What is the biggest debacle of RPG history?

[shadzar]

is there any D&D world where bug-people are a PC race

Athas, Dark Sun world. Thrikreen.

playing PO:S&P (aka 2.5) with its CP system it allows the races from CPH Humanoids like thrikreen in ANY D&D game.

[Voss]

As for no part of the setting making you want to vomit, you have a stronger stomach than I do. Vol, the evil warforged god, the destroyed nation, the far realm stuff and the silver flame all have really strong elements that lean toward just this side of squick, with some wandering well over the line.

Care to elaborate on these?

Why not?

Ok. First up is evil god-robot Hitler creating magic robot Israel in the ruins of fantasy Hiroshima so he can plot the genocide of all fleshlings.

Second, is the Xoriat/Madness/Far Plane shit, which is relatively tame, as it only involves capturing, eating and breeding people via tentacle rape in the depths of the earth. What could be squicky about that?

Third up, is the Silver flame, the divine but tainted 'entity' the simultaneously possesses a physical location and a little girl, heading a church that is theoretically good but which explicitly doesn't matter, as any alignment can worship (and get spells from) anything in the setting, while the church itself wanders around on a Spanish Inquisition-turned genocidal campaign against incidental targets like shifters and changelings. Meanwhile an abstract divine entity and tainted far realm critter wage war in a little girl's head. With the tainted thing occasionally winning and subverting ideas or passing along ill-defined 'impulses.' For hints of what those could be, see the previous bit on tentacle rape.

The blood of vol stuff is probably least offensive, at least, if animated undead are just another variety of automaton, and becoming sentient undead isn't actually a big thing, but just a higher state of being. But in a world that actively tries to obfuscate alignment issues even more but still has detect evil and all the bullshit that implies, the whole things is maddening.

[vagrant]

Like I said, the 3.5 mechanics are the failure point of Eberron.

Ok. First up is evil god-robot Hitler creating magic robot Israel in the ruins of fantasy Hiroshima so he can plot the genocide of all fleshlings.

That is literally one of the most awesome aspects about Eberron. The tentacle rape part has it's parallels with any sex-themed demon/devil ever, with the added bonus of going mad.

I'm starting to think your definition of offensive is 'Anything that isn't Ponies and Cake.'

[codeGlaze]

I'm starting to think your definition of offensive is 'Anything that isn't Ponies and Cake.'

Srs.

Aside from 3/3.5 rule failings a lot of what you listed just makes for interesting characters and events. If anything I could understand people not liking the "kitchen sink" approach; or the tropes. But complaining about characters not being flat or a world where leaders aren't all epic level adventure fuckers? AND they happen to have character flaws and history?

I could give or take the whole madness/dreamworld chicanery that has a warhammer futility feeling to it. Or the mysterious magic atom bomb. But there's even some cool stuff that comes from those tropes. Like the portal-guardian druids ( or what ever they are).

I'm okay with moral ambiguity, though. I think that and intrigue just make a world that much more interesting.

[Voss]

Like I said, the 3.5 mechanics are the failure point of Eberron.

Ok. First up is evil god-robot Hitler creating magic robot Israel in the ruins of fantasy Hiroshima so he can plot the genocide of all fleshlings.

That is literally one of the most awesome aspects about Eberron. The tentacle rape part has it's parallels with any sex-themed demon/devil ever, with the added bonus of going mad.

I'm starting to think your definition of offensive is 'Anything that isn't Ponies and Cake.'

No, not even vaguely. I honestly don't give a shit about someone having a tentacle rape fetish, because its pretty damn difficult to inflict that on other actual people. Unlike a standard rape fetish, people with a tentacle rape fetish mostly just wank to anime, so whatever. If they're just baddies and the details are handwaved in the background, its probably the least troubling thing out of the list I mentioned. The part that becomes uncomfortable, however, is when you inflict the details that shit on a group at the gaming table. Because nopony wants to see that.

The Lord of Blades, on the other hand, puts mustache twirling and tophats on a tidy little bundle composed of literally every single evil aspect of WWII and strips it of all complexity and nuance. And that actually is rather fucking offensive.


