As someone who actively dislikes the Forgotten Realms and avoids playing there if I can? Volo's Guide to DM Headaches Monsters, in particular, has been a thornbush in my ******* basically ever since I started playing D&D. That book has actively gotten in my way so many times I've more-or-less already soft-banned it at my table. Individual stat blocks, PC species, and such might get cherry-picked out of it for specific games, but all of the Faerun-specific lore that tells me I'm a horrible DM/player who's doing everything wrong forever is beyond annoying. There's a reason I never call that book anything but VGtDMH.
Do I take satisfaction in it being pulled from publication and denied to Forgotten Realms enthusiasts? Not at all. It sucks, and I'd be much happier if the books remained available for purchase even if only in compendium format. The words were written, they should be able to be read. But I won't pretend I'm not gonna be a little thrilled at never having to shovel fifty years of crappy, contradictory, impossible-to-research Forgotten Realms backlore into any character/monster/NPC I create that has any contact at all with VGtDMH content.
Out of curiosity, why has the book been a pain to you? Have you had DMs or players that are gatekeepey and refuse to allow you to change the race to fit your personal likings? If you're a DM, are the players mad if you change how the races work in your world? If so, I'm very sorry you got a party like that.
If you're in a home-brew game, you don't have to use Forgotten Realms lore, you use the lore for that world. If you've had a lot of FR games and no one wants to do anything else, I'm sorry they did that to you.
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, having to separate the lore from the game is a pain when it comes to players. Having everything in the books FR centric sets certain tropes in the minds of the player that don't exist in my campaign world. It isn't that they aren't open to the changes, just that I have to constantly fight against the "default" lore. It is something that I have personally got pretty good at after 40 years of practice, but newer DMs shouldn't have to fight that battle.
As someone who actively dislikes the Forgotten Realms and avoids playing there if I can? Volo's Guide to DM Headaches Monsters, in particular, has been a thornbush in my ******* basically ever since I started playing D&D. That book has actively gotten in my way so many times I've more-or-less already soft-banned it at my table. Individual stat blocks, PC species, and such might get cherry-picked out of it for specific games, but all of the Faerun-specific lore that tells me I'm a horrible DM/player who's doing everything wrong forever is beyond annoying. There's a reason I never call that book anything but VGtDMH.
Do I take satisfaction in it being pulled from publication and denied to Forgotten Realms enthusiasts? Not at all. It sucks, and I'd be much happier if the books remained available for purchase even if only in compendium format. The words were written, they should be able to be read. But I won't pretend I'm not gonna be a little thrilled at never having to shovel fifty years of crappy, contradictory, impossible-to-research Forgotten Realms backlore into any character/monster/NPC I create that has any contact at all with VGtDMH content.
Out of curiosity, why has the book been a pain to you? Have you had DMs or players that are gatekeepey and refuse to allow you to change the race to fit your personal likings? If you're a DM, are the players mad if you change how the races work in your world? If so, I'm very sorry you got a party like that.
If you're in a home-brew game, you don't have to use Forgotten Realms lore, you use the lore for that world. If you've had a lot of FR games and no one wants to do anything else, I'm sorry they did that to you.
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, having to separate the lore from the game is a pain when it comes to players. Having everything in the books FR centric sets certain tropes in the minds of the player that don't exist in my campaign world. It isn't that they aren't open to the changes, just that I have to constantly fight against the "default" lore. It is something that I have personally got pretty good at after 40 years of practice, but newer DMs shouldn't have to fight that battle.
I think I may have found the disconnect between our two camps, and I'm envious of you. My players tend to be the type who read (some of) the stuff they get and just show up to the game expecting me to tell them how their characters work. But as much as you hate it, FR lore is pretty similar to the generic fantasy that is everywhere. If someone who has never played D&D before sat down with just setting-agnostic information, they would have mostly the same general ideas for how things work as they would have with FR information.
Partially true. Blood Wars, the various gods and the like is very much lore that new players wouldn't have on their minds unless presented to them. You are correct though when it comes to Elves being pretty long lived recluses and Dwarves being loud boisterous drunks and Halflings being lazy thieves with hairy feet.
The issue with the current book is that WotC screwed up way back when they started 5e with FR as the focus of every book they published. Now they are trying to correct the situation so that they can publish content for other settings, but they are just too lazy to do the full rewrites required to undo everything they have done with this edition lore wise. That is until 2024 when they publish all the new PHB, DMG and MM.
As someone who actively dislikes the Forgotten Realms and avoids playing there if I can? Volo's Guide to DM Headaches Monsters, in particular, has been a thornbush in my ******* basically ever since I started playing D&D. That book has actively gotten in my way so many times I've more-or-less already soft-banned it at my table. Individual stat blocks, PC species, and such might get cherry-picked out of it for specific games, but all of the Faerun-specific lore that tells me I'm a horrible DM/player who's doing everything wrong forever is beyond annoying. There's a reason I never call that book anything but VGtDMH.
Do I take satisfaction in it being pulled from publication and denied to Forgotten Realms enthusiasts? Not at all. It sucks, and I'd be much happier if the books remained available for purchase even if only in compendium format. The words were written, they should be able to be read. But I won't pretend I'm not gonna be a little thrilled at never having to shovel fifty years of crappy, contradictory, impossible-to-research Forgotten Realms backlore into any character/monster/NPC I create that has any contact at all with VGtDMH content.
Out of curiosity, why has the book been a pain to you? Have you had DMs or players that are gatekeepey and refuse to allow you to change the race to fit your personal likings? If you're a DM, are the players mad if you change how the races work in your world? If so, I'm very sorry you got a party like that.
If you're in a home-brew game, you don't have to use Forgotten Realms lore, you use the lore for that world. If you've had a lot of FR games and no one wants to do anything else, I'm sorry they did that to you.
I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, having to separate the lore from the game is a pain when it comes to players. Having everything in the books FR centric sets certain tropes in the minds of the player that don't exist in my campaign world. It isn't that they aren't open to the changes, just that I have to constantly fight against the "default" lore. It is something that I have personally got pretty good at after 40 years of practice, but newer DMs shouldn't have to fight that battle.
I think I may have found the disconnect between our two camps, and I'm envious of you. My players tend to be the type who read (some of) the stuff they get and just show up to the game expecting me to tell them how their characters work. But as much as you hate it, FR lore is pretty similar to the generic fantasy that is everywhere. If someone who has never played D&D before sat down with just setting-agnostic information, they would have mostly the same general ideas for how things work as they would have with FR information.
Partially true. Blood Wars, the various gods and the like is very much lore that new players wouldn't have on their minds unless presented to them. You are correct though when it comes to Elves being pretty long lived recluses and Dwarves being loud boisterous drunks and Halflings being lazy thieves with hairy feet.
