So somewhat relevant to the thread here's a link to a poll I took on reddit asking how people felt about the changes made post tashas and out of 556, 253 didn't care one way or the other, 145 were happy with them, and 158 were not happy with the changes. Also when it comes to polling I feel like reddit is the better option just because you can actually see how many people voted while here on beyond we just get a percentage.
Hover over the bar and you will see that there have been 181 vote. Just so you know.
So somewhat relevant to the thread here's a link to a poll I took on reddit asking how people felt about the changes made post tashas and out of 556, 253 didn't care one way or the other, 145 were happy with them, and 158 were not happy with the changes. Also when it comes to polling I feel like reddit is the better option just because you can actually see how many people voted while here on beyond we just get a percentage.
Hover over the bar and you will see that there have been 181 vote. Just so you know.
learn somethin new everyday.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
So somewhat relevant to the thread here's a link to a poll I took on reddit asking how people felt about the changes made post tashas and out of 556, 253 didn't care one way or the other, 145 were happy with them, and 158 were not happy with the changes. Also when it comes to polling I feel like reddit is the better option just because you can actually see how many people voted while here on beyond we just get a percentage.
Different communities almost certainly have different takes on the issue, but the key thing here is really that the people commenting on the issue are not representative of the actual community.
It is no surprise that the VAST majority of the player base just doesn't care either way. But that also means that WotC has no reason to go back. This choice isn't going to loose them any money. Those that care one way or the other aren't enough to tip any scales. I just happen to be on the side that is happy with the choice. Next time there is a change I may not be so lucky. Only time will tell.
I would like to respectively disagree having abilities only as a difference is minor (to me but you may differ) and is more like just humans dressing up in masks with abilities assigned to the mask.
To me not having significant stat bonus for races is like saying a mini-poodle is like a grate dane that can lift at 100+ pound child (note this was a friends dog that used to chase cows and his brother).
Having said that I can understand why it would be necessary in 5e do to how the system rules were laid down in the beginning of the games creation. Form my limited understanding they were small numbers, simple math, simple rules and not a lot of rule expansions or sort of opposite of 3e.
I should be more clear, in my experience I have seen players play games in which things are simplified as 5e (and 5e) as all races are humans with a few special abilities that does not mean everyone and your experience maybe different.
I have rarely seen a halfling or gnome player talk about the height difference when interacting with others in home and or tournament games, except when it comes to combat and hiding. My experiences often get more extreme for vastly different different races.
I have often found just text not enough to encourage differences in play style where as meaningful mechanics (including stat adjustments) make it easier for most players to grasp the differences. An example to me would be the early red wizard of Thay stuff I saw that had no rules and just text saying that the were the best fire mages. Without the mechanics being the best meant nothing meaningful in game.
“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed. [In Monsters of the Multiverse] people will get the floating bonuses we introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron. If somebody is making a character, and wants to recreate the bonuses that existed previously, the advantage of the floating bonus system is they can do exactly that.”
“Player characters are the beloved creations of our players, and again, we didn’t want to give the impression we were putting our hand on the scale and the personality and values of a player’s personal character. But again, alignment is still in the game, but as it’s always been, it’s the player’s choice and the DM’s choice.”
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Canto alla vita alla sua bellezza ad ogni sua ferita ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
You've actively admitted to ignoring the entirety of this thread, and quite possibly all the hundreds of pages of discussion that have happened in the years before this thread. Every single point you're raising is one that's already been discussed to death. Everything your protesting has been protested before, in every degree of civility and viciousness. I'm not entirely sure I'm up to re-summarizing the entire body of arguments for you so you can continue to ignore every single word anyone else has ever said on the subject, but here. Let me try and hit the high points:
-Ability scores, per D&D fanon and longstanding tradition, represent the fundamental make-up of your biology. Your numbers define the entirety of your being in a way they really ******* shouldn't, but getting people to believe that is a fool's errand. A knock-on effect of this is that giving certain species better/worse numbers is also assigning a value judgment to those species. A lot of folks are not okay with that sort of value judgment. Until D&D gets over its obsessed fixation on the Six Sacred Scores and having those six numbers be the entire sum totality of that which defines you as a person? Telling an entire species "you're only allowed to be good at ONE of these things and you have no say in which" is gonna sit wrong with some folks.
