Counterpoint: rolling for stats was never broken. If it were, then handing out a lot of valuable items would be broken too. Or tailoring adventures to the PCs' strengths (regardless of stats). Or letting the players be creative with their solutions to various challenges. Or playing a game with minimal dice rolling in the first place. Or being very generous with rest opportunities. Et cetera.
Stats are stats. They're only part of the equation. To break the equation you need to look at much more than just "high stats".
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Half-elves with a class they're well-suited to are cheesy, except when you have a 'compelling' reason for the combo. Halflings with a class they're well-suited to is just a natural combination. I'm almost moved to ask for a list of all races and which classes are cheesy for them and which are natural and thus acceptable. Almost.
Actually, I am considering removing Half-Elves as an player option in my game. The species stat bloc is tremendously versatile, too much so.
I think the demonization of power gaming and exaltation of role-playing is just down right stupid. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. The soul of D&D is fun, and that is the primary intent of the designers. Lore, tradition, flavor, and role-playing are just optional fluff and not at all essential to D&D. As much as some people may hate it, D&D can also be murder hoboing and pure dungeon crawling without any sort of story or roleplay. You might not find optimization nor power gaming essential at your table, but others do. I like to speak through my NPCs and use fun voices, but I do not expect my players to do the same. If "I deal 5 damage.", "I need healing.", "Dude, go that way so I can flank.", "I persuade this NPC with my side of the story", and so on are good enough for my players, it is good enough for me. If my players are not having fun, I am not having fun. If role-playing is not fun, I am not going to force my players to do something not fun.
There is already more than enough lore, tradition, and flavor to satisfy traditionalist old timers and allow them to have fun, and they have at least four entire editions of D&D to draw from to supplement their 5e games. Wizards trying to attract new players with one book is not the end of the world. And if anything, custom ASIs allows for better role-playing and fitting into stereotypes. It is optional too, so you do not have to use it. Saying that custom ASIs are purely for power gaming is bull shit. Stop cock blocking our fun, shut up, and move on.
This paranoia over power gaming is no different from the paranoia over D&D being a vehicle for Satanism, and this wholesale persecution and demonization of power gamers is unwarranted. You do not want to hear about how D&D is going to send you to hell and damn your soul to eternity? Good. Cause we do not want to hear about how horrible and terrifying these boogeymen called power gamers, optimizers, and min-maxers are. Just based on my two years of experience on this forum, I find hard core role-players on here to be far more unpleasant than any power gamer. There is already one person giving roleplayers a bad rep, and we do not need more people to contribute to the stereotype that all hard core roleplayers are toxic snobby snowflakes who cannot get over one OPTIONAL rule, let alone one book.
As for political correctness, political silence and political correctness are two sides of the same coin. If you want Wizards to be politically silent, then vote with your wallets and convince Wizards to hold their tongue.
This has gotten me thinking about these races how to keep dwarves as dwarves but allow Tashas in game. Example Bob the Mountain Dwarf normally has +2 STR/CON but he is making a Wizard so moves the +2 STR to INT, but in my game a Mountain Dwarf could get a 22 STR/CON without magic Bob the mountain dwarf wizard cannot get a 22 INT but can get a 22 STR/CON if he spent his class ASI's if he wanted. This is still rough draft mind you but this would I'm thinking keeping the races natural class bases a primary choice for the player that wants a mountain dwarf fighter or barbarian, or the halfling/elven rogue and so on.
Half-elves with a class they're well-suited to are cheesy, except when you have a 'compelling' reason for the combo. Halflings with a class they're well-suited to is just a natural combination. I'm almost moved to ask for a list of all races and which classes are cheesy for them and which are natural and thus acceptable. Almost.
Actually, I am considering removing Half-Elves as an player option in my game. The species stat bloc is tremendously versatile, too much so.
You do you, though compared to humans or the entirety of elven subraces I don't really see a leap in versatility. Moreover, there's the entirety of the humanoid race catalog to begin with, as well as the depth of backgrounds available. Is it really a problem if one or several races are versatile?
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Half-elves with a class they're well-suited to are cheesy, except when you have a 'compelling' reason for the combo. Halflings with a class they're well-suited to is just a natural combination. I'm almost moved to ask for a list of all races and which classes are cheesy for them and which are natural and thus acceptable. Almost.
Actually, I am considering removing Half-Elves as an player option in my game. The species stat bloc is tremendously versatile, too much so.
You do you, though compared to humans or the entirety of elven subraces I don't really see a leap in versatility. Moreover, there's the entirety of the humanoid race catalog to begin with, as well as the depth of backgrounds available. Is it really a problem if one or several races are versatile?
I like challenges in characters. I try to sort out my stat bloc for quite some time before committing to it, because I use the 27 point buy system. I typically have the ASI's lined up to level 12, though it is relatively rare for a campaign to get that far. And the half-elf sub-species is just too good for challenges. My Halfling Scout has a big problem since he has no Darkvision, and players don't buy items from a magic supermarket in campaigns I play in, so no Goggles of Night. But Half-Elves have it all. They get the virtually all the good stuff of the Elf species, plus the versatility of a Human Variant. It is tough to make a char with actual physical limits if it is a Half-Elf.
Anyone can RP flaws, but that is not what I am talking about. And I have found that RP is not totally my thing. I can do it, and do it better than many. But it always always always slows down the progression in a game. Plus it is selfish, as a player, or subset of the group, hogs the precious game time. So yeah, creating challenges within the char stat bloc that are inherent is what I like to do. And as a DM, that translates me into limiting the players' options. And before anyone says "well, just give your char a 16 in Str even though you won't use it", that is not what I mean by stat bloc challenges. The remnants of the min-maxer in me won't allow that.
So in answer to your question, yeah, I do think it is a problem when species are too versatile. And the abomination that shall not be named makes that so much worse.
So yeah, creating challenges within the char stat bloc that are inherent is what I like to do. And as a DM, that translates me into limiting the players' options.
That’s not really a logical progression. You’re limiting your players’ options because of something you “like to do”. I don’t have a problem with that - your table, your rules - but being incongruous with your personal preference doesn’t make something a problem. I don’t like non-randomized statline generation methods for instance, but that doesn’t make point-buy problematic.
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Save yourself the effort, Ken. Dozens of people have tried to 'win' this argument. Nobody's ever made a dent. Nobody ever will. Some folks are just convinced that other folks need to be punished for their harmless game preferences and will never believe otherwise.
Frankly, I only posted above because there was an hour and a half break between when I started and when I clicked Submit because of work stuff and I didn't see that this thread had dipped into the whole "Tasha's Cauldron has RUINED D&D FOREVER!!!1!" nonsense again. I thought we were still talking about stats. Silly me.
