Ravenloft is back in 5e?

[Le Noir Faineant]

Okay, I have to object the constant references to "that woman". If we're going to really sink to sexist comments, let's at least consider another POV on that situation:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/6/17541 ... red-reddit

Further, Price has worked on Pathfinder as a designer for years. Trying to bury her as a flash in the pan instead of a professional with serious cred is simply absurd.

Sorry, not an English native speaker here. Netflix-level language, okay, deeper levels of sophistication, not so much. I can say "that man", but I cannot say "that woman" without sexist connotations? - I'll have to google that.

As to Price's curriculum, well, last time I checked, she had been fired from every in-company job she ever held for one of two reasons: Being overly aggressive in interpersonal communication. Or, notably, for being an aggressive "serial alleger" of perceived sexual misconduct whose claims so far do not seem to have withstood any form of formal legal examination. That, it seems to me, is not an attack on her character: That's a statement of facts.

- I'm not stating this to antagonize you, by the way. I think it's important to have this kind of conversation, now and then, precisely because the general assumption has to be that we're all on the same side when stuff like this happens. Nobody here is interested in the life or in the opinions of "this woman". (Oops, I did it again.) All we want to do is run our games; her worth to us rises and falls in how she positively adds to that. So, if she delivers a good product, I assume we're going to take note of that. If she doesn't, we will take note of that, too.

---

Now, as to the general matter of LGBTQ (?) motifs in fantasy gaming, that's another issue that is neither new, nor particularly controversial. The hottest debate topic of 1958, one might think. It's the same issue as with Price's authorship, really: Does its presence add quality to the story, yes or no? - If "yes", then "cool". If "no", then "not cool". It's not anti-gay if fans complain about lazy writing, the same way it's not pro-gay if people point out that some of the macho narrative tropes used in classic horror stories would have done better if they had remained in the 1890s.

- Let me echo what Ron wrote: Good writers and content creators don't have to worry about this kind of stuff because they don't write for the Twitter bubble. Or, does anyone here seriously think Norah K. Jemisin, who's easily and effortlessly the best writer of fantasy of the last decade (and whose works deal with LGBTQ storylines aplenty), wakes up every morning and first checks what Jessica Price has had to say on Twitter overnight?!

For the most part, it appears to me that this discussion is about a quality issue being masked as a gender/civil rights issue. If Jessica Price would deliver material as clever as N. K. Jemisin, nobody would have a problem. But since Price's approach to the topic seems to be "hey, here's Vicodin Drakov, lesbo-queen of the undead - and if you don't like what I hereby declare as the pinnacle of creative game design, I'm gonna call you nasty things"... Well. What do you guys think is gonna happen next?

[Le Noir Faineant]

As a gay man, I welcome more gay NPCs.

But I want new gay NPCs. I don’t want gender swapped characters, I don’t want old characters rewritten. This is what I mean by creatively bankrupt. It’s changing the old and claiming you’re a great writer for doing so, when your new product is demonstrably worse.

Exactly my point above. Gender-swapping and rewriting old characters for LGBTQ+ representation just seems like nothing but pandering to me. Especially since Ravenloft is fertile for new domains and great narratives accompanying the falls of brand-new darklords/ladies/etc. There's so much potential there—which again, they clearly recognize, since there's an entire section devoted to making one's own domains.

I'm legit not going to be happy if there are any fewer than a dozen wholly new domains we first hear about in this guide (even if those dozen ALL have LGBTQ+-themed darklords). The authors literally get paid to create content. And as you say, it is creatively bankrupt to borrow so much from canon for nothing more than surface rewrites. I get the argument that buying this product helps keep the setting alive, but—depending on the quality of the finished product, of course—this could easily be a slippery slope for rewarding sloppy work. Especially in the wake of the poor reviews for Tasha's Cauldron.

— onmyoji

This has been my argument all week. I’m not the best at verbalising my thoughts.

Essentially, I’m not against it being “woke”. Representation is important.

I’m against it being lazy. But call them out on that and you’ll get called a bigot.

