Why hasn't WotC opened the rest of their settings (Dark Sun, Eberron...

I don't like the fluff changes.

Especially don't like the changes to preserves/defilers.

I detest the new breed of tieflings being present on Athas.

And to think that I was hoping to see more Ravenloft after getting nothing with 4E. Say what you want about mechanics, but the writers at WotC have really lost their touch since 3.5.

I just want to go back to Mystara again.

Wotc Stole all the submissions.

You sound mad. Do you not like having more people emjoying your hobby? Or are you just upset they all take showers?

the one thing that most people gloss over when talking about anything 4E is the art, which is fantastic. i never read the previous fluff for dark sun, but i did enjoy what i have read from that supplement. even made rules for a mad max campaign (vehicles and gunz along with use of fuel)

Nigga, I don't give a fuck about playerbase, 3.5 already did an article on this inclusive bullshit and why it wasn't working.

I am mad because Strahd want's to Turn tatanya into ass-faced Vamprie Spawn. I am mad because Sword Coast Legends is shit. I am mad because Neverwinter Online is shit. I am mad that Minsc was petrified to be nothing more than a meme mouth piece in a comic book series with no substance. I am mad because I have no D&D gaem. I am mad because 5e Halfling legs. I am mad for many a reason boy.

Except they actually recycled a LOT of 3.5 art, which actually managed to fuck up a lot of things Like Kaz the betrayer who used the same fucking photo as the Black Duke from 3.5 which then went on to fuck a picture in the ass of Kaz Vs Vecna

Still better than 5e's art though, there was an artist in that that had a tantrum because he couldn't niggerfy something, like he did in the Temple of Elemental Negros and barovians, and Bi-sexual non-feeling boypussy Dracula negro wives Strahd.

Oh right, and Ireena is non-descript brown too. Could've sworm barovians ere like what, Eastern Europeans, German, whatever, but I guess 5e goes with that thing where Strahd owned a lot of shit so he immigrated in his people who came form numerous backgrounds from the winnings of Strahd and this really piss poor explanation Bah, 5e Ravenloft a shit.

>3.5 already did an article on this inclusive bullshit and why it wasn't working.
That's why, after years of the inclusive bullshit, absolutely nobody is playing D&D, right?

Wait is your problem really that Ravenloft had minorities in it?

huh? how do they steal them?

Terms and Conditions, yo.
If you submitted a setting, it basically became the property of WoTC whether it won or not, with them having sole rights to publish it with or without crediting or paying the original author.

I bet you're one of those guys who reads a contest's T&Cs and COMPLETELY misinterprets them to the point of absurdity.

wow. wotc are fucking faggots. there were probably hundreds of awesoem settings that will never see day. all because wotc is afraid of competition. what fucking niggers

They literally did that and have sent cease and desist letters to other entrants for trying to publish.
WoTC exclusively owns the publishing rights to all of those settings in their entirety because that was the one of the terms of the contest.

wasnt the contest onnly like 1 or 2 pages of content tho?

Doesn't matter, whole setting is now the property of wizards.

Pathfinder does the same thing, both companies are guilty of it.

Wow, son, I bet you were a popular dude growing up. :/

Fuck it, here's that 3.5 article.
My problem is that the writing team is full of nu-male virtue-signalling faggots who crosswork from Paizio to shit everything up with their shitty 3-Second quick google searched consensus on a subject who want to culturally appropraite lore and history for their own cancerous narrative.

For example, there are a large degree of human cultures, deities and races present on Faerun because there are a number of canonical references to them being popped in from our universe at different peiods in history.

Annnnnd the Guide to Faerun has African children being shown magical tales by Elminsters Crack pipe, despite like, there being no !notAfrica areas on Faerun, We goy egyptians and a few others, but Africans? Nah.

Though that does make me question where the fuck That lazy cunt Aeryn gend or whatever that jackass spymaster for Old neverwinter before the Castle sunk showed up.