And some folks are convinced that other folks need to be punished for their concept that D&D is a set of rules, and should be challenging, and players don't need I-win buttons.
How is this an 'I win' button? Is a half elf paladin an I win button? Is an elf rogue an 'I win' button? How are the race/class combos that already have ASIs in their main stats not I win buttons/broken but it's suddenly broken if a half elf can get +2 DEX instead?
I for one do believe that playing a Half-Elf Paladin is indeed cheesy unless you have a compelling reason to play one. And yeah, one of my chars is indeed a Half-Elf Paladin, and I have to keep creating self-imposed limitations on that char because it is an I-win button. And that is where I am actually playing within the traditional rules of 5e.
I am also playing a Stout Halfling Scout Rogue, because it is a natural role for that species, and I am having a blast with that char.
So you are basically playing with the kind of character you complain about, but you can't accept that other people do the same thing? Just checking to see that I got it right.
I don't think TCoE is "a power gamer's paradise" at all. I think the system TCoE had is actually a great way to roleplay more. Example: A half-orc wizard with +2 to INT decided to focus on learning instead of becoming more strong, and that's how they are a good wizard.
I think you might have replied to the wrong person's message. Or was it something in particular about my last statement you wanted to comment on? :)
I think the demonization of power gaming and exaltation of role-playing is just down right stupid. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. The soul of D&D is fun, and that is the primary intent of the designers. Lore, tradition, flavor, and role-playing are just optional fluff and not at all essential to D&D.
I'm sorry, but the designers, in their own words, beg to differ:
"To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game."
"Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. "
This is the intent of the game, as stated. Now, it's a credit to generations of designers that they have created something which is much wider than that. But it is at its very definition, a roleplaying game, not a powergaming game.
You are making the assumption there that powergamers don't do that, which I don't think you legitimately can. I know people who powergame/min-max/etc who also put a lot of time and effort into role playing, character backstories etc. Trying to build the most powerful example of a particular character you can within the rules provided does not preclude "collaborative creation" or creating "epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama".
I'm sorry, but in that cas, how are you managing cultures and other racial effects in your game ? If you apply a drow priestess statblock to orcs and kuo-toa, do these get "Fey Ancestry" and "Innate Spellcasting" ?
I make my own unique cultures for each race that has nothing to do with prewritten cultures. In my homebrew setting, a lot of races are just magical permutations of other races (I don't feel like getting into specifics here so if you want to know what I mean by that, just DM me lol). As for features like innate spell casting, The players have no way of knowing what traits the stat-block has. so when my Kuo-Toa uses Faerie Fire from the drow priestess statblock (or whatever spells it has innately), to the players, it just KNOWS the spell fairy fire. They have no way of knowing it was written as "innate Spell casting" Same as fey ancestry. If they notice they have a hard time charming it or sleeping it, then they should investigate that phenomenon IN GAME. Maybe it had an enchantment on it protecting it? Maybe that Kuo-Toa was blessed by a god at birth?
Regardless, lets say that I didn't want to invent a lore reason for that particular Kuo-Toa to have the EFFECTS of fey ancestry (whether its called that or not) Then i simply wouldn't pick that stat block.
The way I build encounters ISN'T looking through the monster manual, picking something and saying "lets make a story around this"
Its more like "I want them to fight Jim the goblin who was cursed to constantly radiate an aura of fear and can blast necrotic energy from his hands." Then I filter DnD monsters by appropriate CR, and pick something that can do something similar with a bit of reskinning. Such as a Black Dragon, reskin acid damage as necrotic and then just say its a goblin.
This is absolutely fine, the remaining question that I have is why you needed Tasha's to do this ? If you wanted an orc past his prime and therefore not with an extremely high strength, you could just have applied a lower stat to strength up front, so that the +2 would not have changed it much. So why did you need an 18 in Charisma ? Knowing that, in any case, you could have allocated further ASIs to that stat in terms of further character development ?
Please remember, this is not to criticise or challenge, but to understand, my point being that if technical optimisation wasn't your aim, you could have had an extremely satisfying stats array without using Tasha's by just allocating stats differently, you see ?
Obviously I didn't NEED Tasha's stats to make Boris a high charisma fighter. But with point buy, the max of 15 didn't sit right with me. A +2 CHA isn't a pillar of the community, but a +4 CHA? That level of diplomacy is what I wanted for him. I didn't want "he's still a fighter with an slightly higher charisma to be different" I wanted "He's a charasmatic, kind old man who still has a bit of the old fighter training in him.
In fact, Boris was actually made BEFORE tasha's came out! I was making him talking it out with my DM and I remember saying "It doesn't feel right that I get this +2 to strength. He's out of practice and I want that to be felt so can we move that to CHA instead?
Yes I could have set his STR to 13 and let the +2 change it to a 15, and set the CHA to 15 and used ASI's as I leveled. But the other stats would be affected by that too and that wouldn't be the character I wanted to create. And ultimately, that's what Tasha's is about, being able to build a character you want without having to worry too much about locked ASI's
I think the demonization of power gaming and exaltation of role-playing is just down right stupid. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. The soul of D&D is fun, and that is the primary intent of the designers. Lore, tradition, flavor, and role-playing are just optional fluff and not at all essential to D&D.
I'm sorry, but the designers, in their own words, beg to differ:
"To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game."
"Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. "
This is the intent of the game, as stated. Now, it's a credit to generations of designers that they have created something which is much wider than that. But it is at its very definition, a roleplaying game, not a powergaming game.
I don't begrudge anyone the right to play the way they want, but how many stories do we get here of people abusing their roleplaying compared to the number of stories about rules lawyers ruining games and powergamers causing trouble at their table ?
So powergame all you want, just don't impose it on other players, don't claim that it's the only way to play and that characters not optimised are stupid. And I'm not saying that for you personally, but it's a constant of all the "guides" and advice given on players who sometimes feel it's more important to have a technically good character than a good story.
As much as some people may hate it, D&D can also be murder hoboing and pure dungeon crawling without any sort of story or roleplay. You might not find optimization nor power gaming essential at your table, but others do. I like to speak through my NPCs and use fun voices, but I do not expect my players to do the same. If "I deal 5 damage.", "I need healing.", "Dude, go that way so I can flank.", "I persuade this NPC with my side of the story", and so on are good enough for my players, it is good enough for me. If my players are not having fun, I am not having fun. If role-playing is not fun, I am not going to force my players to do something not fun.
There is already more than enough lore, tradition, and flavor to satisfy traditionalist old timers and allow them to have fun, and they have at least four entire editions of D&D to draw from to supplement their 5e games. Wizards trying to attract new players with one book is not the end of the world. And if anything, custom ASIs allows for better role-playing and fitting into stereotypes. It is optional too, so you do not have to use it. Saying that custom ASIs are purely for power gaming is bull shit. Stop cock blocking our fun, shut up, and move on.