The issue with the current book is that WotC screwed up way back when they started 5e with FR as the focus of every book they published. Now they are trying to correct the situation so that they can publish content for other settings, but they are just too lazy to do the full rewrites required to undo everything they have done with this edition lore wise. That is until 2024 when they publish all the new PHB, DMG and MM.
Yeah, as I mentioned, my players don't bother reading any more than they need to. "I want to be a cleric. Do I need a god? If so, who?" The idea of them coming in with any more information than a toddler of the world would have is laughable, which is why I'm annoyed that they would take the big flashing neon indicator of what each species tends to be good at away. Most also play against-type. I think the only really type-fitting combination I've seen them use was a Goliath Barbarian, but she got busy with school and stopped playing after a couple of sessions. Her husband plays a Tabaxi Sorcerer (well, kind of a slaad actually, but that's a long story involving IDRotF and the weird way we started that). The next most fitting combination is the air genasi monk. The rest have been weird things like a Kobold Artificer (alchemist), Lizardfolk Trickster/luck Cleric, and a Tabaxi Tempest Cleric.
I'll share my personal experience, if anyone cares. To me, I like the flavor of the race ASIs. They help define the idea of a race, and can be especially effective in introducing newcomers to what the D&D tropes are (you may think Tolkien has an iron grip on fantasy tropes, but most non-fantasy nerds I meet think of elves as tiny mischievous people-like creatures). I also like that they allow you to play with type and against type. However, I recognize that it does stifle creativity and some feel that just because you want your character to look a certain way doesn't mean you want useless stat increases.
That's why, in games I DM, I allow players to either take the regular defined race ASI, or to take +1 to three different ability scores. This may sound like splitting the baby, but I like that it makes racial ASIs have a reason for existing (they are the only way to get +2s), while also allowing the freedom to have a race with the scores you want.
I also do not like that all races are being printed with no fixed ASIs anymore. I was fine when Wizards made the Tasha's rule (it opened up a new playstyle for those who didn't like the old, though I was fine with the old); I was fine when it was communicated indirectly that my preferred playstyle (fixed ASIs) was not what they were focusing on; what I was not fine with was the fact they completely stopped supporting my playstyle. Just one chart in a sourcebook that says "The DM can enforce these suggested fixed ability scores" would be enough to placate me. I know why WotC won't do that, though, and I don't like it.
I also despise the goblin/hobgoblin lore changes (from what I've seen of them secondhand). I always thought the hobgoblin player race was bad, but the M^3 is just yikes. But this is just a lore preference, I can see how some others would despise the old goblinoid lore.
(Side note: I almost wish the different types of fantastical characters weren't called 'races' just to avoid the baggage of that word IRL. I would have called them Lineages, but Van Richten stole that term. Bloodline?)
Edit: And to actually be on topic for this thread, I heartily agree with Yharim's post.
All I would like to ask is that you understand that we are not against flexibility in ability scores, we just like set ability score improvements. We're open to allowing those to change in our own specific games, but would just like to ask that future races might have an optional set ability scores. That's it. Not a "Oh this is technically optional but really ever game and Adventurer's league will make you take it." Not, "We'll leave it vague so you don't know if you actually need to use it." Just optional, so that people who do use them, can use them.
Then... use them? The fact that they're no longer printed in a book doesn't mean they don't exist. There's still a chart on DDB listing the original ASIs for the PHB races you can just copy and edit if you want them in your campaign, and finding the rest of the ASIs is a Google search away if you don't have access to the discontinued books
I see people in this thread pointing out how much work it's been to disentangle setting-specific lore from their homebrew worlds, and preset ASIs were part of that package. Now the shoe's on the other foot, I guess, only the work's mostly already been done for you
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
All I would like to ask is that you understand that we are not against flexibility in ability scores, we just like set ability score improvements. We're open to allowing those to change in our own specific games, but would just like to ask that future races might have an optional set ability scores. That's it. Not a "Oh this is technically optional but really ever game and Adventurer's league will make you take it." Not, "We'll leave it vague so you don't know if you actually need to use it." Just optional, so that people who do use them, can use them.
Then... use them? The fact that they're no longer printed in a book doesn't mean they don't exist. There's still a chart on DDB listing the original ASIs for the PHB races you can just copy and edit if you want them in your campaign, and finding the rest of the ASIs is a Google search away if you don't have access to the discontinued books
I see people in this thread pointing out how much work it's been to disentangle setting-specific lore from their homebrew worlds, and preset ASIs were part of that package. Now the shoe's on the other foot, I guess, only the work's mostly already been done for you
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
That's where the editing part comes in
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
Sigh.
Since we're rehashing ancient arguments anyways...
Query: why was it always, historically, perfectly fine to tell people who disliked fixed ASIs and wished to change their numbers around to go in and create entire new copies of their species, fiddle in the editor, and try to get the system to recognize a +2/+1 split - which, by the way, is impossible to do in DDB's homebrew tools; you can give a species a floating +2 and a separate floating +1 or three separate floating +1s, but there's absolutely no way to get the homebrew tool to respect the "don't pick the same number" rule - and spend hours of their day painstakingly homebrewing custom variations of every single species in the game? Usually alongside a bunch of nasty gatekeepy comments about how it's a waste of time anyways and only lame powergaming munchkin ******canoes want to change their numbers anyways.
And yet, now that the shoe has changed feet save for the fact that all you need to do is tell your players "Put your +2 here and your +1 there" without ever having to touch the homebrew tools - and if you do touch the homebrew tools it's a matter of maybe ninety seconds to assign fixed species-based ASIs rather than trying to convince players to be good and put their numbers where they're supposed to - the answer "why not just homebrew a fixed ASI table for your game" is blasphemous and beyond intolerable?
It was perfectly fine when other people had to go well out of their way to implement janky, unreliable workarounds, but no one should ever have to ask a player to assign their points where the DM tells them to instead of where they feel like?
All I would like to ask is that you understand that we are not against flexibility in ability scores, we just like set ability score improvements. We're open to allowing those to change in our own specific games, but would just like to ask that future races might have an optional set ability scores. That's it. Not a "Oh this is technically optional but really ever game and Adventurer's league will make you take it." Not, "We'll leave it vague so you don't know if you actually need to use it." Just optional, so that people who do use them, can use them.
Then... use them? The fact that they're no longer printed in a book doesn't mean they don't exist. There's still a chart on DDB listing the original ASIs for the PHB races you can just copy and edit if you want them in your campaign, and finding the rest of the ASIs is a Google search away if you don't have access to the discontinued books
I see people in this thread pointing out how much work it's been to disentangle setting-specific lore from their homebrew worlds, and preset ASIs were part of that package. Now the shoe's on the other foot, I guess, only the work's mostly already been done for you
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
Or the non-PHB races. A table doesn't really help if it's only summarizing what's front and center on a handful of consecutive pages in one source. If I wanted them to be limited to that source, I would tell them to pick from that source.
