Why PDFs of Fifth Edition D&D still matter

In some ways Wizards of the Coast has made great strides in supporting electronic gaming.  They have been steadily releasing their impressive back catalog in PDF through the D&D Classics website.  The D&D Basic rules are available as a free download from the Wizards of the Coast website.  They provide officially licensed content for the Fantasy Grounds which gives them a virtual table top, a character creation tool, and even a digital distribution tool for their books.  Despite these strides though, there is currently no way to legally buy the D&D 5e Core Rule Books in a PDF format.  This is frankly unbelievable in the year 2015.

PDFs are important.  While there may be some issues with PDFs, the format has been around since 1993 (22years) at this point.  It is an open format, which means there are a plethora of PDF readers available, and they are available for any OS on the market.  PDF is the standard for RPG books, and indeed most reference style books.

No offense to the Fantasy Grounds guys, but I will be extremely impressed if it is still available in 22 years to read the content Wizards of the Coast has made available through their license.  Also, launching Fantasy Grounds just to read the core rule books is frankly overkill.  While it is a competent virtual table top, it would be crazy to invest the money in Fantasy Grounds if all you want is the books in an electronic format. 

So what is wrong with just reading the physical books that Wizards of the Coast is publishing?  It is not that there is anything wrong with them, but PDFs have advantages that make them more practical for many people.  For starters, they don’t take up as much space.  It is easy to bring your entire library of game books over to someone’s house in digital format, obviously not if they are physical books.  It is amazing how much space these books take up.  When I moved to Arizona, my gaming books filled more than twenty banker boxes, most of which are still stacked up in my garage!  For many people, storing this many books is simply not practical.

PDFs are also easily searchable, which helps both with game prep and when looking up a rule during the game.  Can’t remember how grappling works in D&D 5e?  Just type in “grappling” into the search box and you will have the answer in seconds.  Lets say you are entering your character into Roll20. While you can retype all your spells by hand, cutting and pasting them from a PDF is a real time saver.  Believe it or not, PDFs are a competitive advantage in today’s market place, and are one of the primary reasons why the Lords of Tyr switched to Pathfinder for one of our two regular games.

What about piracy?  Well, not making legal PDFs has not stopped that from happening.  Illegal copies of all the current D&D 5e books are readily available online if you want them.  The only people prevented from getting PDF versions of D&D 5e books right now are those who want to pay for them.

Look, I like the beautiful, high quality physical books Wizards of the Coast produces as much the next guy.  Even if PDF versions of the core rulebooks were available, I am sure I would have bought both the physical and PDF versions of these books, especially if Wizards of the Coast offered a physical and PDF bundle like most RPG companies do nowadays.  PDFs would also make me much more likely to try out books that I am not certain I would want to take up room on my ever more precious shelf space.

So come on Wizards of the Coast…

D&D Basic is free, so how can I ask for more?

Mike Mearls revealed today that Basic D&D will be a freely downloadable PDF.  This is big news.  I thought it was genius when during the fourth edition Wizards of the Coast made the Keep on the Shadowfell module alongside the standalone character generator (which allowed you to create characters of levels 1-3 without a D&D Insider subscription) free downloads on their website.  It was a great gateway into the new edition for those who wanted to give it a try but weren’t ready to plunk down $35 a piece on the 4e Player’s Handbook, Dungeon Master’s Guide and Monster Manual.

Obviously providing Basic D&D as a freely downloadable PDF is an even bigger deal.  According to Mearls’ post, “It runs from levels 1 to 20 and covers the cleric, fighter, rogue, and wizard, presenting what we view as the essential subclass for each. It also provides the dwarf, elf, halfling, and human as race options.”  Frankly, this is awesome.  It really lowers the barrier to entry for those that are even vaguely curious about the fifth edition.  When the price is free, if you are at all curious there is no real reason not to try it out!

So why am I disappointed about this?

Well, while I appreciate “Free as in Beer”, I really appreciate “Free as in Freedom”.

For those who are unfamiliar “Free as in Beer” versus “Free as in Freedom” (see also “libre” versus “gratis”) is used by the open source software community to explain the difference between “free software” which is built on closed source but given away free of charge and “free software” that has a license that allows others to build on what you created.