You know what, once more, if that's the way you want to play the game, that's fine, especially because you are honest about it. You want more powerful characters, please be my guest, they are not at my table, so I don't really care, and I'm not blocking anyone. What I have more trouble with is the hypocrisy of some people (not you) claiming that they do this for noble reasons when, in fact, all they want to do is powergame, that's all.
Role playing games do not need role playing at all. Just as D&D does not need the rules, D&D also does not need roleplaying. RPG is a misnomer, but the name stuck. Businesses have nothing to do with being busy, it is just that running most businesses often entails being busy, but not all businesses are busy.
Those two points you mentioned ultimately boils down to having fun. And roleplaying is definitely not inherently fun.
Murder hobo and looting dungeons are fine enough for some groups and campaigns, and that is epic enough for them and that is all the story they need. Not once did the designers specifically define what tension and drama are and where it has to be from. For some groups, tension and drama from physical conflict is all they want. For them, roleplaying is boring, stupid, and slows the game down, and they see roleplaying as killing tension and conflict. D&D started out as miniature wargame and got fluff tacked on later, and some people saw it that way and still see it that way. I would not want to join nor GM a murder hobo campaign, but I am not going to constantly spew hate and contempt on that play style.
And there is a noble reason to for wanting get rid of static racial ASIs: combatting racism. You might not see it as noble, but to them it is. It is easy for you to say that racism in D&D does not reflect any real world races, but when the description for orcs is exactly how the far-right terrorists describe an entire real life ethnic group, that is a problem. If you do not like real life politics in D&D, you can also choose to ignore it. Murder hobos and dungeon looters have ignored story and lore for years, and they do not seem to make a big fuss about it. It is pretty easy to just cut the story and lore out to focus on combat, just as it is pretty easy to just not buy TCOE and ban politics from your table.
DnD 5e works really really really well as a Dungeon Crawl simulator though with the base rule set. The nice thing is that you can add/remove crunch at your leisure to fit playstyle.
5e is designed to be versatile and offer a lot of different ways to play. That's why its so popular because you can do what you want with it.
For me the problem with rolling for stats is not that people are powerful....that is easy to accommodate for as others have alluded to. The problem with rolling for stats is the differences in power that can happen between players. Its easy to change a game for a group that is more or less the same but trying to do so for a group with variant power levels just feels like more work than it is worth IMO.
I'm sorry, but in that cas, how are you managing cultures and other racial effects in your game ? If you apply a drow priestess statblock to orcs and kuo-toa, do these get "Fey Ancestry" and "Innate Spellcasting" ?
I make my own unique cultures for each race that has nothing to do with prewritten cultures. In my homebrew setting, a lot of races are just magical permutations of other races (I don't feel like getting into specifics here so if you want to know what I mean by that, just DM me lol). As for features like innate spell casting, The players have no way of knowing what traits the stat-block has. so when my Kuo-Toa uses Faerie Fire from the drow priestess statblock (or whatever spells it has innately), to the players, it just KNOWS the spell fairy fire. They have no way of knowing it was written as "innate Spell casting" Same as fey ancestry. If they notice they have a hard time charming it or sleeping it, then they should investigate that phenomenon IN GAME. Maybe it had an enchantment on it protecting it? Maybe that Kuo-Toa was blessed by a god at birth?
Regardless, lets say that I didn't want to invent a lore reason for that particular Kuo-Toa to have the EFFECTS of fey ancestry (whether its called that or not) Then i simply wouldn't pick that stat block.
The way I build encounters ISN'T looking through the monster manual, picking something and saying "lets make a story around this"
Its more like "I want them to fight Jim the goblin who was cursed to constantly radiate an aura of fear and can blast necrotic energy from his hands." Then I filter DnD monsters by appropriate CR, and pick something that can do something similar with a bit of reskinning. Such as a Black Dragon, reskin acid damage as necrotic and then just say its a goblin.
OK, you've invented all your races and culture, which is fine, what was your driver in doing this ?
This is absolutely fine, the remaining question that I have is why you needed Tasha's to do this ? If you wanted an orc past his prime and therefore not with an extremely high strength, you could just have applied a lower stat to strength up front, so that the +2 would not have changed it much. So why did you need an 18 in Charisma ? Knowing that, in any case, you could have allocated further ASIs to that stat in terms of further character development ?
Please remember, this is not to criticise or challenge, but to understand, my point being that if technical optimisation wasn't your aim, you could have had an extremely satisfying stats array without using Tasha's by just allocating stats differently, you see ?
Obviously I didn't NEED Tasha's stats to make Boris a high charisma fighter. But with point buy, the max of 15 didn't sit right with me. A +2 CHA isn't a pillar of the community, but a +4 CHA? That level of diplomacy is what I wanted for him. I didn't want "he's still a fighter with an slightly higher charisma to be different" I wanted "He's a charasmatic, kind old man who still has a bit of the old fighter training in him.
In fact, Boris was actually made BEFORE tasha's came out! I was making him talking it out with my DM and I remember saying "It doesn't feel right that I get this +2 to strength. He's out of practice and I want that to be felt so can we move that to CHA instead?
Yes I could have set his STR to 13 and let the +2 change it to a 15, and set the CHA to 15 and used ASI's as I leveled. But the other stats would be affected by that too and that wouldn't be the character I wanted to create. And ultimately, that's what Tasha's is about, being able to build a character you want without having to worry too much about locked ASI's
All of that is fine, but I hope that we can agree that, in the end, it's all about what you think the numbers represent and getting some technical power out of it. Because, as the game represents it, a score of 15 for charisma would already have been extremely high. Very possibly the highest in the group, and even if it wasn't, would that have been a problem ? Why the need to compare to a potential DC that would be easier to match with and 18 than a 15 (or you could have gone point buy and gotten a 16 and have honestly very little difference, a +1 is not statistically going to make any difference over the very few checks that you're going to make in each adventure) ? Why the need to compare with a potential other party members, who does not have the same personality or approach to problems, or even the same skills ?
And, even more importantly in terms of character development (which for me one of the core hallmark of a true roleplaying), the fact that, as the levels go up, the stat goes up as well, making the character more distinctive with every story told ? Starting with an 18, you have almost no potential to grow.
So you see, I'm still struggling to understand why, if it's not about the power and the technical bonus, you absolutely needed to have an 18 in that stat.
Why not?
Seriously is there one reason why they shouldn't get a choice to make that the characters defining stat?
