Any change to the game based on the notion that its participants can't differentiate between fantasy and reality is a fundamentally misguided one. Doesn't matter if it's purging assassins and demons from AD&D in 1989 or purging alignments and "savage" creatures in 2023. The premise itself is the problem.

They can take our lives, but they can never take our ADJECTIVES

Shades of the Satanic Panic. Many of us remember when demons and devils were removed from 2e wholesale, as the presence of evil forces to combat in the game were presumed to somehow affect real-world players negatively. And now, although the Bowdlerization has changed targets, we've come full circle.

Good points, at the end will use whatever words we want in our game.

Descriptive language is just that. Where would we be without it? D&D is all about storytelling; so, how can a DM possibly set the mood without descriptive language? Can you imagine how lackluster the descriptions of the temples in the G-series would be if we swapped out or just removed references to horror and insanity? Those temples to the ELDER Elemental God are obvious references to Lovecraft's creations. They ought to be horrific. They ought to task Player Character sanity. Just as Markessa is a veiled parallel of Mengele and the Nazis. She is EVIL, not misunderstood. That said, the tone of the Game has changed. Players don't seem to want Howard/Leiber/Moorcock Sword & Sorcery anymore, nor Lovecraftian Horror in their D&D; they may not even want Tolkien-esque Heroics; In fact, judging from what I've read in 5e Adventure tomes, I'm sure that WotC has moved away from those tropes. Personally, I prefer those old tropes to misunderstood orcs and drows; but that's me. I don't begrudge them their "new" style of play. I just wish they would not denigrate mine.

Your quest great adventurers is to find the noble dwellers of the deep who do not give hugs to strangers and convince them that they are important valued members of the world and educate them on the principal of love is love.

WOTC is cutting their own throats with this. If there are no villains, there can be no heroes.

The game is a "post-modern analysis of sociology." The fact that the people doing this, or who get it done, win consistently despite being divorced from physical reality, shows that their understanding of the functions of power are more accurate. They understand that EVERYTHING is an expression of political power. They never say "I don't want to talk about the politics." They are incapable of leaving you alone, or leaving anyone alone, because even just a game is an actual threat to their interests. It MUST be remade. A political theology cannot tolerate an "and." The people who are causing these changes believe in the rightness of what they are doing on the level of biological self interest and moral absolutism. Can you say that you would end your opponents careers if you could? Would you organize campaigns to destroy their reputations? Would you hollow out and occupy their social networks, destroying and replacing the previous culture with your own? If you answer "no" to these questions then you're probably going to lose.

I appreciate this. This is a well done (and thankfully apolitical) essay. Ive always said D&D is a kind of thought experiment. Sometimes moral questions and dillemas arise in game. "What do you do with the orc children?" And I don't think its the role of the authors, editors, and publishers to answer them for us, or even keep these questions from arising. I guess the sensitivity readers are trying to justify their salaries. And when they've rendered everything into a safe, inoffensive, uninspired, insipid pap they won't have a product anymore worth buying.

Great job, Joe! Spot on!

Great points. I don't want to fight the bland Servant Lords - I want to fight the evil Slave Lords dammit.

Stealth edits aren't just for books, it's coming to ALL your digital media! Movies, music, everything. (They have already edited Star Wars to try to convince you that Han did not, in fact, shoot first...) And for the love of the gods, do not save any documents you value in "the cloud" - that's just someone else's computer, and certain unscrupulous companies might look at your documents and cause you grief if you have anything verboten in them. Keep your personal documents on hardware in your own physical possession, and be sure to have hard copies of any media you enjoy enough to care about.

Besides the absolute crimes against the English language and poetic description I keep finding in these changes, what infuriates me most about them is that they are basically airbrushing the influences of HP Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard out of the game. Next to the removals of slavery, the total erasure of references to madness is the worst example of all this. Any sense of mind-breaking terror in the face of otherworldly forces is just neutered and the whole experience becomes more pedestrian, like braving a dark forest compared to going on a Disneyland ride. I think one edit in particular is just the perfect snapshot into how far D&D has strayed from its roots: Old version: "In a typical campaign, characters aren't driven mad by the horrors they face and the carnage they inflict day after day." New version: "In many campaigns, little focus is placed on the mental and emotional impact of the dangers characters face day after day." The term "soft modern" has been used to describe the storytelling in the latest WoW expansion, a sort of weird escapist fantasy which the writers use as personal therapy. How perfectly does this describe the current state of modern fantasy, especially in D&D. It feels like the old gritty pulp-influences are being worn away in the constant rush to casualize everyhthing, and I don't see how the game is going to get better unless it somehow finds a way to bring those influences back in.

