I believe Aasimar should have gotten the place as it is the opposite of the tiefling and tiefling is there, end of story. Ardlings can go into multiverse with loxodon and the others. As for orcs, well they are humanoid enough I would keep them. I mean we have half-elf <-> elf, half-dwarf(halfling) <-> dwarf we should have orc as a choice beside half-orc.
I've never understood the obsession with telling players who they can play as. As DM, I have nearly unlimited power over the world, I can build and play as hundreds of different characters. I can shape history, create futures. Natural disasters and wars are mere playthings to me. While I may make certain aspects of the game available or not available as appropriate to the setting...why would I feel the need to tell a player who they, other than to serve the story, can or can't play as? I don't like certain races, sure, I have opinions and they're not limited to worldbuilding. But to be so controlling over their comparatively tiny domain because I don't like how their character looks? There's no need. I might prefer that the party was more...natural...but they're there to have fun, not to tell my story. If I want that kind of control, I can carry on writing a book.
Players are, almost entirely without exception, incapable of playing as something foreign from human. I've played for 35+ years, and I've yet to meet someone who brings anymore than a few trite tropes to any demihuman. Maybe my experience is just skewed.
But basically, if they cannot play an elf, they sure as hell also cannot play a centaur, or a dragonborn, or a gelatinous cube.
I'll add, in fairness, that you're also right: I'm protecting my story and worldbuilding. Unless I'm setting the story as a fable, you don't get to play a bunny. And I do want to run a fable (by simply refluffing whatever race as whatever animal - so the 'dwarf' get's to be a grumpy badger, for instance), but then you don't get to play an elf.
My god, in Dark Sun there were Thri'kreen. Cannibal insects who hunt sentients and have no vocal chords and a pack mentality, and they were still availabe for play, and still played as humans with chitin armor - and a poor excuse for acting out in the group dynamic.
With all do respect to how you run your own game I must ask why this is a problem? None of us are actors doing deep dives into characters and turning out a world class performance. I very much get the impression that a lot of people that share this opinion actually want to play Lord of the Rings, so exotic races destroy that verisimilitude.
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Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
There is no obsession about control. As a DM - who plays with adults - I want to create a believable, immersive world, where they can escape to. In my opinion these new Ardlings are not 'exotic' beings - they are for children, aimed at children, and won't fit into my campaigns. So it's like.... here are your adventurers.... a brave human warrior, a sly elvish rogue, a sadistic orc sorcerer... and a furry bunny. No thank you. So they have no place in the core books.
There is no obsession about control. As a DM - who plays with adults - I want to create a believable, immersive world, where they can escape to. In my opinion these new Ardlings are not 'exotic' beings - they are for children, aimed at children, and won't fit into my campaigns. So it's like.... here are your adventurers.... a brave human warrior, a sly elvish rogue, a sadistic orc sorcerer... and a furry bunny. No thank you. So they have no place in the core books.
Because elves and dwarves are super serious business and aren't something that have ever been aimed at children. Like, if you personally don't want to include ardlings that's whatever, but your justifications are spotty at best.
There is no obsession about control. As a DM - who plays with adults - I want to create a believable, immersive world, where they can escape to. In my opinion these new Ardlings are not 'exotic' beings - they are for children, aimed at children, and won't fit into my campaigns. So it's like.... here are your adventurers.... a brave human warrior, a sly elvish rogue, a sadistic orc sorcerer... and a furry bunny. No thank you. So they have no place in the core books.
I know loads of adults who will love this new race, they also don't enjoy high serious fantasy, one runs around wearing bright pink armour she had made and is constantly finding new ways to dye her horse bright colours, she is a 48yo sloicitor in her real life job who just wants to have crazy fun.
I play with adults and escaping for many many of them is not existing in a boring, believable immersive world, it's being in a fantasy wonderland where they can go to a plain with candy floss trees and butterlies that poop rainbows.
Also I love your stereotyping, the sly rogue, sadistic orc. My last game I had a player play a rogue who was exceedingly over the top friendly to a fault and shared everything, I have had a gnome barbarian who took everything out at the knees screaming in a bad scottish accent and making really bad puns. Ardlings do have a place in the rule books because I reckon your type of DnD game probably accounts for less then 40% of all playing styles out there, possibly even less. As many people approach DnD like it is on Discworld as do imagining it is on Middle Earth, and even if they do play high fantasy, there is still room for the extremes within that realm, and sometimes the best moments have when as a DM I play it entirely straight and let the party be the comedy part of the double act.