@codeGlaze- I don't know what the hell you're talking about, I really don't. I'm not aware of a SINGLE interesting character in Eberron. I vaguely know some names (though I can't actually think of many at the moment) associated with some statblocks, but based on the published campaign materials, I know jackshit about the characters. As far as I know, they're 2d cutouts ripped variously from everything from Dudley Doright and half-assed Noir films.


I'd be OK with moral ambiguity. But Eberron doesn't do that. It makes alignment bullshit more ambiguous, but leaves in all the mechanical aspects of alignment. But that is a far cry from actual moral ambiguity.

[ishy]

I hope I'm misunderstanding something here, but Voss was saying the setting is about a little girl sometimes getting raped.
And then people seriously start arguing whether child rape is sufficiently offensive?

[MGuy]

Ok. First up is evil god-robot Hitler creating magic robot Israel in the ruins of fantasy Hiroshima so he can plot the genocide of all fleshlings.

Gonna have to explain why this is bad because, while it IS evil, evil things exist in these kinds of settings so... This complaint is odd. The story follows that there are some number of robot guys, who used to be slaves flocking to the lead of some mysterious robot leader who hates squishies for some reason. What reason? What is the robot's actual plan? Why does the robot guy wanna build a god? A bunch of stuff is intentionally left vague (as are a lot of things in eberron) so how complicated/simple this is is really up to whomever is at the reins. If you want things to be complicated or 'deep' you could simply DO that.

Second, is the Xoriat/Madness/Far Plane shit, which is relatively tame, as it only involves capturing, eating and breeding people via tentacle rape in the depths of the earth. What could be squicky about that?

So.. you're offended that evil things are doing evil things?

Third up, is the Silver flame, the divine but tainted 'entity' the simultaneously possesses a physical location and a little girl, heading a church that is theoretically good but which explicitly doesn't matter, as any alignment can worship (and get spells from) anything in the setting, while the church itself wanders around on a Spanish Inquisition-turned genocidal campaign against incidental targets like shifters and changelings. Meanwhile an abstract divine entity and tainted far realm critter wage war in a little girl's head. With the tainted thing occasionally winning and subverting ideas or passing along ill-defined 'impulses.' For hints of what those could be, see the previous bit on tentacle rape.

As far as I can tell the Church is supposed to be a grab bag, catholic church insert for the setting so you can have all things 'Night Hunter" along with "Spanish Inquisition". It's a kitchen sink setting so that kinda of thing is gonna happen. You can make of it what you want. Don't really see a problem unless the fact that a little girl is the dalai lama for the church REALLY REALLY grinds your gears.

The blood of vol stuff is probably least offensive, at least, if animated undead are just another variety of automaton, and becoming sentient undead isn't actually a big thing, but just a higher state of being. But in a world that actively tries to obfuscate alignment issues even more but still has detect evil and all the bullshit that implies, the whole things is maddening.

Again with this alignment thing. Alignment system is a legacy fuck up. You're going to blame the setting for that?

Honestly your complaints for the setting seem to be that there is evil shit that exists and it is weird for you. That the setting is too 'shallow' for you, even though the way the books lay it out, a number of things are left ambiguous so a given GM can make things more or less complicated at their leisure. It may just be because this is in text form but I don't really think you even 'care' about the setting at all. Seems like you just didn't find it interesting then just grabbed a bunch of parts of the setting (at random) to complain about.

I mean if I were to complain about the setting it would be that the mechanics don't allow it to 'do' a whole lot or that the setting doesn't seem prepared for higher level shenanigans. I mean the setting only holds together because there are very few high level things and those high level things are either bound somewhere or playing some kind of incomprehensible chess game. T

[MGuy]

I hope I'm misunderstanding something here, but Voss was saying the setting is about a little girl sometimes getting raped.
And then people seriously start arguing whether child rape is sufficiently offensive?

You are. Voss is saying he is easily disturbed by things and anything that could even be slightly mistaken as 'possible' tentacle rape squicks him out. If there is material that suggests that the head of the Church of the Flame gets raped at all, I ain't seen it and I suspect only exists in Voss's tortured imagination.

[Avoraciopoctules]

The Lord of Blades, on the other hand, puts mustache twirling and tophats on a tidy little bundle composed of literally every single evil aspect of WWII and strips it of all complexity and nuance. And that actually is rather fucking offensive.

Wait. Are you saying that the Lord of Blades puts people in concentration camps? Does that mean you could do a game that is basically Schindler's List with evil robots?