Aaaah. The discussion left me behind while I was still writing my response. This. This here, all the way. - Again, the whole issue is mostly about selling sub-par product under a different premise: "It's not lazy writing, it's too 'woke' for you ignorant to understand."

The only hope I have for this kind of stuff to get better any time soon, is that money talks and a character/meme Valentina Drakov walks: The "Star Wars" sequels have aged like milk, and other prominent cases where "woke content" was made an explicit selling point while paired with a bad general story, like in "Captain Marvel", in "Star Trek Netflix" (forgot the name, not gonna google that), and so on, have also failed to net the kind of numbers the studios would have liked to see. Fans, in turn, have been accepting of LGBTQ+ characters and themes whenever the story was good. ("Black Sails", "Game of Thrones", or, to look into our own realm of RPGs, even in older-than-you classics like "Thieves' World".) So, I'm mildly optimistic that things will get better, and not worse. Especially the debacle about the final season of "Game of Thrones" has managed to push the discourse into an interesting direction: Complaining about lazy writing used to be something that was generally framed as elitist; now, it's a normal thing to do.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

But since Price's approach to the topic seems to be "hey, here's Vicodin Drakov, lesbo-queen of the undead - and if you don't like what I hereby declare as the pinnacle of creative game design, I'm gonna call you nasty things"... Well. What do you guys think is gonna happen next?

I think you're conflating a few things here. We know there's a female Drakov. We know there are LGBTQ characters. We know Price worked on it, and that she seems to be praising the LGBTQ representation. We don't know that the new Drakov is one of the LGBTQ characters. We don't even know what parts of the book Price worked on. We don't know the quality of the work. We still don't even know if Vladesca Drakov is meant to be a gender-flipped Vlad or a relative of Vlad. We have precious little crumbs to go on at this point, so before we pull out the tar and feathers, let's see what the finished product is like.

There's got to be some middle ground between "gender-flipping and woke inclusion as lazy hack writing with forced politics" and "thoughtful reimagining for a new time and era." If a fan of the 70's Battlestar Galactica fan said, "A female Boomer and Starbuck? LAZY! Cylons that look like humans? Why even use the BSG names if you're going to completely change the canon, write something new instead!" they'd have missed out on a nuanced and thoughtfully crafted show. If you go into Into the Spider-verse thinking, "a black and hispanic Spiderman? guess it's box-checking time! What's next, Doc Ock's a woman?" hopefully it would win you over in the first few minutes. "Alexander Hamilton was white and didn't rap." Yeah, so what?

Yes, Ravenloft has the nice conceit built in that you can always create new domains. But if the book were all new domains, with no connections to the old, I know I'd be much less interested. Remember the 4e Domains of Dread? Quick, name two of them without looking it up on Mistipedia. I could, but it was a struggle. Certainly a lot of the changes we've heard so far are not what I would have done if I were in charge. But I don't get the sense of them slapping Ravenloft names on their own pet ideas for marketing purposes. If you read even a little of Schneider's Ustalav stuff, it's painfully obvious he's been wanting to write for Ravenloft for years. His name on the project was enough to excite me, and gives me hope that the changes are based in thought and not whim or lack of talent.

Look, I'm as much of a "canon-freak" as anyone. Heck, I wrote http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Mis ... s_of_Canon to try to keep it all straight. But for one thing, canon's never been as immutable as we think. (What's Godefroy's daughter's name again? Is Tristessa a drow or an Arak? Did the Living Brain move to Dementlieu before it formed?) And as many have mentioned, "canon" is particularly meaningless in an RPG, where every DM's version of the world differs from every other DM's. So rather than jumping on these changes as poorly thought out or insulting the authors without even reading their work, I'm willing to say, this might not be the Ravenloft I'm used to. It may end up not being the Ravenloft I love. But it may be a new take that I do love. Or it may be a new take that I respect but don't care for. Or it may be hot garbage. But I will decide that based on the work and not the marketing blurbs or the personal lives of the authors.