"I don't like it, therefore no one else should be able to do it" is a really weird stance to take.
I've never played at a table that didn't have at least some home rules. If you think it's immersion breaking or impossible for a player to roleplay (or whatever your reasoning is), then have a discussion with your group about what you want in the game. Why bother making a case to disallow it for everyone else?
I believe Aasimar should have gotten the place as it is the opposite of the tiefling and tiefling is there, end of story. Ardlings can go into multiverse with loxodon and the others. As for orcs, well they are humanoid enough I would keep them. I mean we have half-elf <-> elf, half-dwarf(halfling) <-> dwarf we should have orc as a choice beside half-orc.
Ardlings and Aasimar are now variations of the same race, per the description of Ardlings. It's meaningless to think of them as distinct. In both cases you're a mortal with Celestial blood running in your veins.
Halflings aren't half-dwarves in any way. Your argument that core races should be the "most humanoid" is self-contradictory because tieflings are part fiend and would not make the cut, but you're fine with keeping them, so while I'm utterly fine with orcs making the "core" cut, I don't agree that being "humanoid enough" is a sensible basis for picking which ones should be "core". But also, I have no idea what "core" is supposed to mean here, since we're apparently not drawing the line based on setting-specific races, which is the only significant distinction I can think of for humanoid races.
That's where WOTC should (and definitely won't) make sure they put in effort to distinguish the many playable races in the game vs. their officially released settings: every DM has an immediate interest in knowing which races are located in which official settings and where they're supposed to be.
I believe Aasimar should have gotten the place as it is the opposite of the tiefling and tiefling is there, end of story. Ardlings can go into multiverse with loxodon and the others. As for orcs, well they are humanoid enough I would keep them. I mean we have half-elf <-> elf, half-dwarf(halfling) <-> dwarf we should have orc as a choice beside half-orc.
Ardlings and Aasimar are now variations of the same race, per the description of Ardlings. It's meaningless to think of them as distinct. In both cases you're a mortal with Celestial blood running in your veins.
"Ardlings are supernal beings who are either born on the Upper Planes or have one or more ancestors who originated there." "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power, aasimar are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls. "
I assume what you meant was that they seem thematically identical, rather than that they're actually related in any way. Because they aren't related. For some reason.
You can chalk this up to the new races getting next to no lore to speak of. It wouldn't be too hard to differentiate them with writing, but Wizards isn't doing that anymore. If we didn't have gnomes yet, and they released in this state, people would say they're just halflings.
Wow. I don't even really like the Ardling (I thought it would be cool for an Egyptian campaign), but now that I'm seeing so many nasty people trying to gatekeep it out of the hobby, I'm now in favor of it being in 5e. I don't care if it's in the 2024 PHB or not, the fact that its mere existence is making people (some of which I'm not fond of) lose their minds over it is enough to convince me that it should be in the game.
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I agree. I feel the same way about dragonborn and orcs. The core races should be the classical ones that resemble humans the most. Exotic races should not be core. Good news is we can just do that - not have them in our settings.
Dnd I supposed to be a fantasy role playing game that sparks and inspires players imaginations. It isn't if the only races you can play are humanoids. In all of the greatest fantasy books and movies there are several races. The different and unusual races are what make dnd a diverse, colorful universe.
I believe Aasimar should have gotten the place as it is the opposite of the tiefling and tiefling is there, end of story. Ardlings can go into multiverse with loxodon and the others. As for orcs, well they are humanoid enough I would keep them. I mean we have half-elf <-> elf, half-dwarf(halfling) <-> dwarf we should have orc as a choice beside half-orc.
Ardlings and Aasimar are now variations of the same race, per the description of Ardlings. It's meaningless to think of them as distinct. In both cases you're a mortal with Celestial blood running in your veins.
"Ardlings are supernal beings who are either born on the Upper Planes or have one or more ancestors who originated there." "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power, aasimar are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls. "
I assume what you meant was that they seem thematically identical, rather than that they're actually related in any way. Because they aren't related. For some reason.
You can chalk this up to the new races getting next to no lore to speak of. It wouldn't be too hard to differentiate them with writing, but Wizards isn't doing that anymore. If we didn't have gnomes yet, and they released in this state, people would say they're just halflings.
