Idea for 5E

[vagabundo]

What basis? Eladrin is a made-up word, and "warlord" doesn't mean what WOTC wants it to mean. "Tactician guy who gives orders" is a military trope, no Conan or Merlin would put up with such an upstart. Neither deserves core D&D status, and yet, there they are.

Does every adventuring party with a warlord in it become Bad Company? A bunch of mercenaries with a leader shouting orders? I don't dig that. I think that's bad design.

Eladrin are high elves and probably not called High Elves for IP reasons, still you can easily reskin them as high elves in your campaign. It is just a name.

But I think your being unfair to the Warlord, I understand that you don't like the class concept, but it is a valid one. Warlord characters can have as much personality as any other class in DND, they do not all have to be hard-boiled drill sergeants. The warlord doesn't even have to be a tradition leader or spokesman. There are a few ways you can interpret how their powers work, let the players loose with thier imaginations and they will have fun with the Warlord class I'm sure.

To be honest Warlords are one of my least favourite classes, I'm not sure how popular they will be in the DND community, but they are a valid archetype and interesting in their own right. I dig how it is now possible to have an all martial party and it is something I am going to put together - a low low magic world.

 

[Eridanis]

Keep it on-topic, please.

 

[CleverNickName]

Multiple, themed PHBs. You could have a "classic" PHB, a "steampunk" PHB, a "low magic" PHB, a "high fantasy" PHB etc.

That way, you could keep the peanut butter of warlord goliaths and warforged artificers OUT of the chocolate of elven wizards and dwarven fighters, if it's not your thing. Or add on a "wuxia" PHB when you want to run that sort of game.

It would be better than what we have currently, IMO.

Interesting idea. I think the hobby would benefit from a more narrow focus...a lot of people are frustrated with the "all things to all people" approach.

 

[garyh]

I don't think this idea would work, for the very good reasons Ari stated.

I also don't like it, because it enforces some sort of 1E-ified Tolkien as the default (and I love Tolkien!). D&D should be able to shift and change, and playable dragon-people and demon-tainted are popular, even if you don't like them, rounser. It'd be limiting the potential audience to put up a sign saying "Humans, elves, dwarves, and hobbits only!"

Plus, as far as Eladrin go, Galadriel as an Eladrin and Lorien as partly in the Feywild makes TOO much sense to say there's no archtype there.

 

[Dragonhelm]

Multiple, themed PHBs. You could have a "classic" PHB, a "steampunk" PHB, a "low magic" PHB, a "high fantasy" PHB etc.

That way, you could keep the peanut butter of warlord goliaths and warforged artificers OUT of the chocolate of elven wizards and dwarven fighters, if it's not your thing. Or add on a "wuxia" PHB when you want to run that sort of game.

This isn't feasible for print, especially since it may very well split your fan base, but I could see this as a PDF product. For example, you could have your baseline D&D player's handbook. Use layers to dictate which "skin" is working. This would allow you to customize your look.

In a way, you can also do this with content. Maybe you have a base elf race, then notes for how to play the elf in a high fantasy game. Swap skins, and you swap those notes with notes on how to play the elf in steampunk.

This would be a ton of work and layout would be a major hassle. I'm really not certain it would be worth it. You're really better off buying different rules sets for different genres of play. What's nice is that you can have certain baselines by keeping things all one basic system (i.e. d20 D&D, d20 Modern, d20 Star Wars, etc.).

 

[MrMyth]

That's okay. I think there's room for a D&D for those who disagree with you and WOTC, though. It's irrelevant to the topic, anyway.

Except, honestly, it isn't - because it shows even within the genre of 'core fantasy', that every player will have a different idea of what fits and what doesn't.

I know people that hate halflings, and especially the annoyance of halfling thieves. I know people that hate gnomes, and don't want to ever deal with gnome tricksters. I know people that hate elves, and dwarves, and bards, and dragonborn, and tieflings, and warlords, and anything oriental adventures, and anything psionics, and so forth and so on.

And sure, you might say this is just more argument for having a wide variety of editions to cater to everyone - but what happens when I want the core fantasy to have powerful wizards, and my friend wants the core fantasy to have very low-key magic, and you don't want to see eladrin or warlords, while someone else doesn't want to see gnomes or bards.

Now, I'm not saying the idea of having different genre books is bad. I'd love to see such a thing for 4E, with a new genre book each year, one for steampunk, one for wuxia, etc. But building it into the core rules isn't really feasible, especially because - as shown by your disagreement with Mouseferatu - your definition of 'core fantasy' isn't going to be the same as the next person.

There are a lot of disparate influences on D&D. There is a lot of fantasy out there to draw upon, and many elements of fantasy that change from one source to the next. How much magic is appropriate, what races are 'fundamental' to fantasy, what sort of title (warlord, fighter, rogue, barbarian) might define various iconic heroes.

You want a core fantasy setting that caters to your personal tastes and won't feel 'wrong' to you. And I can't blame you for that desire! But the inevitable truth is that the things you want are your core fantasy, not some overall core fantasy ideal that everyone can agree on. Every DM will need to make adjustments because every DM will have a different idea of what fits their perfect setting.

Now, if your feeling is simply that currently have strayed from the core fantasy ideal, and should return to one that most people can agree is close enough to fit, that isn't an unreasonable position.

...you just have to accept that when they do so, most people might agree that Eladrin and Warlords fit just fine in the genre of core fantasy.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Its an idea with a noble cause but not really a working solution financially. Spending development money, even on electronic only products, for just one fragment of the already niche RPG market is money down the drain for Hasbro.

A company the size of Hasbro would have a difficult time trying to market like that even in a thriving economy. The RPG market is too small for such a venture to be a worthwhile investment. To achieve greater sales 5E is going to have to reach out for a market beyond the typical gamer. The game will need to be fast paced, easy to play out of the box, have a defined "end" of game, and consist largely of components that are more of a hassle to pirate, such as dice, minis, maps, and cards. 5E can then be marketed to a wider audience. Such an audience will not have to "get" the concept of an RPG in order to dive right in and play.

Sure you can play with substitute components, just as you can with most boardgames. How many casual gamers construct thier own board game components though?

The RP will be provided by the players if they wish but will come from outside the G.

 

[The Little Raven]

Eladrin are high elves and probably not called High Elves for IP reasons, still you can easily reskin them as high elves in your campaign. It is just a name.

Actually, they're called Eladrin for two reason... 1, they wanted to avoid the <blank> elf, <blank> dwarf setup that gave us so many slightly different variations on the same race, so that when you say "I'm gonna play a dwarf," people know what you're playing without having to thumb through nine different books and 11 different subraces of dwarf to find out what a "hamburgler dwarf" is. 2, the eladrin of previous editions were high fey (with a celestial origin, since there was no real faerie realm in the previous default cosmology), and they decided to merge that concept together with high elves, so you have eladrin that range in power like humans (from farm boy to god-slaying archmage).

 

[Mallus]

Yeah, I know that you can say dragonborn don't exist, but even references to them and artwork of them is annoying. It'd be better if they were in some other book marked the "wahoo" PHB, and easily ignored if you don't think they're such a clever idea.

The trick is for gamers to develop the mental discipline required to simply ignore the stuff they don't like. This is far more practical than writing and publishing 31 flavors of PHB.

 

[The Little Raven]

This is far more practical than writing and publishing 31 flavors of PHB.

Especially if those 31 flavors contain 150+ pages of the same exact rules content. One of the biggest complaints about oWoD was that playing multiple games gave you the same content again and again (sometimes just slightly different), and that was for multiple game lines. Doing the same thing to a single game line would cause more problems than it would solve.