[Voss]

Ok. First up is evil god-robot Hitler creating magic robot Israel in the ruins of fantasy Hiroshima so he can plot the genocide of all fleshlings.

Gonna have to explain why this is bad because, while it IS evil, evil things exist in these kinds of settings so... This complaint is odd. The story follows that there are some number of robot guys, who used to be slaves flocking to the lead of some mysterious robot leader who hates squishies for some reason. What reason? What is the robot's actual plan? Why does the robot guy wanna build a god? A bunch of stuff is intentionally left vague (as are a lot of things in eberron) so how complicated/simple this is is really up to whomever is at the reins. If you want things to be complicated or 'deep' you could simply DO that.

Yes, if someone wants to rewrite the whole thing so there is some sort of context or meaning, I suppose you can do that. But whats the point of setting materials at that point? No, this shit isn't left 'vague' so you can make something more out of it. That is the whole of the material. The Lord of Blades is a burgeoning evil god-robot who wants to declare war on people. He has a black hat. Go fight. That is honestly the whole of the hook.


Touched on the flame and xoriat shit above.

The blood of vol stuff is probably least offensive, at least, if animated undead are just another variety of automaton, and becoming sentient undead isn't actually a big thing, but just a higher state of being. But in a world that actively tries to obfuscate alignment issues even more but still has detect evil and all the bullshit that implies, the whole things is maddening.

Again with this alignment thing. Alignment system is a legacy fuck up. You're going to blame the setting for that?

Nope. I'm going to blame the setting (and author) for making horrible alignment bullshit worse This is, at heart, an evil cult with neutral (and even good) followers, that buy into the cult without knowing it is evil.
But every single newly ordained clergy member can trivially determine that it is in fact an evil fucking cult. This could have been something interesting, but the author didn't really bother to do any detail work on it and it just doesn't fucking work as intended.

Honestly your complaints for the setting seem to be that there is evil shit that exists and it is weird for you.

No.

That the setting is too 'shallow' for you, even though the way the books lay it out, a number of things are left ambiguous so a given GM can make things more or less complicated at their leisure.

It is shallow. It isn't presented as the bare bones of a greater campaign setting that you can make into something greater, or whatever. It is presented as the whole of a campaign setting.

It may just be because this is in text form but I don't really think you even 'care' about the setting at all. Seems like you just didn't find it interesting then just grabbed a bunch of parts of the setting (at random) to complain about.

Of course I don't care about it. Why the fuck would I care about a shitty campaign setting that they squeezed out of a contest winner in less than a year?

As for pulling things 'at random.' Yes. Yes I did. That was in fact the point. You claimed that no part of the setting made you want to vomit. I thought that was bizarre. Meikle641 wanted examples. So I asspulled some examples. The cartoonish simplicity of the setting certainly turns my stomach, as does the blind mixing of unrelated genres, or the consequence free nature of inserting fake technology into a D&D setting and having no meaningful consequences. I can think of quite of few people who would find a variety of things in the setting fairly offensive, or at least a turn off.

[MGuy]

1: The Lord of Blades isn't a God. He is the robot guy trying to make a God. He IS a black hat because he's doing something bad against things that aren't his race. How shallow or 'deep' his reasons are are up to you. You claim it is like WW2 without nuance. The reasons, the hows, and the why are a fucking mystery so ANYTHING you write on that isn't rewriting shit because it just isn't fucking there. If you want you could have the LoB having a 'good' reason for doing whatever it is he's doing, or not. You simply chose 'not' which is a legitimate choice but one you shouldn't bitch about.

2: Again, most of the whys and hows in the setting are purposefully left ambiguous. Your whole problem with the church centers on the ambiguity of what the flame does/says to people. It doesn't really say what the flame tells anybody (good or evil). I mean I would've went something like "it sometimes rallies people to go commit horrendous acts of genocide and holy war on the flame's behalf". You decided it was tentacle rape. Again, your choice, but one not worthy of bitching about.

3: That's exactly my point. You merely don't find it interesting. If these are the best examples of 'vomit inducing' content you could whip out then I'm pretty sure any kitchen sink fantasy setting would turn you off. The setting was made so people could build contemporary pulp adventures within a DnD setting. I don't know of a setting that does it any better than this. If you know of one I'm all ears but I still don't see anything that'd turn my stomach.