[FiranDarcalus]

I think you're conflating a few things here. We know there's a female Drakov. We know there are LGBTQ characters. We know Price worked on it, and that she seems to be praising the LGBTQ representation. We don't know that the new Drakov is one of the LGBTQ characters. We don't even know what parts of the book Price worked on. We don't know the quality of the work. We still don't even know if Vladesca Drakov is meant to be a gender-flipped Vlad or a relative of Vlad. We have precious little crumbs to go on at this point, so before we pull out the tar and feathers, let's see what the finished product is like.

There's got to be some middle ground between "gender-flipping and woke inclusion as lazy hack writing with forced politics" and "thoughtful reimagining for a new time and era." If a fan of the 70's Battlestar Galactica fan said, "A female Boomer and Starbuck? LAZY! Cylons that look like humans? Why even use the BSG names if you're going to completely change the canon, write something new instead!" they'd have missed out on a nuanced and thoughtfully crafted show. If you go into Into the Spider-verse thinking, "a black and hispanic Spiderman? guess it's box-checking time! What's next, Doc Ock's a woman?" hopefully it would win you over in the first few minutes. "Alexander Hamilton was white and didn't rap." Yeah, so what?

Yes, Ravenloft has the nice conceit built in that you can always create new domains. But if the book were all new domains, with no connections to the old, I know I'd be much less interested. Remember the 4e Domains of Dread? Quick, name two of them without looking it up on Mistipedia. I could, but it was a struggle. Certainly a lot of the changes we've heard so far are not what I would have done if I were in charge. But I don't get the sense of them slapping Ravenloft names on their own pet ideas for marketing purposes. If you read even a little of Schneider's Ustalav stuff, it's painfully obvious he's been wanting to write for Ravenloft for years. His name on the project was enough to excite me, and gives me hope that the changes are based in thought and not whim or lack of talent.

Look, I'm as much of a "canon-freak" as anyone. Heck, I wrote http://fraternityofshadows.com/wiki/Mis ... s_of_Canon to try to keep it all straight. But for one thing, canon's never been as immutable as we think. (What's Godefroy's daughter's name again? Is Tristessa a drow or an Arak? Did the Living Brain move to Dementlieu before it formed?) And as many have mentioned, "canon" is particularly meaningless in an RPG, where every DM's version of the world differs from every other DM's. So rather than jumping on these changes as poorly thought out or insulting the authors without even reading their work, I'm willing to say, this might not be the Ravenloft I'm used to. It may end up not being the Ravenloft I love. But it may be a new take that I do love. Or it may be a new take that I respect but don't care for. Or it may be hot garbage. But I will decide that based on the work and not the marketing blurbs or the personal lives of the authors.

Just to piggyback on that. I've been up and down about how I feel about this product. But I think you pointed one thing out that really is true...Wes Schenider LOVES Ravenloft. I've run Haunting of Harrowstone & have the whole Carrion Crown Pathfinder set. He gets Ravenloft & obviously really wanted to do Ravenloft for a long time. In fact, I really loved the Pathfinder take on Ravenloft (as Ustalav). While there may be some people on the project (who knows) who might not really care about Ravenloft's legacy, I don't think Wes Schneider is one of them. Am I crazy about some of the changes they're looking to make? No! But it has less to do with the gender stuff for me as it is continuity and history of Ravenloft (less about Drakov being a woman and more about zombie apocalypse). And that's only because I love my White Wolf Ravenloft (as I suspect many of us do).

BUT, I think we do owe these creators at least the chance to see what they put out. We're assuming everything is going to be a hot mess and we don't even have more than a snippet of it yet. It could definitely suck; but it might also be really cool. Let's give it a chance first and then we can debate its virtues or poopiness.

[Joël of the FoS]

What the two posters before me said. We have very few info so far, about this project, so let's wait until we have the final product in hand.

The rest is conjectures. Can be fun to make conjectures, but in the end, until we read the real thing, don't get seriously upset about it, because we do not know.

[Le Noir Faineant]

I think you're conflating a few things here.

