And on that, way back in 1e, there was no player lore for them. They were a completely unknown race to PC's to be discovered towards the end of an epic adventure. And even then the PC's were not handed the history on any platter. Why, exactly, should PC's know everything about worlds up front anyway?
Well, back then you couldn't play one either. It works both ways. A player doesn't need to know all the Lore about every NPC in the setting; but I would want them to be familiar enough with the Lore behind their very own character such that I wouldn' thave to constantly remind or correct them about basic things like - "those powers don't work in the sunshine."
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And on that, way back in 1e, there was no player lore for them. They were a completely unknown race to PC's to be discovered towards the end of an epic adventure. And even then the PC's were not handed the history on any platter. Why, exactly, should PC's know everything about worlds up front anyway?
Well, back then you couldn't play one either. It works both ways. A player doesn't need to know all the Lore about every NPC in the setting; but I would want them to be familiar enough with the Lore behind their very own character such that I wouldn' thave to constantly remind or correct them about basic things like - "those powers don't work in the sunshine."
That sort of basic stuff should be/is mentioned with the relevant mechanics. It's not something a player should find out about through a lore deep dive, it'll be in the actual rules part of the books.
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Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
And on that, way back in 1e, there was no player lore for them. They were a completely unknown race to PC's to be discovered towards the end of an epic adventure. And even then the PC's were not handed the history on any platter. Why, exactly, should PC's know everything about worlds up front anyway?
Well, back then you couldn't play one either. It works both ways. A player doesn't need to know all the Lore about every NPC in the setting; but I would want them to be familiar enough with the Lore behind their very own character such that I wouldn' thave to constantly remind or correct them about basic things like - "those powers don't work in the sunshine."
So there's something called a character sheet where important factors like that are recorded, because as Pang points out, that's a mechanical component to the player race not "lore."
I also want to point out you are making very broad arguments based in no real understanding of the game's history. "Back then when players couldn't play Drow either" was a very brief period of time in the game's history. Drow start getting represented in the old school fashion you hold dear in 78 or so as elements of the D series of modules, and get much more fleshed out to resonate with your rough understanding around 1980. 1985 Unearthed Arcana, the AD&D book comes out allowing for Drow as a playable race. And if you don't think folks weren't already playing Drow prior to that book, you may want to look at what those arms deep in homebrew are up to.
I can't think of a single PC race that gets the deep lore dive in any editions PHB that would meet the sort of standard you're bemoaning as lost now to new players. It's just a bogus argument, expecting every player to come to a table with a lore understanding on the same level as any DM. That standard is fine for some sort of insular D&D clique building, but as it was explained before you came into this thread, and has been explained to you at least twice to you specifically since your arrival, both the "business" and "creative" sides of D&D clearly see no need in maintaining that sort of integral implicit gatekeeping for a lot of reasons (that have been largely exhausted, twice and again in reiteration for your benefit).
Any DM whose been playing enough knows how to deliver lore through exposition when needed but more through PC focused play through contextual narration. Letting your table know what Drow are in your game world just isn't as hard as you plaintive postings seem to be making it. Coaching a character to play a player race you have certain hang ups on a very specific way you want to play isn't hard. The game's collaborative, not a dictatorship. If a DM can't accommodate players, they wind up playing in their own world by themselves on a number of levels.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Lolth is an ancient goddess who spins webs of deceit and feeds on destruction and chaos. The Spider Queen maintains a stranglehold over her Underdark cult of drow elves, severing them from the rest of the world.
Millennia ago, Lolth ignited a divine war between elven gods, sundering the elven peoples forever. She then convinced a group of drow elves to follow her to the Underdark—where they remain her fanatical worshippers to this day.
Menzoberranzan
Deep in the Underdark lies the city of Menzoberranzan, stronghold of the cult of Lolth. This Udadrow society has become corrupted by the malicious goddess, who teaches them to despise all outsiders.
The subterranean City of Spiders is the bastion of the Udadrow: drow elves who became tainted by Lolth’s insidious teachings. Udadrow society values ruthlessness, obedience, and a burning hatred of surface dwellers. Menzoberranzan’s young warriors raid surface villages, proving their worth by how many elves they destroy.
It was once widely believed that all drow elves lived belowground and worshipped Lolth. But truths that have long been buried are now beginning to come to light...
Callidae
Far to the North lies Callidae; an Aevendrow enclave built of glittering ice. Few recall its location and even fewer know the secrets long guarded at its heart.
