So, I got the newest 5e setting book Tuesday, and have had enough time to digest it, and watch and read what some others have said about the book. This isn't a review. I want to be clear about that coming in. Not a review, but just my thoughts more on reactions to the book that I keep hearing from people old like myself, and older.
The book isn't bad at all. It does what I wanted it to do, and that is give ideas, some light lore, and sets a tone for Ravenloft and broad concepts of horror genres. What more do you want?
I get it, I have been complaining about WotC for decades now. It has become as much a part of the hobby for me as painting miniatures. However, most of it is just bitching and complaining for the sake of bitching and complaining. After talking to people I know, and suffering through YouTubers complaining, I felt compelled to say something. Here it goes.
First, and most importantly, don't say the new book isn't "proper horror" or "horror for kids." Especially don't do this if you cannot give a single example of what proper horror is. Ravenloft is, and has been a very Hammer Horror inspired style. This works well, especially since the cleric class was heavily inspired by a certain character right out of Hammer films who hunted vampires, but his name escapes me. At least, that is according to Gary Gygax, but my tongue is in my cheek, and I digress.
Second, stop complaining about the use of end pages instead of making the books look like a shitty textbook by throwing tables on them. It really shouldn't be that big of a deal. If you want access to tables, use a DM screen like a normal person. If I hear another Gen X'er complain about something so insignificant on their channel, I will probably spend even less time on YouTube. No, Dungeons and Dragons didn't go to total shit because the inside cover doesn't look like a Wal-Mart notebook now.
My final point, and the most important, is about the whole "keep your politics out of my game thing. Nothing at all has changed about the Vistani to take from your game. If it has, then your game was filled with ethnic stereotypes. The only real difference, is that a certain word that is often seen as a slur, isn't included in the content covering them. If you don't follow what I am saying, then you cannot make fun of diversity training anymore, because you are the reason we have it in the corporate world now.
That is all I really have to say about it. I think the book is fairly good overall, and there are probably hundreds of reviews of it on the internet, so I didn't feel like I would contribute much. I do not know if it was the week I had, or the people I talked to, but I felt like I needed to develop this thought. Toxic fandoms are the worst.
As always, I wasn't paid by WotC, although I wish I were, to write this. The ideas are purely my own, along with any and all typos and displays of good old fashioned shitty grammar.
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