"Stealth edits." Vecna lives.

I am 34 yrs Army Vet who finds healing thru my D&D Greyhawk world! Thank you for both truth and some social maturity! today was one of my ptsd treatment days, and I saw this and needed to send thank you for your balanceand insightful analysis of the dangers faced by the D&D corporate thrust, which is corrupting the integrity not only of D&D but the healthy expression of mythic and hero wonder. I am fed up with social confusions and power politics! The world is both kind and savage…our immediate history. Thank you for arguing for not only the integrity of the game D&D, but a warming about our present mind virus spread by a loss of integrity destroying democracy. Thanksgiving needs to remember all those who died to protect this vulnerable gift. It would seem that wotc has destroyed the game by politicizing a game of wonder and adventure. The stocks reflect they are out of touch with the nature of the game, but want to use D&D to force social agendas currently in conflict. Keep our upside and self destructive culture out of D&D. Bravo Zulu for highlighting this mind virus. My St Cuthbert’s cudgel sweep the silly away and give us back a game focused on adventure and overcoming or our monsters..we feel same in our own lives. And I am. Mental health patient- full disability due to my ptsd ( hardly get out my home now without triggering bad:(But in D&D gain some hope of control over my savage monsters! I become a hero and safe again=wotc you are hurting mental sufferers with these changes, thank you for you mature analysis, That is why I appreciate this site.

After removing all villains from the game world the PCs will step up to fill the vacuum.

This is why I have hard copies of all of my real 1st. Edition books, manuals, and modules. They can't change what I have. Han shot first! I know that some people are still trying to build up their own copies of these things, and getting a PDF seems cheaper and easier, but I share any and all of my books with anyone who wants to learn and play 1E. I have never, do not, and never shall supported the Red Wizards of the Coast, nor have I ever given them any money. They, and their Evil overlords Hasn'tBro, stand against everything that is Good in the world of gaming. Never give up! Never surrender! Keep fighting the good fight, Joe!

Presentism and activist editing will eventually strip everything from D&D that made it what it was. I came to D&D as a kid who read heroic fantasy; if you strip away the words and concepts that WizBro is stripping out of D&D, it is no longer heroic fantasy. Appendix N is now anathema to the current rights-holders of D&D IP, and that is a terrible shame. What kind of heroes have no villainy or evil to fight? The nuance and redemption story of the anti-hero is also lost. I'm grateful that the OGL was created and allowed the essence of the original game to flourish and grow in so many different ways. I haven't played D&D (5e) in several years and haven't given a red cent to WizBro in that time. WizBro is currently vigourously self-foundering the D&D IP with these ridiculous minutiae and it makes me happy to think that the property will soon be so badly devalued that it will no longer be mangled and tortured by it's current custodians.

I jumped ship when 3rd ed came out. Feats seemed like they belonged in console and video games, to me, not in epic, mythic/historic adventures--be they Conan, Arthur and his Knights, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Henry V, El Cid, Sinbad the Sailor and the 1000 and one nights, William Marshal, Robin Hood, Beowulf, LOTR, the Musketeers, or the heroes of the Iliad. These are the kinds of stories D&D, at it's best, draws inspiration from. Modern D&D and WOTC seem to be hell bent on making D&D a (virtual table top) simulation of the stories found in the latest video games instead of being inspired by the epic tales of myth and legend. WOTC hasn't seen one dime of my money, nor will it.

Didn't Scooby Doo teach us that real monsters are people in disguise? It's just easier if we give then stranger appearances and powers followed by preparing ourselves to defend humanity from their evilness? We adventure for gold and fame while ridding the world of this threat to humanity. These changes are silly and tie into the nonsense of bubblewrapping childhood. In the real world, outside the US, existence is harsh, mother natures still kills as she pleases as do the "monsters" we call political bullies. The fantasy of RPGs allow kids, and adults, to solidify their values by testing, experimenting, observing, and experiencing what different values are like. Being bad (evil), chaotic, neutral, or lawful at different times makes a child wiser and less squishy in the real world.

