Well, let’s examine what would need to be changed to make the setting European.
EVERYTHING
Druids, Clerics, Bards, Barbarians, Monks, Rangers, Paladins, Wizards. Spell casting, Weapons, Armor, the Economy, Hit Points, Healing, the list of monsters, many if not most of the monster descriptions, religion, etc.
Now. Is it better that we make those changes or not?
what metric should we use to decide that? I think the criteria should be what is most fun, not what is woke. If that is true for our own heritage (the majority of us), then it should be true for foreign cultures as well, else we’re being paternalistic
I know it's a bit hypocritical for me to say this considering I was guilty of the same thing earlier... but maybe we should move this discussion to a new thread and try to focus just on races and classes.
It kind of came up and has been referenced, but within the Forgotten Realms lore are the Shou people, who are intended to represent Japanese cultures. WotC could theoretically develop that further and offer up the Shou Empire, with some new classes or subclasses to allow for those specific fantasy roles from the culture. If they do, I would really like them to do a lot of research, to try and make sure they get it right, as what I have been exposed to in the books so far has been rather stereotypical (the building descriptions are all out of the 70's ninja movies and everyone drinks special tea from tiny pots and cups and stuff) If this IS representative of the old cultural behaviors and such, then fine, but I don't know enough to say for sure. I just think if they do it, it should be done with care and respect for the culture, to make it in line and not some hokey old Bruce Lee type mockery.
Why should DND spend effort getting a foreign culture right when they haven’t even got the European cultures right?
I feel like the response to this is that they should put more effort into getting ANY culture they want to draw inspiration from correct. Not to mention WotC has shown that they will go back and reword/rework things to this end (for example, the reworking of some Vistani representation in Curse of Strahd).
If players want settings/books that draw inspiration from vibrant and unique cultures, the most incorrect way possible to approach that is not to bother since they didnt get other cultures right from the get-go.
Counterpoint: popular culture often uses romanticized, sensationalized, exaggerated imagery and tales; why should we hold D&D to a higher degree of veracity? In fact, why would or should we want to? "Weeb Shit" probably is fairly romanticized. Most of the ninja concepts people have been considering are based on deliberately exaggerated tall tales. We want our paladins to be the epitome of chivalrous nobility, not mere knights with somewhat enlightened intentions. If our horror isn't gothic it's no good, and I don't know anybody complaining the general average life expectancy among (human) commoners isn't somewhere in the mid-twenties.
I'm not saying it's A-ok to just do whatever. That's no good either. But if WotC is to give the players what they want, I'll daresay cultural accuracy is great for the history buffs and enthusiasts of a particular historic culture, but probably not what the average roleplayer is looking for.
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East Asian fantasy can be done, after all they do fantasy films, books and shows in East Asia just like we do fantasy here in the West. You just need to hire the right writers just like any other project. Hire people that know the subject and just let them do their jobs.
As kind of a medieval combat/history enthusiast myself, Pang is right on. There is little to nothing realistic about D&D’s depiction of western legend and folklore, let alone medieval warfare. It’s all based on media portrayals and popular conceptions. That said, there is a way to do popular conceptions of the Far East without making it weeb, because anime comes with a lot of tonal baggage (it’s usually very over-the-top, you know?) that is a huge turn off for a lot of people, myself included. Noble samurai and expert ninjas, a society bounded by honorable clans: that’s super cool, even if it’s not strictly realistic. Just leave magical girls, mech suits, and disgustingly sexualized kids out of it, and don’t imply that crazy anime tone, and I’ll be psyched.
In a nutshell, yeah, we shouldn’t go realistic, no way. We also shouldn’t go weeb though.
I would like to see an official Darkling character race. Totally tropy, but I would love to play a cloaked wrapped light sensitive character who, at some level, gets glowing tattoos that makes his appearance change.
Here's something that I think would be very interesting and I know several people in my personal life who would want to play...
If they could, somehow, make a playable Pixie race. Obviously this is a HUGE to-do... they're just so different, physically, from the usual adventurer that virtually none of the game's existing rules would correctly apply to them. It's one thing for small races to have disadvantage with heavy weapons, but how do you handle a creature that's literally the same size as a dagger? I kind of feel like it just wouldn't work at all, and if someone wanted to play as one you'd basically need to create a whole "tiny" campaign (something I've seen done before), but if we're just throwing out wild ideas that would be interesting to see, this would be a pretty interesting one to see WoTC try and tackle.