-Some people are altogether mightily sick of "off" class/species combinations being worse than "on"/iconic builds. DMs can argue until they're blue in the face that "off" builds are just as good/strong/splendid/whatever as iconic builds, but they are objectively wrong. The degree by which an "off" build is worse than an iconic build is absolutely up for debate, and many DMs will contend that the degree of worse is overall meaningless, but that doesn't mean the character is not worse for being "off". And some folks are so ******* beyond tired of having to swallow that worse-ness every damn time, no matter the degree.
-It is extremely easy for a DM to establish a table of fixed ASIs for their species at their own table if they desire to reintroduce those value judgments and iconic characters. Yes, there is a valid argument to be made that fixed and floating ASIs should both be valid choices in the PHB/DMG/ABC/123 and that it doesn't hurt fans of floating points for the fixed points to be made an optional rule. There is also a valid argument to be made that yes it does hurt, that having the fixed tables at all completely defeats the point of having the floating tables, and that having fixed ASIs anywhere in the book ruins the entire purpose of moving away from value judgments and iconic builds in the first place. Which of those arguments is more valid? I have no idea, and everybody is going to have their own opinion on it, but both are at least valid arguments.
“For quite some time, we have not liked how the choice of race in the game had often too much weight on the player’s choice of class,” Crawford admitted. “Fans often talk about this—that connection between race and class is not something we as designers actually desire. We want players to pick those two critical components of their character and choose the two that really sing to them so they don’t feel like they’re pigeonholed. [In Monsters of the Multiverse] people will get the floating bonuses we introduced in Tasha’s Cauldron. If somebody is making a character, and wants to recreate the bonuses that existed previously, the advantage of the floating bonus system is they can do exactly that.”
“Player characters are the beloved creations of our players, and again, we didn’t want to give the impression we were putting our hand on the scale and the personality and values of a player’s personal character. But again, alignment is still in the game, but as it’s always been, it’s the player’s choice and the DM’s choice.”
My issue with this is twofold. First, complaints are always voiced more loudly than satisfaction. Again, not saying complaints, and this one in particular, aren't valid. Just that people who like something aren't likely to go out of their way to tell you; people with a problem are. Second, recreating bonuses that existed previously doesn't help with those that didn't exist and won't exist. We can keep discussing if and how this should be presented, but continuing with optional racial ASIs would have achieved that particular goal too.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I think the repetition is one of the worst parts of this topic and all that it entails. It is always the same arguments and it is always ends with the thread being locked after things get heated with no change to what WotC is doing. I am more surprised that this thread has been fairly civil in comparison to the previous versions.
What Wizards needs to do is, put a bit of text somewhere in chapter 1 that says something like:
"We recognize that in the real world, race is a social construct, only very loosely scientifically supported*, and that basically every attempt at defining race has been done by with the expressed purpose of subjugating or outright eliminating so-called inferior beings, usually as defined by the ruling classes at various points in history. The idea that certain attributes such as high or low intelligence** are linked to identifiable racial groups is a fiction, and one that has been the backbone of many of humanity's most heinous crimes. However, this idea is so integral to Dungeons and Dragons that we can't remove it without collapsing the whole thing. "
"* - and many of its tangential or supporting concepts have been outright debunked"
"** - general intelligence as a concept has also been thoroughly debunked, but we digress"
But I think anyone can see why they're instead choosing to dance around the issue with things like "dark skinned elves now canonically are usually good instead of usually evil" and "you can put your starter ASIs wherever you want."
