4E being immune to criticism (forked from Sentimentality And D&D...)

[cwhs01]

Ask anyone in the street what an eladrin is. Then ask them what an elf is.

Odds are that you aren't likely to play dnd with any of these total strangers, and they likely won't care what your dnd characters race is called. Why is this a problem?

And I don't care about your protestations about sidhe and Tuatha de Danaan - your argument is shot down on a name basis alone. D&D deserves better than this in the core.

So if they'd named the race Sidhe or high-elf, it would have been okay? The name is your major concern? well, then i could think of a very easy solution to your problem.

I realize you have problems with the feystep ability, but this also has an easy solution. don't use the race, or change the ability to something you like.

 

[vagabundo]

Ask anyone in the street what an eladrin is. Then ask them what an elf is.

I rest my case.

And I don't care about your protestations about sidhe and Tuatha de Danaan - your argument is shot down on a name basis alone. D&D deserves better than this in the core.

You are contracting yourself here. You mention that DND should have either a mythological basis for the races or a strong tie to Tolkien and the elves in previous editions don’t have either. The Elf and Eladrin splint in 4e is exactly what your asking for yet you have a problem with them. I’m confused.

They had to call the Eladrin something, maybe high elves would have been better, but that argument is weak and comes across as mindless venting.

 

[rounser]

A lot of people, even you in your earlier post, complain that 4e departed from what was the core implied dnd setting. And now you want to remove the original parts? Wouldn't that make it even less dnd?

Well, you'd still have the MM to quirk it up with D&Disms...doesn't get much more D&D than drow hanging out with mind flayers, for instance...and the spells for your magic missiles and fireballs, and the magic items for your flying carpets and vorpal swords. That's one heck of a lot of D&D, right there.

The core classes and races should IMO play "straight man" to the vast weirdness of the optional implied setting on the DM's side of the fence, which gets a lot less screentime, and is much more easily customisable to personal tastes (e.g. don't like a monster, don't use it). At least begin with a semblance of pseudomedieval heroes, then go berserk with the Eyebrows of Vecna and tapdancing Tarrasques. And if it's your style, a party packed with warforged, dragonborn, goliaths and other freaks, but keep it optional and out of the core implied setting.

I think Gygax wrote an essay to this effect in the 1E DMG. He emphasised humans as being the cornerstone of a D&D world as the most populous race and default PC race, because it anchored the game thematically.

Clerics always struck me as a sort of kludge to make the game go. Something like "We need priests for healing magic....but um, healing isn't enough of a hook, no-one wants to play them...okay add armour and weapons and make them fight better to make them more appealing....oh wait, they look too much like fighters now....um....okay, restrict them to bludgeoning weapons....oh wait, they don't look like priests anymore....okay, let's call them something esoteric like 'clerics'. Sorted!" If they really are priests, or healers, then I think they could benefit from a redesign to make them appear more as that.

 

[rounser]

So if they'd named the race Sidhe or high-elf, it would have been okay?

High elf would have been okay. People know what an elf is, and can guess that this is a specific type of elf.

Sidhe is no good, the vast majority of people don't even know how to pronounce that one, let alone what it is without explanation.

I’m confused.

That people in the street have no idea what an eladrin is?

I don't see where this confusion is coming from. It seems pretty obvious to me. It's a made-up word with zero mythological resonance. What's to get confuddled about?

There's a place for eladrin, but it's not in the first PHB which defines the nature of the game and the non-optional makeup of a thousand worlds, IMO.

 

[vagabundo]

That people in the street have no idea what an eladrin is?

I don't see where this confusion is coming from. It seems pretty obvious to me. It's a made-up word with zero mythological resonance. What's to get confuddled about?

Most people wouldnt know what half the stuff in the PHB is about at first glance in any edition.

The word Eldarin means "Elvish" in Quenya, one of the languages of Middle-earth

So there is one of the ties with Tolkien that you wanted.

There's a place for eladrin, but it's not in the first PHB which defines the nature of the game and the non-optional makeup of a thousand worlds, IMO.

I disagree, I feel they are much better for the game and I'm happy that gnomes and half-orcs were removed.

But then again half my players group would not exist if you had your way. I've a Dragonborn fighter, a Tiefling rogue and an Eladrin feylock.

 

[rounser]

The day when hyena-people are okay but dragon-people are hands-off is the day i´ll get off the D&D train.

Bring on gnolls as a PC race in the first PHB and we'll talk.

