Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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They make a character with the Race/Species Gnome, decide what their personality is, and they roleplay it. And this is the important part: whatever they decide is correct for that individual character. Isn't being able to make a character all your own one of the big draws of tabletop roleplaying?
What other people have decided in the past, what the flavor text says, that doesn't matter, or make that individual choices "objectively wrong". A GM might decide those choices don't match the tone or theme of the world at their table, and so ask said player to either change it or find another table, but there almost certainly will be a GM out there who would find that choice acceptable.
In other words, Homogeneity. Why choose something when the choice has no impact on anything?
The draw to Dungeons and Dragons... IS Dungeons and Dragons. Its Gnomes and Dwarves, Paladins and Druids... each of those things are defined, they "are" something.
What you're saying is, ignore all that and simply decide what you want it to be. I'm not necessarily saying you're wrong, what you do at your table is your business, but with 5.5e, they have basically made a statement that says "these choices no longer matter".. In other words, we are no longer D&D, we are "anything you want it to be".
I understand that the DnD Beyond forums are an echo chamber, so I'm not expecting you to understand, but the overwhelming majority of D&D fans, don't agree with this sentiment and this, above all other things, is the reason why D&D is currently on a downward trend and until they fix it and get back to the business of making D&D,.... It will continue to spiral.
WotC has been at this crossroad before during the 4e era and it didn't go well for them then either and they had the same Echo Chamber on their forums back then as they do here now. It's a gross misreading of what the community wants. You would have thought after the response they got from the survey they did recently, it would have been sufficient reason for them to get it together. I have not seen a response from the community like that ... ever. It was like 90% negative, and the commentary was brutal. I have not seen a positive thing said about 5.5 anywhere outside of this ech chamber, it is universally hated and Homogeneity is the key reason.
I do think they will right the ship, but it's sad that its going to take D&D falling on its face again for that to happen. It's unfortunate, but it is what it is. 5.5 is kind of a disaster and it's not going to end well.
It’s the opposite of homogeneity, now rather than every member of a species being identical regardless of setting a species from the Forgotten Realms can be different from the same species in Eberron or Greyhawk or whatever homebrew world you create. Taking lore from species and putting the lore load on settings means your worlds can be unique without clashing with what’s in the PHB
What you’re advocating for *is* homogeneity, you want every orc, every gnome, every elf, to have the same lore and the same strengths and weaknesses regardless of the life they’ve led or the worlds they come from
Species in 5th edition weren't identical. They simply had common traits that distinguished the difference between choices; picking species A had advantages and disadvantages compared to picking species B. Now that choice is irrelevant.
Using Stat Arrays, Harmonizing Species, and making background selections customizable, everything that they are adding to the game strips any meaning behind the choice. It's only a matter of time before they get rid of classes and simply let you pick your powers.
And here is the thing, I'm not saying that's bad game design or even a problem... I'm saying, it's not D&D.
This is a blatant lie, as I shall demonstrate by listing out each 5.5e species unique trait or traits. Traits in italic I've flagged as being similar to other species, and traits in underlined are shared with other species.
Player's Handbook
Astarion's Book of Hungers
Lorwyn: First Light
Eberron: Forge of the Artificer
So the closest you get to your species choice having no impact would be if you had to choose exclusively between Halfling and Kithkin. Darkvision takes first place for most re-used trait, followed by Fey Ancestry. And the wooden spoon for "most used general design space" goes to "ability that grants some form of damage resistance".
But beyond that, it would be patently false to say there's no difference between species and the decision doesn't matter or affect anything. I mean, this is looking at this from a purely mechanical perspective, which is like judging a meal based solely on how it smells.
Find my D&D Beyond articles here
So build a character that starts with STR 17 and INT 8. (or a bigger difference if you're rolling for stats.) You can even do that as an orc, still. And I can do it as an elf...
You are right. Now we are back at the beginning of the "homogeneous" debate. *Claps excitedly*
I can play a STR 17 elf, or a CHA 17 elf, or a CON 17 elf, or an elf with a bunch of 12s.... Or a WIS 17 orc, a CON 8 dwarf, a DEX 17 gnome with Toughness...
That's not homogeneity, that's diversity!
The greater number of choices and the removal of restrictions of those choices leads to a greater number of combinations.
Individuals become the locus of heterozygous expression, not races.
"all orcs must be X" and "All elves must be Y" is more homogenous to me than the current system, and when I started playing, only humans could be paladins. More choices is only ever homogenous when everyone makes the same choices, and I only see that from min-maxers who found a build on reddit or youtube and follow it religiously.