Fuck your playground logic cunt.

His DnD games must be WHITE and PURE, like the Master Race.

>>wah, WOTC is forcing an imaginary world into my game.
You can make your DnD game as racist and bland as you want, user. Don't stop on their account. You just sound really upset over characters that don't physically exist and can easy be changed by your white hooded DM.

Nah, I just don't like seeing shit in places where there is no fucking possibility of them getting there, and the reasons provided are obscure or otherwise cop-outs to be "Diverse, Inclusive etc..." And I know there aren't blacks by mass in Fucking Barovia of all places. Except that hilarious baeful polymorphed Black Panther Vampire Dark Lord, whew.

Man, you're really trying your hardest to skim over how much of a piece of shit 5e Ravenloft actually is aren't you? Niggers aren't the only problem, Strhad is reduced to a Joss Whendon Angelus clone that wants to Turn Ireena/Tatanya into Vampire Spawn, not out of love of whatever he has left of it via Vampiric Empathetic bond, but because He wants her literally as a possession and object, playing him up to be this massive patriarch misgonyst, which they do when they set up the narative for his conquering of Barovia, noting he was using the black magics BEFORE his desperation with failure to court Tatanya over Sergei, and the entire establishment of the Curse is that he ended the Family Bloodline.

Except, you know, Katana and Dhampirs exist.

Actually, that's another massive Ravenloft issue, it's missing like almost all the content associated with Ravenloft, they're not in the Demiplane of Dread, and the given explanation is that the Demiplane is cut off, so barovians don't get souls, but recycled, except that's not how it fucking works if you know anything about where Souls come from in D&D, or that in 2e, the reason for People being soulless was that SOME are that way because of The Dark Powers literally making NPC people, amongst other stufff too boot.

You manage to spend yourself doing more things around barovia, but at the same time, the Castle is lacking many of it's original features, common NPCs traps and iconic content.

Sthrad Just shows up all the time to make an example out of you, there's none of this "Maybe this will get Ireena to like me" stuff, he's just there to fuck you, opposed to fuck with you, be Charismatic about it, leave, or on rare occasion be socialable.

I could go on.

That was in the Expedition book as well, sperglord, relax. It's just a game. You can do what you want with the module, including change it. That's the fun of tabletop.

>Nah, I just don't like seeing shit in places where there is no fucking possibility of them getting there
user, you should absolutely hate D&D's mangling of multiple mythologies far, far before minorities ever come up if that's actually the case. It's the laziest mish-mash of different cultures and traditions ever, and it always has been. That is one of its strengths even.

Fucking this.

My biggest problem with CoS is that Strahd's endgame makes no sense.
>I'll just lock up Tatanya forever as my vampire spawn slave and then apparently do nothing but fuck with people because I'm bored.
Seriously? That's the plan of the 'master strategist' that is Strahd? If he just wanted to make her his spawn, he should have bit her to death, buried her, and defended her position until she rose as his slave.
The whole adventure path hinges on the titular villain and his plan is retarded.

Ah yes, the oberoni fallacy rears its ugly head yet again. Of course you can make your own shit. Hell, the official adventures are so bad that is pretty much what you are supposed to do. It doesn't excuse WotC's hubris however.

In fact, your writing style indicates that you're the actual braindead retard.

Have you tried not playing D&D, actually going outside for once and actually making friends?
Your assblasted impotent rage makes your posts incoherent and makes you look like a frothing lunatic.

That's not an article, that's a just a letter someone sent in.

>he's from /pol/
>he's super autistic
What a surprise!

The don't need new settings. They haven't even updated all the ones they already have.

>I detest the new breed of tieflings being present on Athas
I kind of liked the niche of "mysterious/foreign desert nomads" they filled. Dust devils.

>thinking that's an actual article.
Are you actually a literal retard?

>egyptians
>not african

Egyptians are Arabs.

>"mysterious/foreign desert nomads
But that was the elves already

My phone ducked this post. Time to try again.

