• Deborah Ann Woll gave Jon Bernthal an engaging introduction to Dungeons & Dragons on his podcast, explaining character creation and gameplay in a fun and accessible way.
• Woll’s approach focuses on storytelling and immersing players in the world rather than overwhelming them with character sheets and rules, making D&D more appealing to newcomers.
• The video highlights the universal appeal of D&D, where both Hollywood stars and regular players can connect and enjoy the game together.

Hey lemmings,

I'm an amateur game designer probably best known for creating one of the more popular Feywild setting books for D&D. I’m putting the finishing touches on my far-too-ambitious TTRPG and figured I’d post about it here before forcing myself to do an actual marketing push.

The game is designed for somewhat standard medieval fantasy, which I know isn’t exactly a novel concept. However, it does fill a niche which I personally haven’t been able to fill with any other system. Most fantasy systems seem to either be D&D-alikes with a heavy focus on combat and heroics, OSR games with a heavy focus on dungeon crawling, or PbtA games with a heavy focus on genre emulation. What I wanted (and ended up creating) was a game with a focus on improvisation and shared storytelling without being constrained by genre tropes.^*^

My other big issue with a lot of fantasy RPGs is the reliance on mechanics which have no real connection to the fictional world. Things like hit points, experience points, and meta-currencies put the focus on the game part of RPGs and not the roleplaying part. What I wanted was a game where everything a player does has a clear and direct link to the fictional game world.

The result is The World Ahead, a system I’ve been building and playtesting for far too long. It features simple and collaborative character creation rules, a flexible resolution system, and a hell of a lot of resources, tables, tips, and tricks to facilitate play at the table. Everything is in service of making the game run smoothly and making things as collaborative as possible. It tries to be open-ended when zoomed in and streamlined when zoomed out.

The game is currently available for free on Itch:

https://heavenly-spoon.itch.io/theworldahead

People who aren't looking for a new RPG may still find something useful to steal in there. Perhaps the streamlined travel system, the collaborative worldbuilding rules, the tables for making things such as factions, wonders, and strange creatures, the magic items which all have a clear and obvious effect within the fiction, or the unique weather system. While most things are fairly well integrated into the core system, you can definitely rip stuff out without too much damage.

~*~~I~ ~will~ ~give~ ~a~ ~shoutout~ ~to~ ~Ryuutama~ ~and~ ~The~ ~One~ ~Ring.~ ~While~ ~they~ ~didn’t~ ~scratch~ ~the~ ~itch~ ~for~ ~me,~ ~they~ ~both~ ~have~ ~some~ ~excellent~ ~mechanics~ ~and~ ~are~ ~more~ ~in~ ~line~ ~with~ ~what~ ~I~ ~wanted~ ~to~ ~achieve~ ~here.~

I am looking for ways to improve my exploration gameplay in a Theater of the Mind type game where there is no map and no need for detailed environmental descriptions, if that makes sense; I don't want to have to keep track of corridors and turns, and that sort of thing.

Ideally I would like a system or ruleset that allows me to randomly generate interesting exploration gameplay without relying on having to map out everything. Preferably system agnostic so I can use it in various games.

Here's an example of the sort of thing I'm looking for, but would like to see alternatives that are a bit more in depth, or have more options:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ZsTOh40-sMvukWXMtDOP5hli_DdYm2HtmMXL5ooa00/mobilebasic

cross-posted from: https://sffa.community/post/1884876

A bit of a late post, so most of you have probably seen this already.

It looks like the cheapest virtual only buy in for the full game is $150, while the cheapest physical full game is $195 (+shipping/import tax!)

There are some links in there for some early reviews and play-throughs too. These only look to be the Stormlight system though, so I assume the Mistborn/Scadrial (an any other planets) are still in the works.

