Tiefling and half-orc should not be in the PHB

[Piratecat]

No bickering, folks.

 

[MoxieFu]

You are the one who brought up Appendix N. That suggests that you have a list of books you consider "D&D Feel". But the list you gave us - Appendix N - is extremely dated. All I did was suggest that you include in the discussion some more current materials that you think would receive your "D&D Feel" stamp of approval.

If, on the other hand, your intent is just to troll the thread, then it would not be necessary for you to actually contribute to the discussion.

I simply suggested a starting point to begin. What you infer is your own choice.

If you are calling me a troll then you need to check the rules of these very discussion boards. There are definite rules here about that.

 

[MoxieFu]

Sorry PC, I saw your post after submitting mine.

 

[thewok]

And all that wonderful "improvement" in 4e has brought us right where we are today. If all that improvement was so good why are we looking at a new edition of the game in record time? All the changes were NOT for the better and the edition failed. The facts speak for themselves, but you can't hear it if you refuse to listen.

In actuality, D&D has a fairly long lifespan for its editions.

Shadowrun (first released in 1989) is currently in its fourth edition. Vampire (1991) is in its fourth. Paranoia (1984) is in its fifth. MechWarrior (1986) is in its fifth edition. GURPS (1986) is in its fourth.

Vampire had its first and second editions a year apart. GURPS released both its first and second editions in 1986, with its third edition released in 1988.

4E's shelf life i's hardly a record low for the industry as a whole, or even for D&D in general (that distinction goes to 3rd Edition, which lasted three years).

This is one of the things I absolutely loathe about the Internet. There is either "win" or "fail." There is "OMG the best game evar!!!!11" and "This game is the most vile piece of crap I've ever played!" There is no in-between on the Internet. It's an always-on generator of hyperbole, where the only choices are exaltation and damnation. Trying to maintain the voice of reason makes you a "white knight" to one side and a "hater" to the other.

4E is not perfect, but it's far from a failure.

 

[Somebloke]

Actually I began playing 1e in 1980. Eventually trying to houserule 1e into something I was satisfied nearly drove me to madness. I was relieved when 2e came out but it didn't fix many of the things I didn't like with 1e, plus sanitizing the game for Mothers Against D&D was a colossal cop-out. I liked the changes that 3e made to the game, but then they went and added tons of superstructure to the game I DIDN'T like.

Pathfinder came out with their "fixes" to 3.X but went in the direction of increasing the complexity when I was hoping for decreasing it. I love Paizo as a company, but their rules system just didn't appeal to me. 4e was never a game I could warm up to. It may be an excellent miniatures Skirmish game, but it threw out way too much of the things I liked in ALL previous editions. I do like the rule on critical hits though, so there is that. Castles & Crusades came the closest to "being D&D to me" so that was what I went with. But, since it didn't have the D&D logo on it, it never received much traction in the gaming world. The publisher's habits of poor editing didn't help either.

5E now comes along with a stated goal of creating a simpler, modular core that can be extended with expansions. So far this sounds like a wonderful design philosophy. The designers are also making a huge effort to promote the game in terms that are as inclusive as possible. I absolutely applaud this.

What they have said gives me more hope that 5e will be the best version of D&D that I have ever laid eyes on, even games that don't have those three symbols on the box. Now when the playtest rules come out I may find myself to be completely wrong but I don't think so. I really think I'll like at least 90% of the game and if they get that close I will be elated.

When the final rules are published I would love to be playing and running actual D&D again. At least at this point I have hope.

...you understand that if- hopefully- 5e turns out to have the elegant system you want, then the inclusion of classes and races you can ban right off the bat isn't going to detract from this? I am sorry, but a DM who can't get his players to work with a particular theme or agree to houserules/race or class restrictions to work within his game has issues with his players or his style, not with the options.