This might be my favorite video you've done. Excellently addressed.

I have read through the same essay that you have, a few times, and have been ruminating on it. I can see the logic behind the changes, as well as the societal pressures driving the changes. I have a knee-jerk negative reaction, mostly because I'm a gen x grognard, but, when I think about most of the changes, I don't particularly give a d***. However, you did touch on a few that I think are a mistake - eliminating the references to slavery is foolish, for example - that's one of the great evils, IMHO, and players seem to take great pride is freeing slaves and taking down slave-owning cultures; it's also a great way for me to find players I don't want to DM for - if they're actually enthused about role-playing their PCs acquiring and owning slaves, they're not going to be a good fit for my table. Thanks for touching on this; I wondered how far the essay was going to penetrate the community for comment and discussion.

My parents, who raised me and my brothers as devout catholics, were assuaged over the Satanic panic of our D&D playing by me heading them off and admitting there were demons, devils, and evildoers in the game--and me and my brothers' characters were fighting against them. I said it wasn't any different than reading and talking about my grandfathers' generation fighting Nazis in WW2, or King Arthur and Merlin battling Mordred...and they got it. I didn't mention that the adventure party's priest wasn't worshiping God but Heironeous, though :D

I gave up on wizards around 2016. I'd urge everyone else to do the same- the property has become a farce.

Very articulate GG. I would like to point out to some of the commentators that D&D is inspired by history on my many levels, not merely fantasy and that is the real casualty for those who know it not are doomed to repeat it We know who are, and understand you better than you understand yourselves and we will not forget

I looked at this in terms of Orwell and 1984 but your perspective is very Campbellian- I like how you looked at this.

If you can't fight monsters that embody the very nature of evil with steel and magic. What even the point of playing a fantasy game? FANTASY GAME, people. Those are the key words here. A few years ago Paizo pulled the same card on Pathfinder removing all slavers groups from Golarion without explanation. People in the facebook group praised that decision. One even told me he didn't like "that crappy moral reductionism" in his game when I insisted in the necessity of a clearly evil faction. This is why you gatekeep. Not because others can't play D&D the way they like. It's because they want to control how you play.

thanks for the update man and I hope you have an awesome Thanksgiving!

First off, love that shirt! Bakshi Hobbit is pretty doggone cool, to this day! Second, I'd like to say I'm shocked, but not really. No surprise in today's world, sir! Doesn't mean it isn't pathetic and sad though. 😞 Thnx for bringing this to our attention! 🤓👊

Joe, you called it in one of your prior videos earlier this year regarding the possibility of retroactive edits to digital versions of previous publications.

I used to get .pdf’s to back up my physical books. Now I have to get physical copies of books to back up my .pdf’s!

I remember in the early 2000s with the RPGA and Living Greyhawk, some module had a goblin who surrendered after being part of a raid which killed villagers. It started a table debate about alignments, demi-humans, what to do with him, etc. DM let it go on for about ten minutes before a player (a woman) just said "My paladin kills him." Everyone was upset, the debate got into RPGA rules, paladins, etc. Until she finally said. "We only have an hour left to finish the module and I go after this, so I'm not going to waste everyone's time arguing about the morality of the killing stat-blocks on a piece of paper when I've spend my days taking care of people in a nursing home."

Even if you want to hamfist the political message of slavery bad, why remove it? The players are heroes, let them go abolish slavery! If the goal is to mislead people into thinking slavery never existed, there isn't a mentally competent person alive who can be duped into believing that, everybody knows it happened (and is still happening into the present day). Pretending like it didn't exist isn't helpful to anybody. So let the PCs go be the heroes and fight the slavers, if that's something you feel is really important to you. It is really difficult to grok what these people think they are accomplishing with nonsense like this. Well, just makes me glad I have hardcopies of all the core 1st and 2nd books (and a good many of the supplemental books, although not all of them), so I don't have to worry about my game being sanitized out from under me.

