I do and I don't know why the OGL thing made fans turn against corporate D&D in numbers big enough to cost them money.
On the one hand it makes the owners of Dungeons and Dragons look not just greedy, but clumsily so--on the other hand, so does nearly everything else they've ever done.
I mean, this is a company that could have--with the snap of a finger--vastly improved the community for everyone--including themselves and their most important employees--by pointing out all the worst actors online spread a right-wing conspiracy theory about Mike Mearls and didn't lift a finger, presumably because they were scared of Streisanding the situation in the press.
They'll take steps to protect their IP, but not their community, their employees, or their own reputation. Always and forever.
For example:
What have we here?
This gelatinous cube, this dragon? So precise, so assured, so elegant, so finicky, sensual yet controlled, one might even say... continental?
It's 1982.
You know who really wants to play D&D?
The French.
A woman named Mathilde Maraninchi--arguably the author of the first retroclone--says fuck it and makes French D&D:
...the rules are a simplification and mash-up of the various TSR versions of the rules by that time.
I'm told it's a little chaotic--but that was pretty normal back then--and hard to play--also pretty normal for a circa 1982 RPG--and the illustrations by Joël Bordier are kinky as fuck:
It is arguably not just the first French RPG but the first retroclone ever, and one of the earliest works by a female RPG author.
TSR killed it of course.
Thanks to French gamers Peggy and Arnaud for bringing this to my attention, here are some more details...
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| click to enlarge |
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And
some more here courtesy of
Google Translate and French gameblogger Dvergguden.
Thanks to all of them for their help with this article!
Vive la resistance.
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| "Apparence d'un Rubik's cube" |