I'm going to point something out here as someone who had twenty minutes and nothing better to do then read a random forum post. Despite your talk of how badly the other posts about this topic have turned out and not wanting to repeat that, you have been among the most hostile people here, certainly not the most hostile but up there.
Anyway my two cents on the matter is that setting agnostic races at this point in 5e's lifespan is effectively pointless and will inevitably fall short, for example the Orcs in MPMoM match very well with Faerun Orcs but do not match what little I know of the more Druidic Eberron Orcs. As for the Flexible ASI's I feel some more suggestions are always helpful. So that say I as a DM can slap the full list of Triton abilities onto a Knight stat block when my players get into a fight with an NPC I just made up.
Edit: to be clear this post is directed at Yurei but could probably apply to several people here.
All I would like to ask is that you understand that we are not against flexibility in ability scores, we just like set ability score improvements. We're open to allowing those to change in our own specific games, but would just like to ask that future races might have an optional set ability scores. That's it. Not a "Oh this is technically optional but really ever game and Adventurer's league will make you take it." Not, "We'll leave it vague so you don't know if you actually need to use it." Just optional, so that people who do use them, can use them.
Then... use them? The fact that they're no longer printed in a book doesn't mean they don't exist. There's still a chart on DDB listing the original ASIs for the PHB races you can just copy and edit if you want them in your campaign, and finding the rest of the ASIs is a Google search away if you don't have access to the discontinued books
I see people in this thread pointing out how much work it's been to disentangle setting-specific lore from their homebrew worlds, and preset ASIs were part of that package. Now the shoe's on the other foot, I guess, only the work's mostly already been done for you
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
Or the non-PHB races. A table doesn't really help if it's only summarizing what's front and center on a handful of consecutive pages in one source. If I wanted them to be limited to that source, I would tell them to pick from that source.
You: we want types to play against!
Me: OK, here's racial descriptions and monster stat blocks
You: that's not clear enough! we want racial ASIs!
Me: OK, here's how to find them and how to keep track of them
You: that's too much work
I really don't know what else to tell you, man. You already have the tools to do the things you say have been taken away from you. It's entirely up to you if you want to use them
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
Sigh.
Since we're rehashing ancient arguments anyways...
Query: why was it always, historically, perfectly fine to tell people who disliked fixed ASIs and wished to change their numbers around to go in and create entire new copies of their species, fiddle in the editor, and try to get the system to recognize a +2/+1 split - which, by the way, is impossible to do in DDB's homebrew tools; you can give a species a floating +2 and a separate floating +1 or three separate floating +1s, but there's absolutely no way to get the homebrew tool to respect the "don't pick the same number" rule - and spend hours of their day painstakingly homebrewing custom variations of every single species in the game? Usually alongside a bunch of nasty gatekeepy comments about how it's a waste of time anyways and only lame powergaming munchkin ******canoes want to change their numbers anyways.
And yet, now that the shoe has changed feet save for the fact that all you need to do is tell your players "Put your +2 here and your +1 there" without ever having to touch the homebrew tools - and if you do touch the homebrew tools it's a matter of maybe ninety seconds to assign fixed species-based ASIs rather than trying to convince players to be good and put their numbers where they're supposed to - the answer "why not just homebrew a fixed ASI table for your game" is blasphemous and beyond intolerable?
It was perfectly fine when other people had to go well out of their way to implement janky, unreliable workarounds, but no one should ever have to ask a player to assign their points where the DM tells them to instead of where they feel like?
Double standard much?
It's not a double standard because the two sets of options are not equivalent. Having official ASIs with a optional rule to assign them as you please isn't the mirror of having assignable ASIs with a table rule to have fixed ASIs. There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline, be it ASIs, classes, proficiencies, spells, weapon properties, or any other aspect of the game.
Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
Yurei is hostile because she's had this argument ten thousand times with ten thousand people. Absolutely nothing in this thread is new - it's all been said at least a hundred times, often even before the Thousand Year Plague kicked in. This has been a forum forest fire for over two years now and Yurei is so tired of it. Tired of the neverending sniping, the scornful derision, the smug dismissal, and the put-upon attitude that now that the Forgotten Realms aren't the center of the D&D universe anymore FR fans might have to homebrew their games a little. Never mind that they've been waving the rest of us off with "just homebrew, why's it so hard?" followed by a bunch of various forms and shapes of trollface memes for years now.
Building a table with fixed ability scores and alignments for the species you'll allow in your game is ten minutes' work tops that you do once per campaign. It is more effort to come up with a name for your game's capital city than it is to write down a table of fixed ASIs/alignments. Why does Wizards need to spoon-feed them to Forgotten Realms fans whilst also cramming them violently down the gullets of Eberron fans, or Exandria fans, or Athas fans, or even generic-D&D fans who homebrew their own worlds? We've been having to rip the Faerun out of the PHB for eight years now and nobody ever paid a single damned drop of attention to us when we asked for neutral books, did they? Wizards finally grows a clue and all anyone can ever seem to do is snap and snarl and demand fixed ASIs back so everyone can be forced to color in the lines again. No more erudite, soft-spoken dwarven spellcasters. No more witty, keenly educated orcish bards. No more stalwart, highly trained and fiercely dangerous halfling fighters. No more tiefling anything, of any sort or inclination. If it couldn't be dropped seamlessly into a bunch of books a dead guy wrote seventy years ago, it has no business at a D&D table.
I'll be sure to tell my literally every character I have that none of them are allowed to exist because none of them would fit for beans in a game about the legally-distinct hobbits being taken to legally-distinct Isengard.
... Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline
Harengons are bipedal, with the characteristic long feet of the rabbits they resemble and fur in a variety of colors. They share the keen senses and powerful legs of leporine creatures and are full of energy, like a wound-up spring. Harengons are blessed with a little fey luck, and they often find themselves a few fortunate feet away from dangers during adventures.
That tells you everything you need to come up with set ASIs, if you want them in your campaign
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
I probably shouldn't say this Yurei, but this seems like a post too far. I respect your opinions on the topic (though they are irrevocably and irreconcilably different than mine), but this is getting a bit too far into the flames of the great conflagration that has consumed so many threads and burned so many user's Warning Point allowance. You were indeed prompted to post this, but still...
And at the risk of getting too close to the flames myself, I do understand that many are rightly frustrated that their way to play (floating ASIs) were not supported by WotC and scorned by the community, and I also understand that some even go as far to take it beyond a playstyle issue and into a content issue. But now, that does not mean that the fixed ASI camp cannot be frustrated that their way to play (and/or views on the content in question) are not only being minimized, but completely thrown away, officially speaking. However, Wizards seems to have a track record of doing this (throwing out other's opinions to follow their own decisions), and its part of the reason I don't support what they do 100% (or even 50%).
