Is Big Ol Meaty right? Does rgfd really suck?

This is a response to Bradd's post in the Great Cleave thread, but I
felt the subject is interesting enough to deserve a thread of it's own.

In article <slrndnlt5a.udf.bradd+news@xxxxxxxxxx>, bradd+news@xxxxxxxxxx
says...

> > I'm not known for being pointlessly antagonistic... You [Ed] most
> > definitely *are* known for exactly that; it's basically your shtick
> > here. Think about that for a bit, then review your posts, and review
> > mine.
>
> Sadly, Ed isn't too far below average for article quality these days.
> Most of the regulars whose opinions I value aren't regular anymore, or
> are mainly interested in D&D variants (homebrews, Iron Heroes, etc) that
> I just don't care much about.

As far as I'm concerned (you did once mention you valued my opinion :)
), I'm still interested in plain D&D, it's just that I haven't had the
chance to read the latest few books that sounded like they could be
really interesting (Heroes of Horror comes to mind), and the days where
I felt the need to make and post my own original feats or PrCs are
pretty much gone; there's so much on the offer that it's easier to find
something already published, than come up with your own crunch.

And those are the two topics that made up most of rgfd's signal in it's
heyday: discussions of new releases, and threads where people ask for
critiques and/or help with their creations. What's left is war stories
(I even posted one recently, spawning a nitpicking thread about whether
we had Con > 11) and fluff ideas like character concepts, campaign
concepts and so on... which can be interesting (see Chris Adams' God-
City Invades... thread), but which tread awfully close to "let me tell
you about my character/game": people usually want to play or fight the
character and run or play in the campaign, not read about it.

I don't want to be one of the doomspeakers you can see on the Net, but
it does seem D&D (in it's 3.x incarnation) is losing steam. More and
more people complain about the increasing quantity and decreasing
quality of D&D products, comparing it to 2E, mentioning how "periodic
resets" are good for the game...

I'm not sure I'd really agree with the decreasing quality, but the
increasing quantity itself makes discussion difficult sometimes: when
all you had were the core books and perhaps a few others, everyone knew
everything you mentioned. Now, when you have a neat idea using Complete
Arcane, Races of Eberron and the variant rule #45 from Unearthed Arcana,
there's a much larger chance that people don't own some of those, or
even if they do, that they simply haven't studied the relevant part
enough that they can form a clear, backed-up opinion. (And without one,
there's a good chance they'll get torn apart by hostile nitpickers...
which is a particular problem of rgfd, not D&D in general.)

Or maybe that's just how it seems to me right now. My group(s) are going
through somewhat of a crisis, so my perspective might be a bit gloomy.


--
Jasin Zujovic
jzujovic@xxxxxxx
.

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