Again, the Bros moved the needle so hard that the Soup Aisle has to get out in front lest they lose all Narrative control (too late).
It wasn't that long ago that, as with the gameplay, this too was "No one reads that!" or "It doesn't matter!"
Now they're trying to say they've been with it all along and it does. Counterfeit and catemite as usual. These videos came out at the same time this past week. I won't say that there was some Slack channel coordination, but rather that it's curious that this all is coming out with the appearance and as someone long used to "my betters" doing coordinated Narrative Warfare against me and my interests I automatically take it as a red flag when I encounter even such an appearance thereof.
If so, my God are they bad at it. If not, but instead this is a rapid iteration of Monkey See, Monkey Do, that is just as pathetic.
This is some Bahgdad Bob bullshit. Just stop. You make the Death Cultists at WOTC look cool and competent by comparison.
You want the real Appendix N lore? Jeffro nailed that years ago, such that they had to run out a knockoff to grift off its success.
This is the list from Appendix N of the AD&D1e DMG.
The "Fantasy" side:
Robert E. Howard's Conan series — Barbarism vs. civilization, ancient sorcery, monstrous horrors, and heroic adventure (no scientific framing).
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series — Urban thieves, wizards, demons, and quirky sword & sorcery in the world of Nehwon.
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings — Elves, dwarves, orcs, ents, halflings (hobbits), rangers, dragons, and epic quests (Gygax downplayed Tolkien's overall impact but acknowledged specific borrowings).
Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions — Norse/Arthurian mythic fantasy, faerie realms, regenerating trolls, paladins, and Law vs. Chaos alignment.
Lord Dunsany's works — Dreamlike fantasy, gods, and wonder-tales.
Michael Moorcock's Elric/Stormbringer and Hawkmoon series — Chaotic swords, multiversal fantasy, and Law/Chaos themes (influenced alignment and artifacts).
Gardner Fox's Kothar and Kyrik series — Sword & sorcery pulp with liches and lost-world adventures.
John Bellairs' The Face in the Frost — Wizards studying spellbooks (direct Vancian precursor, but pure fantasy).
Lin Carter's World's End series — Distant-future fantasy (but leans more mythic than technological).
August Derleth, Manly Wade Wellman, and others — Horror-tinged fantasy or weird tales.
The "Science Fiction" side:
Edgar Rice Burroughs' Mars (Barsoom), Venus, and Pellucidar series — Planetary romance with alien civilizations, radium-powered airships/flyers, ancient tech, hollow-Earth inner worlds, and sword-swinging adventures on other planets or inside Earth. (Sci-fi framing via "science" of alien biology/tech and interplanetary travel; heavily influenced exotic settings and lost-world dungeons.)
Poul Anderson's The High Crusade — Pure sci-fi: medieval English knights capture an alien spaceship and fight interstellar invaders. (Spaceships, aliens, and technology as the core conflict.)
L. Sprague de Camp's Lest Darkness Fall — Time-travel sci-fi: a modern archaeologist is transported to the Dark Ages and uses knowledge to prevent societal collapse. (Temporal displacement and applied science/history.)
de Camp & Fletcher Pratt's Harold Shea series and The Carnelian Cube — Modern protagonists use mathematical/logical formulas to enter parallel mythic universes (e.g., Norse gods, Irish legends). Magic is analyzed and countered scientifically; alternate dimensions via equations. (Direct influence on D&D's planar/multiversal travel and "logic vs. magic.")
Philip José Farmer's World of the Tiers series — Pocket universes and artificial worlds created by god-like ancient beings using advanced technology; interdimensional gates/portals and unique solar systems. (Sci-fi multiverse and demi-planes; inspired Oerth-like settings.)
Jack Vance's The Dying Earth and The Eyes of the Overworld — Far-future Earth where the sun is dying and ancient super-science has decayed into "magic." Spells are memorized formulas (Vancian magic system); ioun stones and bizarre tech-magic. (Core to D&D's spellcasting and thief elements.)
Roger Zelazny's Amber series and Jack of Shadows — Shadow worlds as reflections of a prime reality (parallel dimensions); a tidally locked planet split between science and magic sides. (Multiversal travel with tech-magic blend.)
Sterling Lanier's Hiero's Journey — Post-nuclear apocalypse on a mutant-riddled Earth; telepathy/psionics, ancient tech remnants, and priestly quests. (Science fantasy with psi powers.)
Fred Saberhagen's Changeling Earth (Empire of the East) — Post-apocalyptic Earth where magic and technology coexist (AI "gods," changelings). (Blended sci-fi ruins and sorcery.)
