In the old days, most races with a bonus also had a penalty. Humans had no bonuses and no penalties. But the other races normally balanced out... So your +2 CON, say, was balanced by -1 INT, -1 WIS (or what have you). If you wanted that awesome CON, it came with strings attached
I started playing 30 something years ago, when DnD was just getting started good, if you wanted to play a fighter, you choose a dwarf (all we had was human, dwarf, and elf, that was it), and you earned say 5 points to put where you wanted them. So say I'm playing a dwarf, I would put 3 points into str, and 2 points in con, and have a -1 to char, or whatever the case was. You leveled up after you earned ~350 points, so you had to keep up with your points earned. If you wanted to play a mage (the only classes were fighter, mage, cleric), you would choose either a human, or a elf, but mainly a human. As you roll your character, and you had to roll a d8 for each stat, well half the stats anyway, as a mage you would put as many as possible in int, then wis, and you would have a -X to str, possibly con. It was fun, watching your character develop over time the way you want them to develop.
Now, you pick a race, and a class, then click standard array, all your stats are filled in for you, then after a mission, you are given a certain amount of xp, which is filled into whatever slot the computer wants to put it in. Eventually you level up, and you have the character the computer wants you to have. I always played a half-human/half-elf/half-dwarf, and my class was figher/mage/cleric, and depending on which character it was, I had their stats done differently. Why because I could. Also, since I am a gay guy, and most of our group was gay/lesbian, I played a butch lesbian, swinging a magical battle ax. why because I could. Each character was unique, and I played each character differently, one was a sarcastic ******* (in a good way he went for the jokes), another was a drama queen, one was a fighter, another specialized in magic, still another was a healer/priest, that swung a battle ax. I usually played a different character each game, just rotating them out whatever I felt like that night. On paper it appeared to be the same character, but each one had a different personality. Now, you create 5 different characters, and after 4 levels you will still have 4 identical characters. But back then I was able to develop each character as I felt their personality directed, and end up with 4 completely different characters, even each fighter was different from the other fighters. That was a lot more fun than it is today. I know if those against playing this way would just try it a couple levels, then they would want to switch back.
Because typically racial bonuses force you into racial stereotypes. Now, you might want to play a stereotypical X, many players actually do, but it should be a choice, not something the game forces on you.
That's a load of crap. I use to take one character, and roll the stats up differently and play that same character as different beings. I played a fighter mage cleric, one character would be straight fighter, another straight magic user, another half fighter half magic user, with a little healer/priest thrown in, then again I had a cleric/priest that swung a battle ax, and would jump into a fight before anyone else could. The current system is what pigeon holes you into a typical player. Besides we are talking fantasy game, not real life bigotry which is wrong.
Sort of like all of you telling us who have played the game for eons the existing game itself is awful, and we are awful for liking and defending it. And yeah, that does happen. I remember, what, 24 hours ago the "bigot" word being thrown around. When the aggressor plays the victim card.
Look, your campaign was successful. You has won. WOTC is introducing a system that opens the door that completely changes how a char is built, and what that char is. The canard about how this is "optional" will shown for what it is when systems like AL start introducing it, and unless DM's are hyper-vigilant, people will try to sneak chars into games built on it, no matter what the DM wants, then those people will scream blue murder if a DM does put a stop to it. Then your group moves onto species specific Feats, and ultimately, species specific abilities.
So congrats. Well played. Brilliant use of social media to convince WOTC. Sorry that old folks like myself who have played the game for 40 years are slowing the process of wiping out anything that reminds people of the history of this game. But yeah, I will hold the line, for as long as I can, against the Visogoths coming over the last set of hills.
If the only thing that disqualifies me from being capable of having an opinion in your book is my age, thank you for gatekeeping and being a jerk. I didn't choose when I was born, and that doesn't make me any less entitled to D&D than you are. Just because you've been playing the game for 40 years doesn't mean that you get to own it. This is absolute BS, and I'm sorry if you get "canceled" for being a jerk.
I am not bigoted against people who have been playing the game longer than me. I'm kind of thankful to them for continuing to keep the game alive for as long as it took for me to be born and discover D&D. Also, the people who took offense to me whispering the word "bigot" on earlier posts absolutely did not read my post. If you find it offensive that I said anyone who thinks that I can play the game wrong while everyone is playing fun, sorry, but if the shoe fits. . .
Also, as has been covered earlier in the thread, WotC had been planning on making these changes before the year started, so this has nothing to do with social media, and more to do with giving more options to players.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
First and foremost, the different "races" in D&D, are not different races, but rather, they are different species.
Different species, have different attributes. What is wrong with, for example, Half Orcs being inherently stronger than most other species? Is it wrong to acknowledge that a fish is a better swimmer than a cat? Is it wrong to say a cheetah is inherently faster than a turtle? (you know, different species...)
If all of the species in D&D start out with the same base stats, then what is the point of having different species? Might as well have a single species that you can customize any way you want.
Is this really what the majority of players want, or is WOC just trying to appeal to a certain group, most of whom aren't even interested in D&D?