All of that is fine, but I hope that we can agree that, in the end, it's all about what you think the numbers represent and getting some technical power out of it. Because, as the game represents it, a score of 15 for charisma would already have been extremely high. Very possibly the highest in the group, and even if it wasn't, would that have been a problem ? Why the need to compare to a potential DC that would be easier to match with and 18 than a 15 (or you could have gone point buy and gotten a 16 and have honestly very little difference, a +1 is not statistically going to make any difference over the very few checks that you're going to make in each adventure) ? Why the need to compare with a potential other party members, who does not have the same personality or approach to problems, or even the same skills ?
And, even more importantly in terms of character development (which for me one of the core hallmark of a true roleplaying), the fact that, as the levels go up, the stat goes up as well, making the character more distinctive with every story told ? Starting with an 18, you have almost no potential to grow.
So you see, I'm still struggling to understand why, if it's not about the power and the technical bonus, you absolutely needed to have an 18 in that stat.
Well with that logic every stat above 15 is power gaming??
ALL ability scores have some king of technical bonus and power. And those scores go up to 20.
If I were to make a Gnome Barbarian and switched its innate INT bonus to STR, you would accuse me of power gaming and "only choosing it for the mechanics"
So I gave you the example of my melee fighter who I chose to emphasize CHA with for RP rather than mechanics and you said "you don't need it to be high unless you're only choosing it for the mechanics"
So what WOULD be an acceptable example of a low level character with an ability over 15? If your answer is "a character with innate ability scores who picked a class to match" Then I don't really see a difference?
OK, you've invented all your races and culture, which is fine, what was your driver in doing this ?
4 things:
1. I didn't want to enforce old fantasy cliche's (dumb tribal orcs, ethereal dainty elves, evil conniving drow etc) If thats the setting you want to play in to have that "classic fantasy" feel fine, but I didn't want to run that world
2. More freedom for me as a DM and more unique encounters for my players. To my veteran DND players who have "seen it all" its refreshing to fight creatures and NPC's they haven't seen before
3. Its fun?
Distant 4: Eliminate metagame knowledge. This goes with #2. Most of my players also own the Monster Manual + extras so they have SEEN every monster and premade npc stat. So to keep them on their toes, I reskin everything to match what I want (method described in previous post)
DnD 5e works really really really well as a Dungeon Crawl simulator though with the base rule set.
Are you really sure about this ? Can I quote this every time you or someone else will claim "the rules are crap and the game developers are lazy b...ds" ?
I'm teasing you here, but IMNSHO and with a high experience of every version the game, 5e is probably one of the worst editions to play a dungeon crawl simulation. The rules are too fuzzy for this, in particular the game is designed for Theater of the Mind, not for gridded maps, and the rules for gridded maps are (on purpose) an underdeveloped option at best. It would be much better using 4e where the environment is much more controlled and where it's easier to get people on the same page.
Again, I'm not saying "please leave my 5e as it is, here", but very technically this is simply true.
The nice thing is that you can add/remove crunch at your leisure to fit playstyle.
5e is designed to be versatile and offer a lot of different ways to play. That's why its so popular because you can do what you want with it.
For me the problem with rolling for stats is not that people are powerful....that is easy to accommodate for as others have alluded to. The problem with rolling for stats is the differences in power that can happen between players. Its easy to change a game for a group that is more or less the same but trying to do so for a group with variant power levels just feels like more work than it is worth IMO.
It's true, but it's a little bit more than this. 5e was designed with a specific intent in mind. Because, as you say, it's versatile, it's fine to deviate quite a bit from it. But every time you deviate, you stretch a bit more things in a direction that it was not meant for and you get to the limits of the system.
Case in point, this thread, which is about what happens when you cumulate two changes that go in the same direction and cause side effects to the game. Some people (in particular the OP) call it broken. Maybe it's a bit much, but one thing is sure, that these deviations require adjustment from a common baseline, one which is already fuzzy, and the more you stretch the more adjustments you need, and the more you need to work to make it work. Depending on what you want to do, it might be better to switch vehicles. My favourite allegory is the ferrari, ti runs really fast, but if you burden it by tons of custom mods to make it more robust in lots of cases, well, in the end, you don't have a ferrari, but you don't have a Toyota either, you have that kind of hybrid which is just clunky and does not serve any purpose that well...
Just because I think they did a bad job on SOME rules doesn't mean I think they did a bad job on ALL the rules.
In fact the rules that are more air tight in what they do but are simple mechanically ( Help = ADV ) are great!
Its the rules that are for some reason purposefully vague or just poorly written (see illusion spells, wall of force, obscurement and targeting, etc...) that tried to use natural language to make things easier just made things worse.
About 70% of the rules are tight enough that you can fully make a dungeon crawl with 6-8 encounters work perfectly and balance the mechanics perfectly....but no one plays it like that.
Also since hardly anyone gets to late level play the T3 and T4 stuff gets nutty and hard to balance as a DM. The game has a sweet spot and its levels 5-10. If you play there and use a consistent rule base and remove some problematic elements (Conjure Spells, Animate Objects) and have clear rules on the murky grey that exists due to the failed natural language approach then its a near perfect system for running a dungeon crawl.
Some folks on this forum are a fan of a concept I've termed the Bohemian Failure Monkey, LeBattery.
They actively avoid any stat higher than a 13, they never make their chosen classes' core stat(s) their highest stat - in point of fact, many Bohemian Failure Monkeys take pride in making their core stat their lowest number - and they avoid putting any of their skill proficiency allocations in places the campaign is likely to make use of. None of them allocate proficiency in any of the 'common' skills, i.e. Perception, Stealth, Athletics, etc. They use the 'wrong' weapon, the 'wrong' armor, the 'wrong' spells, the 'wrong' feats, and every single time they can set up a clash between the rules, self-sabotage their adventurer and find a way for their character to work against itself, they take it with relish.
In effect, they're actively trying to make the worst possible character they can without quite slipping into active parody of the game, because to a Bohemian Failure Monkey player, failure is the end goal. They want to suck, they want to fail, they want to watch the game death-spiral into disaster after disaster before finally collapsing into abject and irrevocable failure without ever achieving a single meaningful victory. They see failure as more rewarding, more artistic, and more narratively fulfilling than success, usually accompanied by some version of the statement "Nobody ever read a story about a character who decided to do a thing, went out, did the thing, and went home without any problems!" Bohemian Failure Monkeys fetishize failure the way munchkins fetishize combat power and success in battle, seeing a 'story' where the party stumbles from cluster**** to cluster**** only just barely scraping through with their lives while making everything worse everywhere they end up as a True Tale of Flawed Heroism.
