D&D 5E D&D Next Blog: Tone and Edition

Kobold Avenger · Apr 28, 2012

I like the Common, Uncommon, and Rare thing.

And as I would like to run a Planescape game it's going to be something like: humans, half-elves, tieflings and all planetouched as common, halflings, dwarves, gnomes, and githzerai and maybe bariaur as uncommon, elves and dragonborn as rare.

Some people are definitely going to have campaigns where only humans are common, and everything else is rare.

the Jester · Apr 28, 2012

thecasualoblivion said:
A more useful division of races would be:

Civilized
Unwelcome
Freak
Enemy

But what if- and I freely admit, the same argument applies to the rarity system- what if humans are the freaks in my campaign?

Worse yet, what if, in one area, humans are freaks, in another they are the enemy and another they are civilized?????

Essenti · Apr 28, 2012

Good lord... if my gamers brought the same level of "OMG NO!1!!!11!" to the table as some people bring to these 5E threads, I'd be tidying up my nice new digs in the state penitentiary.

Try to look at "common, uncommon, rare" from a different perspective. These labels don't have to tell you how common or rare they should be in your game. Think of them as an indication of how often they appeared in the various editions of the game--without having to put a definitive edition label on them, which would probably keep the edition warfires smoldering.

(I can imagine there exist a few edition zealots out there who'd be ecstatic to see WoTC categorize the game elements with literal edition labels so they can more easily recognize those parts of the game that have anything to do with those vile and hated editions which could potentially corrupt their delicate sensibilities through inadvertently reading the mechanics that shall not be read)

"Common, uncommon, rare" works perfectly fine if you think about them from an all editions encompassing frame of reference.

Did it exist in all editions, pow, common.

Did it exist in two or more editions, bang, uncommon.

Did it exist in only one edition, bam, rare.

Could WoTC use other labels? Indeed they can and perhaps should--judging from some of the reactions in this thread. Having them categorized is still a great idea and offers a straightforward method for a DM to allow or disallow races/classes/whatever.

You could tell your players:

"Feel free to use any common or uncommon elements to create your character before the game on Sunday, contact me if their is a rare element you'd like to explore and I'll think about it."

Or,

"Feel free to use any common race, except those horrible halflings! Gnomes and half-orcs are okay, but no other uncommon. Oh, and don't even contemplate any of those weird rare races, unless your dragborn is sans the mammaries."

You can even change the category of an element if you want:

"Drow are common, they're like dog poop in my campaign."

At the end of the day, you can still just list straight out what you want to include or leave out, and completely ignore the labels with no additional work required (save what you'd have done in any previous edition by writing out the list of races/classes/whatever).

The categories are there to make things easier and should have absolutely no game mechanic associations, so they don't actually matter if you totally ignore them.

Lord Mhoram · Apr 28, 2012

I'm all for races in the books - Add the Warforged, Shifters, Illumian, etc...

And not that was not in jest, my world has about 50 races to choose from - I like variety and choice. Put a bunch of races in there, so there are more options to design the campaign. I was hoping they do races like they said about classes - if it was in an original player's handbook for an edition it was in Next.

I just hope that if the Tiefling is there, they have Aasimir. Fine having a evil leaning / themed race, but have a good one two for those that want to play the goody two shoes.

thecasualoblivion · Apr 28, 2012

Essenti said:
Good lord... if my gamers brought the same level of "OMG NO!1!!!11!" to the table as some people bring to these 5E threads, I'd be tidying up my nice new digs in the state penitentiary.

Try to look at "common, uncommon, rare" from a different perspective. These labels don't have to tell you how common or rare they should be in your game. Think of them as an indication of how often they appeared in the various editions of the game--without having to put a definitive edition label on them, which would probably keep the edition warfires smoldering.

(I can imagine there exist a few edition zealots out there who'd be ecstatic to see WoTC categorize the game elements with literal edition labels so they can more easily recognize those parts of the game that have anything to do with those vile and hated editions which could potentially corrupt their delicate sensibilities through inadvertently reading the mechanics that shall not be read)

"Common, uncommon, rare" works perfectly fine if you think about them from an all editions encompassing frame of reference.

Did it exist in all editions, pow, common.

Did it exist in two or more editions, bang, uncommon.

Did it exist in only one edition, bam, rare.

If this sort of thing is truly necessary, I'd rather they be less passive aggressive about it.

Essenti · Apr 28, 2012

thecasualoblivion said:
If this sort of thing is truly necessary, I'd rather they be less passive aggressive about it.

Please, elaborate...

Ratskinner · Apr 28, 2012

Lord Mhoram said:
I'm all for races in the books - Add the Warforged, Shifters, Illumian, etc...

I've run campaigns that are humans-only and others that are full on Mos-Eisley Cantina weird-fests. Both are fun (or can be

). For me, a race takes up so little pagecount, I don't see why they wouldn't include them. Of course, if your talking like...50 races....why not just have a "Customizing your race!" chapter and call it a day.

YMMV, of course.

Scribble · Apr 28, 2012

How about breaking them down along the lines of how close to human they are?

kind of an uncanny valley sort of thing

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

Essenti · Apr 28, 2012

Scribble said:
How about breaking them down along the lines of how close to human they are?

kind of an uncanny valley sort of thing

Sent from my DROID BIONIC using Tapatalk 2

I gotta spread the love around a bit before xp'ing you again, but this is an interesting line of thought.

Stormonu · Apr 28, 2012

I don't think putting a rarity on the playable races is going to do any bit of good.

If a player wants to play the race and the DM allows it, it might as well say "common". If the DM says not, it might as well say "unavailable at this time."

I mean, really - if it's an uncommon race, what does that mean to players? Is there only supposed to be 1 or 2 allowed in a group? Do you have to roll % to see if you can play it this campaign? Have to pay the DM $50 to be that race? Stop on the race's page with a random book flip to play it? You can only play that race once every 3 campaigns or in Monday night's game?

Instead, what needs to be firmly stated in the PHB is "Here's a list of sample races. Your DM may allow some, all or none of these - and may even possibly have replacements for one or more. Check with him for race availability in your current campaign."