Even as some of their kin followed Lolth down to the Underdark, many drow elves rejected her, remaining true to their innate integrity. One band ventured north, vanishing from history behind curtains of snow, aurora, and illusion. They became the Aevendrow—or Starlight Elves—a highly secretive clan steeped in powerful magic.
The Aevendrow remain untainted by Lolth’s influence, and life in Callidae is radically different from that of oppressive Menzoberranzan. Yet, though many would rejoice to see it, almost no one—including the longest-lived elves—can quite remember its existence.
Saekolath
The teeming southern jungles conceal the drow elf city of Saekolath, populated by the Lorendrow—dwellers in the endless green.
Head far enough south and one enters the territory of the Lorendrow, or “Greenshadow Elves.” Far from the Spider Queen and her terrors, the Lorendrow draw their wisdom from their environment: the generosity of earth; the mystery of sky; and the complex harmony of forest.
Their verdant city is Saekolath—“Place of Shade”—and it wends between towering trees and chattering rivers. Even the most knowledgeable bard would be hard-pressed to sing its histories, and few northern adventurers have ever reached its borders.
That's just something I picked off the top of my head. The point is there is plenty of Lore and most of it isn't in the PHB. All it says about Drow are:
As a drow, you are infused with the magic of the Underdark, an underground realm of wonders and horrors rarely seen on the surface above. You are at home in shadows and, thanks to your innate magic, learn to conjure forth both light and darkness. Your kin tend to have stark white hair and grayish skin of many hues.
The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has corrupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.
Ability Score Increase. Your Charisma score increases by 1.
Superior Darkvision. Your darkvision has a radius of 120 feet.
Sunlight Sensitivity. You have disadvantage on attack rolls and on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight when you, the target of your attack, or whatever you are trying to perceive is in direct sunlight.
Drow Magic. You know the dancing lights cantrip. When you reach 3rd level, you can cast the faerie fire spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. When you reach 5th level, you can cast the darkness spell once with this trait and regain the ability to do so when you finish a long rest. Charisma is your spellcasting ability for these spells.
Drow Weapon Training. You have proficiency with rapiers, shortswords, and hand crossbows.
and it's already a blurp that doesn't quite jive with the lore on that linked page. At the very least, this part:
The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has corrupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.
would convey things more accurately if it read:
The goddess Lolth, Queen of the Demonweb pits, has corrupted most Drow cities, expecially in worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the Spider Queens influence --for now. Wherever Lolths minions lurk, great heores stand on the front lines in the war to sunder Lolths web.
Even then 'corrupted the cities' is slightly off.
----
Also, no, the mechanics are slightly different. 5e only conveyes disadvantage on attack rolls and perception checks. It doesn't say that some of your magic literally stops working in sunlight.
So drow heroes aren't allowed to stand against the evil of the Spider Queen?
I'm actually about to start a campaign where I'm playing a drow. We had Session Zero last night, it went very well. My drow character is an Oath of the Watchers paladin, a lost daughter of the Umbragen people that stand vigil in the depths of Xen'drik against the daelkyr, their warped, aberrant minions, and any other twisted denizens of Khyber that dare to waggle their tentacles an inch too far out of their holes.
Imagine those are a whole bunch of words you're not familiar with...because Mistletoe is a drow of Eberron, not a drow of Faerun. Mistletoe has never heard of Lolth before in her life, "Menzoberranzen" is a weird too-long word with no meaning, and Misty would be mortally offended at the idea that her people are one of the threats great heroes must stand against. Her people are heroes - they're the thin red line that holds the world-ending horrors of Khyber at bay so the sun-drowned nitwits in the lands above can waste a hundred years of their time on dumb shit like a war of succession. But no one on Khorvaire has heard of the Umbragen save those people who've personally met Misty, and they never would have if not for a mission gone horribly pear-shaped and a few weeks of maddened wanderings through the outermost tunnels of the Deepest Hive.
That whole "Lolth corrupted all the drow cities and great heroes have to stand against them" thing? It's less than useless for Misty, and any other drow from Eberron. It actively confuses the issue, detracts from and contradicts the proper Eberron lore for the drow.
So why is it in the PHB? Why is it in the neutral, core book the settings books are supposed to build on, instead of shoveled into the Faerun setting book Wizards is too something-or-other to write?
That sort of basic stuff should be/is mentioned with the relevant mechanics. It's not something a player should find out about through a lore deep dive, it'll be in the actual rules part of the books.