5e is hopefully going to be the simple, elegant, narrative (rather than tactical) friendly system I've been looking for, that addresses the issues with Oe to 4e in one go; but I am not going to use it to run Tolkien: the RPG and me- and a lot of people like me, who may not have even been alive in the eighties and certainly don't want to return there- deserve representation too. We have our own cherished characters, our own TPKs due to stupidity or pushing our luck when we shouldn't have, our own epic finales, our own wow-I-can't-believe he did that-moments- our own times when we touched the soul of DnD, hobbits or no. An edition for all, remember?

 

[ArmoredSaint]

You write up all this and then tell us that WE are the ones playing a no-true-scotsman fallacy? Gimme a break.

No, that was me recognizing that my entire rant is really one big "No True Scotsman" fallacy. That it is one doesn't particularly bother me since this is largely just a question of differing tastes,

 

[triqui]

Ok, so bassically the OP is saying that because HE doesn't like certain races, they shouldn't be allowed in PHB.

That's a strong argument, indeed. I'll use it again. I dislike elves, and Legolas-clones. So I vote to keep elves out of the PHB using the same logic: that _I_ don't like them.

My brother dislikes Halflings/hobbits with a passion. So we could keep them out.

My girfriend finds that Dwarves are too ugly, and too dumb. They often are roleplayed like that stupid dwarf in the D&D film, we could keep them out too.

And I have a friend that says that humans are too bland and boring, he dislikes including real world race in a fantasy world.

So we could do a D&D without any race that any single player in the world might feel unconfortable with. Bassically, a game without races.

Well... now I think about it, it wasn't that good of an argument, was it?

 

[Mattachine]

If the new edition is to consolidate editions, then tieflings and dragonborn don't need to be in the PHB, since they only made it into the 4e PHB. They could be included in the DMG as options, or in a supplement.

Half-orcs weren't in the 2e PHB, but were in 1e, 3e, and 4e. They should be in.

 

[Lurks-no-More]

As a big Tolkien fan, and someone who's played D&D in various forms for twenty-plus years (he said, smoothly establishing his geek credentials), I absolutely want tieflings and dragonborn both in 5e.

Why? For one reason, they are both quite popular; people have loved tieflings since they appeared in Planescape back in the '90s, and WotC has told us repeatedly that there's been a huge demand for dragon-themed characters. (I have no difficulties believing that there are more dragonborn being played today than there are halflings, even if the former appear only in 4e and the latter are a staple of (A)D&D and Pathfinder!)

For another, they are there as an explicit sign that no, D&D doesn't have to be a retread of the same-old faux-Tolkienian pseudo-European pseudo-Medieval pseudo-fantasy. Tieflings, the cursed and physically warped scions of an ancient empire that made literal deals with the devils, are a perfectly good sword-and-sorcery style race, for one thing. Dragonborn, as the first ever non-stupid, non-ugly, non-evil PHB example of the big, strong warrior race type are another valuable thing to keep.

Overall: yes, I understand 5e is supposed to bring all the lapsed D&D gamers and people hanging onto old editions back into the fold. I doubt WotC can pull that off, but I understand the goal, and support them in their attempt to do so. But at the same time, it would be beyond foolish to deliberately ignore and discard elements from the current and most played edition of D&D - 4e, natch! - without good reason. So far, no one arguing for a very narrow and old-fashioned list of PC races in the core books has presented one, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If the new edition is to consolidate editions, then tieflings and dragonborn don't need to be in the PHB, since they only made it into the 4e PHB.

If the new edition is to truly consolidate editions, then they should be in the first PHB. It's not truly consolidating editions if they don't.

And it was disastrous for 4e not having Bards, Barbarians, Druids, Sorcerers and Monks or Gnomes and Half-Orcs in the 1st PHB, as many avoided 4e because it didn't have those classes and races, even if they showed up later. I seem to remember hearing about how many clearly avoided 2e because it didn't have Assassins or Half-Orcs in the PHB, even if both of them did show up later in 2e.

I don't care if the PHB is 320 pages and more than $50, they need to include all if they're going to meet their goal of consolidating editions.