There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline
Harengons are bipedal, with the characteristic long feet of the rabbits they resemble and fur in a variety of colors. They share the keen senses and powerful legs of leporine creatures and are full of energy, like a wound-up spring. Harengons are blessed with a little fey luck, and they often find themselves a few fortunate feet away from dangers during adventures.
That tells you everything you need to come up with set ASIs, if you want them in your campaign
That can, definitely. What would, in your opinion(Not asking Yurei this), be the harm in also having within the traits, "Many Harengons choose to increase their dexterity and wisdom scores."? I get the idea that making it so that all members of a certain race are basically the same and are "the wrong choice" isn't a good idea(Honestly I don't understand why racial traits aren't under more scrutiny, like high elf's cantrip or half-elf's skill versatility. Don't those assume things about races too?). I simply like having suggested ability scores that are flexible, because it gives me cool RPG vibes. Nothing about the thing I suggested means that you're playing it "wrong" if you increase other scores, and it isn't saying that all members of the race are good at one thing, more that they often choose to specialize in that thing. Is that really that bad?
Either way this discussion turns out, it doesn't really matter except to those in it, because Wizards is definitely not looking at some random thread in the forums for ideas on what to change.
This whole thread was started with me humbly simply attempting to explain why some people were annoyed. I didn't want it to go as far as either side is going here, and hope that people can be more courteous, even if they are frustrated with the people they're arguing with.
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Countershere(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline
Harengons are bipedal, with the characteristic long feet of the rabbits they resemble and fur in a variety of colors. They share the keen senses and powerful legs of leporine creatures and are full of energy, like a wound-up spring. Harengons are blessed with a little fey luck, and they often find themselves a few fortunate feet away from dangers during adventures.
That tells you everything you need to come up with set ASIs, if you want them in your campaign
I probably should have done this in one post rather than two, but oh well.
This is being a bit dismissive of those who want to play with fixed ASIs. While this method of assigning ASIs is perfectly valid (and probably what I'm going to end up doing if I ever run a full homebrew campaign), it moves fixed ASIs into the realm of table rules rather than official rules. I would be completely, 100% fine if fixed ASIs were an optional DMG rule hidden somewhere in the couple hundred pages of that book; at least it is actually official. Moving it into the realm of full table rules means more work for the DM, sets up a bit of mismatch between older and newer players, and means the actual implementation will vary widely between tables. Now, I will say the floating ASI camp did have to deal with this "unofficial rule" attitude for years, so I will give them a bit of grace on that. As stated in my earlier post, I made my peace with the Tasha's rule once I realized some people legitimately wanted to play differently than I did. I grumbled when it became the standard for new races, but what I really missed was the presence of a preset RAW fixed score.
My "perfect scenario" for racial ASIs would be a default floating race ASI with campaign/setting specific charts that the DM can enforce or alter at their pleasure. That's theoretically what M^3 was supposed to pave the way for, but I don't see any fixed ASI charts coming soon. And I do hope you realize assigning fixed ASIs isn't always as simple as what the races supposed characteristics are. What classes "fit" best with that race is another huge factor, among others.
Yurei is hostile because she's had this argument ten thousand times with ten thousand people. Absolutely nothing in this thread is new - it's all been said at least a hundred times, often even before the Thousand Year Plague kicked in. This has been a forum forest fire for over two years now and Yurei is so tired of it. Tired of the neverending sniping, the scornful derision, the smug dismissal, and the put-upon attitude that now that the Forgotten Realms aren't the center of the D&D universe anymore FR fans might have to homebrew their games a little. Never mind that they've been waving the rest of us off with "just homebrew, why's it so hard?" followed by a bunch of various forms and shapes of trollface memes for years now.
Building a table with fixed ability scores and alignments for the species you'll allow in your game is ten minutes' work tops that you do once per campaign. It is more effort to come up with a name for your game's capital city than it is to write down a table of fixed ASIs/alignments. Why does Wizards need to spoon-feed them to Forgotten Realms fans whilst also cramming them violently down the gullets of Eberron fans, or Exandria fans, or Athas fans, or even generic-D&D fans who homebrew their own worlds? We've been having to rip the Faerun out of the PHB for eight years now and nobody ever paid a single damned drop of attention to us when we asked for neutral books, did they? Wizards finally grows a clue and all anyone can ever seem to do is snap and snarl and demand fixed ASIs back so everyone can be forced to color in the lines again. No more erudite, soft-spoken dwarven spellcasters. No more witty, keenly educated orcish bards. No more stalwart, highly trained and fiercely dangerous halfling fighters. No more tiefling anything, of any sort or inclination. If it couldn't be dropped seamlessly into a bunch of books a dead guy wrote seventy years ago, it has no business at a D&D table.
I'll be sure to tell my literally every character I have that none of them are allowed to exist because none of them would fit for beans in a game about the legally-distinct hobbits being taken to legally-distinct Isengard.
... Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
Any clearer?
Before I dig deeper into this-- which by the way, I won't be looking for parts of your argument to tear apart, Yurei--, I just want to ask why you are arguing so hard if you're so sick of it? It's not like either side is going to 'win' this discussion.
I know it's been done time and time again, and that you're sick of smug and dismissive people, both of which I've tried to not do by trying to shine a different light on the view of both sides and by respecting you as I speak with you, as have many of the people in this thread on both sides. If you are tired of this discussion, nothing is binding you to continue it. I'll ask everyone to not bring up anything you've said so you can just rest. I respect the way you think and I respect the way you play.
I have a different point of view than you, but that is between any two people on earth. If there is anything I can do to help you, even if it doesn't have to do with this thread directly, please let me know.
____
You are completely correct that we can make the racial-modifier chart for our campaign ourselves, and it would take minimal time. The only two reasons I like species-specific scores is because one, it feels like a classic dungeon crawl video game, and two, my players often make their characters without me, and several times, I have to correct them in how they set up the ability scores, either because they chose a stat generation method that wasn't agreed upon for the game, or because they were confused about what racial modifiers to add. In my opinion, making the racial modifiers by default floating with nothing pointing to what to put them in would heighten this issue. That's just my literal two cents about why I, personally, would like species ability suggestions.
I totally understand that you would like setting neutral books like MotM(which, weirdly, has a bunch of setting specific lore like the feywild with the goblins), and I am glad that that book exists for you and people who don't like the Forgotten Realms. I would just ask that you might understand why people don't like how so many of the races were more or less replaced by the ones in that book by removing Volo's Guide and MToF from new players being able to buy them. Yes, I know quite a few people are tired of the realms and are happy to see a shift to setting-agnostic content. However, there are also quite a few people who do like the realms. Why does WotC have to only serve one of them?