It's wotc jumping on the PC train, and it annoys me. I like that certain races are better at certain things.
I agree. Some people here are claiming that the optional rules were made because they were popular. You and I know that it was driven by pressure from certain groups.
Except, as has been proven earlier in the thread, they were going to make these changes before any 2020 social movements happened. That claim that you "know" is absolute BS.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Within 18 months, I am looking forward to telling players, "Sorry, I don't care that it is in the new PHB and considered canon. Your Halfing can't have a starting strength of 16, Drow Darkvision, and Tabaxi Feline Agility".
That is the endgame of this whole thing.
Slippery Slope arguments are still logical fallacies, last I checked. I absolutely do not want to give players the ability to do that. I'm in the camp who would prefer a system that distinguished NURTURE traits from NATURE traits. NURTURE traits would be customizable and you could mix and match then, while NATURE traits would not be.
Stop using slippery slopes, please. It's a strawman, because my side doesn't want this to happen (from what I understand).
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Within 18 months, I am looking forward to telling players, "Sorry, I don't care that it is in the new PHB and considered canon. Your Halfing can't have a starting strength of 16, Drow Darkvision, and Tabaxi Feline Agility".
That is the endgame of this whole thing.
Slippery Slope arguments are still logical fallacies, last I checked. I absolutely do not want to give players the ability to do that. I'm in the camp who would prefer a system that distinguished NURTURE traits from NATURE traits. NURTURE traits would be customizable and you could mix and match then, while NATURE traits would not be.
Stop using slippery slopes, please. It's a strawman, because my side doesn't want this to happen (from what I understand).
I completely agree with you, Third. There is no proof that this system will do anything other than just allow you to move ability score increases around, and I think that the people claiming otherwise are just trying to incite shock and fear.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
First and foremost, the different "races" in D&D, are not different races, but rather, they are different species.
Different species, have different attributes. What is wrong with, for example, Half Orcs being inherently stronger than most other species? Is it wrong to acknowledge that a fish is a better swimmer than a cat? Is it wrong to say a cheetah is inherently faster than a turtle? (you know, different species...)
If all of the species in D&D start out with the same base stats, then what is the point of having different species? Might as well have a single species that you can customize any way you want.
Is this really what the majority of players want, or is WOC just trying to appeal to a certain group, most of whom aren't even interested in D&D?
It's wotc jumping on the PC train, and it annoys me. I like that certain races are better at certain things.
I agree. Some people here are claiming that the optional rules were made because they were popular. You and I know that it was driven by pressure from certain groups.
Except, as has been proven earlier in the thread, they were going to make these changes before any 2020 social movements happened. That claim that you "know" is absolute BS.
There were no social movements before 2020? You may not be the oldest player here but you were not born yesterday.
What would you call all of the stuff (non-Covid related) that's happened this year, then?
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My main worry is that the species traits will be the next target. It's unfair that a goliath gets to be large while a goblin doesn't, or that a dragonborn can breathe fire, or an aarakocra can fly.
The minmaxers will always find a way to minmax, and then that becomes the new normal and what's expected. People will feel compelled to pick the species with the best traits and then start to want to remove all traits too.
Cultural traits really should be customisable though. It makes no sense that a dwarf brought up in an elvish society speaks only dwarfish.
No, that's not what any of us have been saying. It's not unfair that a halfling is small, or that a goliath has powerful build. This is a strawman.
Also, no, minmaxing won't become the new normal. Allowing powergamers to play how they like in the base game doesn't suddenly make every new character be minmaxed.
I only agree with the last part.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
First and foremost, the different "races" in D&D, are not different races, but rather, they are different species.
Different species, have different attributes. What is wrong with, for example, Half Orcs being inherently stronger than most other species? Is it wrong to acknowledge that a fish is a better swimmer than a cat? Is it wrong to say a cheetah is inherently faster than a turtle? (you know, different species...)
If all of the species in D&D start out with the same base stats, then what is the point of having different species? Might as well have a single species that you can customize any way you want.
Is this really what the majority of players want, or is WOC just trying to appeal to a certain group, most of whom aren't even interested in D&D?
It's wotc jumping on the PC train, and it annoys me. I like that certain races are better at certain things.
I agree. Some people here are claiming that the optional rules were made because they were popular. You and I know that it was driven by pressure from certain groups.
Except, as has been proven earlier in the thread, they were going to make these changes before any 2020 social movements happened. That claim that you "know" is absolute BS.
There were no social movements before 2020? You may not be the oldest player here but you were not born yesterday.
What would you call all of the stuff (non-Covid related) that's happened this year, then?
Stuff that had been building up for years, with a legacy going back at least as long as the US has existed and likely longer. But if you want to discuss detail, message me. This is not a political forum.
This isn't political, and the fact that it was happening before doesn't make the current events less of a social movement. This year has been filled with many things that would qualify it as a social movement. I don't want to derail the thread, so here's the definition of social movement I found online. The stuff that has been happening counts:
social movement noun a group of diffusely organized people or organizations striving toward a common goal relating to human society or social change, or the organized activities of such a group: The push for civil rights was a social movement that peaked in the 1950s and 1960s.
