Next on the Chopping Block

Apparently, there's a big 'event' adventure coming soon for D&D to mark the transition to the 2024 revised ruleset. This adventure features Vecna as the BBEG, and the smart money seems to be on it featuring some sort of quasi-reboot of the setting - something that will give WotC opportunity to jettison any and all of the accumulated lore they want to be rid of (especially any problematic elements), while also allowing them scope to keep anything they want to retain. And then they can sell us all the books all over again.

The big problem with this approach is that 'problematic' is inherently a moving target, so any notion that this might be a one-and-done thing is almost certainly a fool's hope. In particular, there are three elements that they're going to retain that are very likely to come under fire at some point:

• The use of any non-human intelligent species. We're increasingly coming to the point of view that orcs are inherently stand-ins for people of colour and dwarves for Jewish folk. The same analysis generally hasn't been done for other species, but is readily applicable. The problem there being that if orcs are indeed PoC then depicting them as anything other than human is inherently and unavoidably problematic, and needs to stop.
• Religion. D&D has a big problem in that, on those occasions when it features religion at all, the benign religions lift liberally from Christianity while malign religions are based far more often on non-Christian religions. The problem there is obvious. There are also big issues with cultural sensitivity when religion is concerned, as for much of our world culture and religion remain far more intertwined than in the US and the UK.
• Alignment. Basically, having a gam prescribe what is and is not 'good' is massively problematic.

Those are three fairly huge elements of the game, such that removing them would massively and fundamentally alter it. Indeed, removing the first, in particular, may be a death knell for the game as we know it. And yet, those are arguments I suspect we'll be fighting in a few years.

Bottom line: a quasi-reboot to remove all the problematic stuff may buy a few years, but not many. And, worse, it sets a precedent for how to deal with them that I'd really they rather not set.

Jedi Quest

I'm very much enjoying "Ahsoka". I'll review it over on the other blog once it's done. However, in the meantime, it has given me quite a bit of food for thought regarding the best use of Jedi in RPGs.

Basically, I'm inclined to think that Jedi are poorly served by treating them as just another PC type in a mixed party, or putting them in the standard RPG backdrop. Much as I hate to admit it, FFG may well have been right to make Jedi the focus of an entirely separate game from other PC types.

I'm inclined to think that Jedi are best served with a fairly standard 'quest' approach to their missions. That may be obvious - they are Jedi Knights after all. "Go find the secret master who has been in exile for decades"; "go find the first Jedi temple"; "explore ancient Dathomiri temples to unearth a hyperspace route to another galaxy entirely".

Of course, a good quest never runs quite as you might expect it to, and the object of the quest may well prove to be quite different from the one you set out with. And, of course, the real goal is always enlightenment. But that's all easily filled in.

And it's all great fodder for an RPG. Just not the same fodder as "Andor" or "Rogue One", and that's good too.

The Joy of One-Shots

I recently had word that a friend is returning to the area (ish), which raises the possibility of getting the band back together somewhat. Which is all great news.

That said, it remains my position that I just don't have the ability to commit to any sort of campaign play at the present time - the regular chunk of time turned over to gaming, on either a weeknight or at the weekend, is just not something I can commit.

But there is the possibility of getting together for an occasional one-shot game, potentially taking a chunk of time on one Saturday or Sunday afternoon for that purpose.

Which is no bad thing - we had a number of successful one-shots back in the day. They have the key advantage that you get different people at the table, you get to try out different systems and different characters, and they can be a lot of fun. Notable good times were a "Hunter: the Reckoning" game, a "Star Wars" mirror universe one-shot, Numenera, and Star Trek. (That last, in particular, is something I'd like to try again - and is something ideally suited for one-shots.)

They're not the same. But they're good in a different way.

And What About "Phandelver and Beyond"

At the outset of this year there was one book I was interested in: the revised and expanded Phandelver campaign. In truth, I think I was never likely to actually use this, since I've now run "Lost Mine" twice and that makes up the core of the adventure. But I was very interested to see what they did with it.

But if I'm now running my last ever campaign, does it make sense to spend the better part of £50 on a book I'm never going to use?

On the other hand, there have been other books I've skipped for one reason or another and then come to regret, and in some of those cases buying the book later proved to be an expensive venture. And it is, just about, possible I might come back to this one...

I'm not sure. But I think my answer, for now, is to wait and see - if I somehow find myself starting up a new game, or if it suddenly drops in price by about a third, I think I'll buy in. Otherwise, I'll leave it. For now.

Latest On the New Books

As time goes on, it looks more and more like the 2024 revision of the game is going to be a tightening up of the engine, but without any of the more invasive changes that had been proposed - 5e Essentials rather than 5.5e (and certainly not 6e!). All of which is to the good, I think, mostly because I hadn't like the sound of any of those bigger changes.

And yet, I find myself torn on the new books.

The major reason for this is that if I am indeed running my final campaign, there's no good reason to spend the money, and I'm out of shelf space anyway.

But on the other hand, this would be the first version of the game for which I don't have the key books, and if they are indeed an improvement...

Mostly, though, I'm lamenting the fact that they'll almost certainly never be released on PDF. If that were done, I'd buy them sight-unseen. Without that, I'm inclined not to bother.

(And yes, it does need to be PDF specifically. Other electronic formats, even those that are supposedly "better", are useless to me.)

A Decision Confirmed

We had yet another cancellation of the game this week, hot on the heels of a cancellation last week. It is, once again, proving increasingly difficult to get together.

Which once again confirms that my decision was the right one: this is the last campaign I'm going to run in the current environment. Which almost certainly means it is the final campaign I will run for a great many years - possibly ever.

The 35th anniversary of my first game has recently passed. Sadly, it looks like it's going out with a whimper.