It's not though, beacuse remember we are talking about changes that include changes to relevant modifiers such as attribute score adjustments and other things we've previously covered. Eitherway the lore helps flesh out why those modifiers exist. It's not good enough to just no your character has a penalty under certain circumstances. You want to understand why and what could you do to perhaps mitigate that penalty. This might be a question you have IC that you then reseach by doing investigation checks to recieve some more lore from the DM; so perhaps some should be in DMG or MM?; I'll have to look?; or it is lore you should know just from being a member of the race who grew up in a community thereof.
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Also, no, the mechanics are slightly different. 5e only conveyes disadvantage on attack rolls and perception checks. It doesn't say that some of your magic literally stops working in sunlight.
It doesn't say that in the 5E rules because in 5E that's not the case.
It's not though, beacuse remember we are talking about changes that include changes to relevant modifiers such as attribute score adjustments and other things we've previously covered. Eitherway the lore helps flesh out why those modifiers exist. It's not good enough to just no your character has a penalty under certain circumstances. You want to understand why and what could you do to perhaps mitigate that penalty. This might be a question you have IC that you then reseach by doing investigation checks to recieve some more lore from the DM; so perhaps some should be in DMG or MM?; I'll have to look?; or it is lore you should know just from being a member of the race who grew up in a community thereof.
It's lore that's specific to the setting you're playing in. The reason for those modifiers can vary from one setting to the next. That's why it shouldn't be in the DMG or MM, it should be in a setting book. If whatever bit of background info on a race is missing, even from a sourcebook about the setting you're playing in, that's because there's only so much stuff that can get put in a book: that info you want might have been deemed not important enough to make the cut. In that case, the DM can see if they can find something online (with the caveat that if it's from a previous edition it doesn't necessarily hold true in this one) or just make it up. If it's a homebrew setting, the latter is even the default option. Something like mitigating a mechanical, race-based penalty is almost certainly going to be non-canon and thus up to the DM to deny altogether or create something for.
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So there's something called a character sheet where important factors like that are recorded, because as Pang points out, that's a mechanical component to the player race not "lore."
I also want to point out you are making very broad arguments based in no real understanding of the game's history. "Back then when players couldn't play Drow either" was a very brief period of time in the game's history. Drow start getting represented in the old school fashion you hold dear in 78 or so as elements of the D series of modules, and get much more fleshed out to resonate with your rough understanding around 1980. 1985 Unearthed Arcana, the AD&D book comes out allowing for Drow as a playable race. And if you don't think folks weren't already playing Drow prior to that book, you may want to look at what those arms deep in homebrew are up to.
I can't think of a single PC race that gets the deep lore dive in any editions PHB that would meet the sort of standard you're bemoaning as lost now to new players. It's just a bogus argument, expecting every player to come to a table with a lore understanding on the same level as any DM. That standard is fine for some sort of insular D&D clique building, but as it was explained before you came into this thread, and has been explained to you at least twice to you specifically since your arrival, both the "business" and "creative" sides of D&D clearly see no need in maintaining that sort of integral implicit gatekeeping for a lot of reasons (that have been largely exhausted, twice and again in reiteration for your benefit).
Any DM whose been playing enough knows how to deliver lore through exposition when needed but more through PC focused play through contextual narration. Letting your table know what Drow are in your game world just isn't as hard as you plaintive postings seem to be making it. Coaching a character to play a player race you have certain hang ups on a very specific way you want to play isn't hard. The game's collaborative, not a dictatorship. If a DM can't accommodate players, they wind up playing in their own world by themselves on a number of levels.
Sigh. This is starting to get a bit frustrating. WoTC has already made changes to stat blocks too; like removing attribute penalties etc. I have been ignoring those changes and still using the attribute penalties that used to be in the stat blocks. Likewise; according to the Lore, which trumps the statblocks as far as I am concerned. Drow Magic is impacted by sunlight, not necessarily their ability to see re physical actions determined by dice rolls. They also may get more powers than what is listed at different times.
That's right. I don't know stuff from before August 2K. Besides 5e, I'm only working with 3e, 3.5, pathfinder1, and now a bit of late issued AD&D my friend has from the mid to late 90's. I don't know who else might have been playing drow and when, all I know is they weren't an option in the stuff I had access to. Likely because in like every games but one, the rule was PC's can't be evil; and yes a lot of DM's at the time did then also say "and X are always evil." so they can't be a PC.
I agree it's a good idea to move away from that, and I never did that as a DM myslef, but even so I'm not going to change the lore, I'm only going to make exceptions to it.
I don't know yet. i'll find out. Right now i've only really discussed Orcs and Drow. I haven't poked into every nook and cranny yet of every creature. Honestly though I've never felt short on Lore for the more common character types. It always seems there is plenty of lore floating about, and in many cases, Dwarves more than any other, the Lore is similar enough to overlap with one eachother and not contradict. But it's a new one on me for everyone to be so excited to play what in my day were basically meatbags you'd kill for loot.