Outside of that, i haven't even run into 3 human fighters who were the same at a table. ( the two that were the same were clones, and it was part of their back story. )
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
"Do not question the traditions, the ancestors, the elders, the legacies, the word, or the lore, all of which are good" Is more medieval than "Hey, let's, as adults, play a game where we pretend to be use magic & swords to slay evil".
So ironically, playing DND is not compatible with a "traditional" DND mindset, since DND questions traditions, ancestors, elders, legacies, word, & lore of a lot of people.
DM, player & homebrewer(Current homebrew project is an unofficial conversion of SBURB/SGRUB from Homestuck into DND 5e)
Once made Maxwell's Silver Hammer come down upon Strahd's head to make sure he was dead.
Always study & sharpen philosophical razors. They save a lot of trouble.
You're right, I don't understand, because what you're saying is along the same lines as "Up is down," "War is peace," "ignorance is knowledge." You're claiming that a thing is the opposite of what it factually, objectively is.
EDIT: Your argument seems to be that decoupling ASI's from race and putting them in background is The Thing which creates homogeneity. Under 2014 Rules, a Dark Elf gets +2 DEX and +1 CHA. A Lightfoot Halfling gets +2 DEX and +1 CHA. Those are the same ASI's, so would you say that those two races are homogeneous? Probably not, yes? So it can't be the ASI's on their own which create homogeneity, then, can it?
I'm sorry, but if you think the only difference between the different
racesspecies were the ability modifiers, then you need to look again. There are tons of differences still. And those differences matter in most campaigns where the DM gives a crap about it (and if they don't, then you are probably playing in some kind of meat grinder not meant for serious role play). Stat boosts simply makes more sense on background than it does species when we're talking about the 0.1% of people that become adventurers.Gee, if only there were some ways to further customize a character outside of their initial class skillset...
I have, IIRC, been playing longer than OSR4ever. Some people I play with have been playing even longer. Plenty of people are entirely capable of rolling with the changes. And if we don't like the way things change?
We can keep playing whichever version we do like. It's easy. We have the books. WotC even sell digital versions of them. I'm planning on starting up a 4e campaign Real Soon Now. I'm still gonna play 5.5, but 4e gives a different experience.
If I liked the Basic/1e/2e/3e experiences, I could play those, too. But I never got into 3/3.5, and the older editions, I don't like compared to 5.5. And one of the big things I don't like, besides the janky rules?
The species differences you're so sad to see go. I vaguely remember, the first time I made a character, finding it grating that Elf could never level up past 6, when others could keep going much higher. (I forget if the level 36 cap was written into the book at that point.) Even then, when I knew basically nothing of game design, this was obviously bad, and was going to end up making it so Elves couldn't keep up. (Not that we ever came close to the level cap.)
Popular culture.
As long as generic pseudo-medieval fantasy is a thing, people will have ideas about what the various species are like.
Now, that changes over time -- modern Orcs owe more to Warcraft than to Tolkien. But that's fine. Good, even.
And D&D, being part of popular culture, feeds back into the expectations in a variety of ways. In many ways, it's still the dominant influence. Those Warcraft orcs are built off D&D orcs which were built off Tolkien orcs, and they all changed from their influences based on the needs and whims of the people adapting them. Now D&D orcs are also feeding back into popular culture, helping to influence the next round.
Cohesive? Really? I'm pretty sure that every single version of D&D, as well as individual settings for the game, have portrayed these species at least somewhat differently. (Inasmuch as they really portray the species at any meaningful level at all. IIRC, the older editions let popular culture (read: Tolkien) do a lot of the heavy lifting.)
The idea of a specific "cohesive ethos" of D&D is shaky at best, and the idea that we should all be playing by the frequently-arbitrary decisions made by the initial designers and the authors they were
ripping offinfluenced by is to make a game trapped in amber, unable to change to fit the tastes of the people who are playing it now.(Not to be confused with Amber -- that's a different game entirely)
I admit, there are some things that probably are necessary to make a game be "D&D", but we're talking about much higher-level constructs -- classes, defined spells, the six stats, etc. More generally: a magical world where a group of people from different walks of life, usually of different species, are going to set out to make their fortune through "adventuring", which involves fighting monsters and acquiring treasure. That sort of thing.
The idea that, at a game-mechanical level, those different species must have predefined bonuses to their stats really doesn't rate. It's just not important. Not high-concept enough.
The thing they have done, which is a Good Thing, is shove a lot of the differentiation out to the settings, where it belongs.
It's not that the species aren't differentiated, but it's all basic stuff. The sort of things people know from the popular culture anyway.
For instance, gnomes:
That's enough to be going on with, and you get a bit more from the species' special abilities.