Welcome back to Advent's Amazing Advice! The series where I take popular One-Shots, Adventures, Campaigns, etc. and fully prep them for both New and Busy DMs. This prep includes fully fleshed-out notes, music, ambiance, encounter sheets, handouts, battle maps, tweaks, and more so you can run the best sessions possible with the least stress possible!

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk stems from The Lost Mine of Phandelver a classic and beloved starter set that many new DMs run. Even with this being the most recent release it still has an issue, the same as with many others...it doesn't describe the best way to transform the book's contents into an actual session. The Book-to-session conversion can be difficult between figuring out when things should happen, understanding motivations, and even organizing encounters.

Well, fortunately for you, 99% of that work is done! Only a few things are really left:

• Read the book, I know surprising, but it can be extremely confusing when you don't know where everything leads to.
• Consider the needs of your group. As you've heard or are about to hear a million times, every table is different. If you plan on combining this with a campaign, you'll have to make tweaks here and there.
• These notes aren't meant to be the end-all-be-all. Tweak to your heart's content, and don't consider any of what's written to be set in stone. For me having notes like this helps give me the confidence to go off the rails and follow along with what my players want. It helps me understand where things were meant to go and why. Having that understanding allows me to guide the players and create other new and interesting stories. These are all things that will come with experience, though, so don't freak out and enjoy the journey!

Without further ado:

Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk Act 1

• Part 1 - Intro and Cragmaw Hideout
• Part 2a - Phandalin
• Part 2b - Redbrand Hideout
• Part 3a - Reign of Iron
• Part 3b - Thundertree
• Part 3c - Cragmaw Castle
• Part 4 - Wave Echo Cave
• Part 5 - Side Quests

Included in my posts are:

• A Word document for each part of Act 1 for Phandelver and Below with detailed notes for running a perfect session including links to music tracks for ambiance and fights
• Special PDFs for every encounter. This includes all the enemies' stat blocks organized neatly along with an initiative tracker and a spot to mark HP.
• Additional PDFs for allies and commoners
• A variety of maps for each part of the campaign
• Spell lists for all relevant fights
• Handouts for various spell scrolls throughout the campaign
• A playlist for each section!

Over 5 dozen other Fully Prepped One-Shots, Adventures, and Campaigns: Click Here

Campaign Info: As of today, I've officially completed Act One of Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk! I've also compiled all of my prep for it in a single easy-to-access post which is available to all my Heroes and Legends. You can find it HERE!

I've discussed this on Discord as well as answered a few questions and thought I would clarify some information here; campaigns are super time intensive, so I have to choose wisely which ones I prep. The first half PaB:TSO is an updated version of The Lost Mine of Phandelver which I had already fully prepped; so, I thought I would go through all my prep and update it to match and help all those who are starting to run the campaign! I may one day prep the second half; however, I'm trying to focus on the more popular Campaigns such as Curse of Strahd, before I work on others.

With what I've released, you'll have a great kickstart through most of the campaign and there are plenty of helpful members both on Reddit and on my Discord that can guide you along the rest of the way! I hope that with what I've prepped so far you can have a truly Amazing campaign!!!

As always, if you see something you think I can improve, add, change, etc. please let me know. I want this to be an amazing resource for all DMs and plan to keep it constantly updated! If you'd like to support me, shape future releases, and get content early feel free to check out my Patreon!

Cheers,

Advent

Hi friends!

I wanted you to know about the City of Arches Kickstarter going on right now!

The City of Arches is a 160 page PDF and hardcover high-fantasy city sourcebook built for Lazy DMs and usable with any version of 5e or other fantasy tabletop RPGs. In this book you’ll find

• a high fantasy city setting surrounded by countless adventure locations.
• a setting easily dropped into any existing published or homebrewed campaign world.
• a setting where any race, species, origin, heritage, and culture makes sense.
• over a dozen adventure “biomes” with hundreds of adventure locations.
• three 1st to 20th level campaign arcs.
• an intro scenario, three adventures, and an adventure toolkit for building your own heist or infiltration adventure.
• beautiful full-color art, dungeon maps, and overland maps.
• a player’s guide with background hooks and setting-specific backgrounds.

