Anyone else underwhelmed by the new tadpole mechanic? I mean, I liked the temptation of being given unique or powerful options during the adventure so that good or neutral characters would be tempted to use the tadpole despite the risks.

But instead the option is now to cram your head full of worms?!? I feel like that takes so much away. Only the most depraved characters would take that route. Sure that makes sense on a Dark Urge kind of play through but it leaves things kind of underwhelming for any halfway sane character.

What is with this guy and his hardon for adding “X” to everything? He’s like a teenager that thinks that adding flame decals to anything makes them “cooler”.

Personally attacked… TWO TIMES!

Hasbro desperately wants to enact a late stage capitalism “enshitification” model with D&D where they squeeze as much money out of customers and business partners as possible. Their priority for providing a satisfactory experience is no longer the player of D&D, it’s the shareholders and they have proved it over the last six months with their OGL and IP antics.

However, D&D is different than other products. The CEO’s in charge come from mobile games and Amazon and thought they could squeeze the same way they did previously, but because of an independent, creative, analog, and DM centric community, they weren’t able to and experienced a lot of pushback that made them relent.

Make no mistake, though, that is still their goal and have openly stated that the brand is “under monetized”. That’s why they want to lock players into using their VTT platform/digital tools and are prioritizing these while mildly discouraging actual physical products. This gives them 100% control of the brand and allows for them to squeeze money later.

If you’re here from Reddit, just know that Hasbro would love to do what Spez is doing. Sly Flourish has a great video on the enshittification of Reddit and how it affects D&D: https://youtu.be/9WGxBtObgl8

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I disagree that it is “good” overall. Conservative policies have always stood in the way of any movement to treat all people equally because the status quo benefits a sections of the population. Slavery. Racism. Sexism. Etc. None of these needed to be “conserved” and we would be a better society if we had been able to address them sooner. Also, conservative power structures when threatened by progress default to authoritarian in brutal fashion. The Holocaust. The Civil War. The Inquisition. Etc. And this is just in the West.

The modern Republican is not an aberration. It is the final form of Conservatism.

I have seen no proof that the consequences of rampant Progressivism are in any way equal to the horrors of rampant Conservatism. The idea that we need to validate Conservativism to “balance out” Progressivism seems to me to be a dangerous myth that is paid for with the blood of oppressed people.

How many billionaires can we get into it?