We talk a lot about institutions in this episode of 9ES. Dungeons & Dragons and Wu-Tang Clan are definitely institutions of their established mediums. But where the Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ to Fuck Wit – perhaps it is time that we start fucking with D&D.
You have no idea how proud I am of writing that intro.
Dungeons & Dragons does seem to exist in a weird intersection of conflicting demands from the players. On the one hand it has over 40 years of hardcore players that demand that each edition is “just so” full of monsters, spells and abilities that they are familiar with and this multi-layered system that is a hodge-podge mess of four decades of rubber bands and glue holding a “game system” together. They never really get to start fresh since they are somehow obligated to transfer over whole chunks of each previous iteration.
On the other hand, it’s the most mainstream RPG there is. It’s basically synonymous with the term “role playing game” and if there is someone out there who is just interested in playing their first RPG they will almost certainly pick up a D&D book to do so.
They’re trying please people who are diehard fans of the hobby for decades and people that just picked up their first player’s handbook because the kids in Stranger Things looked like they were having fun at the same time.
Impossible.
I guess the good news is that they have a pretty decent history of listening to player feedback (possibly to their detriment). So if you care about this as much as we do maybe head over to dndbeyond and start telling them their new stuff sucks.
Tell them to be more like Wu Tang Clan. For the children.
Over on Garbage Time Scott and I talk a little bit about (what else) Marvel Snap (Scott hit Infinite everyone!) before we talk about some movies we’ve been watching recently. The 90s are alive in Garbage Time as we talk about Army of Darkness and Deep Rising. Keith also watched Shudder Exclusive “Who Invited Them?” and that was cool too. If that sounds cool then show your support and head over to Patreon and subscribe at the 9ES Deluxe tier to listen to this and all past episodes of Garbage Time!
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Credit Where Credit is Due
Our intro song is a brand new jam cooked up by OKU-DA just for us, do yourself a favour and check out his SoundCloud).