You’re spot on. Said it so much friendlier than we ever could. 😂

Next stop: Asmodeus is just misunderstood.

Welcome to the Brave New World where you cannot call the the villainous a villain.

This is well thought out and well said.

Seeing the changes Pathfinder 2 made in the remaster by removing alignments and changing to primarily Anathemas, this makes me want to look further into how they described them. I haven't fully understand why people have been so up in arms regarding these kinds of things the last few years, but it does seem annoying to see changes like this.

5e only or other changing older books directly to? Like AD&D. Wotc will regret all these changes when the pendulum swings back to sanity. You are spot on with your analysis. D&D is a game of “it’s a monster, stick a sword in it”. It plays to mythological archetypes which will outlast Wotc.

Print media is the future. Just wait until they find a way to charge you a monthly fee for your digital books. Not just a subscription fee for the Beyond service, but each book costing $ per month in exchange for constant digital updates to remove/add whatever ideological obsession is popular that quarter.

doubleplus ungood

I will never understand why people seem to conflate the ideas that *evil exists in this setting as a force to oppose* and *evil exists in this setting therefore we support it.*

With these changes we play a Conan-style campaign any more as one of the major points of the Conan stories is about civilization vs. barbarism. 'Beyond the Black River' even makes the point, that civilization is unnatural and an accident and barbarism will win out in the end. I'm not saying you can't play a Barbarian (well, let's see how they rename the class), but that kind of misses the point of a Barbarian. Also remember, that this comes once more from 'Sensitivity Readers' which only have jobs as long as they find problematic stuff, so just wait until they further sanitize D&D of 'problematic' content. BTW, does anyone remember the first 2 rules of all Role-Playing Games? The 2 rules that come before you even open the book? Somehow it looks like people have forgotten them. Rule #1: Have fun Rule #2: Any rule in conflict with Rule #1 is automatically null and void. Remember, this is your Game, it belongs to no one else.

Sad the times we find ourselves in isn’t it. I never went past AD &D first edition. DND basic and expert was all I needed. Changing language is a waste of time. I pay no attention to woke crap which is what this is. Greyhawk and Mystara is all you need. Great T-shirt Grognard. Love it.

great video

Stealth editing like that should be illegal, to change a product someone already purchased without their consent.

I've always read civilization vs. savagery or barbarism in D&D as law vs. chaos, rather than good vs. evil. Most myths of classical antiquity favor the civilized heroes of the polities and city-states over the monsters and wild men of the hinterlands-but D&D owes just as much to sword and sorcery fiction which typically pits the righteous barbarian against the decadent sorcerer. As I see it, good characters take risks to benefit others, evil characters actively harm and exploit others to benefit themselves, and everyone else is neutral.

What editions and books are they doing this to??

The things Greyhawk Grognard talks about in this video must have deep roots in our human nature - the good vs. evil dichotomy is crucial to our storytelling (mythmaking), which is why DnD has had the popularity that it has enjoyed. What can you replace these tropes with that will have the same impact? In the interest of fairness and safety, Wizards is making the game aseptic, dull, and dishonest.

I've got a great new idea for a module in keeping with the new progressive D&D: A0 - The Servant Lords.

dammit slavers are top tier villains in oldskool and its very USEFUL to a GM that the Great Hobgoblin Army wishes to take the PCs, or named NPCs, alive for reasons too obvious to go into .. this is getting ridiculous they really dont know how this game works do they

I think the thing about newer players and DMs not making legit villains is cause they don't understand that Alignments are meant to be cosmic concepts that are tangible in all aspects. It's arguably the most misunderstood aspect of D&D because people either misunderstand it or they choose to not understand and see it as dumb, though in my experience, those that dump the alignment system are those that just want to do what they want without consequences. Edit: to add to this, even though I'm more of the newer generation of gaming as I started in 2014, I think having the villains be racists, xenophobic, or overall bigots, or just absolute assholes that want to do as they please, or even those driven by forces incomprehensible, is something that should happen cause to me, it can help teach players to take on actual assholes and bigots in person and it's to show that these are evil concepts that need to be taken down. If the Villain isn't a villain, then what is the point?