#
>so barovians don't get souls
>or that in 2e, the reason for People being soulless was that SOME are that way because of The Dark Powers literally making NPC people

If you actually read the book instead of bitching about nothing, you'd realize that it's mostly the same in 5e, and that the soulless people in Barovia do not constitute its entire population.

They don't have the same sinister, slightly Arabic vibe that tieflings have going for them.

The art of 4e is one of the worst parts about it. Makes me cringe so hard. It went the super high fantasy route, much more so than 3e I think. Mainly talking about the core books though, dunno much if DS 4e is any good.

Like this shit. Fuck those rectangular dorfs.

The Arab invaders are, the original Eypgtians were likely a darker causcoid people.

The art was one of the major turn-offs and another reasons along with AEDU for the accuses of "imitating wow".
I cannot find the picture of that Elf Wizard that was literally a blood elf.

Said this, William O' Connor rocks. I see this as a 3.Tard.

Now, this girl is just asking for trouble. Robes aren't just for looks, they're for safety. Imagine if even a drop of that concoction got on her. The consequences could be severe! If she has to go "skyclad" for her craft, she should be outside for it to work anyway, and her familiar should be the one risking its hide getting close to that cauldron. Also, the cauldron should be FAR THE FUCK AWAY from that magic circle. A single bubble could alter the integrity of the thing, and you know what? That's how you get demons.

A friendly reminder from the Wizards Guild, as well as your friends at /x/. /x/ board: are we serious or not? We can't tell anymore.
Also, Dark Sun was severely underrated, even accounting for Psionics being difficult for DND, mechanics wise. The lore, the despair, the Thri-Kreen, the halfling barbarians. Maybe a little too different, but a welcome change from same-old, same-old.

Still semitic.
(Not the guy you replied to)

Wait, if they're all European, shouldn't Ireena be really, really white? Like, black hair, pale skin and all that?

I agree that picture is a complete fucking travesty, though.

I hear "black vampire", and all I'm thinking is, why can't we get Blacula instead of Blade? Unless you get into actual African folklore, black vampires are just kind of cheesy, so why not just go full cheese?

...

...

Dark Sun is different enough from Baseline D&D that it no longer fits with the rules. And the image of D&D that wizards is trying to sell is FR

Where's my Spelljammer 5e?

The reason this tends to happen is that companies feel a need (rightfully or not) to cover their asses against frivolous lawsuits down the line if they so happen to release a new product that a contest entrant feels is "sorta kinda" inspired by his entry.

It might be a completely different setting, and it's not like any one person owns the rights to "a fantasy setting with dwarves and elves and orcs", but the fact that WoTC didn't get the sole rights to the previously submitted idea leaves them open to a possible suit in the future should the entrant decide to sue for infringement - something that WoTC probably could win, but would still eat time and money.

This is generally why IP-focused companies do not solicit ideas in the first place from unpaid amateurs - they hire someone to create the IP instead. This is far simpler; the IP creator is compensated for his time and the company gets the full rights. Contests that create IPs are just a huge headache from the legal and PR angle, because you need to watch out for the possibility of frivolous suits and that means doing some very draconian rules.

There's a countdown on planescape.com, could be a planescape release, or just one of those escape rooms.

>culturally appropraite lore

>>tumblr

They were probably just a little darker than the other side of mediterrean, but by no means "african" as we think of it today.

FYI, Rich Burlew submitted his own setting for the same contest and it will never see the light of day, and we can only speculate if it was the same setting as in the writings on GITP website or if it's the setting of OOTS

Locking out the original creator with NDAs and copyright takedowns despite never intending to use the setting as a whole is a bit more than "covering their asses".

Yeah, that's standard for any contest. They cant run something and then risk getting sued by every sperglord who thinks he invented "setting with normal D&D races, only this time with a twist" and drags them into court for standard derivative bullshit.