[K]

. He had also mentioned that he really struggled with implementing his races (warforged) because of how low powered 3e tended to balance things.

The Eberron races are almost an iconic example of how badly 3e prices certain things or has designed things. For example, lycanthopes are among the very worse templates with it's weird animal HD AND they charge you for having claws when everyone gets those for a handful of GP (called "daggers" for everyone else), so trying to make werewolves-lite that ONLY get charged for the claws doesn't fix them at all.

Warforged are a singular example showing that immunities are worth almost nothing. Changlings show that a story power is actually worth a lot. Kalshatar show that no one cares about psionics.

It's almost like Eberron was designed as a joke setting. I mean, they even make their "good" elves into gross undead-kissers, and that makes it looks like they are just fucking with people.

[Voss]

Again, most of the whys and hows in the setting are purposefully left ambiguous

You keep claiming this. I see no evidence for anything but a finished setting shoved out on the cheap. Really, all WotC did was clean up someone else's work; and that was intent the whole time: to pull a new campaign setting out for minimal cost. So... justification for your position?


Yes. Kitchen sink schlock fantasy settings do turn me off. That doesn't invalidate anything I said. Because that is all Eberron is, and all it was intended to be: a generic pile of shit that they could throw shit into and get people to buy. I don't merely find it uninteresting, but actually bad, because it doesn't deal with the ramifications of almost any of the random shit that is haphazardly thrown in. Fantasyland with magic trains and airships is exactly the same as Fantasyland with caravans and magic carpets. You can wank to trivial details if you really want to, but at the end of the day, there isn't any functional difference either in structure or effect.

The only really redeeming thing in it are the Changelings, and they only got really interesting in the Races of Eberron book, where it is revealed that they are fully functional as males, females and hermaphrodites (or genderless). It actually goes into some detail as to what that could mean, ramifications on their attitudes and so on, which contrasts heavily with Mass Produced Magic Robot Guys, and random psykers with a second soul that doesn't actually do anything.

[MGuy]

Again, most of the whys and hows in the setting are purposefully left ambiguous

You keep claiming this. I see no evidence for anything but a finished setting shoved out on the cheap. Really, all WotC did was clean up someone else's work; and that was intent the whole time: to pull a new campaign setting out for minimal cost. So... justification for your position?

You don't even know what my position is do you? I'm not bitching that you just don't like kitchen sink fantasy. You claimed that the setting was vomit inducing and when put to the task of backing that up with something your response was some ass pulled examples that amounted to either you filling in ambiguous spaces with the worse things you could think of and/or you pointing out that a kitchen sink 3rd edition based setting is exactly that. My position is just to call you out on the utter bullshit you've been laying down over it.

What I can't understand is how you can claim you don't see the setting as ambiguous when you bring up several ass pulled examples of 'squick' that only become 'squick' when you fill in the ambiguous spaces with 'squick'. The Flame? Nothing hints at tentacle rape. The Daelkyr/Quori/Illithid? That really only counts as implying tentacle rape if having tentacles at all amounts to implied tentacle rape.

[Username17]

Warforged are a singular example showing that immunities are worth almost nothing. Changlings show that a story power is actually worth a lot. Kalshatar show that no one cares about psionics.

It's almost like Eberron was designed as a joke setting.

Yeah, Eberron so clearly lays bare all the rough patches of 3e that it often comes off as a parody setting. Of course, everything about it is "because 3e". It was designed to be to 3.5 what Forgotten Realms was to AD&D. Except, without the benefit of having been worked on obsessively for years by a man who unironically wears a cloak and carries a pipe and staff.

I mean, Eberron comes close. Baker unironically got himself a dragonmark tattoo. But the reason why Eberron comes off as fairly incoherent and shallow is because it's fairly incoherent and shallow.

-Username17

[shadzar]

eBerron was designed to be a full game system and ti was just entered into the contest after the fact?

[Voss]

Again, most of the whys and hows in the setting are purposefully left ambiguous

You keep claiming this. I see no evidence for anything but a finished setting shoved out on the cheap. Really, all WotC did was clean up someone else's work; and that was intent the whole time: to pull a new campaign setting out for minimal cost. So... justification for your position?

You don't even know what my position is do you?

Rather blatant avoidance of the question, don't you think?