And no, they don't deserve to be there either IMO (unless maybe there are a hundred other monsters in there to keep them company so they don't seem so arbitrary). The person who did it would show a distinct lack of gnolledge.

 

[rounser]

Most people wouldnt know what half the stuff in the PHB is about at first glance in any edition.

Wizard?
Dwarf?
Thief? (Okay, I'm cheating a bit there...)

But you do have something of a point. I've already said that Paladin, Cleric, and Ranger could do with a rename, so I'm consistent with my own thesis, at least. And they're not made-up words, unlike eladrin and dragonborn. Because they're real words fallen into disuse ("ranger" excepted, perhaps), they sound less contrived than...well, contrived words. Maybe that's why we're seeing them pop up elsewhere (e.g. Paladins in the movie Jumpers).

So there is one of the ties with Tolkien that you wanted.

I don't want "ties with Tolkien". I think D&D's core implied setting needs ties with fantasy's Universal Myth (or whatever the term was Lucas used to describe what Star Wars tapped into), because Lord of the Rings does a good job of tapping that, and so should D&D. That's the stuff worlds are built of.

You know, the story everyone feels they know even when they've never heard it before. Tropes with mythological resonance that fire the imagination. D&D's thematic lifeblood, cliche all the way.

 

[cwhs01]

dangit, i have no idea how to multiquote
but anyway..

That people in the street have no idea what an eladrin is?

This is an example of why these discussions go so badly. You are answering another question than was asked

And also, i'd still like an answer from you as to why it matters that the people on the street know what kind of race your dnd character belongs to? The only one i could come up with, was for marketing purposes of the dnd brand and broad appeal of the game. But names are not notoriously difficult to change. So why has it upset you?

 

[rounser]

And also, i'd still like an answer from you as to why it matters that the people on the street know what kind of race your dnd character belongs to?

Because there are all sorts of associations with the word "wizard", for example. It's a powerful word. Like those Power Word spells (remember them?) Elf is similar - lots of associations and ideas spring to mind unbidden. The sort which trigger ideas for worldbuilding, adventures, and characters.

Eladrin? No signal. Even after you know what they are, it still requires mental translation, at least for me ("oh right, they're sidhe/faeries/magic elves/seelie"). That would change with time, but IMO the implied setting shouldn't require that, and you're still imposing some arbitrary word which might be bad and sound contrived on a thousand worlds, which is bad form. (Note that this is not an issue with the MM, because monsters get so little screentime compared to core, first PHB PC races.)

We could rename wizards as fizban. That too would be a bad move. Or have wizards and fizban in the implied setting, with wizards as magic users who don't heal, and fizban as magic users who do. That's approximately the situation we have with elves and eladrin. It's just sort of arbitrary and contrived, and not appropriate beyond a single specific world.

 

[cwhs01]

Because there are all sorts of associations with the word "wizard", for example. It's a powerful word. Like those Power Word spells (remember them?) Elf is similar - lots of associations and ideas spring to mind unbidden. The sort which trigger ideas for worldbuilding, adventures, and characters.

Eladrin? No signal. Even after you know what they are, it still requires mental translation, at least for me ("oh right, they're sidhe/faeries/magic elves/seelie"). That would change with time, but IMO the implied setting shouldn't require that, and you're still imposing some arbitrary word which might be bad and sound contrived on a thousand worlds, which is bad form. (Note that this is not an issue with the MM, because monsters get so little screentime compared to core, first PHB PC races.)

okay. Thats what i was looking for, an answer. I might not agree with you, but through dialogue, a solution could be found to make the 4e acceptable for your homegame. My suggestion is to change the name of the eladrin race to high-elf or sidhe, when playing your own games.

Your input is online and wotc (represented in this thread by my hero, mr. scott rouse) knows about these objections. They may decide not to change how they do things wrt naming conventions of new races, but then again, they might.

We could rename wizards as fizban. That too would be a bad move. Or have wizards and fizban in the implied setting, with wizards as magic users who don't heal, and fizban as magic users who do. That's approximately the situation we have with elves and eladrin. It's just sort of arbitrary and contrived, and not appropriate beyond a single specific world.

hmm. I don't think it is an entirely apropriate example you give, but also earlier you were arguing that a single shared world was a good thing? a shared implied core setting. Now its not? Does it depend on what the shared setting contains? Should it stay hardcore vanilla, and only include fizbans and eladrin in expansions?