Of course I'm conflating things - I'm not voicing my opinion, I'm describing the situation, and Price's general behavior, as I understand it, and I'm using irony to blunt the edges a bit. I think, at least. - Now, I'm going to go out on a limb, and say, the preview of the 5e book was written with the intention to give a certain impression, and to spurn a certain kind of conversation about the book. This preview could have been about anything. The powers that be made it about this.

There's got to be some middle ground between "gender-flipping and woke inclusion as lazy hack writing with forced politics" and "thoughtful reimagining for a new time and era."

Yes, there is - usually. But Price is, in all fairness, and completely unironically, kind of the poster-girl for "lazy hack writing with forced politics". Of all people, it has to be her who is involved with RL 5e, and who is revealed to be thusly involved with the previews we've been getting. As you say above, WotC could easily have made this about Schneider - but they didn't. Like, just to think, the most accomplished "horror D&D" writer we've had since 3e Ravenloft is getting a chance at the Superbowl of the genre, and noone's talking about it!

It may end up not being the Ravenloft I love. But it may be a new take that I do love. Or it may be a new take that I respect but don't care for. Or it may be hot garbage. But I will decide that based on the work and not the marketing blurbs or the personal lives of the authors.

I'm in total agreement with you - but I do not comment on the book, which I, of course, don't know: I'm commenting on the discussion surrounding it. This very much seems to be a marketing stunt designed to be scandalous, or rather, " to create drama". Everyone here already has some kind of emotional position towards a book whose content we don't know yet. Our awareness of it is very high, we are going to be interested and attached to future news about it. --- That's marketing well done, nothing else. Provocative statements, designed to make people insecure about the quality of a long-awaited product they are emotionally attached to: I might be missing out on the language here, but wouldn't that be the very definition of "FOMO", or how these crypto-kids call it nowadays?

Which is why I'm precisely saying, don't fall into that trap: First, whatever's in the book is not going to faze us on our gaming table. Second, all long-term consequences of the book being published are fundamentally good for us as fans. Third, that the powers that be have chosen this kind of a marketing approach probably means that the product itself is going to be pretty conventional at its core. The message here is that they want to bring Ravenloft back, not much else; that they're making distracting statements like the ones we've only means they are anxious for the books success.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Yes, there is - usually. But Price is, in all fairness, and completely unironically, kind of the poster-girl for "lazy hack writing with forced politics".

Is she, though? I've never heard of her before Drinnik's posts a few pages back. I'll admit I don't always have my finger on the pulse of things, but here's a list of the PF works she did from wikipedia: Strategy Guide, Inner Sea Races, Planes of Power, Inner Sea Faiths, Heaven Unleashed, Was Ewig Liegt: Sonderband, Starfinder Core Rulebook, Qadira: Jewel of the East, Adventurer's Guide, Planar Adventures. Are any of the exhibits of hack writing/forced politics? Honestly, the only one I've heard of is Starfinder, and everyone keeps telling me how good it is.

Of all people, it has to be her who is involved with RL 5e, and who is revealed to be thusly involved with the previews we've been getting. As you say above, WotC could easily have made this about Schneider - but they didn't. Like, just to think, the most accomplished "horror D&D" writer we've had since 3e Ravenloft is getting a chance at the Superbowl of the genre, and noone's talking about it!

Where did WotC make it about Price? Their official interviews are with Schneider: https://dnd.dragonmag.com/2021/02/23/in ... ntent.html
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/945-the ... cebook-van
The product overview doesn't list any authors at all:
https://dnd.wizards.com/products/van-ri ... -ravenloft

The only reason we're even discussing her here is because Drinnik brought it up, and I don't know where he heard she was involved. Her twitter post seems to confirm it, but has she even been listed as on the project by WotC? let alone made the focus? The list of authors Joel got in the info thread (from where, Joel?) doesn't even list her:
Main writer : Wes Schneider, plus Amanda Hamon, Cassandra Khaw, Molly Ostertag and K. Tempest Bradford

My point is: I don't think that WotC has made Price the center of attention, nor should we.

