D&D 5E MTOF: Elves are gender-swapping reincarnates and I am on board with it

[SkidAce]

What is the cost to me?

The part of D&D tradition that I care about now lacks support. The inflexibility of core rule mechanics, the baking-in of core rule flavor, and the lack of customizability generally, require me to rewrite the 5e rules. Because of this and other issues, the necessary amount of rewrite is formidable. Currently, I have aborted a strong effort to rewrite. But it isnt worth it. D&D is no longer fun for my play style. And the effort required to make it fun is no longer appealing.

I have lost D&D.

Because of failing to allow for personal preferences, the 5e designers have murdered 20 years of a game that I once loved.

The greatest wizards of my world are all ancient elves. People in the game setting know this. There are talented humans, but the long lived elves are the masters of the art.

You want to know something magical and obscure, find one of these guys/gals.

How do the rules ruin me of this?

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

To transform the D&D gaming tradition into a new kind of game about conformity and conformity, does have its supporters.

Arguably, a game about conformism is no longer D&D. Not the kind of D&D that I love, anyway.

But its only about conformity if you let it be about it. The opening of the Player Handbook says: ''Above all else, D&D is yours. The friendships you
make around the table will be unique to you.
The adventuresyou embark on. the characters you create, the
memories you make-these will be yours. D&D is your
personal corner of the universe, a place where you have
free reign to do as you wish.
Go forth now. Read the rules of the game and the
story of its worlds, but always remember that you are
the one who brings them to !ife. They are nothing
without the spark of life that you give them.''

Yet, post after post you come saying that 5e doest not allow you to do X and Y and it ruins the game for you. You are the one who refuse to use your freedom to create; 5e doest ''allow'' you do to something, you dont need 5e permission to ignite that creative spark of yours and make D&D yours. D&D doest not belong to a company or to a bunch of paper sheets glued together; its yours. Your D&D tradition is your own making, nothing WotC will put out will satisfy you if you want them to cater to a tradition your table and yourself created years ago. Dont wait for permissions, create your own opportunity.

D&D is not the rulebooks, its the result you get when friendship create a collective memory. D&D is my dexterous elves and your graceful arcanist elves, its my group going againt Tiamat in the Nentir Vale and your party robbing a bank in a steampunk city, its my capital inhabited by living gods and your nation united under one faith. D&D is you and me, not Volo' or Mordenkainen, M.Mearls or Elminster.

Dont quit because there's too few options backing your characters; embrace that there's endless possibilities in front of them.

 

[Yaarel]

The need to rewrite a considerable amount of 5e core rules − to both remove baked in setting assumptions and to add custom mechanics − makes DMG claims to support individual creativity nonviable. The heavy-handed 5e setting assumptions discourage DM world building.

And with regard to building a specific character concept, besides the scarcity of opportunities to customize the character, the rules remove the player from having any say in his or her own character. Whatever customization is possible, is mostly a game of DM-may-I.

 

[Anakzar]

It should have been dwarves. It would have explained the classic trope of "Where are the dwarf women at?"

I liked it better when dwarven women didn't shave their beards....

 

[Sunseeker]

The need to rewrite a considerable amount of 5e core rules − to both remove baked in setting assumptions and to add custom mechanics − makes DMG claims to support individual creativity nonviable. The heavy-handed 5e setting assumptions discourage DM world building.

And with regard to building a specific character concept, besides the scarcity of opportunities to customize the character, the rules remove the player from having any say in his or her own character. Whatever customization is possible, is mostly a game of DM-may-I.

Repeating your point that you made a couple posts ago without any supplementary support for your claim doesn't do your argument any favors.

If we're just tossing our opinions out 'cause *reasons* I don't have any of this difficulty you speak of. Granted I don't run a lot of 5E games, but I don't have this difficulty with any edition.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Oh, whoops. I misspelled "parthenogenesis". I was close enough that a Google search for the misspelling gets hits on the correct spelling. Okay, with that established, are we on the same page, and clear to move forward into new, exciting territory? Perhaps the role of Wolbachia in Jurassic Park, and among orcs?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia

In my weird-science age-of-Atlantis setting, a wolbachia-like infection is endemic among certain nomadic tribes in central Asia who frequently war with the proto-Greeks...

 

[Yaarel]

Repeating your point that you made a couple posts ago without any supplementary support for your claim doesn't do your argument any favors.

If we're just tossing our opinions out 'cause *reasons* I don't have any of this difficulty you speak of. Granted I don't run a lot of 5E games, but I don't have this difficulty with any edition.

Previous D&D editions support customizability, both for DM and for player.

For example, as DM.

The 3e SRD is mostly setting neutral. I, literally, cut-and-paste the parts that I plan to use for my setting. Add a sentence and paragraph, occasionally a page of description. And already, it is workable. The rest is the finetuning and updating that happens during gameplay.

4e was also workable. I emphasized the Feywild and the Material. The elf I needed enjoyed support. With a doable amount of effort, I extirpated the Astral Sea and its polytheistic Cleric class. No headache, nothing else that I need to use referred to them.

The difficulty with 3e today is, its lack of balance is problematic. 4e has too much legal weirdness to deal with to any serious degree.

Regarding 5e, the problem is the saturation of unwanted setting assumptions in every aspect of the core rules. The 5e SRD likewise gets in the way of world building.

I am sick of the effort to remove 5e flavor. I have never used an official setting. I resent the nigh-coersion to do so now.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

Regarding 5e, the problem is the saturation of unwanted setting assumptions in every aspect of the core rules.

3E elves: +2 Dex, -2 Con, resistance to sleep and charm, low-light vision, weapon proficiencies, bonus to Listen/Search/Spot.
5E elves: +2 Dex, resistance to sleep and charm, darkvision, bonus to Perception. (High elf: +1 Int, weapon proficiencies, cantrip, extra language. Wood elf: +1 Wis, weapon proficiencies, extra speed, easy Stealth.)

Not really seeing the problem here.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The difficulty with 3e today is its lack of balance is problematic.

Balance? Kids today!

Back in MY day, “balance” was what you needed to stack your dice while the GM wasn’t paying you any attention!

 

[Sunseeker]

Regarding 5e, the problem is the saturation of unwanted setting assumptions in every aspect of the core rules. The 5e SRD likewise gets in the way of world building.

I am sick of the effort to remove 5e flavor. I have never used an official setting. I resent the nigh-coersion to do so now.

What setting lore?

The PHB is about as setting clean as the dictionary.