I don't know what was explained before I came into this thread. I went into the last thread on page 1, and I don't think it was appreciated my responfing in one sitting to basically 10 pages of posts. This time I started on page 16. with the questions about Drow. Eitherway, explaining something isn't going to make me argree with it. Someone is explaining something from their perspective which I then answer from my perspective.
This is my first time since like 2009. Exposition and contenxtual narration aren't my strong suits per se. I mostly read the descriptions in the little grey boxes and help people with their statistical problems to optimize their builds. I'm more of an analytical type.
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WoTC has already made changes to stat blocks too; like removing attribute penalties etc. I have been ignoring those changes and still using the attribute penalties that used to be in the stat blocks. Likewise; according to the Lore, which trumps the statblocks as far as I am concerned. Drow Magic is impacted by sunlight, not necessarily their ability to see re physical actions determined by dice rolls. They also may get more powers than what is listed at different times.
That's right. I don't know stuff from before August 2K. Besides 5e, I'm only working with 3e, 3.5, pathfinder1, and now a bit of late issued AD&D my friend has from the mid to late 90's.
Erm. Feel like I'm kicking in an open door here, but any mechanical stuff not mentioned in the 5E rules doesn't exist in 5E. If you want to ignore some or all of those changes, that's fine°; but if it doesn't officially exist in 5E, there isn't going to be any 5E lore that explains those things. In 5E Drow magic isn't neutered by sunlight, so 5E isn't going to explain that. There's nothing to explain, as far as 5E is concerned. Again, you can bring any or all of those previous edition mechanics back - but then you will have to dig up the lore from those editions too, or make something up. It won't (and shouldn't) be in the pages of a current edition book.
° fine, but not necessarily advisable. Other players likely won't have a clue what you're going on about; if you're the DM you'll have to explain those things, because likely nobody else is going to go digging through past edition sources, and if you're not the DM you'll definitely want to run this stuff past the person in charge of running the campaign.
Also, no, the mechanics are slightly different. 5e only conveyes disadvantage on attack rolls and perception checks. It doesn't say that some of your magic literally stops working in sunlight.
So, are your problems with errata or the fact that 5e mechanics are slightly to significantly different from the mechanics of other editions? The reasons for disadvantage vs. outright negation are mechanical and balance considerations. I mean, remember way back when humans got nothing on the modifier front? Never mind, prior posts in this thread make your grasp of AD&D suspect. The races were worked, at least initially (and the Drow are among the intial player races in 5e) to have distinctions and balance. To negate a Drow's powers completely is an over nerf. The failure of lore die hards in these debates comes down to failing to realize pretty much every edition of the game had substantial lore contortions in way way or another ... so that the lore could better reflect the mechanical basis of the game.
This discussion is about the impact of recent set of errata. Your vanity to contend with the consensus has abandoned that focus so that now you're grousing about design elements of the game that have been in literal play since 5e came out. That makes you insufferable impossible to satisfy within the actual parameters of this discussion because it's not this recent change that's affecting your satisfaction, but stuff put into play at the release of the game.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
So drow heroes aren't allowed to stand against the evil of the Spider Queen?
I'm actually about to start a campaign where I'm playing a drow. We had Session Zero last night, it went very well. My drow character is an Oath of the Watchers paladin, a lost daughter of the Umbragen people that stand vigil in the depths of Xen'drik against the daelkyr, their warped, aberrant minions, and any other twisted denizens of Khyber that dare to waggle their tentacles an inch too far out of their holes.
Imagine those are a whole bunch of words you're not familiar with...because Mistletoe is a drow of Eberron, not a drow of Faerun. Mistletoe has never heard of Lolth before in her life, "Menzoberranzen" is a weird too-long word with no meaning, and Misty would be mortally offended at the idea that her people are one of the threats great heroes must stand against. Her people are heroes - they're the thin red line that holds the world-ending horrors of Khyber at bay so the sun-drowned nitwits in the lands above can waste a hundred years of their time on dumb shit like a war of succession. But no one on Khorvaire has heard of the Umbragen save those people who've personally met Misty, and they never would have if not for a mission gone horribly pear-shaped and a few weeks of maddened wanderings through the outermost tunnels of the Deepest Hive.
That whole "Lolth corrupted all the drow cities and great heroes have to stand against them" thing? It's less than useless for Misty, and any other drow from Eberron. It actively confuses the issue, detracts from and contradicts the proper Eberron lore for the drow.