Download the free 42 page preview on the Kickstarter page! I hope you’ll back this fantastic new book.

Thank you so much!

About six months ago I talked to @Ashyr@sh.itjust.works about home brewing games set in Ancient China. Last night I finally debuted my game - The Scroll of Hengdian. If you like CDramas the name may be familiar as Hengdian Studios is where many series are filmed. My game is based on the Castles and Crusades game system so I could leverage the Codex Sinarum. The codex goes deeper into the actual history of China than my game does, but it is still very useful for this setting.

My TTRPG is xianxia-based so I created a new 'cultivator' class for all of my players. The differentiation really comes with the clan and domain choices that give access to magic based on elemental aspects and creature choices.

I borrowed heavily from the Codex Sinarum to develop the Qi abilities for my characters since that was the heaviest lift for me in terms of developing a new class that is a blending of fighter + wizard/cleric/illusionist. My players chose a blend of human and spirit based cultivators which gives me plenty of nuggets to develop additional qigong abilities.

In terms of content, my players are starting as young cultivators who have met at a sect that has invited them to cultivate and achieve their first level. I also took a random suggestion I saw a while back about creating a Star Trek TNG "Q" type dragon character (Die Lan Zi - iykyk) that occasionally comes around to mess with the party.

Best Adventure - Short Form

• Gold: Eat The Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard

• Silver: One-Shot Wonders, Roll & Play Press

Best Adventure - Long Form

• Gold: Delta Green: God's Teeth, Arc Dream Publishing

• Silver: Alone Against the Static, Chaosium Inc

Best Aid/Accessory - Digital

• Gold: LegendKeeper, LegendKeeper / Algorific LLC

• Silver: HEXROLL 2E, Pen, Dice & Paper

Best Aid/Accessory - Non-Digital

• Gold: Arkham Investigator's Wallet, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society

• Silver: Hexcrawl Toolbox, Games Omnivorous

Best RPG Related Product

• Gold: So You Want to Be a Game Master, Page Street Publishing Co.

• Silver: KOBOLD Guide to Roleplaying, Kobold Press

Best Community Content

• Gold: Los Hobos and the Wolves of Carcosa, Critical Hit Publishing

• Silver: The Well of All Fear (Miskatonic Repository)

Best Art, Cover

• Gold: Eat The Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard

• Silver: Koriko: A Magical Year, Mousehole Press

Best Art, Interior

• Gold: Eat The Reich, Rowan, Rook and Decard

• Silver: Ultraviolet Grasslands 2E, Exalted Funeral Press

Best Cartography

• Gold: Dragonbane Core Set, Free League Publishing

• Silver: ALIEN RPG – Building Better Worlds, Free League Publishing

Best Monster/Adversary
This was a tie.

• Gold: MONSTROUS, Cloud Curio

• Gold: Warhammer 40,000 Wrath & Glory Threat Assessment Xenos, Cubicle 7 Entertainment Ltd

Best Layout & Design

• Gold: Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library

• Silver: CBR+PNK: Augmented, Mythworks

Best Production Values

• Gold: Arkham Investigator's Wallet, H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society

• Silver: Koriko: A Magical Year, Mousehole Press

Best Online Content

• Gold: The Alexandrian, Dream Machine Productions

• Silver: Dave Thaumavore RPG Reviews

Best Streaming Content

• Gold: The Party, Swiss Squared

• Silver: William Bailey’s Haunted Mansion; A Call of Cthulhu Adventure - Ballarat Heritage Festival 2024, Tales from Rat City

Best Supplement

• Gold: ALIEN RPG – Building Better Worlds, Free League Publishing

• Silver: The Griffon’s Saddlebag – Book Two, Hit Point Press

Best Free Product

• Gold: Rivers of London: The Domestic, Chaosium, Inc.