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Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Within 18 months, I am looking forward to telling players, "Sorry, I don't care that it is in the new PHB and considered canon. Your Halfing can't have a starting strength of 16, Drow Darkvision, and Tabaxi Feline Agility".
That is the endgame of this whole thing.
I won't lie, I am already fully prepared to say "if you cannot find that race in the 2e players handbook, it does not exist in my world. Thank you, and please drive through.
I gave all my 2e stuff to my nephew years ago, and no I wish I had not. I would love to go through that and pick out all the good stuff. The issue with doing that is the players can't be expected to have 2e stuff anymore for reference. There were more than enough species in 2e, when combined with all the classes and subclasses, that a player can play a lifetime of 5e and never touch every class/subclass/species combination.
I am sure some here would be horrified to know what my homebrewed world is. I won't go through the entire demographics of the continent, but there are only the 5e PHB races, and Half-Orcs are hunted on sight in the Elven, Dwarven, and Human territories. (the minor races don't have their own territories).
Elves get +2 Dex because of their superior vision, excellent hand-eye coordination, and hyper flexibility. Most likely because of a combination of a greater range of pupillary dilation, more rapid pupillary responses to light and distance, more rods in their eyes for better light absorption and an ability to see into the UV spectrum due to altered/additional cones in their eyes, a more direct brain link to the image (human eyes put everything to the brain upside down and our brains need a microsecond to invert the image for us), more flexible ligaments and tendons, and higher fast twitch muscle response, and a shorter distance between neurons for faster reaction times. Those would be genetic traits.
That couldn't be further from the truth. Elves have Darkvision. Dex has nothing to do with sight. If anything, Wisdom does because of perception.
If vision and hand/eye coordination have nothing to do with Dex, then why Dex is the Attack stat for ranged weapons in 5e?!?
Because no one designing the game has likely ever used a bow. Logically there'd be a Str requirement for bows. A size requirement for longbows (or war bows). And then...well a Wis check to target an enemy, a Dex check to steady your aim, maybe an Int check to account for wind speed.
Short answer? It's a game. Physics has little to do with it.
As someone who is an archer, this has perturbed me on why bows were keyed to DEX when DEX has nothing to do with shooting. STR and/or WIS(perception in the way of aiming I can see as being perceptive) always made more sense to me.
As someone who also shoots (and is a instructor) Strength is not the key to archery. I'll give you the wisdom, but the coordination of your muscles and the fine tuned isolation of your release is indeed what makes you a good archer. As 30lbs bow and a 50lbs bow can hit the same target (for the most part) but it is not the archers strength and ability to pull back the heavier bow that makes the shot, it is his aim and ability to isolate his pulls, push and release.
The lowest Point Buy and Standard Array allows is an 8. So a weak Orc will always have a 10 in Str.
And that’s precisely why I prefer rolling for stats. I love a PC with a 6 in something.
Actually, I just had an idea for an alternative Ability Score generation system that I think I’ll try in future: everybody gets a 6, a 16, and rolls the other four stats by rolling 2d6+6 for each of them.
My Goliath Barb in my game hasa a 4 in intelligence (rolled 4d6 and got 3 1 and a 2). Even though I said she could reroll she loved the idea of this Barb, that can't even get the jokes of Tasha's Hideous Laughter XD
Within 18 months, I am looking forward to telling players, "Sorry, I don't care that it is in the new PHB and considered canon. Your Halfing can't have a starting strength of 16, Drow Darkvision, and Tabaxi Feline Agility".
That is the endgame of this whole thing.
I won't lie, I am already fully prepared to say "if you cannot find that race in the 2e players handbook, it does not exist in my world. Thank you, and please drive through.
I gave all my 2e stuff to my nephew years ago, and no I wish I had not. I would love to go through that and pick out all the good stuff. The issue with doing that is the players can't be expected to have 2e stuff anymore for reference. There were more than enough species in 2e, when combined with all the classes and subclasses, that a player can play a lifetime of 5e and never touch every class/subclass/species combination.
I am sure some here would be horrified to know what my homebrewed world is. I won't go through the entire demographics of the continent, but there are only the 5e PHB races, and Half-Orcs are hunted on sight in the Elven, Dwarven, and Human territories. (the minor races don't have their own territories).
I mean yeah, that's a horrifying world, but I don't see how that's a problem unless you expect your players who are humans, elves or dwarves to entirely agree with it and you're not portraying it as some morally good thing?
There is a difference between someone portraying a horrible world and the horrors in it, and someone portraying that same world but agreeing with it and thinking it's morally okay, and you aren't doing that in this case.
Ya know why power gaming exists in the community? Cuz of 3.5. Pathfinder has it as well cuz its built on the same math system.
