Sol St. John

aka Addley C. Fannin, attempting to be professional. Editor of TTRPGs at Paizo, writer of many things, aspiring comic book scribe, general nerd. If you knew this acount before Twitter died, no you didn't. 

[stjohnsol]

Since Twitter is dying and mastodon is set up in such a way that I can't really follow both my current line of employment (tabletop roleplaying games) and my aspirations for the future (novels, movies, and especially comic books) at the same time, figured it was about time to spruce up the old "primary" blog and make it a little more professional.

Hi. I'm Sol, short for Solomon St. John. If you knew me before the Twitter apocalypse, no you didn't.

[prokopetz]

Wait, so...Why DID 4E underperform? Or is that outside your expertise here? (No shame if so, you're a game designer, not a market analyst. You can tell by the having a soul).

(With reference to this post here.)

There were a couple of major factors in play there.

First, a big chunk of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition's popularity had come about due to robust third-party support, published under the auspices of Open Game License (OGL). Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, however, was not licensed under the OGL, being subject to a much more restrictive license imaginatively titled the Game System License, or GSL. Hasbro reportedly refused to negotiate with existing third-party publishers to get them on board with the GSL, or to offer transition support of any kind; instead, they simply demanded an immediate halt to the publication of all 3E material, and attempted to bludgeon publishers into compliance by threatening to yank their trademark authorisations (i.e., the agreements which allowed them to put the "D&D compatible" logo on the covers of their books).

Predictably, this approach was not well received. The largest of 3E's third-party supporters, Paizo Publishing (now Paizo Inc.), elected to produce their own game which was statblock-compatible with 3E in order to provide a venue for other publishers to continue producing OGL material; many of their peers decided to gamble on Paizo's plan rather than play ball with Hasbro, and this is how we got Pathfinder. Hasbro's behaviour thus caused D&D's third-party support to crater nearly to zero with the publication of 4E and created D&D's largest competitor.

Second, 4E was badly behind the curve on digital availability. Shortly before 4E was scheduled to drop, the digital masters (i.e., the files provided to printers in order to manufacture the books) were leaked on file sharing networks. Hasbro responded by panicking and ordering an immediate and indefinite halt to e-book publication of D&D material (in spite of the fact that the leak had demonstrably originated from their print production arm rather than their e-publishing arm), even going so far as to refuse to honour pre-orders for 4E's now cancelled e-book version.

Combined with a series of mismanagement-induced delays which caused 4E's virtual tabletop tools to miss the game's publication date entirely, and a decision to paywall what few first-party resources did manage to hit their target behind a monthly subscription, this resulted in 4E being available exclusively in print for the first two full years of its lifespan, at a time when D&D's competitors – including the aforementioned Pathfinder – were literally giving their core rules away in digital form for free.

As you say, I'm no market analyst, but I have a strong suspicion that "alienating practically all third-party publishers for a game line which was critically dependent on robust third-party support", "being the first edition of the game ever to face significant direct competition", and "making a game which dropped in the middle of the worst economic recession in thirty years available exclusively as an expensive printed set" resulted in the 4E stepping up to the plate with three strikes already against it. Add to that the almost comical ineptitude of Hasbro's advertising for 4E, and the usual drama of any major edition turnover, and... well.

[prokopetz]

"But what about the rules" sure, there were some issues with 4E's mechanics, but you need to understand that "4E underperformed because people hated the rules" isn't just a convenient narrative for edition-warring grognards; it's also a fiction which Hasbro itself has tacitly embraced, because the alternative is acknowledging that their publishing department repeatedly shit the bed on 4E's rollout.

[prokopetz]

@crashional-thinker replied:

this kind of thing sounds like something that would kill d&d as a franchise entirely with how badly hasbro fumbled it, so i'm surprised to see 5e not only still kicking, but also still the primary force to the point that people will say "homebrew 5e" for anything. what's up with that?

"Commercially underperformed" doesn't mean "failed". Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition was still the single best-selling tabletop RPG on the market every year of its lifespan. The idea that nobody bought it at all is another of those edition-warrior myths.

[unseenphil]

My understanding is that 4E also, by internal accounts, outsold 3E/3.5. The problem was that it didn't succeed -enough-, which is because WOTC was pushing to meet some Hasbro sales metric that they'd only managed with Magic previously. (While at the same time not allowing the Magic crossover that finally came to pass with 5E.)

[artbyblastweave]

Growing up I used to talk shop with my father about superheroes. He grew up in the 60s, and he watched the DCAU justice league cartoon with us when we were growing up. And one thing he mentioned stuck out to him was that in the 60s, basically everyone in the League was, in their solo books, The Hero. There was no speciation in personality because in the context of each individual solo book the speciation was between The Hero and whatever the personalities were amongst their supporting cast. His experience was that each of the headliners were just running HeroPersonality.exe, Flash was Green Lantern was Superman- and the consequence of putting all of them in an ensemble was, in his words, like having Six Supermen. He credited this with his shift towards Marvel, where he felt like there was more of a draw to seeing two different headliners teaming up with each other- it's not just going to be two Supermen in the room with each other, Spidey has a meaningfully different outlook from the Fantastic Four and so on. This was truthy, filtered through his perceptions of his own childhood, and now you're getting it third hand through my perceptions of my childhood- but, you know. I've read silver age stuff. This doesn't seem wrong.