What I can't understand is how you can claim you don't see the setting as ambiguous when you bring up several ass pulled examples of 'squick' that only become 'squick' when you fill in the ambiguous spaces with 'squick'. The Flame? Nothing hints at tentacle rape. The Daelkyr/Quori/Illithid? That really only counts as implying tentacle rape if having tentacles at all amounts to implied tentacle rape.

Uh... they're explicitly breeding hybrid armies and attaching symbiote lifeforms to people down in the Underdark so they can take over the world. There is no 'imply' here.

http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/daelkyr-half-blood

This is actually a player race. Shut the fuck up.

[vagrant]

You keep claiming this. I see no evidence for anything but a finished setting shoved out on the cheap. Really, all WotC did was clean up someone else's work; and that was intent the whole time: to pull a new campaign setting out for minimal cost. So... justification for your position?

You don't even know what my position is do you?

Rather blatant avoidance of the question, don't you think?

What I can't understand is how you can claim you don't see the setting as ambiguous when you bring up several ass pulled examples of 'squick' that only become 'squick' when you fill in the ambiguous spaces with 'squick'. The Flame? Nothing hints at tentacle rape. The Daelkyr/Quori/Illithid? That really only counts as implying tentacle rape if having tentacles at all amounts to implied tentacle rape.

Uh... they're explicitly breeding hybrid armies and attaching symbiote lifeforms to people down in the Underdark so they can take over the world. There is no 'imply' here.

http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/daelkyr-half-blood

This is actually a player race. Shut the fuck up.

So it's an ebil monstrosity made by ebil monstrosity monsters? That disturbs you?

[MGuy]

You keep claiming this. I see no evidence for anything but a finished setting shoved out on the cheap. Really, all WotC did was clean up someone else's work; and that was intent the whole time: to pull a new campaign setting out for minimal cost. So... justification for your position?

You don't even know what my position is do you?

Rather blatant avoidance of the question, don't you think?

What I can't understand is how you can claim you don't see the setting as ambiguous when you bring up several ass pulled examples of 'squick' that only become 'squick' when you fill in the ambiguous spaces with 'squick'. The Flame? Nothing hints at tentacle rape. The Daelkyr/Quori/Illithid? That really only counts as implying tentacle rape if having tentacles at all amounts to implied tentacle rape.

Uh... they're explicitly breeding hybrid armies and attaching symbiote lifeforms to people down in the Underdark so they can take over the world. There is no 'imply' here.

http://eberronunlimited.wikidot.com/daelkyr-half-blood

This is actually a player race. Shut the fuck up.

Perhaps you should read what you link.

Despite being sealed away under the earth, a daelkyr can reproduce, after a fashion. A daelkyr’s corporeal incarceration constantly leaks the virulence of its corrupting spirit. The unborn are especially vulnerable to this influence, and those innocents growing in the wombs of their mothers within the sphere of this beastly influence are born as daelkyr half-bloods.

No tentacle rape. Worse things they have are symbiotic little creatures that they can attach to you. No worse than anything anyone would see in any ALIEN movie.

Also Vagrant makes a good point.

So it's an ebil monstrosity made by ebil monstrosity monsters? That disturbs you?

[Parthenon]

How come only humans can be Daelkyr Half-Bloods? Are Elves and Gnomes not good enough for the Daelkyr? Or are Humans the only race that can be 'corrupted' like that? And why can't animals be half-daelkyr?

Or is it the whole Humans Breed True! of Eberron?

EDIT:

Is this Baker's wiki and final say on Eberron? Because if so it seems really weird at times- the Warforged entry says that:

Warforged wiki[/url]]Warforged have no physical distinction of gender; all of them have a basically muscular, sexless body shape. In personality, some warforged seem more masculine or feminine, but different people might judge the same warforged in different ways. The warforged themselves seem unconcerned with matters of gender.

...

even though warforged technically have no gender, each warforged character must have either a male personality or a female personality. Make this decision during character creation, at the same time that you would decide the gender of another kind of character.

So, they have no gender, don't care about a gender, different people think they are different genders, often are defined by searching for an identity and gender, but they are forced to have a gender and can't change their gender based on their character development.

What the fuck Baker? Surely that is way more offensive to a lot of people than the Daelkyr?

