Month: June 2024

Why 3.5E gotta be like that?

So in the recent Slovenly Trulls episode,1 Lyssa & Shardae Slovenly Trulls # 39: The Devil’s in the Details (1 June 2024, Podcast) <slovenlytrulls.com> Shardae asks (screams really) “3.5 E why you gotta be like this!?” in regards to its strange love of adding terrible content that barely qualifies as “edgy” and just pushing it out there like it’s cool.

So, after 29 years of growth, why did Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D”) slip back into being a socially awkward, edgy teenager for 5 years in the way that only product owned by a mega corporation can? Why did Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition (“3.5E“) seem to do a complete 180 from its previous approach of trying to be horny yet accessible to everyone? What was Wizards of the Coast thinking?

Despite the mind-breaking, eldritch incomprehensibility of it we can solve this, we can make it make sense – but to do that we need to go on a journey. So, strap on your Armour of Protection from Evil and grab your Vomit Bag of Holding. It’s history time.

Continue reading Why 3.5E gotta be like that?
  • 1
    Lyssa & Shardae Slovenly Trulls # 39: The Devil’s in the Details (1 June 2024, Podcast) <slovenlytrulls.com>

BABD Crosspost: Baldur’s Gate 3 (Part 1 – Introduction)

Originally posted on Bikini Armor Battle Damage.

It’s a great time to be an old school Dungeons & Dragons player, you get to smugly observe millions of people realizing the game is good actually… or at least that the game can facilitate heart touching romances with imaginary, terrible people.

Screencaps to provide front-on photos of Astarion and Shadowheart, similar to a line-up.
(To be clear, I’m not judging you – these two are, but I’m not)

As one of the biggest AAA games of 2023, it’s unsurprising that it’s big and complicated – and there’s a lot that can be talked about with many aspects of it – including female armour and costumes. Indeed, there’s already a lot of commentary on it and community activity, from the confusing, to the life affirming.

It has also been the topic of how corporate practices continually reward those who participate in the creation successful art with notice of dismissal.

And of course, both Dungeons & Dragons and Larian Studios have histories that we’ve touched on before – and I can confidently say it represents a huge improvement in quality, style and attitudes. Plus sometimes their advertising is just gay.

A screencap of the Patch 6 promotion, which was released two days after Valentine's day and used an image of Lae'zel & Shadowheart kissing.
Continue reading BABD Crosspost: Baldur’s Gate 3 (Part 1 – Introduction)

I read: Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress

Published by Wizards of the Coast as part of their 3.5 Edition Dungeons & Dragons (“3.5E“) promotion materials, Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress (2007)1 Shelly Mazzanoble Confessions of Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game (September 2007, Wizards of the Coast, Seattle WA) (“Confessions“) by Shelly Mazzanoble is a modestly sized book which enjoyed limited success following a very odd release by Wizards of the Coast. It hasn’t generated enough nerd buzz to get it’s own Wikipedia page, and my “new” copy has stickers indicating it has been sold and resold among distributors at least three times.

I vividly remember being on the official Dungeons & Dragons (“D&D“) forums at the time and a thread being created in this book’s honour, with the bold declaration “This thread is a safe space for women.”

Naturally the thread was immediately hijacked by weird Mens Rights Activists (“MRAs”) types who wanted to fight over the whether women were allowed to have a safe space, spewing the theorized projections from The Myth of Male Power (1993)2 Warren Farrell The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex (1993, Simon and Schuster, USA) as though they were long established facts. Moderators dealt with this by periodically reposting “This thread is a safe space for women.”

Largely though, the release was overshadowed by other issues relating to the changes to the Forgotten Realms, such as the thread on The Orc King (2007)3 R. A. Salvatore The Orc King (25 September 2007, Wizards of the Coast, Seattle WA) which was released at roughly the same time and raised the issue of impact of both the Spellplague, and how would kill off the protagonist Drizzt Do’Urden’s woman-as-rewardwife Catti-brie (until she comes back). Oh and it seemed to reinvent orcs as Emancipation Era African Americans right down to marrying above their race and having their own version of the Ku Klux Klan, the “Casin Cu Calas“.

It’s different because it’s in elven so let’s not think too hard about the implications.

2007 was a wild time for people who played D&D and had any sense of social sensitivity or awareness at all. Weird none of the nerds writing the Wikipedia articles want to talk about that. What’s up with that? Anyway.

So, I never read it during that time but recently decided I should do so to see if it could purge those memories from my memory and my conclusion is – I understand the reason for it less than I did when my only knowledge of it was a bad thread. Only time will tell if scrutinizing and externalizing my observations changes that.

Continue reading I read: Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress
  • 1
    Shelly Mazzanoble Confessions of Part-Time Sorceress: A Girl’s Guide to the Dungeons & Dragons Game (September 2007, Wizards of the Coast, Seattle WA)
  • 2
    Warren Farrell The Myth of Male Power: Why Men are the Disposable Sex (1993, Simon and Schuster, USA)
  • 3
    R. A. Salvatore The Orc King (25 September 2007, Wizards of the Coast, Seattle WA)