I'm pretty sure Crawford actually called them cousins in the video. So like if there's two races that are related it's the ones that were called cousins by a face of the company.
I prefer Ardlings to Aasamir to a massive degree. I do not like flying races in my game, especially at lower levels. Ardlings limited flight is much less problematic then protector aasimar flight. Further, I have always found Aasimar boring and uninteresting personally. Either they are played super brooding, the holy avenger type or you cant even really tell they arent just human. Tieflings have always had loads of flavor with them being seperate from the demons and devils, but still descendant from them, people make their looks, personalities, backgrounds and classes all super varied. The ardling accomplishes this same thing. They have a very distinct look, animal head on human body. How you make YOUR ardling look will vary from person to person, but it will still be a very distinct look and design. In addition, like the tieflings, their alignment is separate from their ancestor they aren't forced to match and their lore doesn't push them to needing to match. They are just as much individuals as tieflings. From what I have heard of people making them so far they FINALLY do what a celestial counter part to tieflings should do. They are being varried, strange, but not pigeon holed into good or broody, they are as varied in complexity and capacity as any other race in the PHB and without overshadowing those races with proper flight.
I am so glad they made a celestial that wasnt over powered and bland for the Player's Handbook.
Logically it would be stupid not to cater to the people who have made them millions in the last couple of years. The people who aren't buying into it are probably stuck in their ways and sticking to whichever previous version of the game they liked best. Why tailor their product to a group that already has an edition that apparently does everything they want it to? Chances are those people aren't going to pay as much money to get what is essentially a remake of something they already have than a new target audience would to get something that more closely falls in line with what they want that hasn't already been done already?
Logically it would be stupid not to cater to the people who have made them millions in the last couple of years. The people who aren't buying into it are probably stuck in their ways and sticking to whichever previous version of the game they liked best. Why tailor their product to a group that already has an edition that apparently does everything they want it to? Chances are those people aren't going to pay as much money to get what is essentially a remake of something they already have than a new target audience would to get something that more closely falls in line with what they want that hasn't already been done already?
No argument from me, but don't put on a big show and claim it's D&D for everyone when it very clearly is not.
I disagree with you however, I have personally bought every edition of the game since the 1st, all 5 editions are sitting within arms reach of me right now not to mention roughly a couple of hundred TSR and WotC products combined. If that doesn't make me a fan worthy of their attention and inclusion then I don't know what does. I'm not asking for them to remake 1st edition, I'm asking for them to make a baseline, modern version of the classic game of D&D from which they can continue to build a game that does in fact ultimately include everyone in whatever way they see fit through whatever content they think fans, past or present would enjoy and allow them to be part of the D&D community. You know, actually do what they said they were going to do in the announcement.
That's just their usual new edition spiel. They say the same shit every time they do this. It's always for everyone, and backwards compatible, and this, and that, and in the end it's always going to be a new edition with new rules that's going to drive away some people while drawing in new blood. The only reason they aren't going to be upfront about it is because telling people the truth will just run them off without them ever bothering to even give it a try.
I sort of agree but in the same way tieflings probably shouldn't be in the main book. They are not a race that is designed around well being a race with a culture, a government etc, its your grandma had sex with a demon/celestial. They are more rare flukes than a race to be in a main book. Though yes, I suppose you could design a culture that had a history steeped in some cult where so many grandmas had sex with demons, tieflings became the norm, and a enitee civilization of tieflings was born. Lets just say i don't think that is how they are presented though and leave it at that.
That being said I'd rather have them and tieflings than dragonborn style races being added. So yeah while yes their design seems more appropriate for a supplement add on they also require 0 effort on my part to integrate them into a setting. Dragonborn/elves/dwarves etc do, I will need a dwarven culture, a dwarven homeland, dwarven gods etc. And i kind of have a limit for how many I want to deal with and how many will fit most campaign worlds in a logical fashion. And while i am not required to add every race in, players do kind of expect the core PH races to be represented and available to play. So yeah they kind of feel more like a supplement race, but end of the day it take no effort to put them into my campaigns so have at it and add them in as long as they are balanced.
Though if I'm doing something like a planescape campaign as everyone is a immigrant all that becomes easier, but not all of my campaigns will be planescape.
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Oh boy Cerberus would recruit a lot of you...