What Wizards needs to do is, put a bit of text somewhere in chapter 1 that says something like:
"We recognize that in the real world, race is a social construct, only very loosely scientifically supported*, and that basically every attempt at defining race has been done by with the expressed purpose of subjugating or outright eliminating so-called inferior beings, usually as defined by the ruling classes at various points in history. The idea that certain attributes such as high or low intelligence** are linked to identifiable racial groups is a fiction, and one that has been the backbone of many of humanity's most heinous crimes. However, this idea is so integral to Dungeons and Dragons that we can't remove it without collapsing the whole thing. "
Incorrect text struck out. It's objectively obvious that they can do so -- people might complain about the change, but it certainly doesn't break the system.
They're never going to put anything as overt as that in a rulebook. They haven't even said anything near as overt as that outside a book, and they sure aren't going to go five steps further in writing.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
What Wizards needs to do is, put a bit of text somewhere in chapter 1 that says something like:
"We recognize that in the real world, race is a social construct, only very loosely scientifically supported*, and that basically every attempt at defining race has been done by with the expressed purpose of subjugating or outright eliminating so-called inferior beings, usually as defined by the ruling classes at various points in history. The idea that certain attributes such as high or low intelligence** are linked to identifiable racial groups is a fiction, and one that has been the backbone of many of humanity's most heinous crimes. However, this idea is so integral to Dungeons and Dragons that we can't remove it without collapsing the whole thing. "
Incorrect text struck out. It's objectively obvious that they can do so -- people might complain about the change, but it certainly doesn't break the system.
I get what you're saying, but it would have to go considerably further than what you're probably imagining. We really would have to make it so dwarves and humans and kobolds and so on are the same. Or, I guess from another perspective, there are only humans. Same thing, different words. You could have different training I guess. Stuff like weapon proficiencies, languages.
I agree that the system would still function -- the system is very flexible -- but the race stuff is so core to it that I think it would break for most people. I might be one of them, I don't know. Never tried it.
They're never going to put anything as overt as that in a rulebook. They haven't even said anything near as overt as that outside a book, and they sure aren't going to go five steps further in writing.
You're right. I even suggested as much myself. It makes perfect sense that Wizards would be... reserved... in this regard, but I'm not beholden to any shareholders or anything. So I can say: That doesn't make it okay.
I'm not going to be able to change it. And eventually I'm sure I'll shut up about it. But neither of those things will make it okay either.
And I play D&D a lot. With all the races differentiated with ASIs, mostly. I enjoy my time with it. I might even dislike a version of it without all the race nonsense. Couldn't say. Let's assume I would hate it. Still wouldn't make it okay.
Thank you for your comment and I do mean that in a nice way and in no other.
In general you have listed a couple of issues, "off class/species", "sacred 6" and "House Rules". I will provide some limited comments below if you do not mind.
1) "House Rules": Yes house rules can be important in your enjoyability or your playability of a system.
2) "Sacred 6": Agree when you change basic game design ideas it often pushes changes in other areas.
3) "Off Class/Species": I agree that there is a group that likes you point and I hope you can see that there are other points of view.
Thanks for helping me understand where you are coming from.
Let's see which one of these is more mechanically distinct.
+2 Dex/+1 Cha
-OR-
Lucky
When you roll a 1 on the d20 for an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw, you can reroll the die and must use the new roll.
Brave
You have advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Halfling Nimbleness
You can move through the space of any creature that is of a size larger than yours.
Naturally Stealthy
You can attempt to hide even when you are obscured only by a creature that is at least one size larger than you.
When you compare two sets of traits relative to a single species, you don't see the distinction between species, you just see which is a better form of expression for that species; obviously the other abilities are a better form of expression regarding the species in and of itself than ...I'm going to call them static ASA's instead of ASI's (adjustment, rather than increase as my arguments also include keeping a decrease one in the mix as well to maintain point value of the generated array). However when you compare twenty species next to one another to see the distinction; are the abilities enough of a difference or is it the attribute distribution that really allows you to tell them apart? Which better expresses that gazelle are faster than sloths and elephants are stronger than mice and rabbits?