Now, if that's the way an entire table wants to play? Absolutely. Play your D&D and enjoy, folks. But Bohemian Failure Monkey characters have absolutely no place at any other table because of the fundamental clash in goals - the BFM wants to fail, as completely and spectacularly as possible, and will actively sabotage the party's chances for victory. Which tends to piss off players who are pursuing success instead at breathtaking speeds, and usually ends up with the BFM killed in its sleep and/or the player ejected from the table.
It doesn't really have anything to do with stats. Not really. Stats are just a convenient club BFM players use to beat on players who don't follow that mode of play, accusing them of being soulless art-hating story-killing munchkins and various other versions of Bad Naughty Success Wanter.
You just have to learn how to spot a Bohemian Failure Monkey and recognize that's what you're talking to. Once you do, all the outlandish weird junk they say starts making perfect sense and you can calibrate your arguments accordingly.
On a tangential note: I like that set-up for your half-orc. A warrior who's already seen his share of war and more, who decided to make himself a better person - only to get dragged back into the fray when the world decided to threaten he and his once more. That's the proper way to do a Retired Badass, methinks. Good work.
While I'm not sure if all arguers against Tasha's are BFMs, there certainly are PLENTY of them!
I love this term btw, and will be using it from now on xD
And thanks! Boris is my favorite character I've played yet! He has been described out of game as "The only thing holding the party's morals together" and "The group grandpa" lol
Not everyone who argues their dislike of Tasha's Cauldron is a Bohemian Failure Monkey, no. Hell, not everyone who argues against the book is doing so from a position of bitterness and bad faith, either. There's plenty not to like in Tasha's Cauldron - I myself hold that the book is a slipshod, poorly-edited pile of nonsense Wizards crapped out with minimal possible effort just to punch up sales numbers, and the damned of it is that it worked like a charm. Everybody here owns it, whether they like it or not.
But other people are absolutely arguing from a position of bitterness and bad faith, and those folks are getting real tiresome to listen to. Pay them no heed. Boris is fine, there's no need to feel bad or like you're D&Ding wrong with him. Heh, frankly there's a lot of adventuring parties out there that could use a good, solid grandpa.
I think the demonization of power gaming and exaltation of role-playing is just down right stupid. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. The soul of D&D is fun, and that is the primary intent of the designers. Lore, tradition, flavor, and role-playing are just optional fluff and not at all essential to D&D.
I'm sorry, but the designers, in their own words, beg to differ:
"To play D&D, and to play it well, you don’t need to read all the rules, memorize every detail of the game, or master the fine art of rolling funny looking dice. None of those things have any bearing on what’s best about the game."
"Playing D&D is an exercise in collaborative creation. You and your friends create epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama. "
This is the intent of the game, as stated. Now, it's a credit to generations of designers that they have created something which is much wider than that. But it is at its very definition, a roleplaying game, not a powergaming game.
I don't begrudge anyone the right to play the way they want, but how many stories do we get here of people abusing their roleplaying compared to the number of stories about rules lawyers ruining games and powergamers causing trouble at their table ?
So powergame all you want, just don't impose it on other players, don't claim that it's the only way to play and that characters not optimised are stupid. And I'm not saying that for you personally, but it's a constant of all the "guides" and advice given on players who sometimes feel it's more important to have a technically good character than a good story.
As much as some people may hate it, D&D can also be murder hoboing and pure dungeon crawling without any sort of story or roleplay. You might not find optimization nor power gaming essential at your table, but others do. I like to speak through my NPCs and use fun voices, but I do not expect my players to do the same. If "I deal 5 damage.", "I need healing.", "Dude, go that way so I can flank.", "I persuade this NPC with my side of the story", and so on are good enough for my players, it is good enough for me. If my players are not having fun, I am not having fun. If role-playing is not fun, I am not going to force my players to do something not fun.
There is already more than enough lore, tradition, and flavor to satisfy traditionalist old timers and allow them to have fun, and they have at least four entire editions of D&D to draw from to supplement their 5e games. Wizards trying to attract new players with one book is not the end of the world. And if anything, custom ASIs allows for better role-playing and fitting into stereotypes. It is optional too, so you do not have to use it. Saying that custom ASIs are purely for power gaming is bull shit. Stop cock blocking our fun, shut up, and move on.
You know what, once more, if that's the way you want to play the game, that's fine, especially because you are honest about it. You want more powerful characters, please be my guest, they are not at my table, so I don't really care, and I'm not blocking anyone. What I have more trouble with is the hypocrisy of some people (not you) claiming that they do this for noble reasons when, in fact, all they want to do is powergame, that's all.
Role playing games do not need role playing at all.
Honestly... Just because you use the rules of an RPG to play something else does not mean that it was not an RPG to start with.
I am not playing something else. And neither are murder hobos and dungeon crawlers. We are all playing D&D. D&D is not something so narrowly defined to be primarily about telling stories. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. You do not get to decide what we play is or is not D&D. If anything, the other side could just as easily claim that all this emphasis on storytelling and roleplaying is polluting the true essence of D&D, which is a miniatures wargame. It is a distraction to the action and combat.
Just as D&D does not need the rules, D&D also does not need roleplaying. RPG is a misnomer, but the name stuck. Businesses have nothing to do with being busy, it is just that running most businesses often entails being busy, but not all businesses are busy.
Those two points you mentioned ultimately boils down to having fun. And roleplaying is definitely not inherently fun.
Actually no, they don't. Really. If you have fun by using just the rules to play an adventure game, that's fine too. But this is NOT what the designers said about the intent of the game, extremely clearly. Again, just read the first sentence of the introduction: "The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytellingin worlds of swords and sorcery." The very first sentence says it all.
Again, killing everything in sight is a good enough story for some people. We might not enjoy telling stories where it is simply serial killers going a rampage, but some do. It is not our place to draw a line in the sand and say what constitutes a story and what does not. That is for the table to decide during session zero.
Murder hobo and looting dungeons are fine enough for some groups and campaigns, and that is epic enough for them and that is all the story they need. Not once did the designers specifically define what tension and drama are and where it has to be from. For some groups, tension and drama from physical conflict is all they want. For them, roleplaying is boring, stupid, and slows the game down, and they see roleplaying as killing tension and conflict. D&D started out as miniature wargame and got fluff tacked on later, and some people saw it that way and still see it that way. I would not want to join nor GM a murder hobo campaign, but I am not going to constantly spew hate and contempt on that play style.
And neither am I. The only thing I object to, actually is people trying to force these things into a very rich roleplaying game, and telling people that only some combinations of race and class are acceptable to play because the others are "poor" or "stupid" and that the players must be stupid to want to play them that way. And still, after closing off 90% of the available options as sub-standard, still complain that WotC are lazy for not implementing more options, so they can do that process again and throw in the bin previously acceptable builds because they are now sub-standard. This is what ruined 3e and pathfinder.
