifted young man that he was, decided to make a comment about “leaving no survivors” at prom, out loud, in the middle of our school’s crowded parking lot.

Come the day of prom, and we’re having the school’s yearly senior breakfast, where we just kinda hang out and eat breakfast the morning of prom. Then the vice principal calls both Nick and Frank into his office. The two of them walk in to find the police, notified about a comment they made about shooting up prom. They quickly realized that Frank was an innocent victim throughout all of this, but to this day I don’t know how Nick wasn’t led out of the school in handcuffs.

Come a couple weeks later, and the police come knocking at his door again. Turns out, the parents of some of the kids found out about what Nick said, and tried to have him arrested. The police was on his side this time, thank god, and they quickly left him along. And that was the end of the saga.

Anyway, on topic, I can safely say with hindsight that prom is just what you make of it. If you think of it as a fun time, you’re gonna have a fun time. If you think of it as this big event, youre gonna have a bad time.

 

[Shokaract]

https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2021/07/18/in-the-works-fizbans-treasury-dragons/content.html
Some interesting things in the article. So the new Feywild dragon is called Moonstone dragon, which is confusing since the old Ethereal dragon was also called a moonstone dragon. Also looks like some of the Dragon gods like Chronepsis are getting a downgrade from being dragon gods, to being great wyrms (Don't like this part personally.) Also apparently Tiamat and Bahamut created the material plane. Which, I guess ok. Also Deep dragons are mentioned. Also looks like they knew people been clamering for stuff like a warlock with a dragon patron, but decided to fuck us over on that. Instead you can play a warlock, with a moonstone dragon patron since it counts as an archfay, which is very gay. I would want my dragon warlock to form a pact with something cool like a catastrophic dragon, or one of the old epic dragons, not some faggy dragon from the fagwilds. (Yes I know you can just homebrew, but it seems stupid they didn't add it as something official.)

 

[anti SJW]

A lawful good red dragon isn't that big of a deal.

No, its not a big deal as long as its just one red dragon and not the entire species. I think official Forgotten Realms history has a lawful good red dragon at some point that fullfills some prophecy.

I'm curious to see if Hasbro/ WOTC are going to keep black dragons evil.

They are going to ret con drow so they aren't all evil.

 

[anti SJW]

The tranny that they hired as D&D brand manager (is that right? She put up some tweet about wanting to get her tits hacked off or something, I know that), that's probably part of it too.

So who is this tranny they hired?

 

[Jet Fuel Johnny]

The prom thing is dumb.

And the artwork is fucking nothing short of propaganda if you take one good look at it.

Guess we know where Hasbro and WotC plan on taking D&D and the rest of the RPG's now.

You know, if you'll grant ol' Crazy Uncle Johnny a moment...

Spoiler: Old Man Yells at Cloud

A long time ago I read a sci-fi story about where humans used black holes and neutron stars to move FTL. The protagonist was drafted early in the war, and due to time dilatation he was largely disconnected from humanity after two (very boring) combat drops.

However, in the last 3rd of the story, all the new recruits are gay, and call the protagonist a queer because he likes one of the women he was drafted with.

It's like someone read that and thought "Yes, human society should move to that..." and that was it.

Now we're seeing it in everything.

You know, we should have known that WotC was going to go this way when back during their early hiring days before people knew much about them, they hired people who showed up for job interviews wearing Star Trek uniforms.

Pretty soon there will be skill penalties and charisma penalties if you aren't LGBTQWTFBBQMAP++++

I should have known that things were going sideways when I was on a pretty big TTRPG board and someone commented "Oh, yeah, I forget some people aren't queer." and on another board dedicated to writing I saw "Sometimes I forget some people aren't yet trans."

We should have hit the button in 91.

Anyway, the fact they're making a HUGE deal about prom, instead of rules for, you know, noble parties, says something.

Your PC's are more likely to attend more than one noble party for whatever reason (That criminal campaign I did last year had the group infiltrating parties more than once to make off with jam recipes from safes or steal drugs or (in one hilarious case) steal a noblewoman's entire lingerie drawer) than attend more than one prom.