I don't really care about the answer to that question, as I expect different people will have different answers. It doesn't really matter, because the conflict is not really about how to tell the species apart from one another. The conflict is about whether or not they should be thought of in that capacity in the first place; or is the perception that these creatures are genuinely different species and thus biologically distinct from one another, wrong and hurtful etc. compared to a perception that they are all simply different cultural expressions of one single species collectively referred to as "People", meaning any generalized depictions about who is stronger/faster more resilient, "smarter"/wiser, "prettier" than whom is automatically wrong and hurtful.
Some users are prioritizing personhood over species, and others vice versa.
I've noticed a lot of users from the "People" side of the argument have similar opinions as to what static ASA's actually mean, i.e. comments like "Saying one race (group of people) is 'smarter' than another is harmful/hurtful and makes me feel bad". People on my side of the argument keep trying to explain that's not what static ASA's actually mean; though some apparently agree they do, and respond something that can basically be summed up as "them's the ropes - of course one race (species) will not have the same capabilities in every attribute as another. Of course, they wouldn't!"-
So far, we can't seem to find a compromise on this. We basically see WoTC/Crawford seem to be officially siding with Ophidomancer et al on this issue and moving in the direction that D&D races should be treated as expressions of a single collective species: "lineages of people", with no mechanically significant biological distinctions between them, nor general affiliations: to the point of removing the tools necessary to do otherwise. This is causing those of us who feel that such distinction is essential to the nature of our game to feel somewhat betrayed.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.
Hover over the bar and you will see that there have been 181 vote. Just so you know.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
learn somethin new everyday.
If I can't say something nice, I try to not say anything at all. So if I suddenly stop participating in a topic that's probably why.
Different communities almost certainly have different takes on the issue, but the key thing here is really that the people commenting on the issue are not representative of the actual community.
It is no surprise that the VAST majority of the player base just doesn't care either way. But that also means that WotC has no reason to go back. This choice isn't going to loose them any money. Those that care one way or the other aren't enough to tip any scales. I just happen to be on the side that is happy with the choice. Next time there is a change I may not be so lucky. Only time will tell.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
No disagreement there. Just, less is not more in this instance.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Thanks for the links to your posts.
I would like to respectively disagree having abilities only as a difference is minor (to me but you may differ) and is more like just humans dressing up in masks with abilities assigned to the mask.
To me not having significant stat bonus for races is like saying a mini-poodle is like a grate dane that can lift at 100+ pound child (note this was a friends dog that used to chase cows and his brother).
Having said that I can understand why it would be necessary in 5e do to how the system rules were laid down in the beginning of the games creation. Form my limited understanding they were small numbers, simple math, simple rules and not a lot of rule expansions or sort of opposite of 3e.
IMHO they represent two different aspects of a race.
MDC
I should be more clear, in my experience I have seen players play games in which things are simplified as 5e (and 5e) as all races are humans with a few special abilities that does not mean everyone and your experience maybe different.
I have rarely seen a halfling or gnome player talk about the height difference when interacting with others in home and or tournament games, except when it comes to combat and hiding. My experiences often get more extreme for vastly different different races.
I have often found just text not enough to encourage differences in play style where as meaningful mechanics (including stat adjustments) make it easier for most players to grasp the differences. An example to me would be the early red wizard of Thay stuff I saw that had no rules and just text saying that the were the best fire mages. Without the mechanics being the best meant nothing meaningful in game.
MDC
It might help to also see the thoughts from the developers about why they're doing it:
Jeremy Crawford, in a recent interview.
Canto alla vita
alla sua bellezza
ad ogni sua ferita
ogni sua carezza!
I sing to life and to its tragic beauty
To pain and to strife, but all that dances through me
The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all!