• Silver: Level 1 The Free RPG Day Indie RPG Anthology 2023, 9th Level Games

Best Family Game

• Gold: BREAK!! Tabletop RPG, Grey Wizard Press & Naldobean Games

• Silver: If I Were A Lich, Man, Hit Point Press

Best Rules

• Gold: Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library

• Silver: Pathfinder Player Core, Paizo Inc

Best Setting

• Gold: Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide, Paizo Inc

• Silver: The Valley of Flowers, Phantom Mill Games

Best Writing

• Gold: Alone Against the Static, Chaosium Inc.

• Silver: Cloud Empress: Land of Cicadas, worlds by watt

Fan Favorite Publisher

• Choice: Free League Publishing

Best Game

• Gold: Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library

• Silver: Outgunned, Two Little Mice

Product of the Year

• Gold: Shadowdark RPG, The Arcane Library

• Silver: Outgunned, Two Little Mice

(Copy-pasted from here. Haven't found a blog post yet.)

I read the post rules and didn't see any other announcements of the Neopets TTRPG lmao. Remove if I broke the rules!

Anyways, this actually sounds like a lot of fun. Might lead to some creative scenarios, especially if your GM knows the deep and complex Neopets lore.

cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/12141141

This book includes:

• 25 new diseases
• 10 parasites
• A new surgery mechanic
• 25 medical-themed items
• New feats and backgrounds

This supplement is brought to you by a registered nurse who also happens to be an avid D&D player for 5 years. Add plagues, pathogens, and medicines to your campaigns with this book. Remember, the greatest enemy lies within!

We will be going live on Kickstarter this week! Sign up to be notified when we launch here.

I bought the physical rulebook and already owned the PDF, so I'm giving away the code.

Here's the link:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/index.php?discount=FLBXDUUC0N1V

I've been working to publish a game which uses an Approach Interaction Resolution system. What's that? It's a system where the GM thinks of a complication, something that could go wrong and selects the failure theme, and the player chooses a manner, an attitude that they undertake the task with. The pair interact a bit like rock paper scissors to resolve the test but taking into account more options, the ratings of your character's stats and character descriptors.

The amazing thing about it? You describe your action and your description resolves it. No randomness. Just a simple, brief and binding narrative.

The advancement system builds on this so that you improve the things you do and manners in which you do them. Developing your character is both surprising and totally under your control!

The game I've put out is a free zero-budget game called Mannerism and is about becoming a wizard to escape oppression.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/484010/mannerism

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22572048

I'm trying out Mythic Game Master Emulator with Dungeon World. I've only done a few sessions of game setup but I'm already very impressed with the GME. I'd love to hear from you if you have thoughts or questions about solo roleplaying in general, Mythic in particular, or even just tabletop roleplaying in general.

Head over to https://rpg.grapesoda.games/dw for the journal entries so far!

With not enough space on the table for the gadgets, snacks, and flailing appendages, it's time to make the rules smaller.

To make things truly minimalist, I've made the rulebook with the assumption that people have a character sheet in front of them, so they'll see stats (and a couple of rules-hints, like the XP costs for Attributes).

If anyone has printer handy, I'd love to hear how clear the folding instructions are (they're written with the assumption that you have the printed page in front of you, and only need to make sense in this context).

Background:

I'm running the Pathfinder 2e Abomination Vaults adventure for a group of 5 players, though I've set it in my own homebrew setting and have not shied away from deviating from the published adventure. I'll try not to, but I may let slip some minor AV spoilers

The players have just reached the end of book 1, and are about to go into book 2. At this point, about a month of in-game time has passed since the adventure began, and one week into the adventure there was a big supernatural event which made big news around the town that the adventure is set in. I like to play up the verisimilitude of the setting by having NPCs and the world react to the things that happen, as well as to the passage of time.

