D&D 5th Edition

Just by way of personal history, I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons in one form or another since about 1981. I've played other roleplaying games in that time of course, though none have held my interest or endured real life nearly as long as D&D. Science fiction roleplaying games still hold some allure, but I have always come back to fantasy roleplaying specifically and to D&D as my system of choice.

I started playing with AD&D and migrated through each edition of the game, albeit with growing unrest at the dying company producing my particular brand of fun. I also avoided huge swaths of undesirable product, mostly crappy game worlds and soft cover supplements. Yet I remained loyal to the brand and the system itself, even as dumb marketeers grew more and more out of touch with customer desires and out of depth as computer technology also advanced. Some of this is of course hindsight.

My original gaming friends have long since moved on, having become 'normals' whereas gaming has become a lifestyle for me. I now have about thirty years worth of experience as a customer and nearly as long as an amateur designer, since anyone wearing the mantle of game master must of necessity delve into design. No version of any roleplaying game is ever really complete, covering every possible situation or physics problem. I now run the Pathfinder RPG, which is without doubt the legitimate child of D&D.

I can honestly say that the recent 5E announcement and the various optimistic knee jerk reactions to it pretty much sicken me. Why anyone would trust Wizards of the Coast to produce yet another iteration of D&D is absolutely beyond me and I've seen a lot of shit happen. The only conclusion I can come to is that American consumers must have far more money to burn than I do. Were I a 4E consumer, I would be absolutely livid. I'd be angry with myself, for having been duped into filling my bookshelves with absolute drivel, and with the company for engendering the epic fail of the D&D brand. Trust is the issue here though, not money.

I comes as no real surprise that Wizards of the Coast plans to use open play-testing to develop the next version of D&D. This is of course the model Paizo followed in developing the Pathfinder RPG from the D20 system OGL. According to some, including the CEO of Paizo herself, Lisa Stevens, it's outselling D&D. The trend shows no signs of abating since Paizo is doing everything in its power to lead the industry and, more far importantly, please its customers. Imagine that? Paizo has been making the right moves for years now, partnering with all the right companies, and most recently expanding into areas most gamers love, plastic painted miniatures, comic books, novels and even online gaming. Paizo is literally path-finding. So I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would continue to trust Wizards of the Coast to produce anything but another bastardization of the D&D brand.

Stream

I'm an angry man. I've worked my ass of since the age of fourteen. My parents precede me in death. I'll follow in about twenty years because genetics says so. I have a house I'll never see paid for. My life belongs to millionaires. My stepson is dead. He blew his head off with a shot gun. My therapist asked me if I've ever tried journaling. I have a blog I replied. My hair isn't blonde anymore. I tried to lose weight; the lap-band is gone but the pain remains. Back pain, insomnia, apnea worry and anger. Six thousand cryptic religions and still no answers. All kin dead except a homeless, useless brother and a sunset cardboard box of ash that stands near my desk. I drive my dead mom's car. Diabetes, depression, sleepy metabolic spiral to no where. No drugs, no sex, no rock 'n roll, no prospects and no way out; .52% raise. People... what a bunch of bastards.
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Unsilent Running

This blog has been silent for a while now. I would like to rectify that by saying something of real import, at least some things that are important to me. I'm doing this for me so it doesn't really much matter whether anyone's listening. I've made various excuses to myself as to why I can't say this or can't say that in my blog, but what it ultimately boils down to is fear, fear that someone might not like what I have to say or might not find it relevant to roleplaying games, which this blog has been and still is about. However, any topic is really fair game because life for me is filtered through that gamer's eye lens. This is experimental since I've refused to talk directly about myself, due to that fear. Life has an element of risk so if the wrong ones are listening, if I subject myself to embarrassment then so be it. I might learn instead that I've just been overprotective or even paranoid.

What also goes along with this is the rules of the radio. If you're familiar with radio talk shows then you'll know that the best thing to do when someone on air says something you don't like, then the proper thing to do is to stop listening. That's your vote and it's perhaps the last one we have left as the docile residences of a large corporate imperialistic state, for that is what I believe firmly that America has become. The America I knew, the America my dad knew, died a long time ago. I'm not suggesting a course of action, just making a statement. That's the other thing you must keep in mind. In radio talk show vernacular, the host plays a version of himself on the radio, one that says and does things for entertainment value. Again, don't like what I have to say then please turn the dial.

Finally, this isn't the last blog like this I'll write. In the coming months I plan to open up a lot more and share a few things about my life that disturb me. Here is the first. I have no friends, not in the real, true sense of the word, in the sense of the word as it was defined when I was about 30 years younger. What I actually have are acquaintances or "occasionally interested parties," since time is pretty damned thin in our wireless American empire.

That's all I have for now. Comments and questions welcome but not expected.