D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[tetrasodium]

The same for me. I have a lot of floating character ideas, but I would never start fleshing one out before I knew the parameters of the campaign. That's just straight-up rude.

It definitely makes me wonder if the online focus plays a role. I only play online with people I know IRL, and most of my game time is at a physical table. I wonder if primarily online games breed a certain amount of selfish toxicity into the community, like it seems to do with most other online game communities.

It's not an online/offline thing. I might have run or played in one or two short lived online things, but I've been doing in person meatspace games since I started many years ago. The biggest changes came with the shift in tone that 5e brought along & exacerbated with regularly saying the words "tell your story". On top of the fact that both of those italicized words are a rather toxic mindset to approach a collaborative group activity there is the glaring omission of working with the other players & critical elements like making your character fit into the GM's world. As often as I've heard Crawford & such say tell your story I can't recall ever hearing them talk about respecting the GM's world even though that's like step zero in the process of discovering and evolving any kind of story with a PC.

 

[Mind of tempest]

The same for me. I have a lot of floating character ideas, but I would never start fleshing one out before I knew the parameters of the campaign. That's just straight-up rude.

It definitely makes me wonder if the online focus plays a role. I only play online with people I know IRL, and most of my game time is at a physical table. I wonder if primarily online games breed a certain amount of selfish toxicity into the community, like it seems to do with most other online game communities.

it is harder to be a jerk if the other person can just punch you, and it is much easer to be nice when you can see the other person is equally a human

It's not an online/offline thing. I might have run or played in one or two short lived online things, but I've been doing in person meatspace games since I started many years ago. The biggest changes came with the shift in tone that 5e brought along & exacerbated with regularly saying the words "tell your story". On top of the fact that both of those italicized words are a rather toxic mindset to approach a collaborative group activity there is the glaring omission of working with the other players & critical elements like making your character fit into the GM's world. As often as I've heard Crawford & such say tell your story I can't recall ever hearing them talk about respecting the GM's world even though that's like step zero in the process of discovering and evolving any kind of story with a PC.

it is a two-pronged problem you get selfish players and dm who hate anything different and with the lack of dm it always ends up a problem.
as you want players to read the thing if you made a world but I also see that sometime you have a great idea and it is what you want to play and all them games in the area are not remotely what you want.

 

[tetrasodium]

it is harder to be a jerk if the other person can just punch you, and it is much easer to be nice when you can see the other person is equally a human

it is a two-pronged problem you get selfish players and dm who hate anything different and with the lack of dm it always ends up a problem.
as you want players to read the thing if you made a world but I also see that sometime you have a great idea and it is what you want to play and all them games in the area are not remotely what you want.

You are the second person in the last couple pages to pivot from an explanation of how the 5e text & wotc's community outreach sets the stage for creating a problem to ungrateful/selfish players & tyrannical GMs. The problem is in the presentation & that problem is so radioactive that even talking about it maligns the GM.

 

[TwoSix]

You are the second person in the last couple pages to pivot from an explanation of how the 5e text & wotc's community outreach sets the stage for creating a problem to ungrateful/selfish players & tyrannical GMs. The problem is in the presentation & that problem is so radioactive that even talking about it maligns the GM.

I mean, if your argument is that 5e’s presentation causes this kind of toxicity, I just don’t agree.

The community had been moving towards more character-centric focus for decades; 5e captured that focus with its trad/neotrad orientation, but wasn’t the cause.

 

[Remathilis]

My decade long experience is opposite. Plyers listen the campaign pitch and make setting appropriate characters.

I find the honey-not-vinegar method works. I try to keep my options loose but finite and more based on vibes than restrictions. Nothing seems to murder a concept in the crib faster than cutting down player options. Some pruning seems fine, but deeper cuts like classes or PHB options tend to foment insurrection.

Which is why I use D&D to play D&D rather than the infamous "toolbox of options" method. Because the moment I do something like ban full casters or make the game human only, the players lose interest. They came to play D&D, not GoT using the PHB. Is that fair? Probably not. But I'm here to make sure everyone is having fun, so I play the hits.

 

[tetrasodium]

I mean, if your argument is that 5e’s presentation causes this kind of toxicity, I just don’t agree.

The community had been moving towards more character-centric focus for decades; 5e captured that focus with its trad/neotrad orientation, but wasn’t the cause.

"If"?... I took the time to explain how that is done with fairly explicit references to both phrasing from wotc & linguistic choices in the PHB, Your "i don't agree" doesn't refute those facts or make any effort to explain why they are good. Failure to do either of those things when defending how players are encouraged to ignore & dismiss the GM's efforts is a pretty clear confirmation of the impact of those choices wotc made for 5e.

 

[Mind of tempest]

You are the second person in the last couple pages to pivot from an explanation of how the 5e text & wotc's community outreach sets the stage for creating a problem to ungrateful/selfish players & tyrannical GMs. The problem is in the presentation & that problem is so radioactive that even talking about it maligns the GM.

it both in a feedback loop that make each other by nature and I can see how to solve them by any means beyond mind control which to my knowledge neither exists nor is ethically implimentable.

 

[Epic Meepo]

"If"?... I took the time to explain how that is done with fairly explicit references to both phrasing from wotc & linguistic choices in the PHB, Your "i don't agree" doesn't refute those facts or make any effort to explain why they are good. Failure to do either of those things when defending how players are encouraged to ignore & dismiss the GM's efforts is a pretty clear confirmation of the impact of those choices wotc made for 5e.

I don't find your argument persuasive because you haven't yet provided any evidence of causation.

You've made three observations about linguistic choices in 5e: it describes player actions using active voice; it describes DM actions using passive voice; and it's designers keep using the phrase, "tell your story."

I have yet to see any evidence that 1) the average player has paid enough attention to the text to even notice those linguistic choices and 2) the average player has been influenced by those linguistic choices.

In the absence of that evidence, I have no reason to believe your unproven hypothesis that the observed linguistic choices in 5e have somehow caused players to take no interest in your game world.

 

[tetrasodium]

I don't find your argument persuasive because you haven't yet provided any evidence of causation.

You've made three observations about linguistic choices in 5e: it describes player actions using active voice; it describes DM actions using passive voice; and it's designers keep using the phrase, "tell your story."

I have yet to see any evidence that 1) the average player has paid enough attention to the text to even notice those linguistic choices and 2) the average player has been influenced by those linguistic choices.

In the absence of that evidence, I have no reason to believe your unproven hypothesis that the observed linguistic choices in 5e have somehow caused players to take no interest in your game world.

The grammar alone is that evidence.

In a sentence using passive voice, the subject is acted upon; he or she receives the action expressed by the verb. The agent performing the action may appear in a "by the..." phrase or may be omitted. The dog is acting upon the sentence subject (the boy), meaning it uses the passive voice. - source

In the active voice, the subject of a sentence acts, like "Neil Armstrong walked on the moon." The active voice is direct, clear, and easy to read. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon, like "The moon was walked on by Neil Armstrong". -Source

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If player behaviour is so easily affected by minute wording choices, then certainly it also affected by clear directive like this:

"Your DM might set the campaign on one of these
worlds or on one that he or she created. Because there
is so much diversity among the worlds of D&D, you
should check with your DM about any house rules that
will affect your play of the game. Ultimately, the Dungeon
Master is the authority on the campaign and its
setting, even if the setting is a published world."