It's a two way street, boyo. They can drag any of those setting creators into court if any of them attempt to use their own setting.

And it's just as bullshit when the giant faceless corporation does it. Except they're also more likely to win because they've got better lawyers.

Wow, Alexander F. Simkin seems like a real fucking useless piece of shit. He's a PHD, gotta go research what the fuck he's actually done.

Wouldn't tumblr be more up to your speed, chump?

No they weren't you stupid nigger. They had the same skintone as other semitics from the area and mixed a lot with greeks and phoenicians as well.

He's entirely right, but he has no sway over suits who will ask marketing "What will make us more money?" then proceed to force every single thing they say into the product. It happened to Hollywood, It happened to gaming and it happened to RPGS. These are the days of executive meddling and shameless pandering. I just hope they don't get too political with the product and end up blowing their whole foot apart like Marvel done with the American elections.

Either way, it's good to see some diversity and progression in games, but it's not good to see what is blatantly the work of suits repeatedly butchering someone else's hard work in constant, futile attempts to appease an audience that they will never, ever win the money of.

4e is better than any of your other nigger fag editions

>using "she" in rulebook examples is a political statement alienating large swaths of the player base
I fucking hate people on this board. These fucking pseudo-intellectuals impressed more by prose than the meat of an argument.

So then don't submit a setting if you don't like the terms of the agreement.

You can publish it yourself instead of begging some giant company to invest resources into it.

>Huh, this is the first time I've seen someone say that 4e's version of Dark Sun was bad.
It wasn't bad, just not as good as the original in the eyes of veteran fans.

So ultimately, you'll get one of two responses.

>Holy shit that setting was the best thing going for 4e!

or

>Damn, I wish that wasn't ported to 4e, because it lost a lot of what I loved in the original.

Without fail.

Anyone offended by using "she" in a rulebook is the kind of fedora wearing neckbeard you want to alienate. Its like a fashion label trying to prevent fat people from wearing their clothes.

What was wrong with how they did preservers/defilers?

No, Prism Pentad raped DS lore, while 4e vastly improved it, as well as resulting in low-mid and up Dark Sun actually looking like Dark Sun.

Like it or not, 4e DS was essential in making Dark Sun not retarded anymore. Its important that the "official" version of DS not be the one in which a fucking halfling killed a Sorcerer King by throwing a spear.

>WotC's hubris

Holee fuck. I was actually tempted to give some small weight to that you might not be a raging racist mega-autismo until you said that. Wow. Who talks like that anymore, at all? Your utter rage at how WotC 'ruined' ravenloft by having a black person in it and making a hammy and ass-backwards villain even more hammy and ass-backwards is just god damn astounding.

As a veteran fan, I rather like the 4e version. It did a good job of getting to what the core of the setting is, without needing to drag in a heap of metaplot.

The people who were upset about the 4e reversion (the Prism Pentad fans) preferred a black and white, good vs evil thing of preservers and defilers having clear boundaries. 4e has a lot more moral ambiguity, which goes against the Dark Sun Revised Campaign Setting style.

>Except, you know, Katana and Dhampirs exist.

Yeah, in 3e/4e. Its not clear that they're a thing in AD&D or 5e.

The "people-ness" in Ravenloft was always left ambiguous, btw.

You know what the hilarious thing about complaining about 'Black people in Ravenloft' is?

RAVENLOFT DRAGS PEOPLE FROM OTHER PLACES INTO IT.

The mists doing so is kinda a cornerstone of the setting. Many of those people settle down as there isn't a way out again. Beyond 'Black people', it's the sort of setting where you could have a Dragonlance Minotaur and an Ebberon Dragonmarked House Member encounter each other as both were stolen by the mists.

It's not like it's a particularly racist mist wandering about with a 'White people only' sign.

It could be that proud Afrikan Men have pure souls and can't be touched by the evil of Ravenloft because they is Kangz and Sheit.