Since D&D 5e was first announced I wondered if there was going to be a license that would allow others to build upon it.  When D&D 3e came out, the most revolutionary thing about it were the Open Gaming License (OGL) and D20 license.  I could not believe that Wizards of the Coast had open sourced D&D!  With the D20 license, as long as you didn’t violate the terms anyone could create content compatible with D&D.  Perhaps more importantly, the OGL allowed an even greater variety games to be created from the same basic set of rules.

True, there was a lot of crap in the initial glut of material that was created after D&D 3e was released.  However, amazing games like Mutants and Masterminds and (much later) Pathfinder were a direct result of the freedom the OGL allowed.  There were also a variety of software tools, such as PCGen, which took advantage of this license.  It is amazing how much this license helped the hobby thrive.

Unfortunately, this may not seem like such a good thing from Wizards of the Coast’s point of view.   After all, one of their biggest competitors now is Pathfinder, a game that is really just a refinement of their own D&D 3e rules.  It must be hard to explain to the bean counters why another game company is outselling you with your own rule set.

There is really no reason to expect D&D 5e will have a license like the OGL.  No such license existed for AD&D 1e or 2e.  D&D 4e had a Game System License (GSL), but it was much more restrictive and much less used.  I get the feeling that Wizards of the Coast feels they gave away the crown jewels with the OGL and is determined not to make the same mistake again.

I cannot be sure whether or not the OGL was the best move for Wizards of the Coast.  However, I do feel it was good for the hobby, providing a robust base that people could build on.  As talented as the game designers at Wizards of the Coast are, they can’t fulfill every need.  Ultimately, I feel what is good for the hobby is good for D&D.  It may be hard to prove, but I don’t think it was a coincidence that D&D was at the top of the heap when the OGL reflected their most recent edition.

Of course, for all I know Wizards of the Coast will announce a liberal gaming license tomorrow and I will look like an idiot.  I tend to doubt it though.  I think Wizards of the Coast feels giving away D&D 5e Basic for free (as in beer) will be enough to keep their fans happy.  It is both a shrewd marketing decision and a genuinely nice move for the fans.  I even feel like a bit of a jerk complaining about it,  after all who doesn’t like free beer?

I guess I was just hoping for a bit more freedom.

I discover I have surprisingly strong feelings on griffons versus hippogriffs

The most recent Dragon’s-Eye View from Wizards of the Coast took a look at hippogriffs.  The article focused on how to make hippogriffs visually distinctive from griffons.  It made me think about griffons versus hippogriffs for the first time in a long time.

Being a player from back in the AD&D First Edition days, I tend to think of griffons as cool, but hippogriffs as practical.  Griffons in first edition were both intelligent and deadly.  They could also understand common, which opened up all sorts of coordination between the rider and his mount.  So what was the down side?

Well, griffons eat horses.  They really love to eat horses.  They also love to eat things that sort of look like horses, such as pegasi and hippogriffs. This tended to be a problem unless the entire party was mounted on griffons.  Even then, you had to make sure that your griffon didn’t chow down on the king’s prize stallion when you weren’t paying attention.

Hippogriffs weren’t as cool.  They were the safe choice.  You acquired hippogriffs if you needed a flying mount, but really didn’t want all the hassle that comes with griffon ownership.  Having a hippogriff mount is a bit like owning a nice family sedan instead of a red sports car.

I suppose that is why I always preferred griffons to hippogriffs in D&D.  In real life I would probably buy the family sedan, but my badass adventurer deserves an equally badass mount.

Of course, modern literature has provided us with one badass hippogriff: Buckbeak.

Buckbeak is a badass because he basically acts like a First Edition D&D griffon.  If you look at Buckbeak funny, he will smack you down.  It doesn’t matter if you are a child or a werewolf, you don’t mess with Buckbeak!  He never eats any horses in the Harry Potter books, but I wouldn’t put it past him.

So does any of this have any bearing on designing hippogriffs in D&D Next?  Probably not.  I can understand why game designers wouldn’t want to make griffons and hippogriffs even more indistinguishable.  There is a place for the family sedan, even in the D&D game world.

