amaranth-witch
@amaranth-witch

Ok so this really sandpapers my armpits and I’m mad about it but in a very specific way

There’s a longer post I’ll probably make after I’ve had sleep and dealt with tummy troubles but I’m exorcising this thought now, and the longer post has to contend with both Insider Baseball and Load-Bearing But accusations so that’s for later

Anyway; beloved rpg show dimension 20 has announced their upcoming season. Looks like a fun premise. Great cast with known amazing chemistry. Obvious fun being had. And they’re even not using D&D, which I appreciate on many levels. However, this is not a post about whether or not I feel kids on bikes fits their game (again, longer post, there’s potentially a lot to cover there and I have some choice observations and maybe even shots fired IDK)

This is a scream about ownership

See whenever they play D&D (which is most of the time!) it’s “this game is D&D” whether it’s playing in magical New York, or in a magic school, or everyone is candy, or everyone is weasels. It’s even “this is using D&D” when everyone is in a fairytale story and significant moving parts are added to play into the dark fairytale setting, or when it’s a regency romance with a rumors, titles and letters layer which gets significantly and noticeably more actual on-screen time than the main D&D mechanics do (though nowhere near as much time as the staple conversation-improv-first freewheeling play mode does). It’s just D&D, we’re playing D&D here. And that’s fine (ish), I’m not complaining much about that.

But then we get to seasons like “we’re playing kids on bikes but we added an extra tension track for drama and added a couple homebrew advantages and changed the stat names to avoid character spoilers” and in that one it was “heavily inspired by” KoB and in the upcoming one it’s also “a system highly inspired by…” and like. How much DID you change it, Brennan? As much as ACoFaF? Because that was still just “oh we’re playing D&D”!

Why does D&D get the tacit reinforcement of “oh it can do anything, it’s all D&D” and indie games get “mmmm, well, had to change it to fit my vision so it’s Our Bespoke System Inspired By…”?

This is likely not going to make any difference to how I feel about the season itself, and there are going to be people who ask “ugh why so picky” and I have a lot, a LOT to say about that but like

All I’m asking is equality, basically? Just take equal ownership? If you’re gonna “heavily inspired by” KoB, then just go “yeah ACoFaF is largely run on 5E but it uses our in house Regency Rumors system”. If you’re gonna “mmm yeah Neverafter was just D&D” about it, just go “mentopolis? Yeah it’s kids on bikes with a few house changes”.

If you have legal reasons to say “it’s D&D it’s just D&D you know D&D haha no matter how much we change it’s D&D” then give indies the same goddamned courtesy and ownership of their stuff.

Anyway there’s more but I haven’t been sleeping well at all and I need to try again so this concludes the pressure vent.


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in reply to @amaranth-witch's post:

I can't like, say for certain, but it may be a legal thing.

D&d has an explicit clause for both personal and commercial alterations and use, like writing third party rule books and running dnd streams. Most indie games probably do not have that clause explicitly stated.

Since the team is planning it for commercial use and don't want to get sued they may feel they have to say that up front, even if the indie game's devs would hold to the same spirit as the wizards clause, since they don't have it in writing.

This is one of the things that people got super pissed at wizards about last year cause there was a leak that they were heavily altering that clause in a way that would no longer freely support stuff like dimension 20.

It might be. And there’s a lot of reasons that I’m trying to keep my phrasing to “I don’t like this” and “here’s why it bothers me” as opposed to a strident “dimension 20 MUST” because I do recognize that I don’t have the whole picture and may never.

I was considering watching their APs but this is disappointing to hear that they do that :/

Then again I remember when there was that nonsense with like comparing d&d to a stove or something and that actually d&d isn't combat oriented which was wild.

OK so it should be noted that overall: I like dropout, I enjoy dimension20. I think that of the Big AP's, Dropout and Friends At The Table are honestly worthwhile. I shall not list my issues with CR or AcInc or the like, that's not what I'm here for. So if anything, I might just be a little overly critical of them because I do enjoy them: I think that Sam Reich's production company has a long way to go, but I also think that he's doing a good, if slow, job of putting his money where his mouth is.

I also think that it's heartily ironic that for someone as openly, honestly progressive as Brennan Lee Mulligan is - and I truly do mean that, I would largely count him as an ally in just about anything, he has caught himself on so much shit and I cannot tell you how high praise that is coming from me - for someone that openly progressive, there are these MASSIVE privilege dead angles, where he recognizes "oh I can put on these big productions because of Sam's funding and Dropout" but does not recognize "oh, D&D can do anything for me because I have this skill of an improv guy AND I have this cast of skilled actors AND they're all bought in to my shit AND I have the backing of artists to help concepts happen AND we have the money to just not worry about life for 2 weeks while we film AND I have this massive creative control AND AND AND". A lot of people struggle with lesser versions of this: pretty much everyone who says "well that's never been a problem for me/my group" is struggling with a version of this dead angle; their group is already on a vibe where this particular communication is assumed, they already know each other, they don't have to establish that trust and credibility, etc, and so why would it be a problem for someone else...?

