D&D General Joe Manganiello: Compares Early 5E to BG 3 . How Important is Lore?

[Distracted DM]

Not the edition itself. It's openness and ease.

If D&D said dwarves could only be fighters and elves fighters and rogues because that's the lore and culture of 10+ D&D settings, new fans would doing the Abe Simpson in the brothel.

Walk in, remove hat, turn around, put on hat, walk out.

Or they'd be doing what most players did in AD&D: ignoring rules like level caps, using optional rules like 4d6DL1+assign, etc. Considering D&D/ttrpgs are a tradition and most folk learn to play by watching games or playing with others.

Or, ya know, later editions didn't have those restrictions. 5e isn't unique in that.

 

[Minigiant]

Why shouldn't it? If you want something different out of D&D than classic Greyhawk, that's why there are other settings.

I don't think you are getting the point.

WOTC is not going to use a setting written in 1970s or 1980s for a 2020s audience.

If you want WOTC to not change the lore, they can. However they wont reprint the settings and create expansions of their lore.
Can't have your cake and eat it too. Can re-offer an unchanged, not updated, setting to a customer base not in the same demo and expect big bucks.

Old shows and movies go to the old tv show network and streaming service.
The remakes get changes and updates.
Don't want changes then you wont get the remake.

 

[Minigiant]

Or they'd be doing what most players did in AD&D: ignoring rules like level caps, using optional rules like 4d6DL1+assign, etc. Considering D&D/ttrpgs are a tradition and most folk learn to play by watching games or playing with others.

Or, ya know, later editions didn't have those restrictions. 5e isn't unique in that.

Sure.

But that's changing the lore to satisfy the audience which is the point to this thread.

 

[Ancalagon]

It's mostly enforcement. If they don't enforce blatant cip infringement, they can lose it. But if they fight lawsuits but produce outdated or poor product, they would lose their standing in the industry and be usurped.

Especially if a lot of gaming can't be trademarked or copyrighted.

So a major game leader and publisher can't really afford to sit around and do nothing with their main IPs.

I think you're confusing IP and trademarks. Trademarks have to be actively defended. IP not so much.

 

[Minigiant]

I think you're confusing IP and trademarks. Trademarks have to be actively defended. IP not so much.

I didn't mean they'dlitterally lose their IP.

I meant if WOTC did nothing with their IP, it would be usurped by another IP and become useless. Essentially losing it due to the value of it being ruined under them.

Essentially what I m saying is that WOTC can't sit on D&D, do noting with it because they are antichange, and expect to make money.

There are fans hat don't want IP to change with the times nor sell licenses to those who will. If you do this the IP slowly becomes irrelevant.
D&D and most of its settings aren't so great that they are timeless on their own.

 

[Ondath]

Manganiello said that the controversy led to Mearls getting pushed out of the 'drivers' seat' for Dungeons & Dragons. "And then the Twitter mob rises up with the pitchforks and the torches and it was right in that kind of weird spot when all of that was at its height and everyone was listening to the mob in that way," Manganiello said. "There are some people within [Wizards of the Coast] that saw their opportunity to try to go for Mike's head and get him out of the driver's seat and they were successful and in the end they were allowed to do it. I told Mike at one point, it was like Jimmy Johnson winning back to back Super Bowls with the Cowboys and kicking him out and replacing him with Barry Switzer and then just dismantling the team. There were a bunch of people that saw the opportunity to take credit for what Mike did, to try to launch and alter the game into a new edition and it just has gone downhill since."

I guess he doesn't detail the specific issues there, though he's clearly not happy with how they treated Dragonlance.

The thing is: Mearls not only defended Zak S but also (from what I've heard) transferred confidential messages he received from Zak's victims to Zak himself. This is what he's glossing over when he says Mearls was fired over a Twitter mob. As much as I love Mearls's design (and I actually agree with Manganiello that 5E's design changed in a way I also didn't like when Mearls was fired upwards), I really think what Mearls did was morally unaccaptable, and I do think he should not be in a public-facing leadership position until he has seen the wrongness of his actions and takes responsibility for it. So Manganiello's interpretation of the events really doesn't sit well with me.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Dragonlance was good not sure what people’s problem with the adventure were.

 

[S'mon]

The thing is: Mearls not only defended Zak S but also (from what I've heard) transferred confidential messages he received from Zak's victims to Zak himself.

Apparently this is a completely unfounded libel cooked up on Something Awful.

 

[Zardnaar]

But if you keep those limits in the creation of characters then it will be more difficult to sell new classes created later, for example the psionic manifesters, the incarnum soulmelders or the martial adepts (Tome of Battle: Book of the nine Swords).

The creations by the first generation of players and game designers were very important, but years later the experience teachs us other ways. For example Curse of Strand in 5ed added a lot of new elements there weren't in the 2nd and the 3rd Ed. And why not?

Athasian genasis were canon in 4th, they appeared in an article of Dragon Magazine (#396). They were Embersoul, Magmasoul, Sandsoul and Sunsoul.

* Would you allow elements from 3.5 "Sandstorm" in your Dark Sun game?

Other point is the controversies about canon is useless because after in your game you are totally free to change. Some times even the DMs change intentionally the metaplot to avoid players too warned because they read all in the fandom wiki.

Depends on elements of Samdstorm but yes a lot of stuff would likely be appropriate.

2E didn't have genasi in it but it did hint at elements people SE of Balic iirc.

This not appropriate magi tech, outer planar stuff, default dragon things, metal and water/food immunities things.

Adding Warforged to Darksun is kinda silly even if you buy into making them out of wood and stone.

Barbarians in theory as well not all subclasses for of course.

Sorcerers, Warlocks also fit at least theoretically if you gave them Athasian options and they follow defiling rules whatever those rules are (they don't have to be exactly like 2E except creating ash imho). Warlocks would be Uber rare.

Any organic race could also fit as long as they're mutants and you don't plop a major settlement. This could also be the extinct races but you're the only one.

Racial restrictions also push the new options to the front eg Kreen, Half Giants, Muls.

 

[Zardnaar]

The thing is: Mearls not only defended Zak S but also (from what I've heard) transferred confidential messages he received from Zak's victims to Zak himself. This is what he's glossing over when he says Mearls was fired over a Twitter mob. As much as I love Mearls's design (and I actually agree with Manganiello that 5E's design changed in a way I also didn't like when Mearls was fired upwards), I really think what Mearls did was morally unaccaptable, and I do think he should not be in a public-facing leadership position until he has seen the wrongness of his actions and takes responsibility for it. So Manganiello's interpretation of the events really doesn't sit well with me.

He may have defended Zack inadvertently eg not knowing all the information.

The accusation he shared confidential information has never been remotely substantiated and probably can't be.

That part is trial by Twitter mob.