You just won’t find my character riding one.

Stop SOPA!

I normally don’t blog about things like the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) here.  I figure the few readers I have want to hear about RPGs, comics, or other nerdy pursuits.  Today, I felt I had to make an exception.

I am not pro-piracy.  In fact, I believe strongly in voting with my dollars when it comes to the things I like.  I want the people who make these things to get paid so that they will continue making them.

I can even understand the frustration of the people who watch their intellectual property get pirated over and over.  While I disagree with him strongly on SOPA, comic book writer and novelist Peter David sums up this frustration over at his blog.

None of this justifies a bad law like SOPA though.  SOPA assumes guilt without proof.  I don’t want an Internet where the mere accusation of piracy can get a website removed from DNS servers, effectively erased from the web.  Under the current Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) companies like Warner Brothers have issued takedown notices for files they have never looked at based solely on the filename.  Do we really want to make it easier for this sort of thing to happen?

So I urge you you to contact your congressman and tell them you are opposed to SOPA.  Sites like Stop American Censorship make it easy to get this contact information.  Congress is supposed to represent the will of the people, not that of corporate lobbyists, but it is up to us to let them know what our will is.

Stop SOPA!

“A Former Hooters Waitress” -- Really MTV News?

The comic book blogosphere has been abuzz with the news that Amy Adams has been cast as Lois Lane in the upcoming Superman reboot Man of Steel.  There has been a lot of talk about the fact that she is a three time Academy Award nominee.  Along with the casting of big name actors like Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as Jonathan and Martha Kent, this is seen as a sign that the reboot is going for a more serious and less campy tone than some of the previous films.

There has also been a lot of coverage about the fact that she is 36-year-old woman.  This probably wouldn’t be getting as much press as it is if it wasn't for the fact that Superman Returns featured 22-year-old actress Kate Bosworth as Lois Lane, who was supposed to be believable as the mother of a 6-year-old kid.

I’m glad I read the MTV News write-up of the story though, or I never would have known that Amy Adams was a former Hooters waitress!

The reference bugged me.  Please note that I have nothing against Hooters waitresses, present or former.  I found it annoying because it seemed to be included in the article simply because some people would find that detail salacious.

After all, when Kevin Costner was announced as Pa Kent, I can’t imagine anyone wrote:

“A former bus driver and male model, Kevin Costner made his debut in 1981’s Malibu Hot Summer playing John Logan.”

Oh well.  It is really nothing to get too worked up about I suppose.  After all, it IS only MTV news and not a “serious” news publication like the New York Times or the Washington Post.  MTV News makes a business of being provocative.

I swear though, if I am ever written up by MTV News and they describe me as “a former Patio busboy”, it is on like Donkey Kong!

Crisis of infinite comics

Recently a friend of mine asked me why I have not reviewed the new Dungeons & Dragons comic series IDW is publishing.  It makes sense that he would ask; after all I have spent a lot of time on this blog reviewing old Forgotten Realms comics from the eighties.  Reviewing the new series seems to be right up my alley.

The answer is simple enough though: I haven’t read any of the new Dungeons & Dragons comics.

Don’t take this to be any judgment against the new series.  In fact, I am looking forward to reading them at some point, most likely when they are inevitably collected in a trade paperback.  Rather, the new Dungeons & Dragons comic book is simply a victim of bad timing.  After nearly thirty years of  collecting comic books on a monthly basis, I have finally quit.

I suppose I have been quitting monthly comic books for years.  There was a point in my teenage years where I was easily collecting more than thirty comic books a month.  When I ended my monthly purchases the number of comics series I collected regularly was less than ten.

There isn’t just one reason behind me quitting.  It is fair to say price is a factor.  When I started collecting the average comic book cost around $0.65.  Now comics books cost $2.99 or $3.99 an issue.  Annuals and special issues can cost even more.

I understand the reasons behind the price increases over the years.  The biggest culprit has to do with the economies of scale.  Few comic books crack 100,000 issues sold a month nowadays.  Several month recently have had no comics sell over 100,000 issues.  With so few comics being sold, the price per issue has to go up in order to make a profit.