[MGuy]

What the fuck Baker? Surely that is way more offensive to a lot of people than the Daelkyr?

I've actually never before this had anyone express any kind of problem with half Daelkyr. People either don't care/know they exist or think that the whole symbiont/demonic thing is cool and want to be one.

[Voss]

No tentacle rape. Worse things they have are symbiotic little creatures that they can attach to you. No worse than anything anyone would see in any ALIEN movie.

You are a stupid fucker. This is WotC under Hasbro product. They aren't going to fucking say 'tentacle rape.'
But in addition to the containment cells that magically twist infants into aberrations (and spawn afterbirth tentacle twins that form a symbiotic relationship with the first child), there are breed leeches that have unfortunate contact with mothers. You have to read between the lines, but these lines are not hard to read between, especially from the people who brought you unfortunate circumstances as a reason why half-orcs were not a great idea for a player race in the run up to 4e.

But whatever. Keep defending your shitty setting, and keep pretending that no one could possibly have issues with things you don't have issues with. I'm tired of being polite to you.

[vagrant]

Seriously, Voss, are you honestly trying to take moral offense at a fucking fictional published setting?

What the fuck do you think succubi do in Core DnD? Politely ask if you'd be willing to sleep with them, or mindfuck you into a willing sex slave whose soul is then traded for in Baator?

Do you have issues with orc raiding parties who sack unprepared villages? What the fuck do you think happens? They nicely leave the women and children alive?

[Drachasor]

Seriously, Voss, are you honestly trying to take moral offense at a fucking fictional published setting?

What the fuck do you think succubi do in Core DnD? Politely ask if you'd be willing to sleep with them, or mindfuck you into a willing sex slave whose soul is then traded for in Baator?

Do you have issues with orc raiding parties who sack unprepared villages? What the fuck do you think happens? They nicely leave the women and children alive?

That's ridiculous. Clearly the Orcs don't just nicely leave. They ask everyone in the village to leave, kill the combatants, and burn the village. Sometimes in that order. But this is a bit different than the Succubus thing or the squicky bits of Eberron, imho.

I do think Eberron has some very squicky elements. However, they do seem to be about as obscure as the D&D ones. I have several of the Eberron books and they don't go into this stuff. I think the Eberron setting relies on this stuff about as much as any D&D setting -- which is not much at all. You can easily gloss it over or make the handful of instances PG.

[MGuy]

No tentacle rape. Worse things they have are symbiotic little creatures that they can attach to you. No worse than anything anyone would see in any ALIEN movie.

You are a stupid fucker. This is WotC under Hasbro product. They aren't going to fucking say 'tentacle rape.'
But in addition to the containment cells that magically twist infants into aberrations (and spawn afterbirth tentacle twins that form a symbiotic relationship with the first child), there are breed leeches that have unfortunate contact with mothers. You have to read between the lines, but these lines are not hard to read between, especially from the people who brought you unfortunate circumstances as a reason why half-orcs were not a great idea for a player race in the run up to 4e.

But whatever. Keep defending your shitty setting, and keep pretending that no one could possibly have issues with things you don't have issues with. I'm tired of being polite to you.

Ok let's read about breeding leeches:

Breed Leech
Breed leeches are eyeless black slugs with tri-mawed mouths. These symbionts are designed to help convert a population to the worship of daelkyr. When attached to a pregnant humanoid, the breed leech will inject genetic material into the host, transforming the unborn child into a daelkyr half-blood. The breed leech can only bond with a willing or helpless host, and usually attached via its mouth to the torso or arm of the host, making sure to be unseen beneath its host's clothing. Like most symbionts, the breed leech understands Undercommon, but can then speak telepathically with its host once bonded.

So They attach to the torso or arm via their mouths (no tentacle rape). Inject genetic material by those same mouths (no tentacle rape) in order to create mostly human demon children that are born with a symbiont. None of this is tentacle rape and this shit seriously isn't even as bad as an ALIEN movie. I've read about bugs that do squickier things. I'm sure if I REALLY wanted it to be tentacle rape I could imagine it being so.

Voss: You're basically just full of shit. The most extreme case of tentacle rape you can find is done via oral contact with the victim and is about as squicky as getting bit by a god damn leech. Based on your logic I could then go and act like being bitten/turned via vampire equals tentacle rape. Same thing for being bitten by a werewolf.