I really hope that you can understand that most of the people who are annoyed with the change in this thread can understand your point of view and still respect you. If you don't believe that, please ask them. I know you've hashed it out with a lot of angry and entitled people, but please give some of these guys a chance.
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Countershere(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
Yurei is hostile because she's had this argument ten thousand times with ten thousand people. Absolutely nothing in this thread is new - it's all been said at least a hundred times, often even before the Thousand Year Plague kicked in. This has been a forum forest fire for over two years now and Yurei is so tired of it. Tired of the neverending sniping, the scornful derision, the smug dismissal, and the put-upon attitude that now that the Forgotten Realms aren't the center of the D&D universe anymore FR fans might have to homebrew their games a little. Never mind that they've been waving the rest of us off with "just homebrew, why's it so hard?" followed by a bunch of various forms and shapes of trollface memes for years now.
Building a table with fixed ability scores and alignments for the species you'll allow in your game is ten minutes' work tops that you do once per campaign. It is more effort to come up with a name for your game's capital city than it is to write down a table of fixed ASIs/alignments. Why does Wizards need to spoon-feed them to Forgotten Realms fans whilst also cramming them violently down the gullets of Eberron fans, or Exandria fans, or Athas fans, or even generic-D&D fans who homebrew their own worlds? We've been having to rip the Faerun out of the PHB for eight years now and nobody ever paid a single damned drop of attention to us when we asked for neutral books, did they? Wizards finally grows a clue and all anyone can ever seem to do is snap and snarl and demand fixed ASIs back so everyone can be forced to color in the lines again. No more erudite, soft-spoken dwarven spellcasters. No more witty, keenly educated orcish bards. No more stalwart, highly trained and fiercely dangerous halfling fighters. No more tiefling anything, of any sort or inclination. If it couldn't be dropped seamlessly into a bunch of books a dead guy wrote seventy years ago, it has no business at a D&D table.
I'll be sure to tell my literally every character I have that none of them are allowed to exist because none of them would fit for beans in a game about the legally-distinct hobbits being taken to legally-distinct Isengard.
... Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
Any clearer?
" all members of that species are the same exact identical individual" is not true either way, because of different rolls / array assignments / point expenditures, class choice, skill choice, feat choice, and more importantly, all the non-stat / personality differences. Getting rid of pre-assigned ASIs doesn't get rid of BE either, it just removes one aspect. If you want to remove all the bioessentialism, all PCs & NPCs must be Custom Lineage. Because "all elves get +2 Dex" is as BE as "all elves get Trance", yes? And even then, we'll still probably be showing up with two arms, two legs, and a head attached to a torso, and the bioessentialism rolls on.
And no reasonable person (my condolences for your interactions with the unreasonable people) believes that anyone not playing the way they like is "playing wrong". It's obvious even to children that in most every aspect of life, different people like different things, whether it's a favorite flavor of ice cream, style of music, or which stat gets +2 during character creation. But how is being anti-official ASIs any different? Aren't you saying those players are "doing it wrong", even though it has no effect on your table? Because you are not actually forced to color between the lines no matter what is in the WotC books, you can color however you like at your table, and I've got a decade of "art" from my kids to prove it. They have a blast drawing a green red purple "goldfish" and add legs like a horse, and I'm happy because they're happy, even as I draw within the lines & use the official colors in my Guardians of the Galaxy art book (don't judge!). If other people choose to play Tolkien-purist fantasy at thier table, I say let em. Over there. At thier table. You do you at your table. Yurei-atize all the things, establish a Yurei Cinematic Universe, go wild. And I'll be over here with my homebrew campaign built on a certified official WotC foundation.
So please let other people have the freedom to play thier game the way they want, just like you want to have the freedom to play your game in your own way. It's only fair, yes?
Yurei is hostile because she's had this argument ten thousand times with ten thousand people. Absolutely nothing in this thread is new - it's all been said at least a hundred times, often even before the Thousand Year Plague kicked in. This has been a forum forest fire for over two years now and Yurei is so tired of it. Tired of the neverending sniping, the scornful derision, the smug dismissal, and the put-upon attitude that now that the Forgotten Realms aren't the center of the D&D universe anymore FR fans might have to homebrew their games a little. Never mind that they've been waving the rest of us off with "just homebrew, why's it so hard?" followed by a bunch of various forms and shapes of trollface memes for years now.
Building a table with fixed ability scores and alignments for the species you'll allow in your game is ten minutes' work tops that you do once per campaign. It is more effort to come up with a name for your game's capital city than it is to write down a table of fixed ASIs/alignments. Why does Wizards need to spoon-feed them to Forgotten Realms fans whilst also cramming them violently down the gullets of Eberron fans, or Exandria fans, or Athas fans, or even generic-D&D fans who homebrew their own worlds? We've been having to rip the Faerun out of the PHB for eight years now and nobody ever paid a single damned drop of attention to us when we asked for neutral books, did they? Wizards finally grows a clue and all anyone can ever seem to do is snap and snarl and demand fixed ASIs back so everyone can be forced to color in the lines again. No more erudite, soft-spoken dwarven spellcasters. No more witty, keenly educated orcish bards. No more stalwart, highly trained and fiercely dangerous halfling fighters. No more tiefling anything, of any sort or inclination. If it couldn't be dropped seamlessly into a bunch of books a dead guy wrote seventy years ago, it has no business at a D&D table.
I'll be sure to tell my literally every character I have that none of them are allowed to exist because none of them would fit for beans in a game about the legally-distinct hobbits being taken to legally-distinct Isengard.
... Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
Any clearer?
" all members of that species are the same exact identical individual" is not true either way, because of different rolls / array assignments / point expenditures, class choice, skill choice, feat choice, and more importantly, all the non-stat / personality differences. Getting rid of pre-assigned ASIs doesn't get rid of BE either, it just removes one aspect. If you want to remove all the bioessentialism, all PCs & NPCs must be Custom Lineage. Because "all elves get +2 Dex" is as BE as "all elves get Trance", yes? And even then, we'll still probably be showing up with two arms, two legs, and a head attached to a torso, and the bioessentialism rolls on.