All that gives more to let people conceptualize gnomes than "-1 strength +2 intelligence" or whatever would. Really, all those do is make it harder for either a player or worldbuilder to diverge.
Hi, it is me. Old player. The kind that has been playing this game for 3/4ths their current life.
Here is some ancient wisdom. It isn't about the age of the player that determines how attached to certain rules and types of design, it is sensibilities of play. I have had people who just turned 20 telling me how much better the older versions, the ones I grew up with, are better, in the direct inverse of me, who thinks 5.0 and 5.5 are the best Versions for me.
You don't have to make arguments like " X used to mean something" that can be picked apart and just say "X is the one that I like." Have talked to people who prefer the older method with the Bio-essentialist underpinnings but their view was different than mine. "It is fun to spite your biology and be what you make yourself" said to me by a person who was playing an Orc wizard.
People gravitate towards things for reasons, even when they can't articulate those reasons.
I am drawn to the newer versions over AD&D which is what i started with, because 5 and 5.5 play faster, are more in the moment tactics than they are preparation spread sheets.
He/Him. Loooooooooong time Player.
The Dark days of the THAC0 system are behind us.
"Hope is a fire that burns in us all If only an ember, awaiting your call
To rise up in triumph should we all unite
The spark for change is yours to ignite."
Kalandra - The State of the World
Having species have differing Strength scores etc does make sense to me. However, something that a designer of a different game said struck me. Mere bonuses to rolls are boring and meaningless. After thinking about it, I realised he was right.
Like, let's take that +2. That translates to +1 to rolls with one of your six Ability Scores. That translates to 1 in 20 of the affected rolls passing rather than failing. Fudging for the fact that we don't know what Ability Score you'd improve or the rolls that are commonly used in the campaign, that's naively 1 in 120 rolls that are affected.
Yawn.
Granted, I daresay that it would make a difference more often than that...but still. I'd probably guesstimate it to be about 1 in 40 (so half the time you're using that preferred Ability). Still hardly thrilling, isn't it? Even when it does make the difference, you never think to yourself "Oh yeah baby! I won that arm wrestle because I'm an Orc! Hoorah!". You just think "huh, just about won that...ooh, squirrel!".
Instead, actual abilities are far more interesting and meaningful. Relentless Endurance, where you drop to 1HP rather than 0 is far more flavourful, meaningful and reminiscent of being an Orc than having a +1 to Str rolls. You feel much more like an Orc when you tank a heavy blow that would have KO'd the Human in the group.
That's why I stopped worrying about species mandated modifiers. They just don't mean much.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
There is two sides to this though. You gotta remember that this is the internet, and the internet is motivated more when its upset than when its happy. I have my issues with 5.5. But it DID fix a bunch of issues. It just didn't fix enough issues, and addressed things that weren't even a problem in the first place. Both halves of that need to be acknowledged. As is the fact that its technically more modular, but also now suffers from providing even less guidance on how things work. In a weird way, this made settings books MORE important.... but no one wants to read those, and adapt how they run their games.
And to give an obligatory shot at the player base for their fault in all this..... they harp about wanting choices, but get paralysis when forced to make an actual choice. Even offload build decisions to buildcraft videos to optimize class and combat performance.
And in that same vein, feats are way more interesting than ASIs. Gain +1 to a roll? Or add this whole new mechanic/feature to your character? Have one more use of a class feature per long rest? OR Give Inspiration to an ally on a crit? If we're gonna be saddled with Bounded accuracy messing with our rolls, may as well find things that make you less dependent on it. Dragon Marks give you a whole extra list of spells to work with. Focused Critical lets anyone crit on a 19 or 20. Iron Hero lets you tell the DM when they have the monster use a legendary action "um acktually, no it doesn't". If theres ever a 6th edition, the Designers really NEED to think about splitting feats into combat and non-combat categories, and enable players to take more feats overall as part of the leveling process; instead of the either/or ASI model we have now. Its practically made it a choice between "Rolls better" or "Is more interesting to play"
PF2 mops the floor with 5e with how choices during leveling are structured. Its based on feats and expanding abilities. Stat increases are automatically included in the main class leveling process; so the core of your choices is what do you want to add to your moveset, or what ability or bonus do you want to add to your non-combat abilities? Everyone can take a feat that gives you a flat 10 on ability checks. Everyone can take a feat that lets you retroactively "buy" an item from the last time you were in town. If your class uses a shield, you can choose to take the one that lets you move and attack while having full shield bonuses instead of having to spend actions doing them separately, OR gain an attack that uses your shield as a weapon with full proficiency bonuses OR gain an ability that lets you wear a shield on your back to counter the flanking bonus.