Let me explain: 3.5 had TONS of things in it. But one of the things it had (pfs does this too again built from the same system) is the need for the "Big 6" (magic items). And when you strayed away from your big 6 to enhance your base stats, you were not at that average (d20 systems "say" the average to succeed is usually 60%). Now add in the fact that there was a HUGE amount of DMs that were not so good on equipment management, such as loot, buy/sell, gold avg/lvl maths - even wanting "low magic/no magic settings" for their games. Add to the fact you didn't typically get those DMs also then being good at combat management and adjusting monster stats. So you had TONS of problems with combat JUST BEING THE SUCK. So how does a player fix something they have no control over? Min and Max. Following build Guides. Getting feat help on forums. etc, etc, etc.
If you ever get bored, and can find the archivals of old forums (minmax boards, reddit, pfs boards, gitp boards) you'll see tons of this happening. You'll also see tons of "How do i deal with x player" from DMs (and hindsight being 20/20 lots of those how to deal also mention low magic/no magic or poor loot issues as well) so that level of power gaming was really born of that problem.
5e - doesn't have that problem. Yeah you can have some good damage output players, but for the most part the dynamics of dnd has shifted in the eyes of the greater community. Heck even if you do have someone who "power gamed" their toons, you get more people who "liked that" cuz "they can goof off". While you have tons of people in threads yelling "omg power gaming" its not as bad in 5e, and tons of players kinda don't care. Most of the time the power gamer in 5e is what +1 or +1 die better than them? oooo
So as far as the changes to races and classes, it's kinda weird to see this become a big deal after 25yrs of gaming. Cuz, really "our system" of 5e isn't that bad, yeah theres some but its harder to get off the ground, its not "effective by 4th" like a lot of 3.5 was. Changing things and swapping things aren't going to break anything. To be like "i'm going to say no as a dm" is just going to loose you players.
Customization in video games in the #1 selling "thing" when it comes to video games. Why would you say no customization in dnd? Cuz of lore? Cuz its always been this way? Cuz someone might get a better +1 they wouldn't normally? C'mon as DM's we're supposed to enable the idea that it should be more power to the players, not the other way around..
Customization in video games in the #1 selling "thing" when it comes to video games. Why would you say no customization in dnd? Cuz of lore? Cuz its always been this way? Cuz someone might get a better +1 they wouldn't normally? C'mon as DM's we're supposed to enable the idea that it should be more power to the players, not the other way around..
This. What should be added is that the TTRPG industry learned a lot from the video game industry about sustaining fan bases at the turn of the century. There are plenty of examples, Wizards being in the same town as Microsoft and the community around Xbox I'm sure had some serious pollination. Mike Pondsmith of R Talsorion had a lot of consulting and take back with him learning well before he started working with ProjectRed. Though I think, the learning points of "what is a player?" is more a spectrum, and a spectrum both industries try to exist.
Yes, there is a desire for super customization and individuation and Tasha's will evidently speak to that. There's also the "just drop me in a quick build and let me see if I like this in the first place" camp, which is crucial to growing any hobby, and the 5th edition PHB did make moves this way in its notes to character class selection but will be going further at it with its renewed development as "sidekick" builds as PCs.
I will say, while I missed 3.5 and 4, power gaming has ALWAYS been a thing in TTRPGs. Maybe not in Amber Diceless role playing but even White Wolf's "Storyteller System" there were significant sectors of the player base bent on optimized builds. I've always thought it's largely due to the hobby being an outgrowth of wargaming, and some of the "calculus style" of play is just stuck in the DNA no matter how much you try to push story over mechanics. Same for rules lawyering. I guess Monty Haul style DMing was unique in TTRPG as opposed to Wargaming, but I think a lot of TTRPGs fixations that can sometimes go to pathological if the tables isn't fully supportive grow out from the Little Wars origins.
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Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Honestly, just use real dice for the roller... i've never rolled a stat below a 10 (even without re-rolling ones).
Gnome barbarians are fun bc you have to overcome the challenges of playing the gnome barbarian. Same with a Goliath druid, eventually it gets enough ASIs to get to 20 wis, but the struggle of reaching that point makes it worth it.
Also a +1 doesn't make a real difference most of the time.
And Srsly tho... there really is nothing better than a lightfoot halfling rogue... goliaths and half orcs just cant do it on account of their size. If you're gonna give a goliath +2 DEX you're just being unrealistic... the bigger you are, the less agile you are (as a general rule, but if u practice every day then u get good at it.... thats what levelled ASIs are for) and smaller creatures are more agile... just watch a squirrel's acrobatics versus a Racoon's
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Cult of Sedge
Rangers are the best, and have always been the best
Customization in video games in the #1 selling "thing" when it comes to video games. Why would you say no customization in dnd?
1. Because D&D is not a video game. Video games need to zero out differences in characters because there is no DM to adjust things to customize them to the party. D&D has a DM to handle things.
2. No one is saying "no to customization." We are saying that there should be boundaries on how far customization can be taken at character creation, to keep the races distinct and meaningful. If every race can just do everything, then there is no need for them -- just call everything human and have done with it.