$3.99 still seems like an awful lot of money for a mere twenty-two pages of entertainment.

An even bigger factor leading to my quitting monthly comics is that month to month is no longer the optimal way to read comic books!  Back when I first started reading comics, “done-in-one” was still the primary format.  Even though there were continuing plot threads, the default assumption was that each issue of a comic book should tell a complete story. 

Most comic books nowadays are written with the inevitable trade paperback in mind.  The average storyline lasts about six issues, meaning any individual comic book only tells a fraction of a story.

So the optimal way of reading a comic book nowadays is waiting to read it in trade paperback form.  You get a full story, without having to wait a month between each chapter.  Even better, the cost per issue is inevitably less than buying the comic off the stands.  The only downside is that you have to wait a few months until the trade paperback is released.

Waiting simply isn’t as big a problem for me as it used to be.  It may even be an advantage.  While I might have a few plot twists spoiled while reading my favorite comics blogs, it also gives me a chance to see what the reviews look like.  After reading blog after blog complain about Superman: Grounded, I will definitely give it a pass.  On the other hand, it is unlikely I would have found the budget to buy an unknown quantity like Morning Glories on a monthly basis.  Having read so many glowing reviews of the series now though, picking up the trade paperback seems like a no brainer.

I do worry about the future of the comics industry.  I probably bought monthly comics for far longer than I should have out of some misguided sense that I could single-handedly hold back the tides of change sweeping though the comic book industry.  In the end  though, there is nothing I can do.  The comic book industry has to either adapt or die. 

I hope it adapts.

Rule Updates May Be Getting Out of Hand

Looking back at the early days of Dungeons & Dragons, Unearthed Arcana was a harbinger of how the game would be sold in the future.  While there had been different versions of the game published over the years (e.g., Basic D&D, Advanced D&D, etc.), once the “core” rules were established for a version they remained relatively unchanged.  Most D&D products were aimed at the DM, like adventure modules or the occasional monster book.

Unearthed Arcana, expanded the game with new races, classes and spells.  Unlike the majority of D&D products up to that point, it targeted the players as well as the Dungeon Master.  Since the number of D&D players outnumbers the number of Dungeon Masters, this was a brilliant marketing decision.  Not surprisingly, Unearthed Arcana was a harbinger of things to come.

It was also full of errors.

Back in the early days of D&D, errata was rare and wondrous thing.  As a result, I remember how shocked I was at age 13 when Dragon Magazine presented a full four pages of errata for the recently released Unearthed Arcana supplement! 

(Of course, in those days you were expected to cut the errata out of the magazine and paste it into your book.  I admit that I did so dutifully.)

While many of the errors in Unearthed Arcana were a result of poor editing, there was also a decent amount of rule clarification in the mix.  I think this is part and parcel of expanding and updating an existing rule set.  The more you add to the rules, the more likely it is that one of these additions will react poorly with previously existing rules. 

In this way it is sort of like the potion miscibility table.

Fast-forwarding twenty-five years, it is not surprising that rule updates are increasingly common.  Many people have noted that there have been so many rules updates to the original 4E Player’s Handbook that it is now functionally obsolete.

For fun I decided to use random.org to pick 5 pages out of the Player’s Handbook and see how many had been updated according to the D&D Compendium.  Here are my results:

p. 85 – The power Warriors Urging has been revised twice.

p. 102 – The power Healing Font has been revised.

p. 202 – The feat Action Recovery has been revised.

p. 290 – No revisions

p. 304 – No revisions

That is 3 out of 5 pages chosen randomly out of a 320 page book.  I know this is hardly scientific, but that seems a bit much. Of course, this situation is only going to get worse when all the upcoming slew of updates related to D&D Essentials come out. 

(I can just imagine how much glue I would have to go through if I still was cutting and pasting out of Dragon)

So I guess the entire furor over whether D&D Essentials is a stealth edition or whether Wizards of the Coast is going to stop printing the core rule books is a bit of a tempest in a teapot-- The new edition is already here!

Forget Backseat DMing: I can’t stand Pushy Powergaming!