>despite like, there being no !notAfrica areas on Faerun, We goy egyptians and a few others, but Africans? Nah.

FR's always had niggers, and 2e FR has some damn good nigger deities with good nigger specialty priests. Look up Chult & Ubtao.

>trying this hard to be /pol/

I can't even tell what's sarcasm anymore.

WE WUZ SORCERER KANGZ
WE WUZ DOMAIN LORDS
WE WUZ LADY OF PANGZ

We really need a bit of punctuation that denotes sarcasm, satire, or parody. Because I was totally intending that as a joke.

They have to do it because of legal precedents. If you don't enforce your copyright, someone else can break your copyright too, and then say "they've given up their rights to it, look at the time they didn't enforce it!"

People from reddit and tumblr can't detect sarcasm, they need you to mention it the same way autistic people do.

They only have to do it because they have exclusive rights. If they had included a clause giving them full licence to use it, they'd be free to do so without any fear of legal repercussions.
But they had to be greedy and prevent the original owner from using it too. That's an extra step beyond covering their own ass, especially when they don't use any of the settings except for Eberron itself.

It's only "their" copyright because they took all rights in their entirety as a condition to entry.
The fact that they had that condition instead of a fair one is the issue. And no, that being standard practice doesn't make it right. "Everyone else does it!" is not a good excuse to be a shithead.

>Like it or not, 4e DS was essential in making Dark Sun not retarded anymore. Its important that the "official" version of DS not be the one in which a fucking halfling killed a Sorcerer King by throwing a spear.
Pic related, page 130 of the campaign guide. I'm sorry for your loss.

>As a veteran fan, I rather like the 4e version. It did a good job of getting to what the core of the setting is, without needing to drag in a heap of metaplot.
I agree, and I also was a veteran of 2e. But some people actually enjoyed the metaplot, and wanted it within the setting.

There were other niggling details. Muls were no longer sterile, thri-kreen males became playable instead of just being breeding drones, defiler magic arbitrarily only had negative effects for allies. But the total reset of the setting was a big one.

>Now, this girl is just asking for trouble. Robes aren't just for looks, they're for safety

She's probably a thousand year old hag in disguise anyway so a little drop of anything probably won't do anything to her actual skin.

>thri-kreen males became playable instead of just being breeding drones

Thri-kreen males were always playable. That was purely a thing from the PC games.

Seriously, who gives a shit about muls no longer being sterile? Really? It was unneccessary grimdark when it was done and it meant we could freely transplant half-dwarves as a species to other settings without that damn baggage.

No idea where the idea of thri-kreen always being female is from, so I'm not touching that.

Defiling magic only effecting allies, though? I hate to say it, but that's from 2e as well:

Original Campaign Setting, pg 61 : Any being in the radius of a defiler's magic suffers an immediate initiative modifier penalty equal to the level of the defiler spell cast.

Revised Campaign Setting, Age of Heroes pg 68: Any being in the radius of a defiler’s magical summoning makes an immediate save vs. spell. If the save succeeds, there is no effect. If the save fails, the being receives an initiative modifier penalty equal to the level of the highest spell memorized. This modifier comes into play at the first opportune moment.

So, yeah, defilers have been suck to be around for their own allies since the beginning. The only real changes 4e made was that defiling was a temptation to all casters and not a subclass in its own right, and that range was no longer determined by vegetation.

The difference is in 2e it effected EVERYONE not just allies. 4e's defiling only effects friends for some retarded reason.

Reason? Easily deduced: balance. If you can screw up the initiative order of everyone, including enemies, you have a huge ability to alter and affect the flow of battle. Your personal power level skyrockets, as you become essentially a walking "Slow" spell.

Draining health from allies was the best compromise they could come up with; it gives real mechanical weight to when you choose to defile, and emphasizes why defiling is evil in a way that even munchkins can realize, but at the same time it's not a crippling liability, as it's feeding on a resource that PCs are made to exploit and recover from anyway.