One thing I've come up with which I'm excited to see play out is that enough time has passed that word has spread around the local area about this megadungeon that has been discovered near the town. The players have been telling everyone who will listen about this heretofore undiscovered complex. In my mind, this would mean that other parties of adventurers would come to the town with the intent of doing the same thing the players are doing: looting dungeon, killing baddies, leveling up, getting rich and famous.

I've created a rival party of five adventurers of the same level as the players. This rival party is called "The Vanguard Edge" (or simply "The Edge"). I've spent a chunk of the last few days making notes on how to RP and employ The Edge. Here's what I've got so far:

The party is likely to try to join forces with The Vanguard Edge. This should never be possible.

The Edge don't follow the same rules as other NPCs. Think of them as a group of DM-controlled player characters. They know the rules of adventuring and they think like players.

The Edge are not villains. They are fundamentally "good guys", but their goal is to eat the party's lunch. They want to go into the Abomination Vaults and find all the cool loot first

In general, the Edge fulfill the negative stereotypes that most people have of adventurers. They are demanding, dismissive, and arrogant. They flaunt their wealth and brag about their exploits, they get bored when they go too long without fighting something. They sometimes speak in slightly more metagame terms, such as talking about their hopes to "level up" and "gain experience".

If the party ever shares useful information with The Edge, they will look at it with some skepticism. The members of the Edge would never dream of sharing Intel with other adventurers.

The Edge will occasionally have reached certain places first. This should be used sparingly, and only when it is a real gut punch for the party. It should be easy to tell where they have been, because they are completely unsubtle in their approach to adventuring.

Sometimes the implication of treasure can be added to the adventure, but with the added implication that the Edge got to it first. Maybe Abomination Vaults doesn't explicitly mention treasure in some room, but there was some in there, and the Edge already took it.

If an encounter is about to turn into a TPK, the Edge can show up to save the PCs. But they will never let them live it down.

Those are the notes I've made so far on how to use this new element of my campaign. I'm curious if anyone out there has any thoughts, either in things I've noted or things I've missed. I'd love folks to give their feedback

Thanks in advance!

I recently started a new campaign. Two players (one who has played in my games before and their SO, who has been begging me for a spot for years) unexpectedly dropped out, moments before our first session. Their reason was somewhat baffling; they said they didn't want to spend "all day" on this, despite the game only going from noon to 3PM. They seemed to think this was a totally unreasonable expectation on my part, despite them previously having stated they were available during that time. This puzzled me.

I've been musing on this, and the strange paradox of people that say they want to play D&D but don't actually want to play D&D, and I've had an epiphany.

A lot of people blame Critical Role or other popular D&D shows for giving prospective players misplaced perceptions, often related to things like your DM's voice acting ability or prop budget, but I don't think that's what's going on here. My realization is that, encoded in the medium of podcasts and play videos, is another expectation: New players unconsciously expect to receive D&D the way they receive D&D shows: on-demand, at their house, able to be paused and restarted at their whim, and possibly on a second-screen while they focus on something else!

I don't know as this suggests anything we as DMs could do differently to set expectations, but it did go a long ways to helping me understand my friends, and I thought it might help someone here to share.

cross-posted from: https://ttrpg.network/post/7946465

From a blog post by Ben Riggs. I thought it was interesting.
------------

“Damn right I am a sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men… They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care.” -Gary Gygax, EUROPA 10/11 August-September 1975

Do TTRPG Historians Lie?

The internet has been rending its clothes and gnashing its teeth over the introduction to an instant classic of TTRPG history, The Making of Original D&D 1970-1977. Published by Wizards of the Coast, it details the earliest days of D&D’s creation using amazing primary source materials. Why then has the response been outrage from various corners of the internet? Well authors Jon Peterson and Jason Tondro mention that early D&D made light of slavery, disparaged women, and gave Hindu deities hit points. They also repeated Wizards of the Coast’s disclaimer for legacy content which states:

“These depictions were wrong then and are wrong today. This content is presented as it was originally created, because to do otherwise would be the same as claiming these prejudices never existed.”