Not to mention the rules lawyering induced, because honestly, is there anyone to defend that ?
There are ******** who try to enforce optimization on others when optimization is not what others care about. And there are also ******** who enforce roleplaying on others when others do not care about roleplay, or more specifically, be forced to adhere the *******'s very narrow view of role play.
Rules lawyering is a problem, but roleplay lawyering seems like a far bigger problem on here. People have different ideas of what roleplaying is, and for many people, having custom ASIs fit their roleplay ideas better than static racial ASIs.
And there is a noble reason to for wanting get rid of static racial ASIs: combatting racism. You might not see it as noble, but to them it is.
I think it's extremely noble to combat racism it's just that there are, you know real world issues to face before dealing with gnomes and goblins being unequal. I'd rather that serious people intended on seriously dealing with racism issues look to serious problems, nor problems of gnomes and goblins in a fantasy game.
But even if it was the case, what I'm pointing out here is that despite all the fuss made around Tasha's, it's all for show, because nothing has changed, and in all the cases I've seen so far, it's just used as an excuse.
For you, indeed nothing has changed much. For others, custom ASIs is a step in the right direction and it makes the game more welcoming for them. Just because one small step is not making much impact, one small step is still progress and it helps provide the momentum for further steps.
Just because murderers get convicted on a daily basis while killings never seem to stop, that does not mean we should give up on justice and law enforcement. You might not see the impact of sending a killer to prison, but for the families who lost loved ones, it makes a huge difference for them personally.
Just because I think they did a bad job on SOME rules doesn't mean I think they did a bad job on ALL the rules.
About 70% of the rules are tight enough that you can fully make a dungeon crawl with 6-8 encounters work perfectly and balance the mechanics perfectly....but no one plays it like that.
So which one is it? Does it do the job "really really really well", or 70% well ?
And apparently, some people play it like that, from the reactions on this very thread. Which, again, is fine, if that is what they are looking for.
Also since hardly anyone gets to late level play the T3 and T4 stuff gets nutty and hard to balance as a DM. The game has a sweet spot and its levels 5-10. If you play there and use a consistent rule base and remove some problematic elements (Conjure Spells, Animate Objects) and have clear rules on the murky grey that exists due to the failed natural language approach then its a near perfect system for running a dungeon crawl.
And here you go. Not saying that the system is not made for that kind of tinkering, but what you are saying is basically that once I've heavily modified it and removed all the parts that I don't use, it does the job that you want it to do. But instead of being nice to the designers for having allowed such profound tinkering to what they designed as to accommodate your specific kind of game, they are still bad and lazy designers for not having done the exact job that YOU wanted... Now, if we could have the slightest bit of tolerance and understanding there, not that it's a perfect job, mind, but it wouldn't it be great ?
Its almost like somethings things have qualifiers to do something well!
Like if you strip out 30% of the rules it works really well!
Almost like the system is versatile enough to fit the group dynamic! What I said exactly already!
I can think the game plays a specific play style very very well but also have some shitastic rules that are poorly worded designed...those two are not mutually exclusive.
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Counterpoint: rolling for stats was never broken. If it were, then handing out a lot of valuable items would be broken too. Or tailoring adventures to the PCs' strengths (regardless of stats). Or letting the players be creative with their solutions to various challenges. Or playing a game with minimal dice rolling in the first place. Or being very generous with rest opportunities. Et cetera.
Stats are stats. They're only part of the equation. To break the equation you need to look at much more than just "high stats".
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Actually, I am considering removing Half-Elves as an player option in my game. The species stat bloc is tremendously versatile, too much so.
I think the demonization of power gaming and exaltation of role-playing is just down right stupid. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. The soul of D&D is fun, and that is the primary intent of the designers. Lore, tradition, flavor, and role-playing are just optional fluff and not at all essential to D&D. As much as some people may hate it, D&D can also be murder hoboing and pure dungeon crawling without any sort of story or roleplay. You might not find optimization nor power gaming essential at your table, but others do. I like to speak through my NPCs and use fun voices, but I do not expect my players to do the same. If "I deal 5 damage.", "I need healing.", "Dude, go that way so I can flank.", "I persuade this NPC with my side of the story", and so on are good enough for my players, it is good enough for me. If my players are not having fun, I am not having fun. If role-playing is not fun, I am not going to force my players to do something not fun.
There is already more than enough lore, tradition, and flavor to satisfy traditionalist old timers and allow them to have fun, and they have at least four entire editions of D&D to draw from to supplement their 5e games. Wizards trying to attract new players with one book is not the end of the world. And if anything, custom ASIs allows for better role-playing and fitting into stereotypes. It is optional too, so you do not have to use it. Saying that custom ASIs are purely for power gaming is bull shit. Stop cock blocking our fun, shut up, and move on.
This paranoia over power gaming is no different from the paranoia over D&D being a vehicle for Satanism, and this wholesale persecution and demonization of power gamers is unwarranted. You do not want to hear about how D&D is going to send you to hell and damn your soul to eternity? Good. Cause we do not want to hear about how horrible and terrifying these boogeymen called power gamers, optimizers, and min-maxers are. Just based on my two years of experience on this forum, I find hard core role-players on here to be far more unpleasant than any power gamer. There is already one person giving roleplayers a bad rep, and we do not need more people to contribute to the stereotype that all hard core roleplayers are toxic snobby snowflakes who cannot get over one OPTIONAL rule, let alone one book.
As for political correctness, political silence and political correctness are two sides of the same coin. If you want Wizards to be politically silent, then vote with your wallets and convince Wizards to hold their tongue.
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This has gotten me thinking about these races how to keep dwarves as dwarves but allow Tashas in game. Example Bob the Mountain Dwarf normally has +2 STR/CON but he is making a Wizard so moves the +2 STR to INT, but in my game a Mountain Dwarf could get a 22 STR/CON without magic Bob the mountain dwarf wizard cannot get a 22 INT but can get a 22 STR/CON if he spent his class ASI's if he wanted. This is still rough draft mind you but this would I'm thinking keeping the races natural class bases a primary choice for the player that wants a mountain dwarf fighter or barbarian, or the halfling/elven rogue and so on.
You do you, though compared to humans or the entirety of elven subraces I don't really see a leap in versatility. Moreover, there's the entirety of the humanoid race catalog to begin with, as well as the depth of backgrounds available. Is it really a problem if one or several races are versatile?
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I like challenges in characters. I try to sort out my stat bloc for quite some time before committing to it, because I use the 27 point buy system. I typically have the ASI's lined up to level 12, though it is relatively rare for a campaign to get that far. And the half-elf sub-species is just too good for challenges. My Halfling Scout has a big problem since he has no Darkvision, and players don't buy items from a magic supermarket in campaigns I play in, so no Goggles of Night. But Half-Elves have it all. They get the virtually all the good stuff of the Elf species, plus the versatility of a Human Variant. It is tough to make a char with actual physical limits if it is a Half-Elf.