Which is why I'm precisely saying, don't fall into that trap: First, whatever's in the book is not going to faze us on our gaming table. Second, all long-term consequences of the book being published are fundamentally good for us as fans. Third, that the powers that be have chosen this kind of a marketing approach probably means that the product itself is going to be pretty conventional at its core. The message here is that they want to bring Ravenloft back, not much else; that they're making distracting statements like the ones we've only means they are anxious for the books success.

Absolutely agreed that we shouldn't fall into the trap of mistaking marketing for content. But we also shouldn't mistake designers' personal twitter posts for calculated marketing. It could be, but it could also just be people excited about what they've made chomping at the bit to talk about it.

[Joël of the FoS]

The list of authors Joel got in the info thread (from where, Joel?) doesn't even list her:
Main writer : Wes Schneider, plus Amanda Hamon, Cassandra Khaw, Molly Ostertag and K. Tempest Bradford

From : https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-dungeons-dr ... 1846309760

It's not the list of all authors, but Wes cited these in the article. She isn't the first person he thought of when citing other authors.

[Le Noir Faineant]

Is she, though? I've never heard of her before Drinnik's posts a few pages back. I'll admit I don't always have my finger on the pulse of things, but here's a list of the PF works she did from wikipedia: Strategy Guide, Inner Sea Races, Planes of Power, Inner Sea Faiths, Heaven Unleashed, Was Ewig Liegt: Sonderband, Starfinder Core Rulebook, Qadira: Jewel of the East, Adventurer's Guide, Planar Adventures. Are any of the exhibits of hack writing/forced politics? Honestly, the only one I've heard of is Starfinder, and everyone keeps telling me how good it is.

Yeah, lamentably, she appears to be.

Politics-wise, Price has left a trail of scorched earth in the industry since she initiated a very public shaming of Frank Mentzer, of Red Box D&D fame, over what people would go on to call a no-issue. Likewise, she was responsible for a lawsuit between two RPG designers after grossly misrepresenting an encounter she was not directly involved in, and later herself indicted for defamation in relation to this case. In addition to that, she would go on to be fired by Paizo for what the company deemed to be false allegations of sexual misconduct against her coworkers. ...And that's just the stuff I remember.

Add to that the allegations of unprofessional conduct against herself, of which the firing from Guild Wars is the most notorious example, and a certain image will start to form. What her qualities as a designer are, I obviously can't tell. However, let's also be real here: Price has not written the latest best-selling fantasy trilogy, or the latest notable indie RPG, after a decade in the business; she has been a contributor among many to projects overseen by others. And in that environment, she has been notoriously difficult to deal with, to the extreme that repeated legal action had to be taken against her.

Let me be clear: I'm happy to be wrong about all of this. I wish this person nothing bad. I wasn't there, I didn't read the legal papers, I'm only reporting what credible sources (like the lawyer of several of the wronged parties) have shared online over the years. However, if the allegations against her are factual, even in part, then Price may perhaps rightfully be characterized as a "bad faith actor".

My point is: I don't think that WotC has made Price the center of attention, nor should we.

Let me rephrase - because of her background, she's already the center of attention. Impossible to talk about any project she's involved in without singling out her background. Look at other websites and communities - all they do is rage about Price. I don't sympathize with her, either, but I feel bad for her, kind of. Some of this stuff, she will not shake in twenty years.

Absolutely agreed that we shouldn't fall into the trap of mistaking marketing for content. But we also shouldn't mistake designers' personal twitter posts for calculated marketing. It could be, but it could also just be people excited about what they've made chomping at the bit to talk about it.

I'm not usually that paranoid, but in this specific case, I think there's a decent chance that the marketing department guy sat them down, and they had a talk. - That's what I would do if I was running that project; it's just too tempting. If I am Price, I need to get the work out that I'm conventionally employable. And if I'm WotC, I need to communicate that I'm employing Price because of her skill, not of her politics or of her scandalous reputation.