3. If you really believe that customization is all that matters, then you should be arguing for dropping all racial traits, not just stat bonuses, and making the whole system go "point buy," including racial traits, languages, and all the rest of it. There is no logically consistent argument for the stat bonuses to be customizable but the racial traits fixed. Either customization matters enough to get rid of everything, or it doesn't matter enough to get rid of any of it.
C'mon as DM's we're supposed to enable the idea that it should be more power to the players, not the other way around.
I don't view my job as DM to be "giving power to players." I view my job as providing a realistic world that has sufficient verisimilitude that my players can enjoy the illusion that their character is a real person living in that world. To maintain verisimilitude, we need logical consistency -- things like goliaths should naturally be stronger than halflings and thus tend to be better at doing things like swinging axes and war hammers, but worse at things like creeping through forests. Logical consistency requires that languages matter (or else why have them?), that cultures differ from place to place, and that people who grow up in different cultures and with different genetics have different starting (but not ending) abilities. It even, heaven forfend, might mean there are things like deeply ingrained racial animosities. All of these things provide RP fodder -- something that cannot be quantified easily by a stat block -- and increase the sense that the world we're playing in is a real place, with a real history and real living beings inhabiting it. Real living beings who are flawed and imperfect, and who might not have been born with exactly the right physiology to perfectly and exactly, without any waste or misalignment, do the job they ended up doing.
Making that believable illusion happen is my job as a DM, not "giving power to the players."
Note, I don't argue that characters shouldn't be powerful -- they can and should be. But their power should exist in a context that makes sense in the world, and takes its shape from a realistic and believable setting. I refuse to sacrifice verisimilitude of the setting because "players want it." If it's that important to be so uber-customized that races don't really matter, then get someone else to DM. I won't DM a campaign that is just a bunch of omg-so-random characters who are just a bunch of optimized, slapped together stats and traits.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Honestly, if you compare them... Shaquille O'Neil is your "basic Half Orc" (No offense intended, i'm going merely by size) and i'm your basic human, my strength stat is gonna be like a 10-12, but Shaq's is gonna be like a 14 or 15... size does determine how strong you are. If I get into a fight with someone bigger than me, i have to use things to my advantage... smaller people tend to be smarter because they need to be. Basically what i'm saying is racial traits are there for a reason, because they go off general rules of thumb, are there exceptions yes... that's why there are ASIs for levelling up; use them wisely.
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Cult of Sedge
Rangers are the best, and have always been the best
Good people of D&D Beyond--we can do it. We can kill this thread. If we work together, we can dream of a better future where these stupid arguments about 100% optional rules don't result in ~30 pages of wasted bytes and bruised fingertips. We can live in a cyberspace free of circular and perpendicular arguments based on rules that we haven't yet seen. I believe that each and every one of you has the courage to do the right thing... to unsubscribe from this thread... to stop posting clones of it... to let the last post be the last post, and walk away. We can show the mods that we're capable of locking a thread all on our own!
C'mon as DM's we're supposed to enable the idea that it should be more power to the players, not the other way around.
I don't view my job as DM to be "giving power to players." I view my job as providing a realistic world that has sufficient verisimilitude that my players can enjoy the illusion that their character is a real person living in that world. To maintain verisimilitude, we need logical consistency -- things like goliaths should naturally be stronger than halflings and thus tend to be better at doing things like swinging axes and war hammers, but worse at things like creeping through forests. Logical consistency requires that languages matter (or else why have them?), that cultures differ from place to place, and that people who grow up in different cultures and with different genetics have different starting (but not ending) abilities. It even, heaven forfend, might mean there are things like deeply ingrained racial animosities. All of these things provide RP fodder -- something that cannot be quantified easily by a stat block -- and increase the sense that the world we're playing in is a real place, with a real history and real living beings inhabiting it. Real living beings who are flawed and imperfect, and who might not have been born with exactly the right physiology to perfectly and exactly, without any waste or misalignment, do the job they ended up doing.
Making that believable illusion happen is my job as a DM, not "giving power to the players."
Note, I don't argue that characters shouldn't be powerful -- they can and should be. But their power should exist in a context that makes sense in the world, and takes its shape from a realistic and believable setting. I refuse to sacrifice verisimilitude of the setting because "players want it." If it's that important to be so uber-customized that races don't really matter, then get someone else to DM. I won't DM a campaign that is just a bunch of omg-so-random characters who are just a bunch of optimized, slapped together stats and traits.
You are of course right. The general feeling I get from not the only the proponents on this forum of this disaster, and from so many other forums on completely different issues is "The DM is supposed to give me everything I want to steamroll every challenge the DM puts in front of us." That, of course, is utterly wrong, and the sign of a poor player. As you said, a DM must create a world that the players can immerse themselves in, lose themselves in. That means the players may face challenges and obstacles that they can't deal with at lower levels, but later, succeed at. Fear of grand, terrible things should ALWAYS be part of a rich setting. The game is also about the decisions a player makes...tradeoffs. Do I follow this path that furthers the plot in some unknown way, or choose another path, that may be easier, at the beginning. Same with abilities. The 27 point buy, the species specific features, and feats, are all part of the same system that forces players to make tradeoffs.