— Making OD&D

In response to this, an army of grognards swarmed social media to bite their shields and bellow. Early D&D author Rob Kuntz described Peterson and Tondro’s work as “slanderous.” On his Castle Oldskull blog, Kent David Kelly called it “disparagement.” These critics are accusing Peterson and Tondro of dishonesty. Lying, not to put too fine a point on it.  So, are they lying? Are they making stuff up about Gary Gygax and early D&D? 

Is there misogyny in D&D?

Well, let's look at a specific example of what Peterson and Tondro describe as “misogyny “ from 1975's Greyhawk. Greyhawk was the first supplement ever produced for D&D. Written by Gary Gygax and Rob Kuntz, the same Rob Kuntz who claimed slander above, it was a crucial text in the history of the game. For example, it debuted the thief character class.  It also gave the game new dragons, among them the King of Lawful Dragons and the Queen of Chaotic Dragons. The male dragon is good, and female dragon is evil. (See Appendix 1 below for more.) It is a repetition of the old trope that male power is inherently good, and female power is inherently evil. (Consider the connotations of the words witch and wizard, with witches being evil by definition, for another example.) 

Now so-called defenders of Gygax and Kuntz will say that my reading of the above text makes me a fool who wouldn’t know dragon’s breath from a virtue signal. I am ruining D&D with my woke wokeness. Gygax and Kuntz were just building a fun game, and decades later, Peterson and Tondro come along to crap on their work by screeching about misogyny. (I would also point out that as we are all white men of a certain age talking about misogyny, the worst we can expect is to be flamed online. Women often doing the same thing get rape or death threats.) Critics of their work would say that Peterson and Tondro are reading politics into D&D.  

Except that when we return to the Greyhawk text, we see that it was actually Gygax and Kuntz who put “politics” into D&D. The text itself comments on the fact that the lawful dragon is male, and the chaotic one is female. Gygax and Kuntz wrote: “Women’s Lib may make whatever they wish from the foregoing.”

The intent is clear. The female is a realm of chaos and evil, so of course they made their chaotic evil dragon a queen. Yes, Gygax and Kuntz are making a game, but it is a game whose co-creator explicitly wrote into the rules that feminine power—perhaps even female equality—is by nature evil. There is little room for any other interpretation. The so-called defenders of Gygax may now say that he was a man of his time, he didn’t know better, or some such. If only someone had told him women were people too in 1975! Well, Gygax was criticized for this fact of D&D at the time. And he left us his response. 

I can’t believe Gary wrote this

:(

Writing in EUROPA, a European fanzine, Gygax said,

“I have been accused of being a nasty old sexist-male-Chauvinist-pig, for the wording in D&D isn’t what it should be. There should be more emphasis on the female role, more non-gendered names, and so forth. I thought perhaps these folks were right and considered adding women in the ‘Raping and Pillaging[’] section, in the ‘Whores and Tavern Wenches’ chapter, the special magical part dealing with ‘Hags and Crones’, and thought perhaps of adding an appendix on ‘Medieval Harems, Slave Girls, and Going Viking’. Damn right I am sexist. It doesn’t matter to me if women get paid as much as men, get jobs traditionally male, and shower in the men’s locker room. They can jolly well stay away from wargaming in droves for all I care. I’ve seen many a good wargame and wargamer spoiled thanks to the fair sex. I’ll detail that if anyone wishes.”

— -Gary Gygax, EUROPA 10/11 August-September 1975

So just to summarize here, Gygax wrote misogyny into the D&D rules. When this was raised with him as an issue at the time, his response was to offer to put rules on rape and sex slavery into D&D.    

Peterson & Tondro are truth-tellers

The outrage online directed at Peterson and Tondro is not only entirely misplaced and disproportional, and perhaps even dishonest in certain cases, it is also directly harming the legacies of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz and the entire first generation of genius game designers our online army of outraged grognards purport to defend.  How? Let me show you.