Anyway, what this led into was his assessment of the DCAU justice league roster, where he said that it felt to him like they were doing the work to make sure that you couldn't just use these people interchangeably in each other's beats, giving them specific personality quirks that didn't map to anything he recalled reading their books growing up (pos). Which led into his assessment of the Flash, and how he could see the exact chain of logic that produced DCAU Flash's personality. Because if you need to create seven distinct personalities, probably you need one who's the dedicated comic relief. And if you need to solve the classic problem of preventing a guy with super speed from just immediately solving every single problem, the path of least resistance is to give that story-breaking power to a guy who is, if not God's Perfect Idiot, at least God's Perfect Selectively-Attentive Class Clown. In a vacuum the prospect of tripping a speedster is eye-roll-inducing. But it's at least emotionally plausible when someone manages to trip DCAU Wally West.

[pangur-and-grim]

@creekfiend was very kind in sharing some writing resources with me, and I thought I'd pass along the kindness by listing them down below.

N.K. Jemisin's article 'Describing characters of color in writing'

Mary Anne Mohanraj's article on approaching characters of colour

Renee Harleston's article How to 'Write Characters of Color Without Using Stereotypes'

Working with Colour, a resource site for writers

the book Writing the Other by by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward, which had a description that cut deep, because I've definitely fallen into this trap out of fear:

and then a video recommended by @sheprd (thank you!) about pitfalls in descriptive language

if anyone else has more resources to add, feel free to reblog with them! this is something I want to learn more about.

[sodomit]

Early for the trans day of visibility (which should be on March 31).

I always felt uncomfortable with the idea that I just have to be happy with swapping certain gendered characteristics for the "opposite" ones. I don't want to just look like a guy, I'm a very specific kind of a guy. And that is a reason to transition by itself. What I feel about my eye color, my bone structure, and other similar things, isn't less real than what I feel about gender. And it all ties into one.

If you have transition goals that aren't achievable by just going on HRT, that are considered unrealistic, you're not alone. Don't give up, don't settle, continue being you.

Future will bring change.

[aahsoup]

when a mutuals struggling but you know you can't say anything to help so you just like their post and hope they know they're not alone

[dragongirlteeth]

Some core principles I've been thinking about lately:

There are no ontologically evil people

People generally want to believe they are doing good

Under enough stress, anyone will act irrationally

When someone does something terrible, first try to look back and see "how did we get here"

[valtsv]

unfortunately i can never hate on a "power of friendship" narrative no matter how corny because the thing is it's literally real

[officialpaizo]

Step into the darkness...

[opossum-handz]

[knightofleo]

[herpsandbirds]

Common eider

[phynoma]

This needs to be immortalized because it's what made me turn on the sound. And they were right

[existennialmemes]

The crux of the anti trans movement is a war on bodily autonomy. They don't want you to have any agency over what you look like, how you dress, who you date, whether to have kids, etc.

They want total control over you. Not just trans people. Not just queer people. You. Everyone.

Trans people are just a scapegoat. They want total control over everyone's self expression. They want the right to mold you into their perfect little cog in their dehumanizing machine.

Happy Trans Day of Visibility. Our rights are your rights. Our destruction is your destruction.

[our-trans-punk-experience]

10/10 post bringing it back for 2026

[thatlittleegyptologist]

"Using an Oxford comma is a sign of AI"

bestie boo, let me fill you in on something: if you're going to take any part of 'good grammar' and randomly assign it to She's A Witch! AI, you might as well give up. It's over. You're cooked. Anyone who has spent the last decade or more learning to type properly, anyone who has spent any time writing articles/papers/essays that require you to use 'good grammar' is going to fall into that 'oh no it might be AI' trap.

Stop hunting like it's 1692. You're not going to find Goody Proctor at the ChatGPT sacrament. What you're going to do is exactly what happened back then: harming people who've done nothing wrong.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

a world without trans people has never existed and never will

prints

[sapph1cinspace]

@pride-knightess

[officialpaizo]

At Paizo, we're proud to celebrate the diverse members of our community, staff, and stories! Join Rue in today's blog and support Trans Day of Visibility! 

Read the blog!

[ulyssessimpsongrant]

My relationship with my country of birth, these United States, is complicated and messy especially in the year of our lord 2026 but honestly fuck everyone who’s trying to discourage the attempts at building a more perfect union.

[ulyssessimpsongrant]

That is the spirit. There are too many people who have in the past fought against insurmountable odds to try and see her to her potential and have made progress and we owe it to them and our neighbors and ourselves to keep moving forward too.

[saszor]

"Tutorial" on how to "draw" a blind OC.

My kofi

Boring tired disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is an introductory "drawing" "tutorial" and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. Which happens to be true for everything in general. Links below so that you can research and do a nuance. Ones that were directly mentioned are bolded.

Writing a blind character 101 What to avoid etc Video on types of white canes Video on types of cane tips Some more explanation on white canes + tips + other stuff Guide animals Video on working with a guide dog ↑ if you're doing a non-dog non-horse animal please still perceive those two links. A guide animal is not a GPS that tells you "left" or "right" (in fact, you're the one telling it which direction you want to go). So before giving them something weird check if it actually makes sense. You can make a fantasy animal that still makes sense I promise 🦮👍 But why are Magical White Eyes a problem Same as above Going blind from an accident Video on conformers World's most basic "what do you call someone with albinism" The blindfold thing. No people don't wear these. This mostly stupid trope of covering a blind character's eyes because lord forbid someone sees a disabled body part This just stupid trope of giving a blind character some bs superpower to "see" The echolocation thing that every other blind oc does for some reason Just give them a cane good lord if you want a character that can see perfectly then maybe don't make them blind Bonus: if your character has a bunch of scars or whatever else then congrats! You made a character with a facial difference. Which is also something you should research.