The people that want this system are people who don't like tradeoffs, and want everything, now. Challenges are not something they enjoy. Or, they are driven by forces from outside the game, which is even worse.
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I started playing 30 something years ago, when DnD was just getting started good, if you wanted to play a fighter, you choose a dwarf (all we had was human, dwarf, and elf, that was it), and you earned say 5 points to put where you wanted them. So say I'm playing a dwarf, I would put 3 points into str, and 2 points in con, and have a -1 to char, or whatever the case was. You leveled up after you earned ~350 points, so you had to keep up with your points earned. If you wanted to play a mage (the only classes were fighter, mage, cleric), you would choose either a human, or a elf, but mainly a human. As you roll your character, and you had to roll a d8 for each stat, well half the stats anyway, as a mage you would put as many as possible in int, then wis, and you would have a -X to str, possibly con. It was fun, watching your character develop over time the way you want them to develop.
Now, you pick a race, and a class, then click standard array, all your stats are filled in for you, then after a mission, you are given a certain amount of xp, which is filled into whatever slot the computer wants to put it in. Eventually you level up, and you have the character the computer wants you to have. I always played a half-human/half-elf/half-dwarf, and my class was figher/mage/cleric, and depending on which character it was, I had their stats done differently. Why because I could. Also, since I am a gay guy, and most of our group was gay/lesbian, I played a butch lesbian, swinging a magical battle ax. why because I could. Each character was unique, and I played each character differently, one was a sarcastic ******* (in a good way he went for the jokes), another was a drama queen, one was a fighter, another specialized in magic, still another was a healer/priest, that swung a battle ax. I usually played a different character each game, just rotating them out whatever I felt like that night. On paper it appeared to be the same character, but each one had a different personality. Now, you create 5 different characters, and after 4 levels you will still have 4 identical characters. But back then I was able to develop each character as I felt their personality directed, and end up with 4 completely different characters, even each fighter was different from the other fighters. That was a lot more fun than it is today. I know if those against playing this way would just try it a couple levels, then they would want to switch back.
That's a load of crap. I use to take one character, and roll the stats up differently and play that same character as different beings. I played a fighter mage cleric, one character would be straight fighter, another straight magic user, another half fighter half magic user, with a little healer/priest thrown in, then again I had a cleric/priest that swung a battle ax, and would jump into a fight before anyone else could. The current system is what pigeon holes you into a typical player. Besides we are talking fantasy game, not real life bigotry which is wrong.
If the only thing that disqualifies me from being capable of having an opinion in your book is my age, thank you for gatekeeping and being a jerk. I didn't choose when I was born, and that doesn't make me any less entitled to D&D than you are. Just because you've been playing the game for 40 years doesn't mean that you get to own it. This is absolute BS, and I'm sorry if you get "canceled" for being a jerk.
I am not bigoted against people who have been playing the game longer than me. I'm kind of thankful to them for continuing to keep the game alive for as long as it took for me to be born and discover D&D. Also, the people who took offense to me whispering the word "bigot" on earlier posts absolutely did not read my post. If you find it offensive that I said anyone who thinks that I can play the game wrong while everyone is playing fun, sorry, but if the shoe fits. . .
Also, as has been covered earlier in the thread, WotC had been planning on making these changes before the year started, so this has nothing to do with social media, and more to do with giving more options to players.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Except, as has been proven earlier in the thread, they were going to make these changes before any 2020 social movements happened. That claim that you "know" is absolute BS.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Slippery Slope arguments are still logical fallacies, last I checked. I absolutely do not want to give players the ability to do that. I'm in the camp who would prefer a system that distinguished NURTURE traits from NATURE traits. NURTURE traits would be customizable and you could mix and match then, while NATURE traits would not be.
Stop using slippery slopes, please. It's a strawman, because my side doesn't want this to happen (from what I understand).
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I completely agree with you, Third. There is no proof that this system will do anything other than just allow you to move ability score increases around, and I think that the people claiming otherwise are just trying to incite shock and fear.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
My Improved Lineage System
What would you call all of the stuff (non-Covid related) that's happened this year, then?
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
No, that's not what any of us have been saying. It's not unfair that a halfling is small, or that a goliath has powerful build. This is a strawman.
Also, no, minmaxing won't become the new normal. Allowing powergamers to play how they like in the base game doesn't suddenly make every new character be minmaxed.
I only agree with the last part.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
This isn't political, and the fact that it was happening before doesn't make the current events less of a social movement. This year has been filled with many things that would qualify it as a social movement. I don't want to derail the thread, so here's the definition of social movement I found online. The stuff that has been happening counts:
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I gave all my 2e stuff to my nephew years ago, and no I wish I had not. I would love to go through that and pick out all the good stuff. The issue with doing that is the players can't be expected to have 2e stuff anymore for reference. There were more than enough species in 2e, when combined with all the classes and subclasses, that a player can play a lifetime of 5e and never touch every class/subclass/species combination.