Anyone can RP flaws, but that is not what I am talking about. And I have found that RP is not totally my thing. I can do it, and do it better than many. But it always always always slows down the progression in a game. Plus it is selfish, as a player, or subset of the group, hogs the precious game time. So yeah, creating challenges within the char stat bloc that are inherent is what I like to do. And as a DM, that translates me into limiting the players' options. And before anyone says "well, just give your char a 16 in Str even though you won't use it", that is not what I mean by stat bloc challenges. The remnants of the min-maxer in me won't allow that.
So in answer to your question, yeah, I do think it is a problem when species are too versatile. And the abomination that shall not be named makes that so much worse.
That’s not really a logical progression. You’re limiting your players’ options because of something you “like to do”. I don’t have a problem with that - your table, your rules - but being incongruous with your personal preference doesn’t make something a problem. I don’t like non-randomized statline generation methods for instance, but that doesn’t make point-buy problematic.
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I think you might have replied to the wrong person's message. Or was it something in particular about my last statement you wanted to comment on? :)
You are making the assumption there that powergamers don't do that, which I don't think you legitimately can. I know people who powergame/min-max/etc who also put a lot of time and effort into role playing, character backstories etc. Trying to build the most powerful example of a particular character you can within the rules provided does not preclude "collaborative creation" or creating "epic stories filled with tension and memorable drama".
I make my own unique cultures for each race that has nothing to do with prewritten cultures. In my homebrew setting, a lot of races are just magical permutations of other races (I don't feel like getting into specifics here so if you want to know what I mean by that, just DM me lol). As for features like innate spell casting, The players have no way of knowing what traits the stat-block has. so when my Kuo-Toa uses Faerie Fire from the drow priestess statblock (or whatever spells it has innately), to the players, it just KNOWS the spell fairy fire. They have no way of knowing it was written as "innate Spell casting" Same as fey ancestry. If they notice they have a hard time charming it or sleeping it, then they should investigate that phenomenon IN GAME. Maybe it had an enchantment on it protecting it? Maybe that Kuo-Toa was blessed by a god at birth?
Regardless, lets say that I didn't want to invent a lore reason for that particular Kuo-Toa to have the EFFECTS of fey ancestry (whether its called that or not) Then i simply wouldn't pick that stat block.
The way I build encounters ISN'T looking through the monster manual, picking something and saying "lets make a story around this"
Its more like "I want them to fight Jim the goblin who was cursed to constantly radiate an aura of fear and can blast necrotic energy from his hands." Then I filter DnD monsters by appropriate CR, and pick something that can do something similar with a bit of reskinning. Such as a Black Dragon, reskin acid damage as necrotic and then just say its a goblin.
Obviously I didn't NEED Tasha's stats to make Boris a high charisma fighter. But with point buy, the max of 15 didn't sit right with me. A +2 CHA isn't a pillar of the community, but a +4 CHA? That level of diplomacy is what I wanted for him. I didn't want "he's still a fighter with an slightly higher charisma to be different" I wanted "He's a charasmatic, kind old man who still has a bit of the old fighter training in him.
In fact, Boris was actually made BEFORE tasha's came out! I was making him talking it out with my DM and I remember saying "It doesn't feel right that I get this +2 to strength. He's out of practice and I want that to be felt so can we move that to CHA instead?
Yes I could have set his STR to 13 and let the +2 change it to a 15, and set the CHA to 15 and used ASI's as I leveled. But the other stats would be affected by that too and that wouldn't be the character I wanted to create. And ultimately, that's what Tasha's is about, being able to build a character you want without having to worry too much about locked ASI's
Role playing games do not need role playing at all. Just as D&D does not need the rules, D&D also does not need roleplaying. RPG is a misnomer, but the name stuck. Businesses have nothing to do with being busy, it is just that running most businesses often entails being busy, but not all businesses are busy.
Those two points you mentioned ultimately boils down to having fun. And roleplaying is definitely not inherently fun.
Murder hobo and looting dungeons are fine enough for some groups and campaigns, and that is epic enough for them and that is all the story they need. Not once did the designers specifically define what tension and drama are and where it has to be from. For some groups, tension and drama from physical conflict is all they want. For them, roleplaying is boring, stupid, and slows the game down, and they see roleplaying as killing tension and conflict. D&D started out as miniature wargame and got fluff tacked on later, and some people saw it that way and still see it that way. I would not want to join nor GM a murder hobo campaign, but I am not going to constantly spew hate and contempt on that play style.
And there is a noble reason to for wanting get rid of static racial ASIs: combatting racism. You might not see it as noble, but to them it is. It is easy for you to say that racism in D&D does not reflect any real world races, but when the description for orcs is exactly how the far-right terrorists describe an entire real life ethnic group, that is a problem. If you do not like real life politics in D&D, you can also choose to ignore it. Murder hobos and dungeon looters have ignored story and lore for years, and they do not seem to make a big fuss about it. It is pretty easy to just cut the story and lore out to focus on combat, just as it is pretty easy to just not buy TCOE and ban politics from your table.
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DnD 5e works really really really well as a Dungeon Crawl simulator though with the base rule set. The nice thing is that you can add/remove crunch at your leisure to fit playstyle.
5e is designed to be versatile and offer a lot of different ways to play. That's why its so popular because you can do what you want with it.
For me the problem with rolling for stats is not that people are powerful....that is easy to accommodate for as others have alluded to. The problem with rolling for stats is the differences in power that can happen between players. Its easy to change a game for a group that is more or less the same but trying to do so for a group with variant power levels just feels like more work than it is worth IMO.
Why not?
Seriously is there one reason why they shouldn't get a choice to make that the characters defining stat?
Well with that logic every stat above 15 is power gaming??
ALL ability scores have some king of technical bonus and power. And those scores go up to 20.
If I were to make a Gnome Barbarian and switched its innate INT bonus to STR, you would accuse me of power gaming and "only choosing it for the mechanics"
So I gave you the example of my melee fighter who I chose to emphasize CHA with for RP rather than mechanics and you said "you don't need it to be high unless you're only choosing it for the mechanics"
So what WOULD be an acceptable example of a low level character with an ability over 15? If your answer is "a character with innate ability scores who picked a class to match" Then I don't really see a difference?