I know powergaming gets a bad rap, but in general it doesn’t bug me too much.  I have found many experienced players powergame to some extent.  It is certainly is possible for it to go too far and end up with Pun-Pun Jr. in your campaign, but I have found that most of the players in my RPG groups tend to self-regulate.  Instead, I find the bigger problem is what I call “pushy powergaming”.

The traditional powergamer confines himself to min-maxing his own character.  The pushy powergamer wants to min-max the other player characters as well.  While this may seem almost altruistic on the surface, it can be incredibly detrimental to the morale of the group in the long run.

If present while other people are creating characters, the pushy powergamer will often try to veto choices he thinks are non-optimal.  The pushy powergamer will disregard any thoughts the hapless player has about character concept in favor of what he believes will make the most effective character.

During combats he will often tell the other players what powers they should use and where they should move.  This goes beyond simple advice.  The pushy powergamer will argue his point vociferously if the player in question dares ignore the advice.

Pushy powergamers tend to target new players and casual gamers.  This is probably because these types of gamers are most likely to give into the pushy powergamers demands.  Unfortunately, these players are also the most likely to quit gaming altogether once they get frustrated at not being able to play their own characters.

Pushy powergamers don’t intend to drive players away from the game.  In fact, they usually think they are helping.  They figure if they can bring the newbies and casual gamers “up to their level” that everyone will have more fun. Unfortunately, this ignores the fact that most people don’t enjoy being told what they can and cannot do.

An example of pushy powergaming happens in the Dead Gentlemen’s fan-made film The Gamers: Dorkness Rising.  When Joanna first brings her new character Daphne into the game, pushy powergamer Cass immediately tries to get Joanna to rewrite her character.  He even attempts to appeal to the Dungeon Master, explaining that having an ineffectual fighter in the group is just as bad as not having one at all.

Of course, this being a movie Joanna’s character Daphne is eventually revealed to be comically effective in combat.  Her combination of abilities and feats take advantage of the kind of cheese that would make the most battle-hardened powergamer drool. 

While Daphne being an unexpected badass is an exaggration, it contains a kernel of truth.  Non-optimized characters can be very fun to play.  While they may miss out on some plusses, the fact that they are off the beaten path often makes them memorable.  Thek the half-orc wizard is more likely to be remembered than elven ranger #1278.

So what do all of you think?  Are pushy powergamers a problem in your games?  If you are a DM, how do you deal with it when you see it happening?  Or am I just blowing things out of proportion?

Are motion comics important?

Like a lot of print publications, comic books are in trouble.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t expect Marvel or DC to go belly-up anytime soon, especially since they both have a stable of licensable characters and are owned by much bigger companies.  I am more concerned about the fate of individual comic book issues which you buy off the shelf.

The economics of comic books are broken in the digital era.  The problem is that the costs associated with printing comic books continue to rise.  As readership declines, this increased cost is passed on to the consumer via increased cover prices. 

Unfortunately, these cover prices can only go so high before they drive consumers away.  Looking over the comics I picked up this month, the majority are $2.99 while a few are $3.99.  This seems a little pricey for a mere twenty-two pages of entertainment!

I will admit that if the price point hits $4.99 I will probably bail out on comics altogether.  As it is, I have cut back on what comic books I read considerably.

The people in the comic book industry are not idiots.  They are aware that price point is a problem and have been trying different tactics to fix the issue.  DC has been placing eight page backups in certain titles, allowing them to charge a little extra while increasing the perceived value.  Marvel has started a subscription based digital comic service which allows customers to read any title on the service, which is not their full line, for $9.99 a month (less if you pay annually).

One potential solution that both Marvel and DC have dabbled in is releasing titles as motion comics.  A motion comic is similar to full-fledged animation, except that it relies heavily on static images against moving backgrounds.  This gives the illusion of motion without incurring the cost of fully animating it.  If you want to see an example, check out the Spider-Woman motion comic preview.

Late last year, DC released the Watchmen motion comic on DVD, on X-Box live, and on iTunes to help generate buzz around the Watchmen movie.  Marvel has been a bit more aggressive on this front, releasing Spider-Woman to iTunes at the same time as it hits the stands.  More importantly, at $1.99 an episode or $8.99 for a “season”, it is selling for less money that its physical counterpart.