I am sure some here would be horrified to know what my homebrewed world is. I won't go through the entire demographics of the continent, but there are only the 5e PHB races, and Half-Orcs are hunted on sight in the Elven, Dwarven, and Human territories. (the minor races don't have their own territories).
As someone who also shoots (and is a instructor) Strength is not the key to archery. I'll give you the wisdom, but the coordination of your muscles and the fine tuned isolation of your release is indeed what makes you a good archer. As 30lbs bow and a 50lbs bow can hit the same target (for the most part) but it is not the archers strength and ability to pull back the heavier bow that makes the shot, it is his aim and ability to isolate his pulls, push and release.
My Goliath Barb in my game hasa a 4 in intelligence (rolled 4d6 and got 3 1 and a 2). Even though I said she could reroll she loved the idea of this Barb, that can't even get the jokes of Tasha's Hideous Laughter XD
I mean yeah, that's a horrifying world, but I don't see how that's a problem unless you expect your players who are humans, elves or dwarves to entirely agree with it and you're not portraying it as some morally good thing?
There is a difference between someone portraying a horrible world and the horrors in it, and someone portraying that same world but agreeing with it and thinking it's morally okay, and you aren't doing that in this case.
Ya know why power gaming exists in the community? Cuz of 3.5. Pathfinder has it as well cuz its built on the same math system.
Let me explain: 3.5 had TONS of things in it. But one of the things it had (pfs does this too again built from the same system) is the need for the "Big 6" (magic items). And when you strayed away from your big 6 to enhance your base stats, you were not at that average (d20 systems "say" the average to succeed is usually 60%). Now add in the fact that there was a HUGE amount of DMs that were not so good on equipment management, such as loot, buy/sell, gold avg/lvl maths - even wanting "low magic/no magic settings" for their games. Add to the fact you didn't typically get those DMs also then being good at combat management and adjusting monster stats. So you had TONS of problems with combat JUST BEING THE SUCK. So how does a player fix something they have no control over? Min and Max. Following build Guides. Getting feat help on forums. etc, etc, etc.
If you ever get bored, and can find the archivals of old forums (minmax boards, reddit, pfs boards, gitp boards) you'll see tons of this happening. You'll also see tons of "How do i deal with x player" from DMs (and hindsight being 20/20 lots of those how to deal also mention low magic/no magic or poor loot issues as well) so that level of power gaming was really born of that problem.
5e - doesn't have that problem. Yeah you can have some good damage output players, but for the most part the dynamics of dnd has shifted in the eyes of the greater community. Heck even if you do have someone who "power gamed" their toons, you get more people who "liked that" cuz "they can goof off". While you have tons of people in threads yelling "omg power gaming" its not as bad in 5e, and tons of players kinda don't care. Most of the time the power gamer in 5e is what +1 or +1 die better than them? oooo
So as far as the changes to races and classes, it's kinda weird to see this become a big deal after 25yrs of gaming. Cuz, really "our system" of 5e isn't that bad, yeah theres some but its harder to get off the ground, its not "effective by 4th" like a lot of 3.5 was. Changing things and swapping things aren't going to break anything. To be like "i'm going to say no as a dm" is just going to loose you players.
Customization in video games in the #1 selling "thing" when it comes to video games. Why would you say no customization in dnd? Cuz of lore? Cuz its always been this way? Cuz someone might get a better +1 they wouldn't normally? C'mon as DM's we're supposed to enable the idea that it should be more power to the players, not the other way around..
This. What should be added is that the TTRPG industry learned a lot from the video game industry about sustaining fan bases at the turn of the century. There are plenty of examples, Wizards being in the same town as Microsoft and the community around Xbox I'm sure had some serious pollination. Mike Pondsmith of R Talsorion had a lot of consulting and take back with him learning well before he started working with ProjectRed. Though I think, the learning points of "what is a player?" is more a spectrum, and a spectrum both industries try to exist.
Yes, there is a desire for super customization and individuation and Tasha's will evidently speak to that. There's also the "just drop me in a quick build and let me see if I like this in the first place" camp, which is crucial to growing any hobby, and the 5th edition PHB did make moves this way in its notes to character class selection but will be going further at it with its renewed development as "sidekick" builds as PCs.
I will say, while I missed 3.5 and 4, power gaming has ALWAYS been a thing in TTRPGs. Maybe not in Amber Diceless role playing but even White Wolf's "Storyteller System" there were significant sectors of the player base bent on optimized builds. I've always thought it's largely due to the hobby being an outgrowth of wargaming, and some of the "calculus style" of play is just stuck in the DNA no matter how much you try to push story over mechanics. Same for rules lawyering. I guess Monty Haul style DMing was unique in TTRPG as opposed to Wargaming, but I think a lot of TTRPGs fixations that can sometimes go to pathological if the tables isn't fully supportive grow out from the Little Wars origins.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
Honestly, just use real dice for the roller... i've never rolled a stat below a 10 (even without re-rolling ones).
