D&D 5E Is infinite diversity in infinite combinations .... a terrible thing in D&D?

[Ratskinner]

Count me with many of the other posters here. Mechanically everything should be compatible, but individual DMs should feel free to restrict things as they wish. Heck, I'm running a "Humans only" game right now.

 

[Libramarian]

I am so sick of you ultra-conservative grognards trying to tell everyone else how to play the game.

You grew up on LOTR, and can't possibly imagine flights of fancy and imagination having any other form. Yeah. We get it.There is only one way to play the game! The one from one infinitesimally small slice of the imagination!

So. Boring. Yawn.

Even in it's day, Tolkien was writing pastoral escapist 'return to the glorified past (that never existed).' Super conservative. Leveraging folk tales from hundreds of years before. Sorry. Fantasy these days is much wilder, more interesting, with a much wider field of influence, and way better for it.

Keep whining about it on obscure message boards on the internet, though. I'm sure that will show them the error of their ways, and they'll stop being so, so... diverse.

We're talking about class-race restrictions here...
There's nothing "wild" or fantasy genre-expanding about removing these restrictions. It's just grid-filling. It's lazy design really. I would rather have the traditional restrictions but also more race-specific classes, like Elven Bladesingers, Dwarven Warpriests, Halfling Sheriffs, Gnome Tricksters, etc.

 

[Staffan]

This is a bit of a tangent, but it might be of interest. 13th Age is a d20 OGL that shares a lot of DNA with 5e, but one of the Yoink!able things is that each character has One Unique Thing. The game combines some story-game ideas and puts more on player authorship then the 5e rules do, and the One Unique Thing can often be used to shape the world as it applies to your character. One of the examples in the book is "I am the only halfling knight of the Dragon Emperor". This fits so much with your "I am the only Elf that found Religion" that I wanted to mention it.

True, though the 13th age default setting is vague enough that those kinds of restrictions generally don't exist in the setting as written. That is, the setting doesn't have much to say about elves and religion, but once a player decides that his or her One Unique Thing is "I'm the only Elf that found religion", that redefines the setting so that other elves aren't religious.

 

[MechaPilot]

I'm ok with that.

Me too.

Though, I guess, in my case I'd be a bad girl.

"Oooh, you naughty girl. You like setting-based restrictions don't you b-"

 

[FlyingChihuahua]

People need to start making polls with actual answers

 

[Lanefan]

... but once a player decides that his or her One Unique Thing is "I'm the only Elf that found religion", that redefines the setting so that other elves aren't religious.

Sounds like that system wouldn't work well with a homebrew setting, if that major a change can be forced on it simply by a player generating a character: "Yeah, that whole Elvish pantheon I just finished designing: out the window it goes..."

Lan-"and what happens if another player's One Unique Thing is that their character is a messiah among the Elves and has led them to religion"-efan

 

[BoldItalic]

My philosophy is to go with what the players want. Unless you have at least a dozen players around the table, not all races and not all classes are going to be in play anyway.

If none of the players makes a gnome paladin, you are free to declare "there are no gnome paladins in my campaign". It makes no difference but if it makes you feel empowered, go for it.

Conflict only arises if a player brings along a favourite character and you flatly tell him he can't play it because you are an inflexible autocrat who doesn't want any creative input from the players because it's your narrative not theirs. In which case, I have no sympathy with you.

 

[Blue]

Sounds like that system wouldn't work well with a homebrew setting, if that major a change can be forced on it simply by a player generating a character: "Yeah, that whole Elvish pantheon I just finished designing: out the window it goes..."

As a whole, 13th Age encourages more player participation in fleshing out the world as it relates to their character - their backgrounds (similar to skills but freeform) do the same thing. The default setting is done in broad strokes that mostly highlights awesomeness and plot hooks but is quite detail light. But as always players and DM work together - this isn't player fiat. For a more strongly designed setting maybe one player ends up naming a guild in a city you haven't detailed out, another the name of a merchant ship that was lost to pirates.

Then again, the bounty we all harvest from lots of RPGs available is finding the ones that fit our needs and our table, perhaps it's not the right match-up for you. I play it and 5e as my high fantasy game systems.

In the 13th Age game I run, the only major change I run is that one character is the only dragonspawn (d20 license doesn't cover dragonborn name), and she was literally a product of a ritual with an enslaved dragon. Other character's One Unique Things and backgrounds tied them to the setting without redefining it.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I have yet to see a decent rationale for the race-class restrictions in the broad sense. Like as a default rule, I mean. For a specific setting, sure there can be good reasons (and even those are often suspect), but as the default expectation of the game? I can't imagine a good reason to say "dwarves are never ever ever wizards".

Which, funny enough, is a race/class combo I've never seen.

 

[Ancalagon]

There are *always* restrictions. Can I be a Vulcan mech pilot in your d&d game? How about a Jedi dragon? A hyper-inteligent shade of blue? No?

Well then there *are* restrictions in your game.

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