So why is it in the PHB? Why is it in the neutral, core book the settings books are supposed to build on, instead of shoveled into the Faerun setting book Wizards is too something-or-other to write?
Drow heroes are included in the wider category of great heroes; but as written it struck me more as implying that there would by default be an appropriate proportion of Drow heroes present. Given I favor Drow hereos being of Mithral/Adamantine raritly in the face of Drow Villains, I'd rather the Party Drow be the Drow hero in question, and maybe a friend or two of theirs that they have me roll up as part of their backstory to happen upon over the course of the adventure or campaign.
Good good. Sounds like an interesting character. A bunch of those aren't words I'm familiar with. All of that is fine, but it means either that I am not the DM of that game (obviously) given that I am not familiar with Xen'dirk, or very much of Eberron at all really and know none of it's lore nor own any of its published materials; or if there's a game like that where I am the DM, it is because someone has provided me with all of that and persuaded me somehow to run a campaign there for them.
Hency Misty is a great hero standing against whatever she is standing against, and not standing against the cult of Lolth
Fair enough. I believe either one of these should be true:
1 WotC should list little blurbs about the subtypes for EVERY realm that they officially own in the PHB with a -for more information see page # of the X Campaign Setting Sourcebook.
2. WotC should not list ANY campaign specific subtypes at all in the PHB and just stick to the basic descriptions of Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Halflings, etc.
Because I favor simplicity, I favor choice two over choice 1, but I presume choice one will help with additional sales, so will probably expect that to be favored. In choice one, it is clarified that there is specific lore per world and that PHB and MM is not the lore source for the entire multiverse, and it direcs you towards the source of additional lore for your favored worlds. In choice two, no one has to argue about drow et al, because they are not a basic option and therefore will not appear as a playable choice until you get the appropriate campaign setting sourcebook, and can then make Drow as per that worlds version of Drow.
Fair enough. I believe either one of these should be true:
1 WotC should list little blurbs about the subtypes for EVERY realm that they officially own in the PHB with a -for more information see page # of the X Campaign Setting Sourcebook.
2. WotC should not list ANY campaign specific subtypes at all in the PHB and just stick to the basic descriptions of Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Halflings, etc.
Isn't number two already the way it is? There are small bits of narrative flavor chunks here and there but the general race descriptions are the neutral, non-specific ones.
2. WotC should not list ANY campaign specific subtypes at all in the PHB and just stick to the basic descriptions of Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Halflings, etc.
Because I favor simplicity, I favor choice two over choice 1, but I presume choice one will help with additional sales, so will probably expect that to be favored. In choice one, it is clarified that there is specific lore per world and that PHB and MM is not the lore source for the entire multiverse, and it direcs you towards the source of additional lore for your favored worlds. In choice two, no one has to argue about drow et al, because they are not a basic option and therefore will not appear as a playable choice until you get the appropriate campaign setting sourcebook, and can then make Drow as per that worlds version of Drow.
Drow are evidently not setting exclusive, since they show up in multiple settings - they're just like humans, dwarves and all of the other official races in that regard. They are just as basic an option as wood elves or eladrin or stout halflings or half-orcs. Their basic description should be in the PHB, and their setting-specific aspects should go in corresponding setting sourcebooks.
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Isn't number two already the way it is? There are small bits of narrative flavor chunks here and there but the general race descriptions are the neutral, non-specific ones.
Somewhat; the PhB does include subtypes. Re elves for example the choices are High Elf, Wood Elf, and Dark elf. They were using the Feurun depictions which is why the move torards neutrality was so off putting; at first glance it seems they were applying this to faerun. My DDB generator also includes Eladrin, but I presume I unlocked that with a purchase from another book. ... or is it part of the new erata?? Anyway, some of these subtypes are common across more than one world. OTOH, I know Faerun has more subtypes; and overall, D&D has like a dozen subtypes of elves. So i'd go with either just 1 average description of ELF for Basic PHB; or I'd include a list of all the subtypes, which ones are on which worlds, and where you can find their details since it's perhaps impractical to fully detail each one for each world in one book.
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Isn't number two already the way it is? There are small bits of narrative flavor chunks here and there but the general race descriptions are the neutral, non-specific ones.
Somewhat; the PhB does include subtypes. Re elves for example the choices are High Elf, Wood Elf, and Dark elf. They were using the Feurun depictions which is why the move torards neutrality was so off putting; at first glance it seems they were applying this to faerun. My DDB generator also includes Eladrin, but I presume I unlocked that with a purchase from another book. ... or is it part of the new erata?? Anyway, some of these subtypes are common across more than one world. OTOH, I know Faerun has more subtypes; and overall, D&D has like a dozen subtypes of elves. So i'd go with either just 1 average description of ELF for Basic PHB; or I'd include a list of all the subtypes, which ones are on which worlds, and where you can find their details since it's perhaps impractical to fully detail each one for each world in one book.