[Mephisto of the FoS]

We know there's a female Drakov. . .
We still don't even know if Vladesca Drakov is meant to be a gender-flipped Vlad or a relative of Vlad.

My main concern is more that Falkovnia is a zombieland compared to an evil man's totalitarian state and I have mentioned before my objections to that, but the thing that annoys me more in the interview about VRGtR is packs of displacer beasts in Valachan...

[SkiBird]

... but the thing that annoys me more in the interview about VRGtR is packs of displacer beasts in Valachan...

I’m with you. I know werewolves and mummies and flesh golems are all ‘core D&D’ creatures. But when I saw the displacer beast thing I was sort of like ‘hey, keep your D&D out of my Ravenloft.’

^^ I know how silly that sentence looks, but I guess for me the setting has always had a certain tone. Some elements work well and others do not. All in all, it’s a minor gripe though and very easy to fix with handwavium.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

... but the thing that annoys me more in the interview about VRGtR is packs of displacer beasts in Valachan...

I’m with you. I know werewolves and mummies and flesh golems are all ‘core D&D’ creatures. But when I saw the displacer beast thing I was sort of like ‘hey, keep your D&D out of my Ravenloft.’

Hey guys... I10:The House on Gryphon Hill, p.32.....

I kid... and yes, I10 was before the setting proper, and still set on a Prime Material D&D world.... but if "a creature is stalking you in the darkened moor... you catch a glimpse. It looks feline, but are those... tentacles? And then it's gone... no, wait, it's RIGHT BEHIND YOU!" isn't Ravenloft, what is?

[Mephisto of the FoS]

Hey guys... I10:The House on Gryphon Hill, p.32.....

Got me...for a second I thought it was from the official Ravenloft line...

That Heather House is full of monsters while the Weathermay family lives there and a few meters/yards away Azalin waits to be transpositioned... what a mess. This adventure needs a serious reboot.

[Jester of the FoS]

Yeah, lamentably, she appears to be.

Politics-wise, Price has left a trail of scorched earth in the industry since she initiated a very public shaming of Frank Mentzer, of Red Box D&D fame, over what people would go on to call a no-issue. Likewise, she was responsible for a lawsuit between two RPG designers after grossly misrepresenting an encounter she was not directly involved in, and later herself indicted for defamation in relation to this case. In addition to that, she would go on to be fired by Paizo for what the company deemed to be false allegations of sexual misconduct against her coworkers. ...And that's just the stuff I remember.

Add to that the allegations of unprofessional conduct against herself, of which the firing from Guild Wars is the most notorious example, and a certain image will start to form. What her qualities as a designer are, I obviously can't tell. However, let's also be real here: Price has not written the latest best-selling fantasy trilogy, or the latest notable indie RPG, after a decade in the business; she has been a contributor among many to projects overseen by others. And in that environment, she has been notoriously difficult to deal with, to the extreme that repeated legal action had to be taken against her.

Let me be clear: I'm happy to be wrong about all of this. I wish this person nothing bad. I wasn't there, I didn't read the legal papers, I'm only reporting what credible sources (like the lawyer of several of the wronged parties) have shared online over the years. However, if the allegations against her are factual, even in part, then Price may perhaps rightfully be characterized as a "bad faith actor".

She also misinterpreted some of my tweets about Mentzer and assumed I was defending him, flamed my viciously, which also led her followers to harass and attack me for several days, driving me off Twitter and into a very, very deep depression spiral where I withdrew from gaming entirely for several months.
She eventually realized her mistake and delated some of her more... colourful descriptions of me but never issued any retractions or apologies.

I do not particularly like her...

[tomokaicho]

I have to remind you that besides Hazlik there is also another gay character, Baron Metus. In Van Richten's guide to Vampires, Rudolph "horrified" (because of Erasmus's age?) makes the assumption that Erasmus was turned into a vampire by grooming, a turning procedure where a vampire's lover is turned into a free-willed vampire.

I think it's safe to say that Dr. Van Richten is homophobic.