#dapper digresses

The most recent drama was over the fact that the mayoral election plotline in the latest big official release included a murder mystery 2/3rds of the way through the plot. A large swath of people were VERY UPSET that death and violence had entered their cottagecore animal game, which they had been playing conflict free for decades. There apparently had't been this much drama since an edition back when the "canals and crossroads" expansion included the idea of outsiders causing a stir and coming to town

There was also apparently an OSR equivalent traditionalist faction referred to as "The pie guys", because they wanted to refocus on the older edition of the game that was primarily about gathering berries and baking pies out of them to get them judged at the county fair.

They become hateful because they're lonely, and they're lonely because at EVERY STEP they could have chosen to be a likeable person they went and did the opposite. What started two decades ago as getting shot down by the hot goth girl working the counter at EB games has turned into countless youtube channels and curated lists warning against WOKE CONTENT, forgoing legitimate works of art and culture at large for fear of being tainted by feminist ideas.

And it doesn't even make them happy! Find me an antiSJW who hasn't been hollowed out into a pathetic ball of insecurity and resentment, or retreated so far into the echo chamber that they're incapable of making a stranger like them.

Look no further than the fact that their current bogymen are the very ideas of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They're so dedicated to being hateful shutins that the idea that there could be a world where different groups of people could live together fairly with a mind towards sharing space with others must be destroyed at all costs.

Pardon the rant, but I care about this because I could have very easily been one of these assholes had I made different choices. At the same time, those choices were SO EASY TO MAKE. I wanted people to like me so I stopped doing the shit that made them not like me instead of sticking in my ways and playing the victim.

I understand part of the draw of d&d is "here's a framework of rules to tell the stories you want" but the framework doesn't seem to extend very far past mediating skill checks or adjudicating combat encounters (and even then, the system's advice for when to do those skillchecks or how to organize those combat encounters is patchy at best).

"Just wing it" is not an effective way to build a storytelling medium OR a game system.

"OH but it's so useful to help remember all my character abilities and spells"

No it's not. You've only been tricked into thinking it's easy because you're a fucking Ipad baby who's let your brain be sandpapered smooth by corprorate UI design. The moment the wifi cuts out or your app fails to load you're going to forget how to play your character and you're going to eat up precious session time looking it up on your phone.

"but there's so much text, I could never keep track of it all!"

PAPER, motherfucker. Read your abilities and either transcribe them into a word doc to print out or grab a notebook from the dollarstore. Writing them out this way will not only keep them on hand but help you learn how they work in the first place. Doodle in the margins, apply cute stickers, and spill things on them like god intended.

"But how will my DM be able to see my stats and track my damage?"

Why the fuck does your DM need to manage your character sheet? That's your job. Keeping track of your abilities and doing minor math is part of the fun of the game, and the moment you let a computer do the gruntwork you've put up another barrier between you and the character you've created.

That said, everyone I've ever run into who's vehimitly anti-saftey tool, it always turns out they just so happens to be:

mysoginist to the point where they feel persecuted by "the woke"

concerned with players trying to "subvert" their authority

totally incapable of understanding how their actions affect other people

deeply invested in using rpgs to live out THEIR power fantasy

the sort of person who takes joy in being abrasive/making others uncomforatable

bases their entire worldview around "defending western values" which pretty much just boils down to letting white guys do whatever they like to whoever they like

Hello [user who gets spamed a lot] I am a [completely random blog you have never heard about] unlike all the other [scams] in your inbox, I actually would like to offer you [money] for [goods and services]. Yes I know all the other [scams] say the exact same thing but I am real I [ pwomice🤞]

Like, we live in the era of enshitification, of hegemonic companies intentially making their product worse and worse because because there's no profit incentive to be quality anymore once they've eliminated all competition. What was to stop WotC from intentiinally taking things out of their game/leaving them underdesigned because they KNEW people would buy it rather than go anywhere else for their TTRPG fix.

It's not without precidence, right? Old 3.0 manuals used to have advice on how to source minis/terrain, but subsequent printings took that section out and replaced it with a full page ad for WotC's own brand of miniatures. Take that process and fast forward into the modern day:

Little to no advice in the DMG on how to run dungeons or write campaign arcs? Use WotC's seasonally released modules.

Making monsters seems laughably complicated? There'll be a new splatbook with a scant helping of new critters along in a month or two.

Combat seems overwhelming? Just sign up for a handy-dandy d&d beyond subscription and let hasbro take care of the math for you.

I'm a homebrewer by nature, so it's never been a challenge for me to fix any of the game's inherent problems (hell, fixing is part of the fun for me).. but the more I let my game design brain muddle with my hating capitalism brain, the more I see not just problems, but intentional negligance with how d&d is made.