Xaeyruudh's Index

RSE

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This is one of several thoughts/suggestions regarding the upcoming fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons (5e). Relevant news items: nytimes and wizards.

Do I really even need to address this? Is this really something that needs to be explained?

Apparently so, since as of 4e you’re still relying on them.

Stop.

Just stop. %#&$!*&^%$ing stop! It damages the setting, while contributing nothing positive. Nothing. I would try to google this, to see “your version of the story” but the thing is… it doesn’t matter what you think. You’re wrong. Quit explaining new rulesets with catastrophic events. No, it doesn’t explain anything. It does not create a context for the changes. It’s not creative, no matter how many geniuses worked on trying to explain it.

If you need a spellplague or a mass-ungodding to explain why you’re changing something, that’s a huge blatantly obvious indication that you shouldn’t change that thing. DMs and players see these indications, given how huge and blatantly obvious they are, even if you don’t see them.

This really translates to the biggest thing you should change in 5e:

Stop being freegin idiots.

Dear WotC: You have some smart people there. Quit making us think they’re all single-digit-IQ morons because their names are attached to ridiculously stupid decisions that are your fault.

Somewhere around age 12, when school counselors started asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I got this idea in my head that working for TSR would be the coolest job ever. Roll dice and play games all day! Write adventures and sourcebooks! Go to cons! Be a nerd and be proud of it!

Today, I would rather drive a garbage truck for a living than work for WotC. I think I could be the Dirty Jobs guy on tv before I would take a job at WotC that didn’t include total ownership of the company and freedom to fire everybody above the rank of Chambermaid. (I’m pretty sure that while that’s probably not an actual job title at WotC, the job duties are roughly the same)

So here’s an IQ test: what does that tell you? All of us are sitting out here sighing and nodding in understanding. You, in the suit, sitting at the cherry wood desk in an office with a view… what does it mean to you when someone realizes, without ever meeting you in person, that scraping sewage out of a cesspit would be less crappy than working for you?

It may seem that I’ve veered off the original topic of RSE, but the real topic here is intelligence. If the right people had it, none of us would be in this mess.

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