4 things:
1. I didn't want to enforce old fantasy cliche's (dumb tribal orcs, ethereal dainty elves, evil conniving drow etc) If thats the setting you want to play in to have that "classic fantasy" feel fine, but I didn't want to run that world
2. More freedom for me as a DM and more unique encounters for my players. To my veteran DND players who have "seen it all" its refreshing to fight creatures and NPC's they haven't seen before
3. Its fun?
Distant 4: Eliminate metagame knowledge. This goes with #2. Most of my players also own the Monster Manual + extras so they have SEEN every monster and premade npc stat. So to keep them on their toes, I reskin everything to match what I want (method described in previous post)
Just because I think they did a bad job on SOME rules doesn't mean I think they did a bad job on ALL the rules.
In fact the rules that are more air tight in what they do but are simple mechanically ( Help = ADV ) are great!
Its the rules that are for some reason purposefully vague or just poorly written (see illusion spells, wall of force, obscurement and targeting, etc...) that tried to use natural language to make things easier just made things worse.
About 70% of the rules are tight enough that you can fully make a dungeon crawl with 6-8 encounters work perfectly and balance the mechanics perfectly....but no one plays it like that.
Also since hardly anyone gets to late level play the T3 and T4 stuff gets nutty and hard to balance as a DM. The game has a sweet spot and its levels 5-10. If you play there and use a consistent rule base and remove some problematic elements (Conjure Spells, Animate Objects) and have clear rules on the murky grey that exists due to the failed natural language approach then its a near perfect system for running a dungeon crawl.
Some folks on this forum are a fan of a concept I've termed the Bohemian Failure Monkey, LeBattery.
They actively avoid any stat higher than a 13, they never make their chosen classes' core stat(s) their highest stat - in point of fact, many Bohemian Failure Monkeys take pride in making their core stat their lowest number - and they avoid putting any of their skill proficiency allocations in places the campaign is likely to make use of. None of them allocate proficiency in any of the 'common' skills, i.e. Perception, Stealth, Athletics, etc. They use the 'wrong' weapon, the 'wrong' armor, the 'wrong' spells, the 'wrong' feats, and every single time they can set up a clash between the rules, self-sabotage their adventurer and find a way for their character to work against itself, they take it with relish.
In effect, they're actively trying to make the worst possible character they can without quite slipping into active parody of the game, because to a Bohemian Failure Monkey player, failure is the end goal. They want to suck, they want to fail, they want to watch the game death-spiral into disaster after disaster before finally collapsing into abject and irrevocable failure without ever achieving a single meaningful victory. They see failure as more rewarding, more artistic, and more narratively fulfilling than success, usually accompanied by some version of the statement "Nobody ever read a story about a character who decided to do a thing, went out, did the thing, and went home without any problems!" Bohemian Failure Monkeys fetishize failure the way munchkins fetishize combat power and success in battle, seeing a 'story' where the party stumbles from cluster**** to cluster**** only just barely scraping through with their lives while making everything worse everywhere they end up as a True Tale of Flawed Heroism.
Now, if that's the way an entire table wants to play? Absolutely. Play your D&D and enjoy, folks. But Bohemian Failure Monkey characters have absolutely no place at any other table because of the fundamental clash in goals - the BFM wants to fail, as completely and spectacularly as possible, and will actively sabotage the party's chances for victory. Which tends to piss off players who are pursuing success instead at breathtaking speeds, and usually ends up with the BFM killed in its sleep and/or the player ejected from the table.
It doesn't really have anything to do with stats. Not really. Stats are just a convenient club BFM players use to beat on players who don't follow that mode of play, accusing them of being soulless art-hating story-killing munchkins and various other versions of Bad Naughty Success Wanter.
You just have to learn how to spot a Bohemian Failure Monkey and recognize that's what you're talking to. Once you do, all the outlandish weird junk they say starts making perfect sense and you can calibrate your arguments accordingly.
On a tangential note: I like that set-up for your half-orc. A warrior who's already seen his share of war and more, who decided to make himself a better person - only to get dragged back into the fray when the world decided to threaten he and his once more. That's the proper way to do a Retired Badass, methinks. Good work.
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While I'm not sure if all arguers against Tasha's are BFMs, there certainly are PLENTY of them!
I love this term btw, and will be using it from now on xD
And thanks! Boris is my favorite character I've played yet! He has been described out of game as "The only thing holding the party's morals together" and "The group grandpa" lol
Not everyone who argues their dislike of Tasha's Cauldron is a Bohemian Failure Monkey, no. Hell, not everyone who argues against the book is doing so from a position of bitterness and bad faith, either. There's plenty not to like in Tasha's Cauldron - I myself hold that the book is a slipshod, poorly-edited pile of nonsense Wizards crapped out with minimal possible effort just to punch up sales numbers, and the damned of it is that it worked like a charm. Everybody here owns it, whether they like it or not.
But other people are absolutely arguing from a position of bitterness and bad faith, and those folks are getting real tiresome to listen to. Pay them no heed. Boris is fine, there's no need to feel bad or like you're D&Ding wrong with him. Heh, frankly there's a lot of adventuring parties out there that could use a good, solid grandpa.
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I am not playing something else. And neither are murder hobos and dungeon crawlers. We are all playing D&D. D&D is not something so narrowly defined to be primarily about telling stories. D&D is whatever the table wants it to be. You do not get to decide what we play is or is not D&D. If anything, the other side could just as easily claim that all this emphasis on storytelling and roleplaying is polluting the true essence of D&D, which is a miniatures wargame. It is a distraction to the action and combat.
Again, killing everything in sight is a good enough story for some people. We might not enjoy telling stories where it is simply serial killers going a rampage, but some do. It is not our place to draw a line in the sand and say what constitutes a story and what does not. That is for the table to decide during session zero.
There are ******** who try to enforce optimization on others when optimization is not what others care about. And there are also ******** who enforce roleplaying on others when others do not care about roleplay, or more specifically, be forced to adhere the *******'s very narrow view of role play.
Rules lawyering is a problem, but roleplay lawyering seems like a far bigger problem on here. People have different ideas of what roleplaying is, and for many people, having custom ASIs fit their roleplay ideas better than static racial ASIs.
For you, indeed nothing has changed much. For others, custom ASIs is a step in the right direction and it makes the game more welcoming for them. Just because one small step is not making much impact, one small step is still progress and it helps provide the momentum for further steps.
Just because murderers get convicted on a daily basis while killings never seem to stop, that does not mean we should give up on justice and law enforcement. You might not see the impact of sending a killer to prison, but for the families who lost loved ones, it makes a huge difference for them personally.
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Its almost like somethings things have qualifiers to do something well!
Like if you strip out 30% of the rules it works really well!
Almost like the system is versatile enough to fit the group dynamic! What I said exactly already!
I can think the game plays a specific play style very very well but also have some shitastic rules that are poorly worded designed...those two are not mutually exclusive.