And no reasonable person (my condolences for your interactions with the unreasonable people) believes that anyone not playing the way they like is "playing wrong". It's obvious even to children that in most every aspect of life, different people like different things, whether it's a favorite flavor of ice cream, style of music, or which stat gets +2 during character creation. But how is being anti-official ASIs any different? Aren't you saying those players are "doing it wrong", even though it has no effect on your table? Because you are not actually forced to color between the lines no matter what is in the WotC books, you can color however you like at your table, and I've got a decade of "art" from my kids to prove it. They have a blast drawing a green red purple "goldfish" and add legs like a horse, and I'm happy because they're happy, even as I draw within the lines & use the official colors in my Guardians of the Galaxy art book (don't judge!). If other people choose to play Tolkien-purist fantasy at thier table, I say let em. Over there. At thier table. You do you at your table. Yurei-atize all the things, establish a Yurei Cinematic Universe, go wild. And I'll be over here with my homebrew campaign built on a certified official WotC foundation.
So please let other people have the freedom to play thier game the way they want, just like you want to have the freedom to play your game in your own way. It's only fair, yes?
I do think Yurei does have a bit of a point as well with the fact that people who didn't like the official racial bonuses had to change their game and go against what was official for a long time, but I still don't see why both play styles can't be compatible.
Also, I would suggest even if it's brought up again, don't discuss the bioessentialism, because that could easily devolve into an argument that many people would regret.
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Countershere(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline
Harengons are bipedal, with the characteristic long feet of the rabbits they resemble and fur in a variety of colors. They share the keen senses and powerful legs of leporine creatures and are full of energy, like a wound-up spring. Harengons are blessed with a little fey luck, and they often find themselves a few fortunate feet away from dangers during adventures.
That tells you everything you need to come up with set ASIs, if you want them in your campaign
That's not how "WotC establishing a official baseline" works by definition, as it would be my homebrew & not from WotC.
people who didn't like the official racial bonuses had to change their game and go against what was official for a long time, but I still don't see why both play styles can't be compatible.
To be honest, this is the sticking point for me in this discussion, because I am/was one of those people. And playing without set ASIs really wasn't that much work for me as a DM, and it didn't come up at all after character creation was done and the campaign itself had begun
So to see people get grumpy because now they're the ones having to do that work to get their campaign exactly the way they want it just makes me shrug my shoulders and go, "So? Shouldn't you have been doing a bit of work to get your campaign exactly the way you wanted it already?"
You've said/asked multiple times why we can't have it both ways, why WotC doesn't throw in some extra guidance on where ASIs should go, something like the 'quick build' they offer with each class at 1st level (pick these spells, choose this background etc.) I keep pointing out that guidance is already there, even if it isn't highlighted in a separate text box. But let me flip it around -- if WotC did put in that text box, something like
QUICK BUILD
You can make a harengon character quickly by following these suggestions. First, increase your Dexterity score by 2, and your Wisdom score by 1. Second, choose the rogue or monk class.
a) do you think that would avoid the problems they're trying to avoid by getting rid of set ASIs?
b) do you think everyone complaining about not having set ASIs would be satisfied?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
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Partially true. Blood Wars, the various gods and the like is very much lore that new players wouldn't have on their minds unless presented to them. You are correct though when it comes to Elves being pretty long lived recluses and Dwarves being loud boisterous drunks and Halflings being lazy thieves with hairy feet.
The issue with the current book is that WotC screwed up way back when they started 5e with FR as the focus of every book they published. Now they are trying to correct the situation so that they can publish content for other settings, but they are just too lazy to do the full rewrites required to undo everything they have done with this edition lore wise. That is until 2024 when they publish all the new PHB, DMG and MM.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Yeah, as I mentioned, my players don't bother reading any more than they need to. "I want to be a cleric. Do I need a god? If so, who?" The idea of them coming in with any more information than a toddler of the world would have is laughable, which is why I'm annoyed that they would take the big flashing neon indicator of what each species tends to be good at away. Most also play against-type. I think the only really type-fitting combination I've seen them use was a Goliath Barbarian, but she got busy with school and stopped playing after a couple of sessions. Her husband plays a Tabaxi Sorcerer (well, kind of a slaad actually, but that's a long story involving IDRotF and the weird way we started that). The next most fitting combination is the air genasi monk. The rest have been weird things like a Kobold Artificer (alchemist), Lizardfolk Trickster/luck Cleric, and a Tabaxi Tempest Cleric.
I'll share my personal experience, if anyone cares.
To me, I like the flavor of the race ASIs. They help define the idea of a race, and can be especially effective in introducing newcomers to what the D&D tropes are (you may think Tolkien has an iron grip on fantasy tropes, but most non-fantasy nerds I meet think of elves as tiny mischievous people-like creatures). I also like that they allow you to play with type and against type. However, I recognize that it does stifle creativity and some feel that just because you want your character to look a certain way doesn't mean you want useless stat increases.
That's why, in games I DM, I allow players to either take the regular defined race ASI, or to take +1 to three different ability scores. This may sound like splitting the baby, but I like that it makes racial ASIs have a reason for existing (they are the only way to get +2s), while also allowing the freedom to have a race with the scores you want.
I also do not like that all races are being printed with no fixed ASIs anymore. I was fine when Wizards made the Tasha's rule (it opened up a new playstyle for those who didn't like the old, though I was fine with the old); I was fine when it was communicated indirectly that my preferred playstyle (fixed ASIs) was not what they were focusing on; what I was not fine with was the fact they completely stopped supporting my playstyle. Just one chart in a sourcebook that says "The DM can enforce these suggested fixed ability scores" would be enough to placate me. I know why WotC won't do that, though, and I don't like it.
I also despise the goblin/hobgoblin lore changes (from what I've seen of them secondhand). I always thought the hobgoblin player race was bad, but the M^3 is just yikes. But this is just a lore preference, I can see how some others would despise the old goblinoid lore.
(Side note: I almost wish the different types of fantastical characters weren't called 'races' just to avoid the baggage of that word IRL. I would have called them Lineages, but Van Richten stole that term. Bloodline?)
Edit: And to actually be on topic for this thread, I heartily agree with Yharim's post.
Great, can you share a link to the default Harengon ASIs?
That's where the editing part comes in
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Sigh.
Since we're rehashing ancient arguments anyways...
Query: why was it always, historically, perfectly fine to tell people who disliked fixed ASIs and wished to change their numbers around to go in and create entire new copies of their species, fiddle in the editor, and try to get the system to recognize a +2/+1 split - which, by the way, is impossible to do in DDB's homebrew tools; you can give a species a floating +2 and a separate floating +1 or three separate floating +1s, but there's absolutely no way to get the homebrew tool to respect the "don't pick the same number" rule - and spend hours of their day painstakingly homebrewing custom variations of every single species in the game? Usually alongside a bunch of nasty gatekeepy comments about how it's a waste of time anyways and only lame powergaming munchkin ******canoes want to change their numbers anyways.