WotC couldn't future-proof the PHB to allow for this: they can't exactly put in titles of and references to books that haven't been published yet.
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Well, back then you couldn't play one either. It works both ways. A player doesn't need to know all the Lore about every NPC in the setting; but I would want them to be familiar enough with the Lore behind their very own character such that I wouldn' thave to constantly remind or correct them about basic things like - "those powers don't work in the sunshine."
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
That sort of basic stuff should be/is mentioned with the relevant mechanics. It's not something a player should find out about through a lore deep dive, it'll be in the actual rules part of the books.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
So there's something called a character sheet where important factors like that are recorded, because as Pang points out, that's a mechanical component to the player race not "lore."
I also want to point out you are making very broad arguments based in no real understanding of the game's history. "Back then when players couldn't play Drow either" was a very brief period of time in the game's history. Drow start getting represented in the old school fashion you hold dear in 78 or so as elements of the D series of modules, and get much more fleshed out to resonate with your rough understanding around 1980. 1985 Unearthed Arcana, the AD&D book comes out allowing for Drow as a playable race. And if you don't think folks weren't already playing Drow prior to that book, you may want to look at what those arms deep in homebrew are up to.
I can't think of a single PC race that gets the deep lore dive in any editions PHB that would meet the sort of standard you're bemoaning as lost now to new players. It's just a bogus argument, expecting every player to come to a table with a lore understanding on the same level as any DM. That standard is fine for some sort of insular D&D clique building, but as it was explained before you came into this thread, and has been explained to you at least twice to you specifically since your arrival, both the "business" and "creative" sides of D&D clearly see no need in maintaining that sort of integral implicit gatekeeping for a lot of reasons (that have been largely exhausted, twice and again in reiteration for your benefit).
Any DM whose been playing enough knows how to deliver lore through exposition when needed but more through PC focused play through contextual narration. Letting your table know what Drow are in your game world just isn't as hard as you plaintive postings seem to be making it. Coaching a character to play a player race you have
certain hang ups ona very specific way you want to play isn't hard. The game's collaborative, not a dictatorship. If a DM can't accommodate players, they wind up playing in their own world by themselves on a number of levels.Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
.... I do not know what to say.
#OpenDnD
I see no contradiction in those two blurbs?
What's the anger issue now.
Please do not contact or message me.
That's just something I picked off the top of my head. The point is there is plenty of Lore and most of it isn't in the PHB. All it says about Drow are:
and it's already a blurp that doesn't quite jive with the lore on that linked page. At the very least, this part:
The cult of the god Lolth, Queen of Spiders, has corrupted some of the oldest drow cities, especially in the worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the cult’s influence—for now. Wherever the cult lurks, drow heroes stand on the front lines in the war against it, seeking to sunder Lolth’s web.
would convey things more accurately if it read:
The goddess Lolth, Queen of the Demonweb pits, has corrupted most Drow cities, expecially in worlds of Oerth and Toril. Eberron, Krynn, and other realms have escaped the Spider Queens influence --for now. Wherever Lolths minions lurk, great heores stand on the front lines in the war to sunder Lolths web.
Even then 'corrupted the cities' is slightly off.
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Also, no, the mechanics are slightly different. 5e only conveyes disadvantage on attack rolls and perception checks. It doesn't say that some of your magic literally stops working in sunlight.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
So drow heroes aren't allowed to stand against the evil of the Spider Queen?
I'm actually about to start a campaign where I'm playing a drow. We had Session Zero last night, it went very well. My drow character is an Oath of the Watchers paladin, a lost daughter of the Umbragen people that stand vigil in the depths of Xen'drik against the daelkyr, their warped, aberrant minions, and any other twisted denizens of Khyber that dare to waggle their tentacles an inch too far out of their holes.
Imagine those are a whole bunch of words you're not familiar with...because Mistletoe is a drow of Eberron, not a drow of Faerun. Mistletoe has never heard of Lolth before in her life, "Menzoberranzen" is a weird too-long word with no meaning, and Misty would be mortally offended at the idea that her people are one of the threats great heroes must stand against. Her people are heroes - they're the thin red line that holds the world-ending horrors of Khyber at bay so the sun-drowned nitwits in the lands above can waste a hundred years of their time on dumb shit like a war of succession. But no one on Khorvaire has heard of the Umbragen save those people who've personally met Misty, and they never would have if not for a mission gone horribly pear-shaped and a few weeks of maddened wanderings through the outermost tunnels of the Deepest Hive.