We are moving away from the points of light concept between good and evil and the wild frontiers to a more accurate approximation of the real world were it’s harder to identify a clear enemy.

It flattens everyone and everything into humans with green skin, devil tails, pointy ears or what have you If the promise of loot isn't good enough to get players going, remind them that a vast majority of the monsters they face deserve a good smack with that +1 magic sword

It all has to do with the same reason the name is so important, Dungeons and Dragons. The people in charge of the game that is played today are only selling something, and as usual not to the true customer which is mostly a younger person they are targeting. So, they don't go for the money in the hands of children. They are after mom, dad, gramma and grandpa. You can forget about it being anything like it was again. I have switched to OSRIC already and this sort of thing just reminds me it was the better choice.

Question: does this effect older editions like those purchased on Druvethrurpg and whatnot?

You are correct; however, the point of all this is to push an agenda. Gameplay and classic themes are not even on their radar.

@Greyhawk Grognard , where'd you get that snazzy T-Shirt from?

You can reverse any decision at your table.

Here's my take. Savage: language changes. Brutal or wild, depending on context, suffices. Civilized: yeah, this is a change in social ethics: I think the idea that "developed = good" is not prevalent today and comes off as unrelatable to many. After all, it's easy to point to evil as done in civilization. Also, observe that a good/evil dichotomy (or even as a legitimate alignment axis) is not inherent to the game, and has not been around from the get-go. Madness: mental illness is a touchy subject, and if I were a big corporation trying to keep my mitts clean, I would rely on the OGL and the community to do my labor here. Also, the game is played by real people, including people with mental disorders. Racial stuff: I'm with you here, except that I also see how fraught Tolkienesque "don't call it ethno-nationalism" concepts of fantasy race can be. I see why they don't want to accentuate it. Slavery references: this is where I'm with you. They could handle the subject bravely and compassionately, but no, they're cowards.

Bravo! Hail! Hail The OSR!

Maybe I'm not playing close enough attention to this issue, but if they're making these jind of changes, aren't the game designers just start hating the premise of the game? If the players aren't "heroes of civilization", what are they? Psychopaths who go around murdering people who just have "a different lifestyle" because it's not illegal in their local kingdom? They'll end up resenting the players and PCs for wanting to play/being those kind of monsters, and it will show in the writing. Maybe they'll just change the kind of adventures available and erase dungeon crawling. But that would involve writing all new adventures, and that's expensive, so maybe not.

Also, I was the 100th person to hit the Like button on this video. Surely that is some kind of good sign, ha ha. 😀

This is what happens when your target market begins with 12 year olds.... soon it will be reduced to the carebears searching for Barney who has fallen asleep in the barn's hayloft. Oh wait, I didn't mean to infer that purple dinosaurs are lazy. Let's see if we can make friends with the orcs by throwing meat at them. Maybe they aren't evil. Maybe they are just hungry? (snark).

I have had it up to HERE with fragile adults. As someone who was bullied MERCILESSLY in school, even I'M thinking "you bunch of pussies need to toughen up"...

Glad i did the last of my intended WotC purchases as a gift, now no more.

I think they should maintain a separate G rated set of rules and I guess give the normal rules an M rating, and a warning that this work contains conflicts between good and evil and entities that are biased towards one side or the other. 😂

I play 1st edition

Keep your old books, do not buy or support wotc they are are a cancer to our hobby and its history. I fully support delving into myth and legend, too many people have had the understanding of mythology erased from their conscious and understanding. We must work together to keep these important teachings and culture alive, that also includes this game, wotc dnd isnt dnd hasnt been for a long time, keep with the old books, suppor the OSR going forward and get new players into it.

keeping the comments "civil" .. just means the speaker "dwells in a city" lol .. see my other comment on "civilised" lol