Margaret St. Clair's The Shadow People and Sign of the Labrys — Dystopian futures, vast underground labyrinths, and societal collapse. (Inspired dungeon complexes, drow/underdark ideas, and sci-fi horror.)
Leigh Brackett, Frederic Brown, Stanley Weinbaum, Jack Williamson, and Andre Norton — Mostly planetary sci-fi, space opera shorts, or speculative tales (aliens, future tech, mutants); Brackett's planetary romances echo Burroughs.
There is NO DIFFERENCE! The trappings are not the genre. The setting is not the genre. The genre is in narrative structure, not marketing a product; these stories all have the same narrative structure, so they are all the same genre: fantastic adventures.
Therefore they can all fit into--and use exactly as written--the same ruleset because they're all part of the same game: a fantastic adventure game of Braunstein play.
This is why, decades before Banpresto gave us a different example of the same thing in Super Robot Wars, AD&D1e could and did handle all of this using the rules as they are- and it explains why, despite the Boomerism of its designer and publsher, RIFTS maintains its enduring appeal as it too put the lie to "Fantasy", "Science Fiction", and "Horror" as separate and distinct genres- they are, at best, product categories following Madlib templates like Harlequin reduced love stories to Chicklit mass production content output- something that LLMs can do better than any human writer could ever achieve.
This is why, believe or not, these are Fair Game for the Real Game.
Recently the devs for Final Fantasy XIV announced what the new Beastmaster Job will be.
Since most of you don't play this MMO, allow me to define what "Limited Job" means: a Limited Job is a type of character class that is intentionally unbalanced on the understanding that it cannot engage with playable content as the non-limited Jobs do; how these restrictions manifest, and what exclusive content they access, varies by the Limited Job.
So no, Beastmaster (BSM) cannot join parties with the other Limited Job (Blue Mage) or the full Jobs (Dragoon, Machinist, White Mage, Red Mage, Warrior, Black Mage, Ninja, Dancer, Viper, Reaper, Paladin, Gunbreaker, Sage, Scholar, Summoner, Samurai, Monk, Bard). It cannot go the current level cap (100), or even access any expansion content due to being capped at level 50 and thus only to the base game of A Realm Reborn- which would be acceptable if it was open to Free Trials, but it's not (unlike Blue Mage) as you need to have Dawntrail (the current expansion as of this post) on your service account to do so.
Put this in Tabletop terms.
You're Wizards of the Coast. You announce a new Class or Subclass for Current Edition, but it's paywalled behind a specific tier on Beyond and not in any digital or print product; you can't use it in Organized Play unless you're rolling alone or in a single (sub)Class party, and you're capped at 10th level while everyone else can go to 20th or more. (N.B.: Roll For Combat has a Third Party take, which is Please Don't Sue Me Nintendo: The Class.)
Does this sound like good product design--nevermind game design--to you? It does if you're a Mammon Mobster. Those folks occupy WOTC's C-Suite as well as Hasbro's.
"This can't work."
Bullshit. It already has. The majority of Current Edition players and Referees are already hopelessly yoked to Beyond; they damn well will go along with being milked in this fashion if the value proposition for microsubscription is good enough and WOTC is smart enough to deliberately release new stuff under this model in an overpowered state (as is further incentivized with the adoption of a Seasonal content release schedule; make the new Season's new widgets overpowered and players will pay to win every single time because if they don't they lose, hard).
The only thing needed to finish this pivot is to yank Referee discretion on what players can access to use, meaning that the same optimize-your-fun dynamics we see in MMOs, Battle Royales, and Extraction Shooters will come to Corpo-Approved Tabletop because theirs is a model that maps closely to Blizzard's World First Raid Clear race model and the parallel Mythic Plus Tournament race model (and will incorporate a lot from the more PVP sort of competitive play). Racing to see who can clear modules fastest, mapping out routes, optmizing parties, all of that stuff- this is what WOTC wants for Current Edition because it's proven to make people pay, pay more, and pay more often.
Normies want this. Casuals want this. Tourists want this. They say they don't, but Revealed Preferences prove that they do.
WOTC wants Normiebux. This is how you get it. Cargo Cultists can't even grasp what's going to happen, but they're going to find out sooner than later and they'll be forced to either conform to stay in the Network or get left behind.
This is as radical a change in their Just So Cargo Cult paradigm as the Clubhouse model is, and like the Clubhouse it's far more social and Normie-friendly so they'll lose out by resisting it. The pressure from above will be overwhelming; the Clubhouse coming from below removes their road of retreat, trapping them in the middle and unable to move out of the way.
Their time is over. Shit like this will be why, and they will not be admitted into the Clubhouse; they're done.