I love the idea of playable pixies/sprites/Small Flittery Fae, but it's a real tough cookie, yeah. A buddy of mine homebrewed a pixesque Small version, but it doesn't really hit the same tone. It feels like a playable Tiny species would need special rules crafted around it, and it's something Wizards wouldn't care to do since it more-or-less exempts the adventurer who plays a pixie from ever using any gear, magical or otherwise. Saying "You're locked out of loot" is a tough heckin' sell, and I suppose that's generally why pixie players have been the sorts willing to homebrew a pixie adventurer species stat block as well as willing to make that call. Most players would be semi-justifiably pissed if an 'Official Option' basically said you couldn't be any weapon-using class or wear/use any cool magical gear.
Hm. I do have to wonder how Wizards would solve that if they were put on the spot and told "Do it or die", though.
Careful trying to translate it into DnD. Pathfinder diverged in 3rd edition, and now pathfinder 2e has evolved even further from DnD 5e. Trying to convert things from one to the other can cause issues. A huge amount of the language and terminology is different too.
It kind of came up and has been referenced, but within the Forgotten Realms lore are the Shou people, who are intended to represent Japanese cultures. WotC could theoretically develop that further and offer up the Shou Empire, with some new classes or subclasses to allow for those specific fantasy roles from the culture. If they do, I would really like them to do a lot of research, to try and make sure they get it right, as what I have been exposed to in the books so far has been rather stereotypical (the building descriptions are all out of the 70's ninja movies and everyone drinks special tea from tiny pots and cups and stuff) If this IS representative of the old cultural behaviors and such, then fine, but I don't know enough to say for sure. I just think if they do it, it should be done with care and respect for the culture, to make it in line and not some hokey old Bruce Lee type mockery.
Why should DND spend effort getting a foreign culture right when they haven’t even got the European cultures right?
I feel like the response to this is that they should put more effort into getting ANY culture they want to draw inspiration from correct. Not to mention WotC has shown that they will go back and reword/rework things to this end (for example, the reworking of some Vistani representation in Curse of Strahd).
If players want settings/books that draw inspiration from vibrant and unique cultures, the most incorrect way possible to approach that is not to bother since they didnt get other cultures right from the get-go.
Counterpoint: popular culture often uses romanticized, sensationalized, exaggerated imagery and tales; why should we hold D&D to a higher degree of veracity? In fact, why would or should we want to? "Weeb Shit" probably is fairly romanticized. Most of the ninja concepts people have been considering are based on deliberately exaggerated tall tales. We want our paladins to be the epitome of chivalrous nobility, not mere knights with somewhat enlightened intentions. If our horror isn't gothic it's no good, and I don't know anybody complaining the general average life expectancy among (human) commoners isn't somewhere in the mid-twenties.
I'm not saying it's A-ok to just do whatever. That's no good either. But if WotC is to give the players what they want, I'll daresay cultural accuracy is great for the history buffs and enthusiasts of a particular historic culture, but probably not what the average roleplayer is looking for.
I think we are more or less in agreement. I also think asking for an exact representation of a culture in D&D without any romanticizing could be a bit much for creating a fantasy world; however, there should still be enough research done in developing settings that draw from other cultures so we don't fall into the pitfall of relying on purely stereotypes of that culture. Just enough effort to make sure the representation of that culture doesn't come across as corny and lazy to players or audiences from that part of the world. If there are corrections that others think should be made to the European cultures, then I am all for that as well
As I said, I think we are mostly in agreement. Some leeway will be always be given for fantasy, we just dont want to see anything done lazily and without thinking. And I think that that is all that needs to be said.
I think a lot of the broad concepts still apply... Something in particular it brings up is that equipment purchased for a Sprite has the same statistics as weapons purchased for more traditionally sized creatures, with the caveat that it must be specially purchased from a seller who offers equipment that small, and that the sprite must actively occupy the same space as their target in order to attack them. It also mentions a "Flaw" in STR, which I think is what differs most drastically from 5e, where they actively avoid giving minuses to stats of races, minus some of the Monster races from Volo's.
As kind of a medieval combat/history enthusiast myself, Pang is right on. There is little to nothing realistic about D&D’s depiction of western legend and folklore, let alone medieval warfare. It’s all based on media portrayals and popular conceptions. That said, there is a way to do popular conceptions of the Far East without making it weeb, because anime comes with a lot of tonal baggage (it’s usually very over-the-top, you know?) that is a huge turn off for a lot of people, myself included. Noble samurai and expert ninjas, a society bounded by honorable clans: that’s super cool, even if it’s not strictly realistic. Just leave magical girls, mech suits, and disgustingly sexualized kids out of it, and don’t imply that crazy anime tone, and I’ll be psyched.
