4th edition, The fantastic game that everyone hated.

[Remathilis]

Okay, now I see what you were saying re: the Marks. I still disagree; the 4e Eberron books were very clear about just how major an off-race mark would be. If I, as DM, didn't think it'd fit my campaign or I didn't think a player would be interested in dealing with the consequences, I'd say no, and IIRC the Player's Guide says to check with the DM first.

YMMV, of course.

(Edit: @Remathilis )

Here is my problem with that:

There was already no issue with a DM house-ruling the 3e version of that and just saying "X race can take Y mark." You're an aberrant and will be hunted, but mechanically its no different than taking any other feat. However, the default setting is that each race only manifests certain marks and the rules enforce that decision. Its up to the DM to decide if he will allow such oddities in his game.

In essence, the default setting is "No" unless the DM says "Yes".

By presenting it as an option within the rules and then giving the "check with your DM" cavaet, you're implying its ok and that its the DM deciding to stick to cannon that will disallow it. Some DMs I know would probably let it go (I wouldn't) and I know plenty of players willing to piss off House Orien just to be able to teleport 30 ft. The rules don't support the fluff, indeed the rules make excuses to get around it.

In that scenario, the default setting is "Yes" unless the DM says "No".

I tend to have a huge problem with "rare, special snowflakes" being a PC choice by default. How many Good-aligned drow have left the Underdark since 1988? Enough to fill a small city I'd wager. Nothing remains rare when presented as a PC choice. I'd much rather the marks be race-specific, and a sidebar mention to DM the ramifications of changing the rule than to have the rule be "Yes, but ask your DM just to make sure its okay." It just smacks of players having their cake and eating it too...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There were a lot of pills to swallow. Archons replaced elementals. Deva filled the aasimar slot despite being nothing like them. Three of Eberron's unique races were made core (one killed the doppelganger in the process). Blue Dragons lived seaside, not in the desert. Metallic dragons weren't good, and two of them were different metals. Most fey was inhuman and no longer beautiful. Titans and giant's were kin. Succubi were devils. Daemon's weren't they're own thing. Eladrin were a PC race. Elves were all sylvan* elves and rarely mages (those were eladrin). Tieflings had a universal origin and look. Halflings ended up swampfolk. These were no small changes. These were radical shifts to a long-time player who liked and was happy with the D&D lore up to that point. Even if most of those changes were for the better (and honestly, I like about 80% of them) many of them feel far too much of change for change's sake.

Even worse, it made settings like Realms or Eberron conform to these metaplot elements; which created huge chunks of incompatible lore (while the Spellplague retcons were notorious, Eberron lost its unique cosmology, had to adapt tieflings and dragonborn into more prominent roles, and wrecked holy-hell on the Dragonmarked houses to the point they barely resembled they're original intent.) I'm kinda glad we never saw a full setting book for Dragonlance or Ravenloft; I could only imagine the barrel those setting's cannons would have be bent over to fit runepriests, iron dragons, and shardminds into them.

Yeah, I in now way desire to denigrate other people's interests at all, it just strikes me as very trivial stuff in view of my interests. If there are dragons, orcs, elves, dwarves, demons, trolls, and a majority of the other D&D monsters in approximately their standard form its cool. I don't remember much at all about Archons from 2e (and they weren't in 1e were they?). Elementals weren't a really major monster, and showed up again in MM2 anyway. Aasimar I never heard of, it was some obscure 3e thing I assume. In any case the 4e Deva is one of those things you could take or leave. The Changling is just another name for Doppleganger in 4e, and both names have been used in different books. I wouldn't honestly remember exactly what dragon was found where, at least the difference in blue dragons is to me extremely obscure lore (and blue == ocean seems to make sense anway). Besides, who can tell a dragon where to live? Metallic dragons are still good, but their goodness is certainly of a rather less mortal nature. All the same metals are represented, plus additional ones that were added after 1e or later in 1e (mercury, steel, etc). Added chromatics exist too.