I believe Aasimar should have gotten the place as it is the opposite of the tiefling and tiefling is there, end of story. Ardlings can go into multiverse with loxodon and the others. As for orcs, well they are humanoid enough I would keep them. I mean we have half-elf <-> elf, half-dwarf(halfling) <-> dwarf we should have orc as a choice beside half-orc.
With all do respect to how you run your own game I must ask why this is a problem? None of us are actors doing deep dives into characters and turning out a world class performance. I very much get the impression that a lot of people that share this opinion actually want to play Lord of the Rings, so exotic races destroy that verisimilitude.
Lightning Strike - A rebranded Fire Bolt for Wizards & Sorcerers.
Spirit Bomb - A holy fireball for Clerics, Paladins, & Divine Soul Sorcerers!
Sword Dancer - A Cleric subclass specifically for the Drow goddess Eilistraee.
Quicksilver & The Scarlet Witch - A pair of magical firearms for your Gunslinger or Artificer.
There is no obsession about control. As a DM - who plays with adults - I want to create a believable, immersive world, where they can escape to. In my opinion these new Ardlings are not 'exotic' beings - they are for children, aimed at children, and won't fit into my campaigns. So it's like.... here are your adventurers.... a brave human warrior, a sly elvish rogue, a sadistic orc sorcerer... and a furry bunny. No thank you. So they have no place in the core books.
They'd fit in my campaign, which is very much not aimed at children thank you very much.
Because elves and dwarves are super serious business and aren't something that have ever been aimed at children. Like, if you personally don't want to include ardlings that's whatever, but your justifications are spotty at best.
I know loads of adults who will love this new race, they also don't enjoy high serious fantasy, one runs around wearing bright pink armour she had made and is constantly finding new ways to dye her horse bright colours, she is a 48yo sloicitor in her real life job who just wants to have crazy fun.
I play with adults and escaping for many many of them is not existing in a boring, believable immersive world, it's being in a fantasy wonderland where they can go to a plain with candy floss trees and butterlies that poop rainbows.
Also I love your stereotyping, the sly rogue, sadistic orc. My last game I had a player play a rogue who was exceedingly over the top friendly to a fault and shared everything, I have had a gnome barbarian who took everything out at the knees screaming in a bad scottish accent and making really bad puns. Ardlings do have a place in the rule books because I reckon your type of DnD game probably accounts for less then 40% of all playing styles out there, possibly even less. As many people approach DnD like it is on Discworld as do imagining it is on Middle Earth, and even if they do play high fantasy, there is still room for the extremes within that realm, and sometimes the best moments have when as a DM I play it entirely straight and let the party be the comedy part of the double act.
Hey, it's an option, not an obligation. If you don't like it, don't include it in your game, that's it. Others will have their fun.
"I don't like it, therefore no one else should be able to do it" is a really weird stance to take.
I've never played at a table that didn't have at least some home rules. If you think it's immersion breaking or impossible for a player to roleplay (or whatever your reasoning is), then have a discussion with your group about what you want in the game. Why bother making a case to disallow it for everyone else?
It is an option. As DM one has the option to create a world that say any of these races do not exist.
That was the gist of what both the forum title & initial statement implied, and it was pretty disheartening to see.
Felt like there was a better way to go about it. Too negative.
Ardlings and Aasimar are now variations of the same race, per the description of Ardlings. It's meaningless to think of them as distinct. In both cases you're a mortal with Celestial blood running in your veins.
Halflings aren't half-dwarves in any way. Your argument that core races should be the "most humanoid" is self-contradictory because tieflings are part fiend and would not make the cut, but you're fine with keeping them, so while I'm utterly fine with orcs making the "core" cut, I don't agree that being "humanoid enough" is a sensible basis for picking which ones should be "core". But also, I have no idea what "core" is supposed to mean here, since we're apparently not drawing the line based on setting-specific races, which is the only significant distinction I can think of for humanoid races.
That's where WOTC should (and definitely won't) make sure they put in effort to distinguish the many playable races in the game vs. their officially released settings: every DM has an immediate interest in knowing which races are located in which official settings and where they're supposed to be.
"Ardlings are supernal beings who are either born on the Upper Planes or have one or more ancestors who originated there." "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power, aasimar are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls. "
I assume what you meant was that they seem thematically identical, rather than that they're actually related in any way. Because they aren't related. For some reason.
