Hot Takes!?!

Just some random things bopping around my brain:

Players and Monsters (NPCs) SHOULD follow the same rules (mostly).

    I see a back and forth about if the decision to have monsters/npcs use the same rules as players is one of the drawbacks of 3e style D&D.   Usually this is in relation to how much time it takes to make adversaries in the game.  To my mind, this sidesteps the issue.  To me, the issue is how complex the rules are in the first place.  That's not to say that you can't take some shortcuts where adversaries are involved, but the basic building block should line up.

 

D&D Movie

    So we got another one coming.  I think I only saw about half of any of the 2000s era movies.  There are a plethora of movies (old and new) that encapsulate D&D style fantasy.  However, I think the most "D&D" move we have is The Princess Bride.  It is a compelling fantasy story, that is framed, interrupted, and to some extent impacted by those whom the audience is watching experience it.  A D&D movie (as opposed to a fantasy movie using D&D IP) would be wise to borrow this framework.

4e D&D

 Not going to entertain an edition war, but there are some things I don't get.  I appreciate that they likely had a number of business constraints impacting design, and chose to go with a "from the ground up" approach to the design.  That said, if one of the goals was to eliminate the 15 minute adventuring day, why still daily powers?  All the messing about with Healing Surges, why not just reduce total HP and make HP "per encounter"?  Its like when a bit of software gets a re-build, it does not necessarily fix the problems that were intended, and likely introduces new unintended ones.

WandaVision

    So, overall I enjoyed it (though asked alot of the audience to stick around the first 3 episodes).  The ending fell flat for me for two reasons.  1. typically hero vs their dark mirror fight.  2. Did not deliver on things is was strongly teasing.  Not that it matters, but a few things i would change to to keep the main bits in tact, but feel more satisfying to me.

• Agatha doesn't want to steal Wanda's powers; she wants to turn her Vader style.  Pretty much everything happens the same, but when Agatha realized Wands still wants to wallow, she leaves in disappointing disgust, "You'll come around eventually" and leaves the Darkhold as her calling card.
• Also Agatha mentions something about "oh you like my Pietro stand in?  He is something I found in my travels....."  At least leave it open about if that means multiverses or not instead of making a boner joke.
  
• SWORD boss does not go full cartoon evil, and instead stays in charge.  He is better as a foil for Monica and SPEAR if he still in charge and just has a strong (and justified) position against meta-humans.  He could be the MCU Amanda Waller. 
• Monica has more of a role in the last episode, after Agatha leaves, it is Monica who talks Wanda down and helps her come to grips with her grief and the impact of her actions in Westview.
• Yeah, that means to have to juggle the timeline of the last few episodes a bit to fit in the Double Vision fight, but that needed to happen anyway.  Just how long was Hex Vision flying from the circus truck that White Vision beat him to the house by a healthy margin?

 

3e was the best engineered edition of the game

    Someone said 4e was the best designed version (see my comments about not engaging in editions wars, we are past that fight mattering).  I think I can at least consider that point, even if it was not my taste.   However, 3e was the best engineered.  Perhaps it was over-engineered, but it had a lot riding on that design.  It had to take ALL the stuff from 25 years of the game, across several flavors of basic and advanced, make it into something coherent, without alienating fans.  And it mostly did that, in a robust way.  It is a shame we never saw a mainline revision of that rule set.  I think many of the OGL clones have come close, but imagine that attempt streamlining with WoTC's resources behind it.