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lowkey13
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D&D 5E Is infinite diversity in infinite combinations .... a terrible thing in D&D?
Sorry it had to be 
Celebrim
Legend
There is a big difference between a publisher making everything available, and a DM dumping everything into a campaign or a setting.
DM's should decide what they want to make available.
Back in the bad old days, there was always less available than anyone strictly needed. Every setting was actually more diverse than the restrictions provided by the game. Nothing ever exactly fit, and we either failed to notice or else we just played the sort of game where things did fit and ignored everything else.
What's the chance of climbing a wall if you aren't a thief? Of course your fighting man can row a boat, right, but can your cleric? What about your M-U? Or what happens when your DM says, "No, of course your fighting man can't row a boat, where is that stated in the character description?" Of course the character doesn't know the right fork to use when dining on unicorn roasts until your player learns the right one, and until then you are in danger of being executed by the offended lord that notices you picked the wrong one. Of course every person that understands the outdoors is good aligned and eventually learns magic. And so on and so forth.
Now I think we are moving into an opposite problem. Every setting is actually less diverse than the infinite possibilities provided by an edition that has been out for a while. If you don't cull it down a bit, you end up with characters optimized solely for mechanical diversity that the player can not in the slightest relate to or personify, and characters with less in common than the inhabitants of the Mos Eisley cantina. However humanocentric and relatable the game universe, the PC's are actually a troop of Lovecraftian horrors - usually not even intentionally, but just out of complete negligence of anything but 'the powers'.
DM's should decide what they want to make available.
Back in the bad old days, there was always less available than anyone strictly needed. Every setting was actually more diverse than the restrictions provided by the game. Nothing ever exactly fit, and we either failed to notice or else we just played the sort of game where things did fit and ignored everything else.
What's the chance of climbing a wall if you aren't a thief? Of course your fighting man can row a boat, right, but can your cleric? What about your M-U? Or what happens when your DM says, "No, of course your fighting man can't row a boat, where is that stated in the character description?" Of course the character doesn't know the right fork to use when dining on unicorn roasts until your player learns the right one, and until then you are in danger of being executed by the offended lord that notices you picked the wrong one. Of course every person that understands the outdoors is good aligned and eventually learns magic. And so on and so forth.
Now I think we are moving into an opposite problem. Every setting is actually less diverse than the infinite possibilities provided by an edition that has been out for a while. If you don't cull it down a bit, you end up with characters optimized solely for mechanical diversity that the player can not in the slightest relate to or personify, and characters with less in common than the inhabitants of the Mos Eisley cantina. However humanocentric and relatable the game universe, the PC's are actually a troop of Lovecraftian horrors - usually not even intentionally, but just out of complete negligence of anything but 'the powers'.
nswanson27
First Post
I don't know - it seems a lot of the implied issues are ones here where the easiest fix is to stop assuming it's a problem.
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lowkey13
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hafrogman
Adventurer
I answered that infinite diversity is good, but I could also lean towards "I'm not sure, but Paladins are terrible."
Because paladins are the problem. Or your (and many other peoples') ideas of what a paladin is are too restrictive.
D&D has always had this issue, as you hit upon. A fighting-man is something I do, and elf is something that I am, why are they both classes? The more descriptive a class is with regards to what you are instead of what you do, and the more problems arise. Paladin has always trod this line. In some people it is very much a "what I am" class. You are a paragon of virtue, the knight in shining armor ideal. It's an idea very much tied to real world religions and mythologies, and not so much to the fantastical world of D&D.
And so various attempts have been made to redefine the paladin more as a 'What I do' class, and some people embrace it and some people have lawn related issues. But either way, paladin is the problem, not race/class freedom.
Because paladins are the problem. Or your (and many other peoples') ideas of what a paladin is are too restrictive.
D&D has always had this issue, as you hit upon. A fighting-man is something I do, and elf is something that I am, why are they both classes? The more descriptive a class is with regards to what you are instead of what you do, and the more problems arise. Paladin has always trod this line. In some people it is very much a "what I am" class. You are a paragon of virtue, the knight in shining armor ideal. It's an idea very much tied to real world religions and mythologies, and not so much to the fantastical world of D&D.
And so various attempts have been made to redefine the paladin more as a 'What I do' class, and some people embrace it and some people have lawn related issues. But either way, paladin is the problem, not race/class freedom.
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