Not that Wizards of the Coast will give it. They know that the Soup Aisle will cave, again, and thus the cycle resets anew because the Network Effect has teeth and thus Fear of Missing Out is not a phantom threat with no substance.
They still have no capacity to stand on their own. They don't acquire prospects independent of WOTC. They don't have any value proposition, given their own presuppositions on what the hobby is and how it works, that makes defecting from WOTC worthwhile; there is no value to being king of an irrelevant backwater instead of a player in the big ocean of primary concern and action.
They still get easily rooked by Public Relations fakeouts like this. It's the same 'memberberries bullshit we've seen before; there's nothing substantive behind this- it's the sort of thing that usually gets done as a crowdfund campaign, makes a splash, and thus gets forgotten about because there's no follow-up and nothing done to incorporate it into the real business that WOTC runs. It's fake and gay.
Glad to see a few sus it out for what it is, but a few is not enough; all of you need to get on board, and all of you need to stop soyjakking when WOTC throws out the bait. They're using your idols to fuck with you, and too many of you are too addled to recognize when you're being scammed.
Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is dying in the most literal way imaginable. According to leaks, poor sales and a worse reputation for the game are pushing Games Workshop to push the "End Times" button again and reboot the setting. But that's not the funny part.
— Marshal Bohemond ⚔️⛨ | Space Marine Vtuber (@HMBohemond) March 23, 2026
Considering that Games Workshop had to be compelled to re-release Fantasy as The Old World (and still, spitefully, slipped pozshit into it) I am not at all surprised to hear this. No one likes Shitmar.
Keep chasing those cultists that have no money and hate what you do, GW. Meanwhile, I'm telling everyone to pirate what you do that's worthwhile so that it exists after you're nothing but a putrifying corpse in a bog.
This is the same Ruse Cruise pulled before more than once by Wizards of the Coast to sucker the Grognards into supporting the company and giving them money.
They keep doing it because it works. This video proves it. So are other similar videos.
This is pathetic.
You people deserve to be treated with contempt by WOTC's C-Suite and Management if you're that easily suckered and rooked by one of the most basic bitch marketing ploys.
This is why WOTC wants to close the Walled Garden and shut you all out if you don't sit down, shut up, and follow their lead- and it is also why so many of you are delusional in your pretensions of relevance and importance. WOTC uses you and discards you like like the cheap whores you are, and like some Alpha Widow you cry about how you can't get WOTC to do anything for you unless you put out for them first and once you're past your sell-by date you're thrown on the trash heap- which is where you belong.
No self-respect, no dignity, nothing but abject submission to the Pop Cult Idol you worship and adore as its priesthood uses and abuses you like all cult leaders do.
Then you have the gall to say that you're anything but a parasite subsisting off WOTC's Network Effect to be able to pretend that you're at all an alternative to The Only Game That Matters.
Meanwhile, you have WOTC's own words telling you plainly what they're going to do and why- and yet, here you are, delusionally insisting that "He's changed, really, he means it this time!" as you run back for one more round of being used and discarded.
This is why none of you are to be admitted to the Clubhouse. No place for delusional whores in a hobby for men.
Go figure, as soon as the Bros prove beyond a doubt that they're right about something here comes the Soup Aisle to steal credit and say it's theirs.
"Oh hey, you should totally play in a regional map with lots of factions and things to see and do."
Notice that Tenkar left out Braunstein, that he's still being a Merchantfag shilling for product, and presumes that the Cargo Cult has a future?
Meanwhile Wizards of the Coast, by proceding with the Walled Garden, is cutting off their Prospect Acquisition Funnel because none of these retards bothers to do any work to get and funnel prospects on their own and don't even think to try. Every last one of them parasites off of WOTC's marketing and advertising campaigns. EVERY! LAST! ONE!
Going digital-primary, rooting on Beyond, going full Walled Garden- this cuts that parasitism off by freezing them out of the Network Effect that they've benefited from for so long that they forgot how to justify their own existence to anyone else.
Meanwhile they're stll trying to do the Gamma Male thing where they jump in front of the parade, steal credit for all the cultural recovery, and then steer it all back into the Soup Aisle Cult Cell Basement.
They wouldn't do this if the Bros weren't effective. They're being crushed from above by WOTC, and crushed from below by the Bros. They still think that their Calvinball non-game cult cells playing in the basement is the real hobby and then wonder why private MMO servers rook them without noticing their existence. Like Commies, they can't think outside their own paradigm, but they can sense when something threatens it when they hear it; they try to steal from those they think they can cheat, and go full-tilt bozo in delusion to cope with those they can't.