With all due respect, MDC?
You've actively admitted to ignoring the entirety of this thread, and quite possibly all the hundreds of pages of discussion that have happened in the years before this thread. Every single point you're raising is one that's already been discussed to death. Everything your protesting has been protested before, in every degree of civility and viciousness. I'm not entirely sure I'm up to re-summarizing the entire body of arguments for you so you can continue to ignore every single word anyone else has ever said on the subject, but here. Let me try and hit the high points:
-Ability scores, per D&D fanon and longstanding tradition, represent the fundamental make-up of your biology. Your numbers define the entirety of your being in a way they really ******* shouldn't, but getting people to believe that is a fool's errand. A knock-on effect of this is that giving certain species better/worse numbers is also assigning a value judgment to those species. A lot of folks are not okay with that sort of value judgment. Until D&D gets over its obsessed fixation on the Six Sacred Scores and having those six numbers be the entire sum totality of that which defines you as a person? Telling an entire species "you're only allowed to be good at ONE of these things and you have no say in which" is gonna sit wrong with some folks.
-Some people are altogether mightily sick of "off" class/species combinations being worse than "on"/iconic builds. DMs can argue until they're blue in the face that "off" builds are just as good/strong/splendid/whatever as iconic builds, but they are objectively wrong. The degree by which an "off" build is worse than an iconic build is absolutely up for debate, and many DMs will contend that the degree of worse is overall meaningless, but that doesn't mean the character is not worse for being "off". And some folks are so ******* beyond tired of having to swallow that worse-ness every damn time, no matter the degree.
-It is extremely easy for a DM to establish a table of fixed ASIs for their species at their own table if they desire to reintroduce those value judgments and iconic characters. Yes, there is a valid argument to be made that fixed and floating ASIs should both be valid choices in the PHB/DMG/ABC/123 and that it doesn't hurt fans of floating points for the fixed points to be made an optional rule. There is also a valid argument to be made that yes it does hurt, that having the fixed tables at all completely defeats the point of having the floating tables, and that having fixed ASIs anywhere in the book ruins the entire purpose of moving away from value judgments and iconic builds in the first place. Which of those arguments is more valid? I have no idea, and everybody is going to have their own opinion on it, but both are at least valid arguments.
Please do not contact or message me.
My issue with this is twofold. First, complaints are always voiced more loudly than satisfaction. Again, not saying complaints, and this one in particular, aren't valid. Just that people who like something aren't likely to go out of their way to tell you; people with a problem are. Second, recreating bonuses that existed previously doesn't help with those that didn't exist and won't exist. We can keep discussing if and how this should be presented, but continuing with optional racial ASIs would have achieved that particular goal too.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I think the repetition is one of the worst parts of this topic and all that it entails. It is always the same arguments and it is always ends with the thread being locked after things get heated with no change to what WotC is doing. I am more surprised that this thread has been fairly civil in comparison to the previous versions.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
What Wizards needs to do is, put a bit of text somewhere in chapter 1 that says something like:
"We recognize that in the real world, race is a social construct, only very loosely scientifically supported*, and that basically every attempt at defining race has been done by with the expressed purpose of subjugating or outright eliminating so-called inferior beings, usually as defined by the ruling classes at various points in history. The idea that certain attributes such as high or low intelligence** are linked to identifiable racial groups is a fiction, and one that has been the backbone of many of humanity's most heinous crimes. However, this idea is so integral to Dungeons and Dragons that we can't remove it without collapsing the whole thing. "
"* - and many of its tangential or supporting concepts have been outright debunked"
"** - general intelligence as a concept has also been thoroughly debunked, but we digress"
But I think anyone can see why they're instead choosing to dance around the issue with things like "dark skinned elves now canonically are usually good instead of usually evil" and "you can put your starter ASIs wherever you want."
Incorrect text struck out. It's objectively obvious that they can do so -- people might complain about the change, but it certainly doesn't break the system.