That whole "Lolth corrupted all the drow cities and great heroes have to stand against them" thing? It's less than useless for Misty, and any other drow from Eberron. It actively confuses the issue, detracts from and contradicts the proper Eberron lore for the drow.
So why is it in the PHB? Why is it in the neutral, core book the settings books are supposed to build on, instead of shoveled into the Faerun setting book Wizards is too something-or-other to write?
Please do not contact or message me.
It's not though, beacuse remember we are talking about changes that include changes to relevant modifiers such as attribute score adjustments and other things we've previously covered. Eitherway the lore helps flesh out why those modifiers exist. It's not good enough to just no your character has a penalty under certain circumstances. You want to understand why and what could you do to perhaps mitigate that penalty. This might be a question you have IC that you then reseach by doing investigation checks to recieve some more lore from the DM; so perhaps some should be in DMG or MM?; I'll have to look?; or it is lore you should know just from being a member of the race who grew up in a community thereof.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
I am bamboozled. I am flabbergasted. I can't WAIT for Monsters of the Multiverse!! It's going to be GLORIOUS!!
When do we get it?!?
#OpenDnD
It doesn't say that in the 5E rules because in 5E that's not the case.
It's lore that's specific to the setting you're playing in. The reason for those modifiers can vary from one setting to the next. That's why it shouldn't be in the DMG or MM, it should be in a setting book. If whatever bit of background info on a race is missing, even from a sourcebook about the setting you're playing in, that's because there's only so much stuff that can get put in a book: that info you want might have been deemed not important enough to make the cut. In that case, the DM can see if they can find something online (with the caveat that if it's from a previous edition it doesn't necessarily hold true in this one) or just make it up. If it's a homebrew setting, the latter is even the default option. Something like mitigating a mechanical, race-based penalty is almost certainly going to be non-canon and thus up to the DM to deny altogether or create something for.
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Sigh. This is starting to get a bit frustrating. WoTC has already made changes to stat blocks too; like removing attribute penalties etc. I have been ignoring those changes and still using the attribute penalties that used to be in the stat blocks. Likewise; according to the Lore, which trumps the statblocks as far as I am concerned. Drow Magic is impacted by sunlight, not necessarily their ability to see re physical actions determined by dice rolls. They also may get more powers than what is listed at different times.
That's right. I don't know stuff from before August 2K. Besides 5e, I'm only working with 3e, 3.5, pathfinder1, and now a bit of late issued AD&D my friend has from the mid to late 90's. I don't know who else might have been playing drow and when, all I know is they weren't an option in the stuff I had access to. Likely because in like every games but one, the rule was PC's can't be evil; and yes a lot of DM's at the time did then also say "and X are always evil." so they can't be a PC.
I agree it's a good idea to move away from that, and I never did that as a DM myslef, but even so I'm not going to change the lore, I'm only going to make exceptions to it.
I don't know yet. i'll find out. Right now i've only really discussed Orcs and Drow. I haven't poked into every nook and cranny yet of every creature. Honestly though I've never felt short on Lore for the more common character types. It always seems there is plenty of lore floating about, and in many cases, Dwarves more than any other, the Lore is similar enough to overlap with one eachother and not contradict. But it's a new one on me for everyone to be so excited to play what in my day were basically meatbags you'd kill for loot.
I don't know what was explained before I came into this thread. I went into the last thread on page 1, and I don't think it was appreciated my responfing in one sitting to basically 10 pages of posts. This time I started on page 16. with the questions about Drow. Eitherway, explaining something isn't going to make me argree with it. Someone is explaining something from their perspective which I then answer from my perspective.
This is my first time since like 2009. Exposition and contenxtual narration aren't my strong suits per se. I mostly read the descriptions in the little grey boxes and help people with their statistical problems to optimize their builds. I'm more of an analytical type.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
What book(s) are these from?
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Erm. Feel like I'm kicking in an open door here, but any mechanical stuff not mentioned in the 5E rules doesn't exist in 5E. If you want to ignore some or all of those changes, that's fine°; but if it doesn't officially exist in 5E, there isn't going to be any 5E lore that explains those things. In 5E Drow magic isn't neutered by sunlight, so 5E isn't going to explain that. There's nothing to explain, as far as 5E is concerned. Again, you can bring any or all of those previous edition mechanics back - but then you will have to dig up the lore from those editions too, or make something up. It won't (and shouldn't) be in the pages of a current edition book.