Re: this specifically, I have...

I'm probably gonna do an actual long post about why this bugs me and why it's dimension20 that is the CAUSE of the bugging, but not the ROOT of the bugging, but the cyst of the matter that I'm trying to encompass in the pearl of stress, basically, is

I don't actually think they're trying to cause harm. Not d20, specifically. I don't think they really realize what signals they're sending. Semiotics is an increasingly niche field, even for hobbies that thrive on it (and Brennan himself has shown that he has a baby's grasp, with the stove metaphor, but that's a different story). I think that, honestly, ultimately, it would not be a BAD thing to go "this is the EXPLOSIONFIRE system, which is Kids on Bikes at the core but we added things, we might run other things in EXPLOSIONFIRE in the future", I don't think it would be a BAD thing to go "this is MUTANTZONE, which is Y0E with our adds", or "this is CYBERBOMB, a fuzion/interlock hack with..." and I think that kind of personal signature, house signature, ownership, even, I don't think that's automatically bad, as an artist.

The problem is Dungeons and Dragons.

The problem is that when D&D is presented as IMMUTABLE MONOLITH THAT CAN DO ANYTHING, we get an unintentional kuleshov effect of opposition when an artist places their unique signature on the system-hack for the non-D&D game they're using and that by itself still isn't the problem, we have to go one more level of interaction for the problem, because when we take that one further step of "a big production places their stamp of ownership on it - identifies the hack by their system name first - but still calls D&D-the-sacred-immutable-object "Just D&D" no matter how much they've altered it" the contrast means that people do
(not "might", from personal experience, "DO")
associate the altered system FIRST AND FOREMOST with the new name, which means that symbolic ownership transfers to the NEW creators. Not actual ownership! But associations are powerful.

Dimension 20 is being very wide open about "actually our HOUSEBREWKABOOM system is Kids on Bikes, we altered it", which is why this isn't a call for "d20 Must Do Better". This is a direct contrast to a time that Critical Role did a sci-fi horror oneshot in "a totally homebrew setting you guys that this session's DM made" and when people were like "isn't this... Mothership 0E, with the stress mechanic from Free League's Alien...?" there was a lot of evasion and "NO SHE MADE IT UP" before finally "yeah that's what we did" was admitted, which is like. I mean, obviously, that's the worse one! D20 is fine!

But the PRACTICE bugs me, and when I see people I generally am parasocially affectionate towards (despite really wishing they would be more cognizant of their medium and needs and messaging and etc etc etc) and whom I know are actively trying to be Better People doing this thing... well that's why I picked "sandpapers my armpits".

This is a very minor thing, in the broad scope. But like... if they're going to leave D&D alone no matter how much they strip, bolt, overbuild, twist and mangle it, but immediately rename a smaller indie (and make no mistake, KoB is not the smallest indie but it is a TINY fraction of D&D's reach) what would happen if they got their hands on Megalos for a "Finality Fantasia" game, or decided that XII: Inner Demons was perfect for their Persona season, or stumbled on something I wrote? Would I ever see a whit of acknowledgment?

I don't think they'd be cruel about it, or intentional about it, but also, I think they'd symbolically steal my game.

Yeah I understand that.

I hate that D&D 5e gets to coast on by as the "it can do EVERYTHING" ttrpg when the vast majority of the time people are referring to the vast amount of work done by fans and DMs to fill in the plentiful gapes that d&d has. Somehow people look at all this extra effort and give thanks to WotC for the bountiful harvest of great game design. Like people enjoy Skyrim for various reasons but I at least hope that most people recognize that the mod makers are what really make skyrim shine as a game.

It's not the worst thing ever but it definitely bugs me that dimension 20 gives d&d that little bit of extra treatment when they and all the other big name D&D 5e Actual Plays are a huge reason why a lot of people treat d&d as the game that can do anything! Like 5e was originally a sorta call back edition due to 4e being so different and people pushing against that. That angle of the game fell to the wayside as soon as professional voice actors starting playing it with expert DMs with years worth of experience started getting really big.

Don't want to make this too long but it's something I can talk about for ages though...

Also did you know that the DM's Guild or however you stylize that website gives WotC fucking 50% cut of any of the fan made content that gets sold there? Absolutely disgusting. Fills me with rage everytime I think about it.