That D&D is for Everyone Proves the Brilliance of its Creators

The D&D player base is getting more diverse in every measurable way, including age, gender, sexual orientation, and race. To cite a few statistics, 81% of D&D players are Millenials or Gen Z, and 39% are women. This diversity is incredible, and not because the diversity is some blessed goal unto itself. Rather, the increasing diversity of D&D proves the vigor of the TTRPG medium. Like Japanese rap music or Soviet science fiction, the transportation of a medium across cultures, nations, and genders proves that it is an important method for exploring the human condition. And while TTRPGs are a game, they are also clearly an important method for exploring the human condition. The fact the TTRPG fanbase is no longer solely middle-aged Midwestern cis men of middle European descent, the fact that non-binary blerds and Indigenous trans women and fat Polish-American geeks like me and people from every bed of the human vegetable garden find meaning in a game created by two white guys from the Midwest is proof that Gygax and Arneson were geniuses who heaved human civilization forward, even if only by a few feet.

So, as a community, how do we deal with the ugly prejudices of our hobby’s co-creator who also baked them into the game the world loves? 

We could pretend there is no problem at all, and say that anyone who mentions the problem is a liar. There is no misogyny to see. There is no shit and there is no stink, and anyone who says there is shit on your sneakers is lying and is just trying to embarrass you. I wonder how that will go? Will all these new D&D fans decide that maybe D&D isn’t for them? They know the stink of misogyny, just like they know shit when they smell it. To say it isn’t there is an insult to their intelligence. If they left the hobby over this, it would leave our community smaller, poorer, and suggest that the great work of Gygax, Arneson, Kuntz, and the other early luminaries on D&D was perhaps not so great after all… We could take the route of Disney and Song of the South. Wizards could remove all the PDFs of early D&D from DriveThruRPG. They could refuse to ever reprint this material again. Hide it. Bury it. Erase it all with copyright law and lawyers. Yet no matter how deeply you bury the past, it always tends to come back up to the surface again. Heck, there are whole podcast series about that. And what will all these new D&D fans think when they realize that a corporation tried to hide its own mistakes from them? Again, maybe they decide D&D isn’t the game for them.

Or maybe when someone tells you there is shit on your shoe, you say thanks, clean it off, and move on. 

We honor the old books, but when they tell a reader they are a lesser human being, we should acknowledge that is not the D&D of 2024. Something like, “Hey reader, we see you in all your wondrous multiplicity of possibility, and if we were publishing this today, it wouldn’t contain messages and themes telling some of you that you are less than others. So we just want to warn you. That stuff’s in there.” Y’know, something like that legacy content warning they put on all those old PDFs on DriveThruRPG.  And when we see something bigoted in old D&D, we talk about it. It lets the new, broad, and deep tribe of D&D know that we do not want bigotry in D&D today. Talking about it welcomes the entire human family into the hobby.    To do anything less is to damn D&D to darkness. It hobbles its growth, gates its community, denies the world the joy of the game, and denies its creators their due. D&D’s creators were visionary game designers. They were also people, and people are kinda fucked up.   So a necessary step in making D&D the sort of cultural pillar that it deserves to be is to name its bigotries and prejudices when you see them. Failure to do so hurts the game by shrinking our community and therefore shrinking the legacy of its creators. 

Appendix 1

Yeah, I know Chaos isn’t the same as Evil in OD&D. But I would also point out as nerdily as possible that on pg. 9 of Book 1 of OD&D, under “Character Alignment, Including Various Monsters and Creatures,” Evil High Priests are included under the “Chaos” heading, along with the undead. So I would put to you that Gygax did see a relationship between Evil and Chaos at the time. 

Page 9 of Book 1 of OD&D. Note that the “Evil High Priests” are also chaotic.