They're never going to put anything as overt as that in a rulebook. They haven't even said anything near as overt as that outside a book, and they sure aren't going to go five steps further in writing.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
I get what you're saying, but it would have to go considerably further than what you're probably imagining. We really would have to make it so dwarves and humans and kobolds and so on are the same. Or, I guess from another perspective, there are only humans. Same thing, different words. You could have different training I guess. Stuff like weapon proficiencies, languages.
I agree that the system would still function -- the system is very flexible -- but the race stuff is so core to it that I think it would break for most people. I might be one of them, I don't know. Never tried it.
You're right. I even suggested as much myself. It makes perfect sense that Wizards would be... reserved... in this regard, but I'm not beholden to any shareholders or anything. So I can say: That doesn't make it okay.
I'm not going to be able to change it. And eventually I'm sure I'll shut up about it. But neither of those things will make it okay either.
And I play D&D a lot. With all the races differentiated with ASIs, mostly. I enjoy my time with it. I might even dislike a version of it without all the race nonsense. Couldn't say. Let's assume I would hate it. Still wouldn't make it okay.
Just so we're clear where I'm at on this issue.
Thank you for your comment and I do mean that in a nice way and in no other.
In general you have listed a couple of issues, "off class/species", "sacred 6" and "House Rules". I will provide some limited comments below if you do not mind.
1) "House Rules": Yes house rules can be important in your enjoyability or your playability of a system.
2) "Sacred 6": Agree when you change basic game design ideas it often pushes changes in other areas.
3) "Off Class/Species": I agree that there is a group that likes you point and I hope you can see that there are other points of view.
Thanks for helping me understand where you are coming from.
MD
When you compare two sets of traits relative to a single species, you don't see the distinction between species, you just see which is a better form of expression for that species; obviously the other abilities are a better form of expression regarding the species in and of itself than ...I'm going to call them static ASA's instead of ASI's (adjustment, rather than increase as my arguments also include keeping a decrease one in the mix as well to maintain point value of the generated array). However when you compare twenty species next to one another to see the distinction; are the abilities enough of a difference or is it the attribute distribution that really allows you to tell them apart? Which better expresses that gazelle are faster than sloths and elephants are stronger than mice and rabbits?
I don't really care about the answer to that question, as I expect different people will have different answers. It doesn't really matter, because the conflict is not really about how to tell the species apart from one another. The conflict is about whether or not they should be thought of in that capacity in the first place; or is the perception that these creatures are genuinely different species and thus biologically distinct from one another, wrong and hurtful etc. compared to a perception that they are all simply different cultural expressions of one single species collectively referred to as "People", meaning any generalized depictions about who is stronger/faster more resilient, "smarter"/wiser, "prettier" than whom is automatically wrong and hurtful.
Some users are prioritizing personhood over species, and others vice versa.
I've noticed a lot of users from the "People" side of the argument have similar opinions as to what static ASA's actually mean, i.e. comments like "Saying one race (group of people) is 'smarter' than another is harmful/hurtful and makes me feel bad". People on my side of the argument keep trying to explain that's not what static ASA's actually mean; though some apparently agree they do, and respond something that can basically be summed up as "them's the ropes - of course one race (species) will not have the same capabilities in every attribute as another. Of course, they wouldn't!"-
So far, we can't seem to find a compromise on this. We basically see WoTC/Crawford seem to be officially siding with Ophidomancer et al on this issue and moving in the direction that D&D races should be treated as expressions of a single collective species: "lineages of people", with no mechanically significant biological distinctions between them, nor general affiliations: to the point of removing the tools necessary to do otherwise. This is causing those of us who feel that such distinction is essential to the nature of our game to feel somewhat betrayed.
Thank you for your time and please have a very pleasant day.
Personally i'd like to get a suggestion which reflects the typical racial traits and after that - allow players to pick their attribute bonuses as they like.