Gnome barbarians are fun bc you have to overcome the challenges of playing the gnome barbarian. Same with a Goliath druid, eventually it gets enough ASIs to get to 20 wis, but the struggle of reaching that point makes it worth it.
Also a +1 doesn't make a real difference most of the time.
And Srsly tho... there really is nothing better than a lightfoot halfling rogue... goliaths and half orcs just cant do it on account of their size. If you're gonna give a goliath +2 DEX you're just being unrealistic... the bigger you are, the less agile you are (as a general rule, but if u practice every day then u get good at it.... thats what levelled ASIs are for) and smaller creatures are more agile... just watch a squirrel's acrobatics versus a Racoon's
Cult of Sedge
Rangers are the best, and have always been the best
I love Homebrew
I hate paladins
Warrior Bovine
1. Because D&D is not a video game. Video games need to zero out differences in characters because there is no DM to adjust things to customize them to the party. D&D has a DM to handle things.
2. No one is saying "no to customization." We are saying that there should be boundaries on how far customization can be taken at character creation, to keep the races distinct and meaningful. If every race can just do everything, then there is no need for them -- just call everything human and have done with it.
3. If you really believe that customization is all that matters, then you should be arguing for dropping all racial traits, not just stat bonuses, and making the whole system go "point buy," including racial traits, languages, and all the rest of it. There is no logically consistent argument for the stat bonuses to be customizable but the racial traits fixed. Either customization matters enough to get rid of everything, or it doesn't matter enough to get rid of any of it.
I don't view my job as DM to be "giving power to players." I view my job as providing a realistic world that has sufficient verisimilitude that my players can enjoy the illusion that their character is a real person living in that world. To maintain verisimilitude, we need logical consistency -- things like goliaths should naturally be stronger than halflings and thus tend to be better at doing things like swinging axes and war hammers, but worse at things like creeping through forests. Logical consistency requires that languages matter (or else why have them?), that cultures differ from place to place, and that people who grow up in different cultures and with different genetics have different starting (but not ending) abilities. It even, heaven forfend, might mean there are things like deeply ingrained racial animosities. All of these things provide RP fodder -- something that cannot be quantified easily by a stat block -- and increase the sense that the world we're playing in is a real place, with a real history and real living beings inhabiting it. Real living beings who are flawed and imperfect, and who might not have been born with exactly the right physiology to perfectly and exactly, without any waste or misalignment, do the job they ended up doing.
Making that believable illusion happen is my job as a DM, not "giving power to the players."
Note, I don't argue that characters shouldn't be powerful -- they can and should be. But their power should exist in a context that makes sense in the world, and takes its shape from a realistic and believable setting. I refuse to sacrifice verisimilitude of the setting because "players want it." If it's that important to be so uber-customized that races don't really matter, then get someone else to DM. I won't DM a campaign that is just a bunch of omg-so-random characters who are just a bunch of optimized, slapped together stats and traits.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Honestly, if you compare them... Shaquille O'Neil is your "basic Half Orc" (No offense intended, i'm going merely by size) and i'm your basic human, my strength stat is gonna be like a 10-12, but Shaq's is gonna be like a 14 or 15... size does determine how strong you are. If I get into a fight with someone bigger than me, i have to use things to my advantage... smaller people tend to be smarter because they need to be. Basically what i'm saying is racial traits are there for a reason, because they go off general rules of thumb, are there exceptions yes... that's why there are ASIs for levelling up; use them wisely.
Cult of Sedge
Rangers are the best, and have always been the best
I love Homebrew
I hate paladins
Warrior Bovine
Good people of D&D Beyond--we can do it. We can kill this thread. If we work together, we can dream of a better future where these stupid arguments about 100% optional rules don't result in ~30 pages of wasted bytes and bruised fingertips. We can live in a cyberspace free of circular and perpendicular arguments based on rules that we haven't yet seen. I believe that each and every one of you has the courage to do the right thing... to unsubscribe from this thread... to stop posting clones of it... to let the last post be the last post, and walk away. We can show the mods that we're capable of locking a thread all on our own!
Who's with me!? <crickets chirping>
You are of course right. The general feeling I get from not the only the proponents on this forum of this disaster, and from so many other forums on completely different issues is "The DM is supposed to give me everything I want to steamroll every challenge the DM puts in front of us." That, of course, is utterly wrong, and the sign of a poor player. As you said, a DM must create a world that the players can immerse themselves in, lose themselves in. That means the players may face challenges and obstacles that they can't deal with at lower levels, but later, succeed at. Fear of grand, terrible things should ALWAYS be part of a rich setting. The game is also about the decisions a player makes...tradeoffs. Do I follow this path that furthers the plot in some unknown way, or choose another path, that may be easier, at the beginning. Same with abilities. The 27 point buy, the species specific features, and feats, are all part of the same system that forces players to make tradeoffs.
The people that want this system are people who don't like tradeoffs, and want everything, now. Challenges are not something they enjoy. Or, they are driven by forces from outside the game, which is even worse.