There is a choice to be made at every level, a lot of them are meaningful, and its not difficulty to find something that either rounds out or further specializes your playstyle.
I respectfully disagree.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
The interesting part about not quoting people, though this happens even when people do quote, is that they simply ignore everything I actually said and make assumptions about what I was "probably" thinking or "mean". I was quite clear and precise with my words, and I never said anything about ability modifiers, though it seems now the conversation is revolving around that assumption like a typical strawman exercise, which is weird because there were plenty of actual points and context to base a discussion. Not sure why we are just arbitrarily adding assumptions and then basing the entire response on that assumption.
As Davyd pointed out in his post, every race has unique powers that are kind of meant to represent cultural traits, but they mostly become executable powers no different than those of a class or spell, they are mechanics, masquerading as depictions of a culture. Which would be fine, if they said something about how a culture works, but they are mostly designed to be used in combat in some form or another. They are less cultural traits and more of an extension of class powers masquerading as such.
Take Dwarven Stonecunning as an example. This is a derivative of the old Dwarven ability to know their way around the interiors of a mountain. It was, in effect, a knowledge skill in every previous edition, the natural cultural identity that Dwarves come from and live in the mountains so they know about mountains.
Why was Stonecunning changed to be effectively a bonus action in combat? Why did Dwarves suddenly pick up a new ability called "Tremorsense"? Where does that come from? In what D&D setting, Ethos or imagery has that ever been part of D&D. Where in the description of dwarves is this explained in any cultural context? Until 5.5e, it has never existed in any way, shape or form, neither described, assumed, or explained; it was an arbitrary addition that had nothing to do with Dwarves or D&D as anyone knows it.
More to the point the description of Dwarves in the 5.5 book is completely devoid of any detail. We went from a 3-page layout about Dwarves in 5th edition with every element of that description aligned with the traits about abilities of a Dwarf to a one-page write-up in which 50 percent of the page is art and the other 50% are Dwarf Traits, with some arbitrary additions like Tremorsense and only a couple of paragraphs reserved to describe what a Dwarf actually is, using the absolute most vague terms possible.
The Players Handbook doesn't really tell you anything useful about Dwarves, the base assumption about Dwarves is that "they are fantasy people that live in the mountains"... and that is pretty much it.
My point is that.. this is so vague that, if you left the description out entiretly, you would not be any more or less informed about what a Dwarf is or isn't, you could just go on popular culture and other fantasies to define what a Dwarf is and you would be no more or less accurate.
There is no such thing as a D&D Dwarf in 5.5, there is just a kind of vague impression of people with beards that live in the mountains. There is no commitment to the D&D ethos, no recognition of the different types of dwarves, no alterations for different dwarves or anything else guiding players about what it means to role-play a dwarf.
To a player reading this book, there is only one reason to pick dwarf as a species, because you like the powers that come with that choice. The existence of dwarves as part of the game is pretty meaningless in the context of setting, story, narrative or anything else that would guide the player about role-playing. Its just a list of powers.
As someone accurately pointed out "it's up to the player to decide,".. as it has nothing to do with D&D and everything to do with whatever the player thinks it is. It's a rather undefined "blob".. an undescribed and undefined fantasy "person", written in the most uninspired and vague way possible as to not say anything that might contradict or suggest anything.
It's not a subtle change, it's a focused de-classification of the D&Dsim of the game.
But it isn't just that because the removal of D&D ethos is combined with a lot of other "vague" elements left unattended. Who is your character is based on an assumption that people are going to write "backgrounds", which, I know on the DNDBeyond Echo Chamber is a presumed first step to character creation, but the reality is that its rarely done in the audience at large. People make characters by following the steps of character creation which used to include detailed descriptions of species (race), backgrounds and class as well as additional elements like the personality system, alignment had deeper meaning, sub-species mattered and feats ... all of these things were depictions. You could create a character, without writing a single word about them, and just through the character creation process, have a person with a meaningful depiction. In 5.5, all of that is gone.
In a sense, with 5.5e, D&D became truly a generic fantasy system, the logo at this point doesn't actually represent anything. When you say D&D in the context of 5.5, you're not actually describing something tangible, a specific game or fantasy. The D&D culture and ethos has been washed out and neutralized and I understand that people think this gives them "flexibility". It really actually does, but flexibility, aka infinite options with no barriers or meaningful connection to the material on which the game is based, has made the game feel mundane. There is no part in the book you read and go.. wow that is a cool depiction, I think I will be a Dwarf Paladin... You choose those things because you like the way its going to work when you get in a fight.
I know people don't see it right now, especially in this echo chamber and I get it, we went through this exact thing with 4e. 4e was also exceedingly washed out and generic. It eventually killed the game.