Despite this, I feel that motion comics will continue to be a niche market.  Standing uncomfortably between animation and comic books, I don’t feel they will appeal to a broad enough market to justify the cost of making them.  Its true that they undoubtedly cost less than traditional animation since they are reusing art created for the comic. 

Unfortunately, I feel that this very fact will prevent them from being an adequate replacement for paper comics.  Right now, the creative costs are shared between the paper and digital version of the comic.  If the motion comic had to shoulder the full cost by itself, I imagine the profit margin would clear up pretty quickly.

I will admit that there is a lot of curiosity about Spider-Woman motion comic at the  moment.  However, this seems to be because of the novelty of releasing the motion comic concurrently with the traditional comic.

The question then becomes, if motion comics are not the future of comic books, then what is the future?  I foresee a couple of possibilities:

One is that traditional comic books will become like most web comics, free online but supported by ads.  This may be unlikely in the short term (i.e., in the next five years), but in the long term it is not as far-fetched as you might think.  After all, characters like Batman or Spider-Man are much more valuable a licensable characters than as comics nowadays.  If it comics cease to become economically viable to produce, generating mindshare for the characters may trump other concerns.  Not to mention that the big names will probably not have issues finding advertisers to support them.

Another option may be an iTunes like model.  Illegal file-sharing of CBR files is rampant on torrent sites.  As I have mentioned before, this kind of rampant file sharing means there is an interest in your product, just that consumers feel that the price is disproportionate to the value.  iTunes has proven that it is possible to enter a market where piracy is rampant by providing a reasonably priced legal alternative.

Of course, this all assumes they don’t cripple their future digital offerings with overly onerous DRM!

A few thoughts on Marvel being bought by Disney

On the off chance that you haven’t heard already, Marvel Entertainment Inc. is being purchased by Walt Disney Co. for the tune of $4 Billion. This is good news for Marvel stockholders since it values Marvel at about 37 times its 2009 earnings.

I can’t say I am surprised Marvel was bought. In fact, while Marvel was a big fish in a small pond, I have expected them to be swallowed by a bigger fish for awhile.  Up until recently, I assumed that bigger fish would have been Sony.

Why Sony?  Well, they made a lot of money off of the Spider-Man movies.  Sony also seemed to enjoy using Spider-Man to promote their products, something Marvel took them to court for back in 2003.  Even though there are still several Spider-Man movies Sony can make under its current deal with Marvel, I figured they might just buy Marvel to ensure these rights remained in house. 

Of course, this would have made more sense for Sony around the time of Spider-Man 2, when the franchise was at the height of its popularity.

I didn’t think about Disney, but it makes a certain amount of sense from their point of view.  Disney has always scored well with young girls, from their “Princess” brand to Hanna Montana.  They have never scored quite as well with young boys though. Marvels cast of characters should fill this need nicely though.

The Marvel characters are also eminently licensable.  Marvel has learned this in recent years.  In fact, you could argue that their comic business is kept on life support in order to keep their stable of characters available for movies and licensed products.

Despite some deft maneuvers on this front in recent years, compared to Disney, Marvel is a mere piker.  I expect to see an explosion of products with the Marvel characters over the upcoming years.

I haven’t decided if this is a good thing or not.  On the one hand, I want Marvel to make money so that they can continue to put out comics for me to read.  On the other hand, I do worry that the characters may suffer from over-exposure though.

Still, Disney has a pretty decent track record of allowing acquired properties to do their own thing.  The Muppets retain their unique feel despite being under the Disney umbrella for years.  Pixar continues to put out top notch movies despite being under the Disney tent.  So it seems like Disney can be hands off when it needs to be.

I do have to ask Disney for one favor though.  In the grand tradition of Disney on Ice, they need to create a brand new musical extravaganza:  Disney on Ice starring Captain America in Ice!

The story writes itself.

For more info about Disney and Marvel

Comic Alliance talks about strange owners Marvel has had in the past

Comic Alliance compiles Comic Pros reacting on Twitter

Lori, the Comic Book Goddess tells everyone not to panic

Caleb at Every Day is Like Wednesday wonders if this will even impact him?