Fey were always inhuman. AFAIK the appearance of most of them is the same as ever, the dryad aside. Titans and giants were always related AFAIK, my players generally say things like "Demon, devil, whatever we kill it!" and could care less, so the obscurities of these creatures concern me little. Eladrin and Tieflings were again very obscure 3e creatures that I never even knew about and most players wouldn't either. They're cool races in 4e, yay! Elves can live anywhere they want and call themselves whatever they want too. Halflings will live wherever you feel like and I know of nothing about the race which defines them as "swamp folk" (4e lore claims they are river boat people, one might consider this drawn from Middle Earth lore, but nothing mechanical reinforces this, nor did anything mechanical ever reinforce any of their old lore).

I just don't see from my perspective anything worth getting terribly worried about, nor is there anything that can't be safely ignored if one is needing to conform to old lore or so stuck on it that diabolical succubi has any measurable impact on one's impression of the game.

Again, none of this is really in any way implying that any of this stuff isn't just utterly subjective like/dislike and you're welcome to hate on 4e for combining Daemons and Yugoleths with Demons (oh and lets not forget Demodands!)

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I in now way desire to denigrate other people's interests at all, it just strikes me as very trivial stuff in view of my interests. If there are dragons, orcs, elves, dwarves, demons, trolls, and a majority of the other D&D monsters in approximately their standard form its cool. I don't remember much at all about Archons from 2e (and they weren't in 1e were they?). Elementals weren't a really major monster, and showed up again in MM2 anyway. Aasimar I never heard of, it was some obscure 3e thing I assume. In any case the 4e Deva is one of those things you could take or leave. The Changling is just another name for Doppleganger in 4e, and both names have been used in different books. I wouldn't honestly remember exactly what dragon was found where, at least the difference in blue dragons is to me extremely obscure lore (and blue == ocean seems to make sense anway). Besides, who can tell a dragon where to live? Metallic dragons are still good, but their goodness is certainly of a rather less mortal nature. All the same metals are represented, plus additional ones that were added after 1e or later in 1e (mercury, steel, etc). Added chromatics exist too.

Fey were always inhuman. AFAIK the appearance of most of them is the same as ever, the dryad aside. Titans and giants were always related AFAIK, my players generally say things like "Demon, devil, whatever we kill it!" and could care less, so the obscurities of these creatures concern me little. Eladrin and Tieflings were again very obscure 3e creatures that I never even knew about and most players wouldn't either. They're cool races in 4e, yay! Elves can live anywhere they want and call themselves whatever they want too. Halflings will live wherever you feel like and I know of nothing about the race which defines them as "swamp folk" (4e lore claims they are river boat people, one might consider this drawn from Middle Earth lore, but nothing mechanical reinforces this, nor did anything mechanical ever reinforce any of their old lore).

I just don't see from my perspective anything worth getting terribly worried about, nor is there anything that can't be safely ignored if one is needing to conform to old lore or so stuck on it that diabolical succubi has any measurable impact on one's impression of the game.

Again, none of this is really in any way implying that any of this stuff isn't just utterly subjective like/dislike and you're welcome to hate on 4e for combining Daemons and Yugoleths with Demons (oh and lets not forget Demodands!)

I can see why none of that bothered you; you have little concept on any of their history in the game!

Many of those changes have impacts FAR before 3e (Eladrin as the CG celestial have been around since 2e, aasimar were half-angel counterpart to tieflings from Planescape). Elementals were big part of Basic D&D (even having rules and society there), dragon changes really affect things like old modules and lore ("What's a BLUE dragon doing in this pyramid a thousand miles from the sea?!") Titans went from the children of Gods to Giant 2.0. Dryads went from tree-women of myth to plant people of sci-fi and any clueless berk who can't tell the difference between a tanar'ri, a baaztezu, or a 'loth is going to get himself in the dead-book said the Planescape fan. All this stuff is grating from a continuity perspective; especially those of us who wanted to keep our worlds consistent after changing editions. My homebrew was so retconned after 4e it barely resembled the world I knew.

Its really easy to call such stuff trival when you have no respect for its history, its origin, or how its been used for decades. Its clear the designers of 4e didn't.