And yet, now that the shoe has changed feet save for the fact that all you need to do is tell your players "Put your +2 here and your +1 there" without ever having to touch the homebrew tools - and if you do touch the homebrew tools it's a matter of maybe ninety seconds to assign fixed species-based ASIs rather than trying to convince players to be good and put their numbers where they're supposed to - the answer "why not just homebrew a fixed ASI table for your game" is blasphemous and beyond intolerable?
It was perfectly fine when other people had to go well out of their way to implement janky, unreliable workarounds, but no one should ever have to ask a player to assign their points where the DM tells them to instead of where they feel like?
Double standard much?
Please do not contact or message me.
Or the non-PHB races. A table doesn't really help if it's only summarizing what's front and center on a handful of consecutive pages in one source. If I wanted them to be limited to that source, I would tell them to pick from that source.
I'm going to point something out here as someone who had twenty minutes and nothing better to do then read a random forum post. Despite your talk of how badly the other posts about this topic have turned out and not wanting to repeat that, you have been among the most hostile people here, certainly not the most hostile but up there.
Anyway my two cents on the matter is that setting agnostic races at this point in 5e's lifespan is effectively pointless and will inevitably fall short, for example the Orcs in MPMoM match very well with Faerun Orcs but do not match what little I know of the more Druidic Eberron Orcs.
As for the Flexible ASI's I feel some more suggestions are always helpful. So that say I as a DM can slap the full list of Triton abilities onto a Knight stat block when my players get into a fight with an NPC I just made up.
Edit: to be clear this post is directed at Yurei but could probably apply to several people here.
You: we want types to play against!
Me: OK, here's racial descriptions and monster stat blocks
You: that's not clear enough! we want racial ASIs!
Me: OK, here's how to find them and how to keep track of them
You: that's too much work
I really don't know what else to tell you, man. You already have the tools to do the things you say have been taken away from you. It's entirely up to you if you want to use them
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
It's not a double standard because the two sets of options are not equivalent. Having official ASIs with a optional rule to assign them as you please isn't the mirror of having assignable ASIs with a table rule to have fixed ASIs. There is no replacement for WotC establishing a official baseline, be it ASIs, classes, proficiencies, spells, weapon properties, or any other aspect of the game.
Secondly, I don't understand the animosity from the Player Assigned ASIs side. With WotC official pre-assigned ASIs & a official optional rule to put em where you want em (not that you need it to do whatever you like at your table), everyone gets what they want. The other way, not everyone gets what they want. Why are people actively working to take something from people, when there is a free option for everyone to get it the way they want it? What is the upside for the people who like to assign thier ASIs when WotC doesn't publish official pre-assigned ASIs?
Yurei is hostile because she's had this argument ten thousand times with ten thousand people. Absolutely nothing in this thread is new - it's all been said at least a hundred times, often even before the Thousand Year Plague kicked in. This has been a forum forest fire for over two years now and Yurei is so tired of it. Tired of the neverending sniping, the scornful derision, the smug dismissal, and the put-upon attitude that now that the Forgotten Realms aren't the center of the D&D universe anymore FR fans might have to homebrew their games a little. Never mind that they've been waving the rest of us off with "just homebrew, why's it so hard?" followed by a bunch of various forms and shapes of trollface memes for years now.
Building a table with fixed ability scores and alignments for the species you'll allow in your game is ten minutes' work tops that you do once per campaign. It is more effort to come up with a name for your game's capital city than it is to write down a table of fixed ASIs/alignments. Why does Wizards need to spoon-feed them to Forgotten Realms fans whilst also cramming them violently down the gullets of Eberron fans, or Exandria fans, or Athas fans, or even generic-D&D fans who homebrew their own worlds? We've been having to rip the Faerun out of the PHB for eight years now and nobody ever paid a single damned drop of attention to us when we asked for neutral books, did they? Wizards finally grows a clue and all anyone can ever seem to do is snap and snarl and demand fixed ASIs back so everyone can be forced to color in the lines again. No more erudite, soft-spoken dwarven spellcasters. No more witty, keenly educated orcish bards. No more stalwart, highly trained and fiercely dangerous halfling fighters. No more tiefling anything, of any sort or inclination. If it couldn't be dropped seamlessly into a bunch of books a dead guy wrote seventy years ago, it has no business at a D&D table.
I'll be sure to tell my literally every character I have that none of them are allowed to exist because none of them would fit for beans in a game about the legally-distinct hobbits being taken to legally-distinct Isengard.
EDIT:
A significant, even primary, reason behind removing fixed ASIs from species is removing the idea that all members of that species are the same exact identical individual, with the same exact identical abilities, same exact identical aptitudes, and same exact identical persona and make-up. As I explained to Yharim earlier in the thread, it's about lessening bioessentialism in D&D. Moving bioessentialism isn't lessening bioessentialism. Putting a giant prominent chart in your book saying "You can play whatever you like, but if you wanna play the right way, your Harengon will put their +2 in DX and their +1 in WI because that's how they're supposed to be" does not lessen bioessentialism and bioessentialist ideas in D&D. Doesn't matter if the "play what excites you" rule is in front of that table or behind it; the table's existence in the first place is in large part the issue..
Any clearer?
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That tells you everything you need to come up with set ASIs, if you want them in your campaign
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
I probably shouldn't say this Yurei, but this seems like a post too far. I respect your opinions on the topic (though they are irrevocably and irreconcilably different than mine), but this is getting a bit too far into the flames of the great conflagration that has consumed so many threads and burned so many user's Warning Point allowance. You were indeed prompted to post this, but still...
And at the risk of getting too close to the flames myself, I do understand that many are rightly frustrated that their way to play (floating ASIs) were not supported by WotC and scorned by the community, and I also understand that some even go as far to take it beyond a playstyle issue and into a content issue. But now, that does not mean that the fixed ASI camp cannot be frustrated that their way to play (and/or views on the content in question) are not only being minimized, but completely thrown away, officially speaking.
However, Wizards seems to have a track record of doing this (throwing out other's opinions to follow their own decisions), and its part of the reason I don't support what they do 100% (or even 50%).
That can, definitely. What would, in your opinion(Not asking Yurei this), be the harm in also having within the traits, "Many Harengons choose to increase their dexterity and wisdom scores."? I get the idea that making it so that all members of a certain race are basically the same and are "the wrong choice" isn't a good idea(Honestly I don't understand why racial traits aren't under more scrutiny, like high elf's cantrip or half-elf's skill versatility. Don't those assume things about races too?). I simply like having suggested ability scores that are flexible, because it gives me cool RPG vibes. Nothing about the thing I suggested means that you're playing it "wrong" if you increase other scores, and it isn't saying that all members of the race are good at one thing, more that they often choose to specialize in that thing. Is that really that bad?
Either way this discussion turns out, it doesn't really matter except to those in it, because Wizards is definitely not looking at some random thread in the forums for ideas on what to change.
