Garbage, and just a little creepy

Yes, the title of this post describes the latest Legends and Lore article by Monte Cook. You can tell that good ol' Monte is running out of steam for these articles because he tackles the all-important topic of attacks of opportunity. I might have to clarify myself a bit for some readers (though none of the OSR crowd, I imagine), because they might say "I can't tell if Orion is being serious or not, because attacks of opportunity are a hotly debated and contentious topic in many of the forums, and thus warrant being tackled as an important topic."

I'm going to lay this flat out for you: attacks of opportunity are bullshit, and if you catch yourself arguing on the wrong end of them, you're in a bullshit argument. There is only one right answer in a debate about attacks of opportunity: the answer is that they are bullshit and unworthy of consideration. But then one might say, "But Orion, that is a slippery slope. If you say attacks of opportunity are unworthy of consideration, how much longer until we declare all topics unworthy of consideration in a debate about RPGs?" I'd expect that kind of pedantry from the cretins at the WotC site, to which my answer is: no, all other topics are fine to debate and are worthy of debate, but attacks of opportunity are bullshit. If you need help because you forgot for some reason, remember this mantra: attacks of opportunity are bullshit.

This is the situation as I see it: If you need more than a paragraph in your fantasy role-playing game to describe the situations in which I get to make a free attacks against someone who lowers their defense, then you're fucking fail. All things being equal, I can pretty well imagine that none of us are hardcore sellswords from a fantasy faux-medieval world who know the intricacies of personal combat, so I think it's okay if the Dungeon Master makes the decisions about when free attacks happen during combat. None of us are a part of ARMA or participate in realistic battles like in the SCA. Unless you're Jake Norwood, in which case you owe me a refund for my copy of The Riddle of Steel. Or take that money and hire a cover artist who can articulate an arm correctly.

Does anyone else get the impression that Monte Cook is slowly realizing through his column that maybe, just maybe, perhaps players don't want to be kicked in the face by a fuckload of rules from the get go? You have to remember, this is the assclown who wrote 3rd edition, which in many ways is an homage to the glorious gilded lead era of complex RPGs. For chrissakes, this guy worked on Rolemaster. For him, rules are just one big glorious sausage that he gets off on shoving down your throat inch by inch.

If there isn't an intended rape joke in this picture then I will eat my hat.

AND WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? For fuck sakes, why? Why? Wizards of the Coast has relationships with artists. Who produce decent art. What the fuck is this? Who made this? Why this caption? I just ... I am at a loss of words. Is this funny to someone? This is like the humor used by conservative religious people; funny enough to elicit a chuckle, because anything more would send you to hell.

For fucks sakes, I expected filler art, but did you have to use this one? With that caption? I bet the cretins at the WotC are eating this one up. "Huh huh huh attackaberry pie. I'm going to use that at the table in my next session." Settle down Beavis. God, now I'd give anything for a string of Monty Python references. Okay, fuck that, I take it back, that's too much; I'll settle for someone telling me about a video on youtube about a kitten. But it better be a cute kitten or I won't give a fuck.