 

[Balesir]

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] Let me just say that TO ME the key difference between 4e and 1e (as an example) is not player control of what their character can do. It is character durability and the assurance that your character's story arc can be explained in dramatic terms, and the fact that you can depend on being able to at least attempt to do cool and dramatic things in each scene without it being an insane risk that quickly kills you off, nor that all the cool plot defining action must by rule be reserved for one set of spell-casting archetypes.

As other people have pointed out either here or in the "Pemerton" thread 4e relies a lot on a very open-ended skill system in any case, so it is NOT TRUE that the players can rely on knowing exactly how everything will play out. Their powers certain work that way in general, but powers have very narrow applicability in 4e. Unless your game's action is entirely relegated to tactical combat certainty is in no way shape or form in the hands of the players.

No, it is the certainty that some stray arrow won't gank your character every other encounter, and that taking a chance to try to step up and climb a wall when it is dangerous isn't virtually suicide because you have at most 12 hit points. That's what 4e is offering and where it differs. In my 4e games the PCs slide down log flumes, dive into rivers, run through fires, leap on the backs of giant monsters, etc not because they KNOW what will happen, but because they know what will NOT happen, that rolling a bad check isn't instant death in all those situations, which is almost assured in AD&D (and even if you don't die outright being reduced to a handful of hit points still ends the day's fun right then and there).

Actually, you may have hit closer to what I was trying to say than I actually achieved! I love the "they know what WON'T happen" trumping knowing what will happen. I would just add one thing - they know that the heroic thing they are trying to do won't get nerfed because the GM or someone else "doesn't think it's realistic" or "finds it jars their suspension of disbelief".

Basically, a player can form a daring and cunning plan with confidence that it's not going to all get blown to crap because of *blah*... They might still fluff a key die roll, for sure - but at least they know when and how the plan might fall apart, and they know that if it does they'll have a decent chance to live to laugh about it in the tavern afterwards.

 

[Siberys]

Its really easy to call such stuff trival when you have no respect for its history, its origin, or how its been used for decades. Its clear the designers of 4e didn't.

Well, /I/ find it trivial, despite knowing the origins of those things. I think that, for me anyways, I want an edition to be mainly concerned with the rules. Fluff is great, but it's so fluid it doesn't need to be hardcoded. I mean, if I wanted Malcanthet in my game, I'd take the 4e succubus, scratch off 'devil' and write 'demon', and maybe give it variable resistance. archon to elemental is similarly easy, as is eladrin (race) to eladrin (outsider). A couple of them might take a little more work (aasimar, maybe; Titans, too), but again, nothing stops me from statting 'em up and using the old version, ignoring the new fluff. I just think it's not the part of the system I really need to sweat over; as I said before, I'm much more concerned about how the mechanics work when choosing a game, because I know I can reskin anything storywise I don't like.

 

[Remathilis]

Well, /I/ find it trivial, despite knowing the origins of those things. I think that, for me anyways, I want an edition to be mainly concerned with the rules. Fluff is great, but it's so fluid it doesn't need to be hardcoded. I mean, if I wanted Malcanthet in my game, I'd take the 4e succubus, scratch off 'devil' and write 'demon', and maybe give it variable resistance. archon to elemental is similarly easy, as is eladrin (race) to eladrin (outsider). A couple of them might take a little more work (aasimar, maybe; Titans, too), but again, nothing stops me from statting 'em up and using the old version, ignoring the new fluff. I just think it's not the part of the system I really need to sweat over; as I said before, I'm much more concerned about how the mechanics work when choosing a game, because I know I can reskin anything storywise I don't like.

It does beg the question: If D&D is not the mechanics (which is mutable enough to adapt from Thac0 and Vancian to ADEU) and its not the fluff (which allows wholesale revisions to races, monsters, and settings) what makes D&D D&D except the name?

Its a rhetorical question of course, but it can make one wonder what separates D&D from dozens of other fantasy games beyond the name "D&D"...

 

[Sunseeker]

It does beg the question: If D&D is not the mechanics (which is mutable enough to adapt from Thac0 and Vancian to ADEU) and its not the fluff (which allows wholesale revisions to races, monsters, and settings) what makes D&D D&D except the name?

Its a rhetorical question of course, but it can make one wonder what separates D&D from dozens of other fantasy games beyond the name "D&D"...