Stan Lee thinks it is a stroke of genius (no surprise)

Marc Graser of the Houston Movie Examiner talks about what is known about the deal

I am glad to be wrong about the Githyanki

I was sure that the githyanki were going to have a full character write up in Player’s Handbook III.  It makes a lot of sense if you think about it.  Ever since they first appeared on the cover of Fiend Folio back in 1E, they have been a popular monster.  Githyanki also are strongly tied to the psionic power source, which debuts in Player’s Handbook III.  Not to mention that the mock up cover for Players Handbook III seemed to have an obvious githyanki woman on the cover.

Well, after perusing this month’s debut content, it seems that was a githzerai woman.  The githzerai will be one of the new PHB III races, but the githyanki will not be making an appearance in that book.

I suppose I can be forgiven for mistaking one race for another since they look exactly the same!

What I found interesting was their reason for not including the githyanki.  To quote Mike Mearls:

“While sometimes it’s fun to play against stereotypes, we don’t want every villainous race to go the way of the drow.”

This really resonates with me.  I remember when the drow were first introduced in Against the Giants.  They were cool, deadly, and one of the most evil races around.  Finally, there was a worthy opponent for the player characters!

Then the drow were given a player character racial write up in Unearthed Arcana (1E).  Suddenly dark elves went from being the ultimate bad guy to being the ultimate badass player characters.  I know one of the player’s in my D&D 1E game played an infamous rogue dark elf fighter/cleric of Tempus.  I am sure that a lot of games featured at least one drow during that period.

Then came Drizzt Do'Urden.  I want to say that I am not a Drizzt hater.  In fact, I have read and enjoyed most of the novels that feature him.  I don’t blame Drizzt’s for creating a glut dark elf player characters.  After all that trend was well under way by the time The Crystal Shard hit the stands.  Still, his immense popularity exacerbated dark elf overexposure.

The popularity of dark elves as player characters has even jumped to other media.  Dark-skinned and light-haired elves are popular player character choices in video games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft.

Sometimes I feel that the Zz’dtri joke in Order of the Stick has become a reality.  Drow are no longer an evil race.  Rather “the whole species consist of nothing but Chaotic Good rebels, yearning to throw off the reputation of their evil kin.”

So I respect the line in the sand Wizards of the Coast is drawing with the githyanki.  No matter how cool they might be, sometimes it is best to keep the villains as villains.

Or maybe they are just holding them in reserve for PHB IV.

OK, this image from Divine Power kind of bugs me.

Not sure if you have seen this image from the upcoming Divine Power supplement.  At first glance it is not a bad picture, even if she does look a bit like Anne Hathaway from The Princess Diaries. 

However, when you blow things up a bit, it looks a little odd.  Specifically, when you look at her waist.

Apparently, she is wearing a chainmail bodysuit and low-rise plate leggings.

Despite the anachronistic nature of this fashion statement, I think this wouldn’t bug me as much if it wasn’t supposed to be armor.  Even in a fantasy world, chainmail shouldn’t act like spandex!  Even worse, I can’t even conceive how low-rise plate leggings would work.  To quote my man Morbo, “Platemail does not work that way!”

Granted, it is no less realistic than a chainmail bikini.  I guess for me the difference is that, like it or not, the chainmail bikini has become a classic of the fantasy genre.  So I tend to cut it a little slack.

On the other hand, the chainmail bodysuit and low-rise legging combo just seems like a cheap attempt to sex up the picture.

It just seems so unnecessary.  I personally feel that the artist did a beautiful job at making a picture that screams cleric.  She seems to be strong and in control of the situation.  In fact, this picture would make a great character portrait for someone playing a female cleric.

Which is probably the root of my problem.  It is so rare to find women in fantasy artwork who are not dressed in revealing clothing.  This one was so close, but using the chainmail bodysuit and low-rise legging combo sex it up compromises it for me.

I’m not opposed to pictures like the Red Sonya one above.  After all, Conan is just as naked and idealized in his pictures as Red Sonya is in this one.  The difference is that it is relatively easy to find fantasy artwork of fully armored men or ones whose body types deviate from the heroic mold.  I just wish that other options than “sexy” were available for female characters.