Excellent presentation. Loved the segment fadeouts / splices. Many overall agreement. Wanted to note my observation is that it's about marketing. Wizards is trying to expand market and game play to Hispanic, African American, and other non-white groups,.as well as sexual fringe groups who will identify with outcast races such as Drow etc. It's not a pointless PC endeavor seeking to neuter evil in the game, it's about trying to eliminate key words that have connotative meaning for specific demographics. That's their intent. Also example: the new D&D movie with more mixed race / non-white characters than white people. Also ex. Game of Thrones, also ex Rings of Power. The demographic of the US and Europe is changing, so Wizards / Hasbro is staying ahead of that curve. Never mind that slavery existed thousands of years prior to colonialism and various races were enslaved, including white people and Jews and races of men that no longer even exist. Second point brief mention:. Homer is not "fiction". Some of the "myth" is actually fact. More of it actually was /is fact than most modern humans now can handle in their modern self-importance. All the Gods, all the heroes, many of the "mythic" beasts...humans have driven to the point of extinction both magical fourth dimension beings as well as the more traditional zoological biodiversity. The written records are still there, but humankind in its ignorance re-writes history to accommodate its selfish anthropocentric world outlook. Also it's always interesting how many people who play the "game" think this is all just some made-up "fiction" that can be altered at whim to suit whichever purpose. The actual historical record would blow their minds. Modern archeology is proving so more and more facets of ancient records are authentic history every day. So many...example the location of place that forms the basis for the Garden of Eden and Moses and Gilgamesh flood myth has been determined...it's all the land under the Persian Gulf. Before Schliemann "modern"people thought Troy was a myth too. So Gilgamesh...Not Fiction. Homer...Not Fiction. And the corollary truths that reverberate from archeology...legion in number. Too bad general the general atheist population just wants to reconcile all the magic in this world to fit into a cardboard box and call it a game. Fuit Ilium.

Color and Flavor are bad, don't you know. Everything must be Vanilla and various shades of Gray. As a gamer since 1979, I am just surprised it has taken so long for it to happen to our hobby. That it is driven by a desire for profit by Hasbro just makes it ironic. Long live those of us that keep old school alive.

The acknowledgment that good and evil are made up, are subjective, is not “post modern”. It’s been around since 500BC or earlier (check what the Buddha said on this topic). Ancient Greek philosophers discussed it, and Shakespeare famously said: “nothing in this world is good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.

Let us not allow Orwellian language rectification to quietly alter the words we use in our game world or our real world. We don't need to let these milk toasts quietly water down the intensity of our game. D&D was never intended to be politically correct. Let's not let a bunch of ninjas ruin our fun.

Everything WotC has done to DnD since they took over has been a slow alteration of the game all in the name of their ideological agenda.

Boccob would not approve this. There must be something to put on the scales, otherwise...

Greyhawk Grognard, what are you talking about? It’s unclear from what you’ve said. Are you talking about edits to the 1st edition books on Drive Thru RPG?

It's a tremendously childish response from WotC. Even where the language used does not match our contemporary mores, we should be mature enough to be able to recognise that as an artefact of the past without the need for censure.

I think most of these changes make sense if you're inclusive and subscribe to liberalism, which has certain moral and philosophical foundations. One core author belief in the modern games is that at the least every intelligent being has some value, and that all the well-adjusted intelligent beings will inevitably practice secular liberalism. Your only real options are to either be inclusive and liberal or exclusive and illiberal. The hobby has too many fencesitters who want to try and play both sides.

Thanks for the video. I don't think it matters if WotC wants to publish a game that is different from past versions of the game. No one is forced to play the newer games. The people who are buying into the newer games seem happy enough playing the newer games as they are being presented. No one is taking away the books we already have. No one who has a problem with the newer games is playing them or plans on playing them anyway. You're getting all worked up for nothing.

I agree completely. On villains, for my games the party have encounteted Jean Wells evil feminist tyrants and enslavers in Silver Princess, made lycanthropes for good measure, but far more savage than they is the Troll King. His many Trolls love to eat men and spit out their bones. The party will have to deal with the enslavers and savage forces to save multiple lands from evil. 😈

The people who are making the changes are just deflecting, the traits that make up a villain, are the same traits they see in themselves, and so they are offended when their narcissism, egotism and moral ambivalence are called out for what they are. Evil.

Can I hand you my trigger card?