If I had to throw in my two cents, sans the fluff, D&D differentiates itsself from other RPGs with it's versatility. Among all games, D&D probably needs the least amount of fluff. At it's core it's a system with various fantastical elements, through which many scales and types of fluff can be compounded upon. Where CoC is only useful for representing a Lovecraftian horror setting, where Deadlands only handles the Weird West, where Masquerade handles vampires, where system upon system specialize in order to cater to a specific, niche market, D&D does not. It's not particularly difficult to formulate a D&D game wherein the protagonists are vampires set in a post-apocalyptic Weird West/Middle Earth-hybrid beset by all manner of old ones from beyond the stars. Even Pathfinder, perhaps the closest system to D&D(for a lot of obvious reasons) relies heavily on it's Golarion setting to provide a backdrop to it's well...everything.

D&D is the rules, the systems, the generic, but not in the way that it produces generic fantasy, but in the manner that it is capable of taking generic fantasy elements from a wide spread of the genre and allowing people to create their own, highly unique experiences.

IMO: what separates D&D from the dozens of other fantasy games is not that it excells at telling a specific story or expounds upon a specific setting in great detail, but that it allows it's players to create personalized stories and settings unlike anything else on the market.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It does beg the question: If D&D is not the mechanics (which is mutable enough to adapt from Thac0 and Vancian to ADEU) and its not the fluff (which allows wholesale revisions to races, monsters, and settings) what makes D&D D&D except the name?

Its a rhetorical question of course, but it can make one wonder what separates D&D from dozens of other fantasy games beyond the name "D&D"...

Dark Sun changed the fluff radically. 3e changed the fundamental game design philosophy and a lot of the trappings.

I think it's the installed player base and the lineage. D&D isn't a game, it's a closely related family of games; the Dragonlance Saga is almost entirely different from Gygaxian dungeoncrawls. And really, your question is like asking "What makes Remathilis Remathilis. I could break him down into component atoms and they've all changed in the last seven years. What makes you you at that point?"

 

[Hussar]

You know, for years of AD&D and 3e play, I recall many a player or DM complain about the nature of high level play. A fighter who can't miss. A thief with over 100% chance to use his skill. D&D is riddled with stories of fighters taking 200 foot falls and surviving, taking lava baths, being pelted with over 100 arrows, and still being golden enough at the end of the day to enter the tavern and sleep with all the barmaids (save vs. disease, fail only on a 1). These were all considered BAD things and a giant reason high-level play broke down.

Yet in 4e, having PCs defy the laws of physics and nature (at low levels, to boot) are good things?

I believe that there is an excluded middle here somewhere.

 

[Hussar]

Its really easy to call such stuff trival when you have no respect for its history, its origin, or how its been used for decades. Its clear the designers of 4e didn't.

I dunno about respect. After all, much of that history was ... well... not exactly the best ideas ever. Just because something is old doesn't make it good.

I mean, complaining about Tanaari and Baatezu - when I started playing, these terms didn't even exist. These were TSR's sneaky way of getting demons and devils back into the game without calling them demons and devils, just to pacify a bunch of people who hated D&D. So, to me, these terms have always carried pretty negative connotations and I was pretty happy to see them gone in 3e. Heck, IIRC, one of the big reactions to 3e was the fact that demons and devils were CALLED demons and devils again. We had finally thrown off that crap that was foisted on us by a bunch of people who would never play D&D ever.

Let me ask this. Is the defining aspect of a blue dragon that it's found in a specific locale? I could see that for some creatures. After all, some sort of scorpion, for example, should probably be found in a desert. Fair enough. But, until someone on these boards mentioned it, I didn't even realize that blue dragons specifically had a territory/climate. I would say the defining element of a blue dragon is buckets of hit points and lightning breath. Where it's typically found? Really? That's the defining element for you?

But, all that as it may, unless you are insistent on running canon campaigns, who cares? I've had exactly one player ever complain that I was using a creature in its wrong terrain (I had a manticore outside of the deserts - I liked manticores) and everyone at the table pelted the guy with dice. I've never really been one to be slavish to canon - even when I have run published settings. Is what's in the books really that important to your game?