This whole thread was started with me
humblysimply attempting to explain why some people were annoyed. I didn't want it to go as far as either side is going here, and hope that people can be more courteous, even if they are frustrated with the people they're arguing with.I hope everyone here has a good day/night.
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I probably should have done this in one post rather than two, but oh well.
This is being a bit dismissive of those who want to play with fixed ASIs. While this method of assigning ASIs is perfectly valid (and probably what I'm going to end up doing if I ever run a full homebrew campaign), it moves fixed ASIs into the realm of table rules rather than official rules. I would be completely, 100% fine if fixed ASIs were an optional DMG rule hidden somewhere in the couple hundred pages of that book; at least it is actually official. Moving it into the realm of full table rules means more work for the DM, sets up a bit of mismatch between older and newer players, and means the actual implementation will vary widely between tables.
Now, I will say the floating ASI camp did have to deal with this "unofficial rule" attitude for years, so I will give them a bit of grace on that. As stated in my earlier post, I made my peace with the Tasha's rule once I realized some people legitimately wanted to play differently than I did. I grumbled when it became the standard for new races, but what I really missed was the presence of a preset RAW fixed score.
My "perfect scenario" for racial ASIs would be a default floating race ASI with campaign/setting specific charts that the DM can enforce or alter at their pleasure. That's theoretically what M^3 was supposed to pave the way for, but I don't see any fixed ASI charts coming soon.
And I do hope you realize assigning fixed ASIs isn't always as simple as what the races supposed characteristics are. What classes "fit" best with that race is another huge factor, among others.
Before I dig deeper into this-- which by the way, I won't be looking for parts of your argument to tear apart, Yurei--, I just want to ask why you are arguing so hard if you're so sick of it? It's not like either side is going to 'win' this discussion.
I know it's been done time and time again, and that you're sick of smug and dismissive people, both of which I've tried to not do by trying to shine a different light on the view of both sides and by respecting you as I speak with you, as have many of the people in this thread on both sides. If you are tired of this discussion, nothing is binding you to continue it. I'll ask everyone to not bring up anything you've said so you can just rest. I respect the way you think and I respect the way you play.
I have a different point of view than you, but that is between any two people on earth. If there is anything I can do to help you, even if it doesn't have to do with this thread directly, please let me know.
____
You are completely correct that we can make the racial-modifier chart for our campaign ourselves, and it would take minimal time. The only two reasons I like species-specific scores is because one, it feels like a classic dungeon crawl video game, and two, my players often make their characters without me, and several times, I have to correct them in how they set up the ability scores, either because they chose a stat generation method that wasn't agreed upon for the game, or because they were confused about what racial modifiers to add. In my opinion, making the racial modifiers by default floating with nothing pointing to what to put them in would heighten this issue. That's just my literal two cents about why I, personally, would like species ability suggestions.
I totally understand that you would like setting neutral books like MotM(which, weirdly, has a bunch of setting specific lore like the feywild with the goblins), and I am glad that that book exists for you and people who don't like the Forgotten Realms. I would just ask that you might understand why people don't like how so many of the races were more or less replaced by the ones in that book by removing Volo's Guide and MToF from new players being able to buy them. Yes, I know quite a few people are tired of the realms and are happy to see a shift to setting-agnostic content. However, there are also quite a few people who do like the realms. Why does WotC have to only serve one of them?
I really hope that you can understand that most of the people who are annoyed with the change in this thread can understand your point of view and still respect you. If you don't believe that, please ask them. I know you've hashed it out with a lot of angry and entitled people, but please give some of these guys a chance.
I hope you have a good day/night. Genuinely.
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" all members of that species are the same exact identical individual" is not true either way, because of different rolls / array assignments / point expenditures, class choice, skill choice, feat choice, and more importantly, all the non-stat / personality differences. Getting rid of pre-assigned ASIs doesn't get rid of BE either, it just removes one aspect. If you want to remove all the bioessentialism, all PCs & NPCs must be Custom Lineage. Because "all elves get +2 Dex" is as BE as "all elves get Trance", yes? And even then, we'll still probably be showing up with two arms, two legs, and a head attached to a torso, and the bioessentialism rolls on.
And no reasonable person (my condolences for your interactions with the unreasonable people) believes that anyone not playing the way they like is "playing wrong". It's obvious even to children that in most every aspect of life, different people like different things, whether it's a favorite flavor of ice cream, style of music, or which stat gets +2 during character creation. But how is being anti-official ASIs any different? Aren't you saying those players are "doing it wrong", even though it has no effect on your table? Because you are not actually forced to color between the lines no matter what is in the WotC books, you can color however you like at your table, and I've got a decade of "art" from my kids to prove it. They have a blast drawing a green red purple "goldfish" and add legs like a horse, and I'm happy because they're happy, even as I draw within the lines & use the official colors in my Guardians of the Galaxy art book (don't judge!). If other people choose to play Tolkien-purist fantasy at thier table, I say let em. Over there. At thier table. You do you at your table. Yurei-atize all the things, establish a Yurei Cinematic Universe, go wild. And I'll be over here with my homebrew campaign built on a certified official WotC foundation.
So please let other people have the freedom to play thier game the way they want, just like you want to have the freedom to play your game in your own way. It's only fair, yes?
I do think Yurei does have a bit of a point as well with the fact that people who didn't like the official racial bonuses had to change their game and go against what was official for a long time, but I still don't see why both play styles can't be compatible.
Also, I would suggest even if it's brought up again, don't discuss the bioessentialism, because that could easily devolve into an argument that many people would regret.
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My statblock. Fear me!
Hosted a battle between the Cult of Sedge and the Forum Counters here(Done now). I_Love_Tarrasques has won the fight, scoring a victory for the fiendish Moderators.
That's not how "WotC establishing a official baseline" works by definition, as it would be my homebrew & not from WotC.
To be honest, this is the sticking point for me in this discussion, because I am/was one of those people. And playing without set ASIs really wasn't that much work for me as a DM, and it didn't come up at all after character creation was done and the campaign itself had begun
So to see people get grumpy because now they're the ones having to do that work to get their campaign exactly the way they want it just makes me shrug my shoulders and go, "So? Shouldn't you have been doing a bit of work to get your campaign exactly the way you wanted it already?"
You've said/asked multiple times why we can't have it both ways, why WotC doesn't throw in some extra guidance on where ASIs should go, something like the 'quick build' they offer with each class at 1st level (pick these spells, choose this background etc.) I keep pointing out that guidance is already there, even if it isn't highlighted in a separate text box. But let me flip it around -- if WotC did put in that text box, something like
a) do you think that would avoid the problems they're trying to avoid by getting rid of set ASIs?
b) do you think everyone complaining about not having set ASIs would be satisfied?
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)