° fine, but not necessarily advisable. Other players likely won't have a clue what you're going on about; if you're the DM you'll have to explain those things, because likely nobody else is going to go digging through past edition sources, and if you're not the DM you'll definitely want to run this stuff past the person in charge of running the campaign.
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Nowhere!! Its not in any Book or Errata thats ever been printed until this point in time - which is weird to say in a digital age but whatever.
It's just a blurb on the official Wizards of the Coast Dungeons & Dragons Website!! https://dnd.wizards.com/story/legend-of-drizzt
I am laughing my ass off this shit is so funny and ridiculous.
#OpenDnD
So, are your problems with errata or the fact that 5e mechanics are slightly to significantly different from the mechanics of other editions? The reasons for disadvantage vs. outright negation are mechanical and balance considerations. I mean, remember way back when humans got nothing on the modifier front? Never mind, prior posts in this thread make your grasp of AD&D suspect. The races were worked, at least initially (and the Drow are among the intial player races in 5e) to have distinctions and balance. To negate a Drow's powers completely is an over nerf. The failure of lore die hards in these debates comes down to failing to realize pretty much every edition of the game had substantial lore contortions in way way or another ... so that the lore could better reflect the mechanical basis of the game.
This discussion is about the impact of recent set of errata. Your vanity to contend with the consensus has abandoned that focus so that now you're grousing about design elements of the game that have been in literal play since 5e came out. That makes you
insufferableimpossible to satisfy within the actual parameters of this discussion because it's not this recent change that's affecting your satisfaction, but stuff put into play at the release of the game.Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Drow heroes are included in the wider category of great heroes; but as written it struck me more as implying that there would by default be an appropriate proportion of Drow heroes present. Given I favor Drow hereos being of Mithral/Adamantine raritly in the face of Drow Villains, I'd rather the Party Drow be the Drow hero in question, and maybe a friend or two of theirs that they have me roll up as part of their backstory to happen upon over the course of the adventure or campaign.
Good good. Sounds like an interesting character. A bunch of those aren't words I'm familiar with. All of that is fine, but it means either that I am not the DM of that game (obviously) given that I am not familiar with Xen'dirk, or very much of Eberron at all really and know none of it's lore nor own any of its published materials; or if there's a game like that where I am the DM, it is because someone has provided me with all of that and persuaded me somehow to run a campaign there for them.
Hency Misty is a great hero standing against whatever she is standing against, and not standing against the cult of Lolth
Fair enough. I believe either one of these should be true:
1 WotC should list little blurbs about the subtypes for EVERY realm that they officially own in the PHB with a -for more information see page # of the X Campaign Setting Sourcebook.
2. WotC should not list ANY campaign specific subtypes at all in the PHB and just stick to the basic descriptions of Dwarves, Elves, Humans, Halflings, etc.
Because I favor simplicity, I favor choice two over choice 1, but I presume choice one will help with additional sales, so will probably expect that to be favored. In choice one, it is clarified that there is specific lore per world and that PHB and MM is not the lore source for the entire multiverse, and it direcs you towards the source of additional lore for your favored worlds. In choice two, no one has to argue about drow et al, because they are not a basic option and therefore will not appear as a playable choice until you get the appropriate campaign setting sourcebook, and can then make Drow as per that worlds version of Drow.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Isn't number two already the way it is? There are small bits of narrative flavor chunks here and there but the general race descriptions are the neutral, non-specific ones.
Drow are evidently not setting exclusive, since they show up in multiple settings - they're just like humans, dwarves and all of the other official races in that regard. They are just as basic an option as wood elves or eladrin or stout halflings or half-orcs. Their basic description should be in the PHB, and their setting-specific aspects should go in corresponding setting sourcebooks.
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Somewhat; the PhB does include subtypes. Re elves for example the choices are High Elf, Wood Elf, and Dark elf. They were using the Feurun depictions which is why the move torards neutrality was so off putting; at first glance it seems they were applying this to faerun. My DDB generator also includes Eladrin, but I presume I unlocked that with a purchase from another book. ... or is it part of the new erata?? Anyway, some of these subtypes are common across more than one world. OTOH, I know Faerun has more subtypes; and overall, D&D has like a dozen subtypes of elves. So i'd go with either just 1 average description of ELF for Basic PHB; or I'd include a list of all the subtypes, which ones are on which worlds, and where you can find their details since it's perhaps impractical to fully detail each one for each world in one book.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
WotC couldn't future-proof the PHB to allow for this: they can't exactly put in titles of and references to books that haven't been published yet.
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