You can chalk this up to the new races getting next to no lore to speak of. It wouldn't be too hard to differentiate them with writing, but Wizards isn't doing that anymore. If we didn't have gnomes yet, and they released in this state, people would say they're just halflings.
Wow. I don't even really like the Ardling (I thought it would be cool for an Egyptian campaign), but now that I'm seeing so many nasty people trying to gatekeep it out of the hobby, I'm now in favor of it being in 5e. I don't care if it's in the 2024 PHB or not, the fact that its mere existence is making people (some of which I'm not fond of) lose their minds over it is enough to convince me that it should be in the game.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Dnd I supposed to be a fantasy role playing game that sparks and inspires players imaginations. It isn't if the only races you can play are humanoids. In all of the greatest fantasy books and movies there are several races. The different and unusual races are what make dnd a diverse, colorful universe.
I'm pretty sure Crawford actually called them cousins in the video. So like if there's two races that are related it's the ones that were called cousins by a face of the company.
I prefer Ardlings to Aasamir to a massive degree. I do not like flying races in my game, especially at lower levels. Ardlings limited flight is much less problematic then protector aasimar flight. Further, I have always found Aasimar boring and uninteresting personally. Either they are played super brooding, the holy avenger type or you cant even really tell they arent just human. Tieflings have always had loads of flavor with them being seperate from the demons and devils, but still descendant from them, people make their looks, personalities, backgrounds and classes all super varied. The ardling accomplishes this same thing. They have a very distinct look, animal head on human body. How you make YOUR ardling look will vary from person to person, but it will still be a very distinct look and design. In addition, like the tieflings, their alignment is separate from their ancestor they aren't forced to match and their lore doesn't push them to needing to match. They are just as much individuals as tieflings. From what I have heard of people making them so far they FINALLY do what a celestial counter part to tieflings should do. They are being varried, strange, but not pigeon holed into good or broody, they are as varied in complexity and capacity as any other race in the PHB and without overshadowing those races with proper flight.
I am so glad they made a celestial that wasnt over powered and bland for the Player's Handbook.
Logically it would be stupid not to cater to the people who have made them millions in the last couple of years. The people who aren't buying into it are probably stuck in their ways and sticking to whichever previous version of the game they liked best. Why tailor their product to a group that already has an edition that apparently does everything they want it to? Chances are those people aren't going to pay as much money to get what is essentially a remake of something they already have than a new target audience would to get something that more closely falls in line with what they want that hasn't already been done already?
No it isn't. Traditional D&D is a bag of plastic dinosaur toys from a dollar store.
Elitist? That's a new one to me. Can you explain what you mean?
Now you're really losing me. What do you mean by this?
You think catering to new players is... New? What do you think D&D did before it had OLD players?
What do you mean by "on rails"?
That's just their usual new edition spiel. They say the same shit every time they do this. It's always for everyone, and backwards compatible, and this, and that, and in the end it's always going to be a new edition with new rules that's going to drive away some people while drawing in new blood. The only reason they aren't going to be upfront about it is because telling people the truth will just run them off without them ever bothering to even give it a try.
I sort of agree but in the same way tieflings probably shouldn't be in the main book. They are not a race that is designed around well being a race with a culture, a government etc, its your grandma had sex with a demon/celestial. They are more rare flukes than a race to be in a main book. Though yes, I suppose you could design a culture that had a history steeped in some cult where so many grandmas had sex with demons, tieflings became the norm, and a enitee civilization of tieflings was born. Lets just say i don't think that is how they are presented though and leave it at that.
That being said I'd rather have them and tieflings than dragonborn style races being added. So yeah while yes their design seems more appropriate for a supplement add on they also require 0 effort on my part to integrate them into a setting. Dragonborn/elves/dwarves etc do, I will need a dwarven culture, a dwarven homeland, dwarven gods etc. And i kind of have a limit for how many I want to deal with and how many will fit most campaign worlds in a logical fashion. And while i am not required to add every race in, players do kind of expect the core PH races to be represented and available to play. So yeah they kind of feel more like a supplement race, but end of the day it take no effort to put them into my campaigns so have at it and add them in as long as they are balanced.
Though if I'm doing something like a planescape campaign as everyone is a immigrant all that becomes easier, but not all of my campaigns will be planescape.