In a nutshell, yeah, we shouldn’t go realistic, no way. We also shouldn’t go weeb though.
Just saying, most of the time, people don’t hit somebody with a sword by putting brute force into it, so STR doesn’t make too much sense. I used to use an old marvel system that had two stats strength and fighting that made a lot of sense, but I like 5e ability scores as is.
I would love expanded rules for Tiny and Large sized characters and it would be a good time to add in some Fae and Giant Lineages to the game as well.
Ooh I hadn't even thought of going the opposite with Giants as well. I remember months back trying to help someone homebrew stats for a playable Giant race and running into some problems for it. I think it would be pretty cool to get a book that dedicates at least a chapter to like, "Adventurers of Unusual Size" with rules for some things like pixies, maybe mousefolk, brownies, but also giants or other large creatures. Even Centaurs, which are considered Large in the bestiary, are still considered Medium for the playable version of the race.
I love the idea of playable pixies/sprites/Small Flittery Fae, but it's a real tough cookie, yeah. A buddy of mine homebrewed a pixesque Small version, but it doesn't really hit the same tone. It feels like a playable Tiny species would need special rules crafted around it, and it's something Wizards wouldn't care to do since it more-or-less exempts the adventurer who plays a pixie from ever using any gear, magical or otherwise. Saying "You're locked out of loot" is a tough heckin' sell, and I suppose that's generally why pixie players have been the sorts willing to homebrew a pixie adventurer species stat block as well as willing to make that call. Most players would be semi-justifiably pissed if an 'Official Option' basically said you couldn't be any weapon-using class or wear/use any cool magical gear.
I can imagine:
some 5e-style, very-stripped-down rules for scaling equipment (cost, weight, maybe damage) to large/small/tiny creatures
several tiny options, not just pixies, or just make pixies common enough, that tiny creatures appear about as often as small creatures
loot distributed by size (randomly or otherwise)
some new spells and/or services that can convert equipment between sizes
(bonus) 5e-style, very-stripped-down rules for scaling creature carrying capacities and other strength/size things to large/small/tiny creatures
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Well, let’s examine what would need to be changed to make the setting European.
EVERYTHING
Druids, Clerics, Bards, Barbarians, Monks, Rangers, Paladins, Wizards. Spell casting, Weapons, Armor, the Economy, Hit Points, Healing, the list of monsters, many if not most of the monster descriptions, religion, etc.
Now. Is it better that we make those changes or not?
what metric should we use to decide that? I think the criteria should be what is most fun, not what is woke. If that is true for our own heritage (the majority of us), then it should be true for foreign cultures as well, else we’re being paternalistic
I know it's a bit hypocritical for me to say this considering I was guilty of the same thing earlier... but maybe we should move this discussion to a new thread and try to focus just on races and classes.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Counterpoint: popular culture often uses romanticized, sensationalized, exaggerated imagery and tales; why should we hold D&D to a higher degree of veracity? In fact, why would or should we want to? "Weeb Shit" probably is fairly romanticized. Most of the ninja concepts people have been considering are based on deliberately exaggerated tall tales. We want our paladins to be the epitome of chivalrous nobility, not mere knights with somewhat enlightened intentions. If our horror isn't gothic it's no good, and I don't know anybody complaining the general average life expectancy among (human) commoners isn't somewhere in the mid-twenties.
I'm not saying it's A-ok to just do whatever. That's no good either. But if WotC is to give the players what they want, I'll daresay cultural accuracy is great for the history buffs and enthusiasts of a particular historic culture, but probably not what the average roleplayer is looking for.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
East Asian fantasy can be done, after all they do fantasy films, books and shows in East Asia just like we do fantasy here in the West. You just need to hire the right writers just like any other project. Hire people that know the subject and just let them do their jobs.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Kor. That is all. en-Kor. il-Kor. Stoneforge Kor. The Kor!
As kind of a medieval combat/history enthusiast myself, Pang is right on. There is little to nothing realistic about D&D’s depiction of western legend and folklore, let alone medieval warfare. It’s all based on media portrayals and popular conceptions. That said, there is a way to do popular conceptions of the Far East without making it weeb, because anime comes with a lot of tonal baggage (it’s usually very over-the-top, you know?) that is a huge turn off for a lot of people, myself included. Noble samurai and expert ninjas, a society bounded by honorable clans: that’s super cool, even if it’s not strictly realistic. Just leave magical girls, mech suits, and disgustingly sexualized kids out of it, and don’t imply that crazy anime tone, and I’ll be psyched.