This just SCREAMS "I'm a fat ugly shutin with such a shitty personality I wasn't able to get someone to go with me to prom, not even friends, so I want to roleplay my perfect self-insert going to prom!" more than anything I've ever seen.

Who gives a shit about prom. The only time prom should come up is during the early sessions, before the party is running from a burning academy with killers hot on their trail. Or maybe a one single one to develop a few NPC allies among the rich, famous, powerful, and maybe some fellow mages.

And what about fighters? Do they get to go to prom? Or are they jocks, so fuck them. What about rogues? No?

This is just more genderspecial 'I'm an uwu teen girl tee hee' bullshit slipping in, only now they're catering to the fat weirdo who wants to play the eternal 15 year old virgin elf sorceress instead of throwing his ass out of the group.

Congrats, Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro, for your continued fucking of this hobby into the ground.

 

[Adamska]

Seeing this weird obsession extended into RPGs is weird to me. What the hell is so special about prom?

None of these freaks of nature moved on from high school emotionally, so they're like Chris in that being rejected ten years ago for being shrieking unpleasant people still makes them miss the time where they still peaked in their mind.

 

[40 Year Old Boomer]

It will if the entire area has a "you make any attack rolls here because the fae king said so, lul" rule attached to it. And I would not put it past current Wizards of the Coast to completely break the system in such a way. I don't think there's any monster or spell that completely prevents someone from attacking without any sort of save against it, or at least a consequence for insisting in attacking.

Not all acts of violence require an attack roll. Sabotage. Vandalim. Provocation. Ridicule. Malicious compliance. I could go on.

I'll see you and raise. I bet they make an example monster that's just that: a lawful good Red Dragon.

Funnily enough, the campaign setting I ran a game in completely ignored color coded dragon alignment, as I like to set my games in EverQuest's Norrath because it's a pretty fleshed out setting with a lot of fun potential. The old dungeons also have amazing maps. Homebrewing the boss monsters was also fun because the 5e monster manual doesn't really have anything analogous to a severed, reanimated giant's hand with a fanged maw on the palm, lycanthropic lizardmen, or an angry hive of bee fairies.

A long time ago I read a sci-fi story about where humans used black holes and neutron stars to move FTL. The protagonist was drafted early in the war, and due to time dilatation he was largely disconnected from humanity after two (very boring) combat drops.

However, in the last 3rd of the story, all the new recruits are gay, and call the protagonist a queer because he likes one of the women he was drafted with.

It's like someone read that and thought "Yes, human society should move to that..." and that was it.

The Forever War. Great story.

 

[Marissa Moira]

I fail to see why. Nobody likes them. I assume in the US that kids just turn up, dance, and maybe have a good time. In the British version, it's based on US dramas so it's all about making everybody's life as miserable as possible for a day we're told is hugely important for reasons no one will explain.

The prom shit is a hold over from the 1980's about making a big fucking deal about it because it's the day you lose your virginity.

But if they're all whores before prom, it doesn't fucking matter.

 

[Anonymus Fluhre]

Want to see WoC make a game book based on fantasy college with proms, the hustle and bustle of college life and after school activities? Well, here you are.

I wouldn't play any RPG that takes place at a prom created by WotC. You don't really expect them to have any first hand experience about what goes on at a prom do you? They wouldn't even have a chance of asking someone out to their prom.

How I see the prom situation playing out in some playgroups.
"Finally the time has come for the party to enjoy the fruits of their labor from the grueling study year. As you enter the hall, you see that the dancing has already started, with a large group at the center of the hall slow dancing to the soothing music emanating throughout."
Wizard/Sorcerer of the group: "I cast fireball at the center of the dancing group"

In Pathfinder I would have casted a Mythic Feather Fall on a handful of rocks. Why injure/ kill a few people when I can destroy the whole school?

The GM would deserve it for putting the group through such trash.