I have a purpose again, and other random tidbits.

I feel like I’ve gotten a new lease on life recently. I don’t think I’ve been this excited about TTRPGs or blogging since I started up again in earnest at the end of 2021. A lot has happened in my personal life over the last month or so. One thing that has been a big influence is the announcement of (trumpets and drum roll) The Basic RolePlaying: Ultimate Engine Design Challenge! (*You were warned that you’d probably get tired of me talking about it. Damn, what an opportunity, though.)

The Daggerheart playtest launched almost a full week ago with a lot of vitriol coming at it from the Old School and elsewhere. Matt Mercer came out the week before with a couple of short clips about being depressed that were construed as political statements. The playtest document contains some concepts that probably do deserve some attention if the game is going to be taken seriously as a long term campaign TTRPG in all fairness.

Wizards of the Coast, while remaining somewhat quieter than usual, still managed to cheese off Portuguese speaking people and those of us who hate AI writing alike. Earlier this month they announced cessation of Portuguese language translations of Dungeons & Dragons products as well as Magic: the Gathering. I think several thousand gamers in Brazil and Portugal would like to have a word with them.

Good old Chris Cocks (*still fighting the urge to make fun of dude’s name) announced Hasbro/WotC had enough D&D adventures in their vaults to feed an AI and have it writing adventures for years to come. Holy crap am I glad I no longer aspire to work on D&D.

Some of y’all YouTube hacks need to quit bagging on Matt Mercer every chance you get.

Love it or hate it, here we go.

Do I need to spell out three of the worst offenders?- [REDACTED]whatever your negative ass overly critical name is. Matt Mercer is an upstanding member of the TTRPG community and deserves our admiration and respect not only for putting D&D on the map again but for welcoming so many new players into the hobby.

They keep saying “woke” like it’s a bad thing. I welcome woke over whatever crap some of these YouTubers are peddling.

Let me be completely blunt for a minute. I don’t care what’s in the guy’s pants. I don’t care if he paints his fingernails or curls up under a tasseled throw blanket. I really don’t care about his politics. Ya know what else? He makes way more money and has an incredibly popular Actual Play series on Twitch and YouTube- and y’all don’t. I bet some of y’all are a lot jealous of Matt Mercer’s success right about now, huh?

One channel I watch daily takes grief from the Critters just for covering Daggerheart every week. I happen to think the OG GM does a great job at being honest, open, and relatively unbiased in his opinion of CR, Daggerheart, as well as Matt Mercer. Here’s the link to the OG’s channel. See if you agree.

I sincerely wish Critters/Critical Role fans would go after these low end YouTube critics (NOT OG GM!) the way they go after other random people for spouting off even a little bit about the show and the cast. I’d link to the three channels that are being the loudest dicks, but I refuse to give them any credit or views. They’re easy enough to find with a bit of poking around on YouTube, though. I’ve watched enough of the overly critical clown asses talking crap about Critical Role and Matt Mercer that YouTube now sends me Beavis & Butthead videos as an alternative.

Daggerheart is on its way!

Likewise, Wizards of the Coast can go kick rocks, too.

Bring back #DnDBeGone.

I finally hit my tolerance for WotC D&D news about the time Hasbro fired a bunch of key people during the holidays. It’s bad enough they won’t answer my emails or even acknowledge I exist. Now they’re making thousands of Brazilian and Portuguese fans angry by not supporting their language. Perhaps more telling is CEO Chris Cocks (*Uhh. Uh huh-huh. Uh huh-huh-huh…) saying that they are going to embrace Artificial Intelligence and milk it slowly and steadily for years to come for D&D content.

Hasbro/WotC has officially proven that they must think we’re all idiots. The Portuguese thing is just awful and shows a clear lack of regard for the fans and sheer ignorance on the part of the executives. It’s okay. WotC is regularly getting trashed on the socials, and I hear other companies still offer their TTRPGs in Portuguese. Yay Pathfinder. Yay Call of Cthulhu.

Then there’s the AI thing. It’s pretty bad when Hasbro’s CEO, formerly WotC’s CEO tells investors they are going to feed an AI a ton of old modules and keep making “new” content for years to come. That is a massive slap in the face to old school and new school alike. And then WotC wonders why some of us hate them so much right now. Hasbro/WotC is a walking, talking case study in terrible Public Relations, and not in a good way. I hope Crawford, Perkins, De Armas, and the other creatives have their resumes in order.

Nothing surprises me with Wizards of the Coast D&D news any more. It’s just the high comedy of what they’re going to screw up next that’s amusing to watch. I sincerely hope Critical Role eventually abandons 5E. Daggerheart would be a fine change of pace for Critical Role at this point. CR can’t do any worse than being hitched to another company that makes at least one major PR blunder every month. Honestly I could care less about WotC, but they are still the biggest market share in TTRPGs for now.

Onto the really big news.

Oh YEAH!

I’m going after the BRP Design Challenge with everything I’ve got. I literally won’t shut up about it until May 31, 2024, after the deadline passes. This thing is too cool for school, and I want everyone to know about it. I’m being cautious not to talk about my exact entry or entries, but I am definitely sharing my design approach here on The Game Box.

$2,500 toward the development of my game worlds and this website definitely have me excited. The opportunity to get a foot in the door with one of the absolutely biggest, oldest, greatest TTRPG companies in the world is priceless. The opportunity to share my design with players and GMs all over the world is golden. I’m so happy and grateful for an opportunity to spread joy and delight with a game product that I created.

I think my wife wants to put me down with a tranq dart because I won’t shut up about it. It’s even on my vision boards right now. Truthfully, I’ll be overjoyed to win $500, but that $2,500 grand prize is where my sights are set. I’m closing in on what I hope are winning concepts now. If anyone needs me, my nose will either be buried in the BRPG book or in my computer as I type away on the entries themselves.

Thank you for stopping by. Please stop by #CriticalRole and give Matt Mercer some love today. He’s a great guy and deserves positive attention. I appreciate you beyond words today. Please go embrace the things that bring you joy so long as it’s not at the expense of another’s happiness.