In a nutshell, yeah, we shouldn’t go realistic, no way. We also shouldn’t go weeb though.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I would like to see an official Darkling character race. Totally tropy, but I would love to play a cloaked wrapped light sensitive character who, at some level, gets glowing tattoos that makes his appearance change.
Here's something that I think would be very interesting and I know several people in my personal life who would want to play...
If they could, somehow, make a playable Pixie race. Obviously this is a HUGE to-do... they're just so different, physically, from the usual adventurer that virtually none of the game's existing rules would correctly apply to them. It's one thing for small races to have disadvantage with heavy weapons, but how do you handle a creature that's literally the same size as a dagger? I kind of feel like it just wouldn't work at all, and if someone wanted to play as one you'd basically need to create a whole "tiny" campaign (something I've seen done before), but if we're just throwing out wild ideas that would be interesting to see, this would be a pretty interesting one to see WoTC try and tackle.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I love the idea of playable pixies/sprites/Small Flittery Fae, but it's a real tough cookie, yeah. A buddy of mine homebrewed a pixesque Small version, but it doesn't really hit the same tone. It feels like a playable Tiny species would need special rules crafted around it, and it's something Wizards wouldn't care to do since it more-or-less exempts the adventurer who plays a pixie from ever using any gear, magical or otherwise. Saying "You're locked out of loot" is a tough heckin' sell, and I suppose that's generally why pixie players have been the sorts willing to homebrew a pixie adventurer species stat block as well as willing to make that call. Most players would be semi-justifiably pissed if an 'Official Option' basically said you couldn't be any weapon-using class or wear/use any cool magical gear.
Hm. I do have to wonder how Wizards would solve that if they were put on the spot and told "Do it or die", though.
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Pathfinder has managed to include a playable tiny race. I don't think the idea of it is too broken.
Oh? I've never played Pathfinder... do you have a link to anything that explains it? I'm curious how it was handled in a similar game system.
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And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
This is a link to the free rules for this race: https://2e.aonprd.com/Ancestries.aspx?ID=39
Careful trying to translate it into DnD. Pathfinder diverged in 3rd edition, and now pathfinder 2e has evolved even further from DnD 5e. Trying to convert things from one to the other can cause issues. A huge amount of the language and terminology is different too.
I think we are more or less in agreement. I also think asking for an exact representation of a culture in D&D without any romanticizing could be a bit much for creating a fantasy world; however, there should still be enough research done in developing settings that draw from other cultures so we don't fall into the pitfall of relying on purely stereotypes of that culture. Just enough effort to make sure the representation of that culture doesn't come across as corny and lazy to players or audiences from that part of the world. If there are corrections that others think should be made to the European cultures, then I am all for that as well
As I said, I think we are mostly in agreement. Some leeway will be always be given for fantasy, we just dont want to see anything done lazily and without thinking. And I think that that is all that needs to be said.
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I think a lot of the broad concepts still apply... Something in particular it brings up is that equipment purchased for a Sprite has the same statistics as weapons purchased for more traditionally sized creatures, with the caveat that it must be specially purchased from a seller who offers equipment that small, and that the sprite must actively occupy the same space as their target in order to attack them. It also mentions a "Flaw" in STR, which I think is what differs most drastically from 5e, where they actively avoid giving minuses to stats of races, minus some of the Monster races from Volo's.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Sadly, I low-key 100% agree with this
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Just saying, most of the time, people don’t hit somebody with a sword by putting brute force into it, so STR doesn’t make too much sense. I used to use an old marvel system that had two stats strength and fighting that made a lot of sense, but I like 5e ability scores as is.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
I would love expanded rules for Tiny and Large sized characters and it would be a good time to add in some Fae and Giant Lineages to the game as well.
She/Her Player and Dungeon Master
Brute (ie large ) player races would be cool.
Mystic v3 should be official, nuff said.
Ooh I hadn't even thought of going the opposite with Giants as well. I remember months back trying to help someone homebrew stats for a playable Giant race and running into some problems for it. I think it would be pretty cool to get a book that dedicates at least a chapter to like, "Adventurers of Unusual Size" with rules for some things like pixies, maybe mousefolk, brownies, but also giants or other large creatures. Even Centaurs, which are considered Large in the bestiary, are still considered Medium for the playable version of the race.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
I can imagine: