Thinking about the Undertale highlighted review quotes which are from 10/10 reviews but Toby Fox just quoted the things they said they didn’t like in it

If you’re wondering what the whole drama regarding tieflings is in the Dungeons & Dragons fandom: basically, capitalism ruined tieflings, and for once that’s not even slightly a joke.

Tieflings were first introduced as a playable species in Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition, via the Planescape campaign in 1994. At the time, there were no particular rules regarding what a tiefling was supposed to look like. The text explicitly stated that their basic physiology could vary wildly depending on what their fiendish ancestor was, and one of the first major Planescape supplements even included a table for randomly generating your tiefling’s appearance, if you were into that sort of thing.

This continued to be the case up through the game’s Third Edition. However, when the Fourth Edition rolled around in 2008, the game’s text suddenly became very particular about insisting that all tieflings looked pretty much the same. Some campaign settings even provided iin-character explanations for why all tieflings now had a standardised appearance. Understandably, this made a lot of people very annoyed.

There was naturally a great deal of speculation concerning what had motivated this change. It was widely cited as “proof” that Dungeons & Dragons was trying to appeal to the World of Warcraft fanbase – which was nonsense, of course; nearly all of the Fourth Edition’s allegedly MMO-like features were things that popular MMOs had borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons in the first place, and to the extent that tieflings’ new look resembled a particular WoW race, it was in that they were both extraordinarily generic.

In reality, it was a change that had been lurking for some time. Though Dungeons & Dragons is directly published by Wizards of the Coast, Wizards of the Coast is in turn owned by Hasbro, and Hasbro has long regarded the D&D core rulebooks as a vehicle for promoting D&D-branded merch – in particular, licensed miniature figures.

This was a bugbear that had reared its head before. When the Third Edition received major revisions in 2003, Hasbro corporate had ordered the game’s editors to completely remove any discussion of how to improvise minifigs for large battles, and replace it with an advertisement for the then-current Dungeons & Dragons Heroes product line. Implying that purchasing licensed minis wasn’t 100% mandatory simply would not do.

If you’ve gotten this far, you’ve probably already guessed where this is going: tieflings having no standard appearance made it difficult to sell tiefling minifigs, as any given minifig design would only be suitable for a small subset of tiefling characters. In the brutally reductive logic of the corporate mind, Hasbro reasoned: well, if we tell tiefling players that all of their characters now look the same, we can sell them all the same minifigs. So that’s what the game did, going so far as to write justifications into several published settings for magically transforming all existing tiefling characters to fit the new mould!

This worked about as well as anyone who isn’t a corporate drone would naturally anticipate – and that’s the story of how capitalism ruined tieflings.

Here’s that table, btw.  I really dig the art in the old Planescape books.

I already made a post talking about how varied Pathfinder allows/encourages Tieflings to be, but this seemed like a good excuse to just post a bunch of the official Tiefling art that really shows it off

There’s so much variety and flavor :D

@phantomtheraccoon

So that’s basically how it went down

I resent just how fucking accurate this shitpost is, congratulations OP, you effectively illustrated how Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection became accepted by the wider public using a FUCKING MUPPETS MEME, here is your A+, get the hell out of my office

unbelievable that its 4/20 and absolutely nobody has put the objectively best rage comic on my dash yet. i have to do everything around here

runner up

not a rage comic but this is a personal favorite

If it makes you feel better, I did cry a few times while drawing these

In all seriousness I can’t believe this podcast is over. I legit believe I haven’t drawn this much for any other fandom before and it’s definitely the first time I truly felt like part of one

I’m going to miss these characters so much

(tap on the pics for high quality and please do not repost without credit)

"I opened the door for you."

I don't think these lines are just about Jimbriel opening the literal bookshop door. They're more clues that, when 3.01 airs, it will not be Aziraphale who is in charge of Heaven-- it will be Michael.

chilchuck voice alcohol never killed anyone except my dad and that has nothing to do with me. i have no plans to change my lifestyle whatsoever

@nathanwpyle

I literally love this.

I couldn't stop laughing for 20 minutes.

No joke.

This has the same energy as a writer desperately trying to make their insanely cool but devastatingly off the wall plot point work with the rest of the story

I didn't know "Tims" was Chilchuck's last name. Thought it was just some shoe based in joke that I didn't understand.

What went through my head every time I read "Chilchuck Tims"

Average Canadian man

Average Canadian lesbian

aren't gorillas gentle giants or something. i stay out of his way, he doesn't maul me, we have a nice time picking out clothes together in opposite sides of the mall

Male gorillas are super aggressive and territorial. Also they interpret nearly every human mannerism as a sign of aggression or a challenge. Smiling and eye contact are both things that zookeepers have to be taught to suppress when they’re in the vicinity of gorillas.

Well unless the mall is his native territory I think I'm fine, I wasn't planning on smiling at him

This is all irrelevant because the obvious answer is five black mambas. I mean, that’s not actually very many snakes, and malls are fucking huge. And unlike a gorilla you can definitely outrun a snake if it does show up. Find an open space in the mall where you can see any snake coming and just hangout out there. Fucking easy.

Misguided! I would much rather have a mallmate I can easily see and hear coming. I'm confident I can stay out of the gorilla's way, but if I step on a snake or one otherwise gets the jump on me, it's all over.

It's not just about the physical danger either, it's about my mental health. One gorilla, unless he's actively mad at me, I just keep a healthy distance between us and make sure I never get trapped. With the snakes, it requires a lot more constant vigilance

They should substitute "chimpanzee" for "gorilla" in this hypothetical.

if it was a chimp i'm taking the fucking snakes

Black mambas have a reputation build on being very venomous and very fast. I'm not sure why you would think you could outrun one (or five) in an enclosed space like a mall.

Malls usually have pretty slick floors, and escalators. I’d choose the gorilla simply because I think that would make an more interesting story (and a better-selling autobiography, I Survived the Mall Gorilla) but I think I’d stand a pretty good chance at avoiding the mamba. They’re fast and aggressive and will chase you but unless we started immediately beside each other I think my sneakers would have the terrain advantage over scutes.

this is too good to leave hidden in the replies

fucking enamored with the implication that this gorilla is fully intelligent but is trying to manufacture plausible deniability like the movie barnyard

i literally feel like im going to be sick trying not to laugh at this at my desk like i feel faint

the smuckling smumbler

gonna be a big one under the cut

i am so sorry dungeon meshi fans but despite our best efforts i think in every modern/real life au chilchuck is always destined to look exactly like this