Among some good points, It seems you are conflating the need for "Mythicality" with language allusion to certain _speciffic_ myths. Namely those coded in 1900s and popularized in XXth c. pulp-culture. You assume the themes of those myths are universal and timeless and thus "neutral". But they really aren't, and although I respect some people wanting to preserve the originals as they were, I also understand why modern authors and editors might want to a different style of myth today. No, "Savagery" is not a catch-all for Evil and "Civilization" is not equivalent to Good. To the people from the time in which those words were used to divide the world, Savagery may have been _a kind_ of evil, and Civilization _a kind_ of good. But speciffically it meant some people's lived a certain way (hunter-gatherers, used primary materials, oral traditions and horizontal society) and that was bad. And some people lived in another way (Agricultural, used processed materials, written tradition and hierarchical society) and that was good. Those core ideas, inherently associated with the Savagery/Civilization theme are widely thought to... well kinda suck today. Because of all the awful things that were done because of them and... you know because they're mostly just wrong. A similar thing happens with "madness". The idea that mental illness is some contagion, a moral or spiritual failing of the soul that produces maniac killers that just can't be helped... well. You can't just take these words with such loaded connotations and say "well, to me they mean this other thing; I like to focus on this personal interpretation" and pretend their original, widespread implications really don't matter.

I started playing and running D&D games in the mid 70's, and my perspective? Ah yes, the ongoing Wussification of D&D. 5E is a joke, Diaper D&D with water wings and a cry closet. Pussies.

Was watching diversity and dragons on KZfaq, came over here to give a like and listen to some of your videos since you are also covering the orwellian removal of words that WOTC is doing

"No one is truly evil, they're just misunderstood." - 1st year strixhaven philosophy major, working double shift at the campuses fantasy starbucks. Grey goo morality does not lend itself well to the fantastical heroic adventures the game was trying to emulate. Until we return to alignment being your place in the cosmic struggle, and not your flexible code of ethics, the language will continue to be sanitised. For the Greater Goo-d.

Is it too much to ask that wotc just replaces its self? I honestly don't know why wotc continues to pollute our community with this garbage. Imagine paying for these digital books and then having wotc on a whim start changing things. What if the people who bought the digital books do not care for such idiotic pandering? People need to stop giving them money.

Surprising that anyone still buys WOTC products. They've been terrible for a while. 😵

I agree, I perceive that the idea of progress is now dead since everyone's opinion or preference is valid in a relative world. There is no right way or better way; improving things is no longer a societal goal.

Unfortunately you have made the mistake of considering the current edition of D&D to be in some way related to the old version, when in reality they only share a name. Old D&D was played by people who loved the best and worst of fenatasy fiction, complete with all the amazing literary devices & elements of that fiction.... Modern D&D players on the other hand are just perpetually online zoomers who love Critical Role & have never willingly read a book not written by J.K Rowling. We are not the same & our D&D is not the same as zoomer D&D: Our D&D is an emulation of the best & worst fantasy fiction ever written & there's is a desire to be internet famous.

I agree with pretty much everything here. The only problem I have is your awful sound mixing. I like your videos otherwise, but the “please subscribe” message is loud, the video intro is too quiet, the opening jingle is too loud, then the rest of the video is fairly quiet save for the fail trombones being startlingly loud.

I don’t care what WotC does with their current version of the game. As soon as I realized you were talking about 5E I turned off the video.

The always offended will be just that. Leave the current game to them. D&D as it was is dead. This new rules and mindset belongs to todays gamers whonsee things differently.

WoTC = 💩💩💩💩

LOL, they went FULL snowflake, not playing anything but 1e or 2e ever! Snowflakes not welcome.

Some of these changes are okay and I understand why. But I don’t like WotC being sneaky. Sharing the changes can help other writers avoid negative tropes

"civilised" .. simply means "dwells in cities", as opposed to nomadic cultures etc. All other connotations "civilised" suggests "morally superior" or whatever .. thats just arrogant spin from city dweller types :) yes Rome Im lookin at YOU lol

Now Hamas are loved by these young people like they are rock stars instead of terrorists that burn children alive....so its kind of become my joke that if Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings now Éowyn would throw herself in front of her own archers "Please stop! Don't kill these Orcs. They may just be oppressed by Saruman and feel their place in the world is uncertain!" Of course my joke ends with the Orcs eating her for being delusional. lol Myth and D&D have always been good vs evil.....I don't know how they will play it now? I don't think these people today even know what evil is when they see it.