D&D 5E 5th Edition and the "true exotic" races ...

[EzekielRaiden]

You are only one person. The lotR movies for example were mega blockbusters and the reason for that. Most people associate fantasy with Tolkein and similar work, magitech, dark fantasy and the other sub genres not so much. Its purely about the mass appeal.

Can you personally make a better hamburger than McDonalds? Yes but its about the mass market. Sure a marinated chicken breast, with camembert cheese, bacon and a nice sauce might be a great burger but its not going to outsell a Big Mac. Same reason why the latest Star Wars movies is about X-Wings, lightsabers and a super weapon instead of a trade dispute.

See, this would make sense, if like fast food, we were paying for the convenience of pre-made, inexpensive, no-frills "food," explicitly understanding that these items are of low quality, poor nutritive value, and mass-produced to offend the fewest sensibilities. Or, translated to D&D terms, pre-made, inexpensive, no-frills settings, explicitly understanding that they are generic, low in narrative content, and mass-produced to offend the fewest sensibilities.

But we're not. We're talking about a cookbook which is saying that McDonald's hamburger meat is the most commonly consumed meat, and therefore should be present in every meal, while "uncommon" ingredients like shallots or broccoli "don't exist in every [dish]" and that "the common folk" who aren't used to their presence "will react accordingly."

Again: Frequency of use in prior works does not justify saying things like the exotic races don't exist in every world of D&D (and, therefore, STRONGLY implying "the not-exotic races DO.")

 

[MechaPilot]

You are only one person. The lotR movies for example were mega blockbusters and the reason for that. Most people associate fantasy with Tolkein and similar work, magitech, dark fantasy and the other sub genres not so much. Its purely about the mass appeal.

Can you personally make a better hamburger than McDonalds? Yes but its about the mass market. Sure a marinated chicken breast, with camembert cheese, bacon and a nice sauce might be a great burger but its not going to outsell a Big Mac. Same reason why the latest Star Wars movies is about X-Wings, lightsabers and a super weapon instead of a trade dispute.

Can we please not play the "most people" card. We've been around on this issue before, and we both know full well that each of us are "just one person" and that neither one of us has hard and fast data on what people think when they hear fantasy. Some people likely think of Harry Potter first, while others are more likely to think of Tolkien, and still others of Conan, and so on.

All I said is this:
1) that Tolkien fantasy doesn't define MY concept of D&D, but it is still a valid way to play D&D,
2) that playing monstrous races can be fun, and
3) that the heart of the game is having fun. All games exist for that very purpose. That is the one condition where people can say that something is "wrong" in a game is when people are not having fun while playing it.

Is there anything in those three points that you can actually say is inaccurate or incorrect?

 

[Zardnaar]

Can we please not play the "most people" card. We've been around on this issue before, and we both know full well that each of us are "just one person" and that neither one of us has hard and fast data on what people think when they hear fantasy. Some people likely think of Harry Potter first, while others are more likely to think of Tolkien, and still others of Conan, and so on.

All I said is this:
1) that Tolkien fantasy doesn't define MY concept of D&D, but it is still a valid way to play D&D,
2) that playing monstrous races can be fun, and
3) that the heart of the game is having fun. All games exist for that very purpose. That is the one condition where people can say that something is "wrong" in a game is when people are not having fun while playing it.

Is there anything in those three points that you can actually say is inaccurate or incorrect?

Nope I am jut saying WotC identified what most people think is most important to D&D with their surveys and what will appeal to the mass market the most. Why is Star Wars The Force Awakens trending upwards of 2 billion dollars when the prequels are largely seen as rubbish and Revenge of the Sith made around 1/3rd of that amount?

Why has 5E been well received over the last edition and a lack of a widespread edition war? The races and classes are right there in the PHB and are optional and they are all available in organized play. All it does is enable a group that wants to play a traditional fantasy game to do so. If you want to play an anything goes game you can do that as well. All it does is stop you playing whatever you like at tables where that type of stuff is frowned on. Just like if you do not like the exotic races do not play in AL.

Sandbox play FR/PLanescape. Less sandboxy play Greyhawk, if Darksun is being used do not expect to be a Drow, Half Orc, or Gnome.

 

[Nellisir]

These races are less important. The core races are assumed to be in every world, unless the DM explicitly removes them. These exotic races are assumed to not exist in any world, unless the DM explicitly adds them.

Dragonborn and Gnomes are less important to the game than Elves and Dwarves. That is by design. Be happy that you have rules for them at all.

I find WotC's assumptions a bit annoying. I don't use halflings in my game. I don't understand the fascination, really. Their history only goes back as far as Tolkien, and as far as a niche? They're short pastoral humans. That's their entire gimmick. I prefer gnomes for my "small folk"; they actually tread less on the other races' schticks.

 

[MechaPilot]

Nope I am jut saying WotC identified what most people think is most important to D&D with their surveys and what will appeal to the mass market the most.

WotC conducted surveys where most of the participants were people who already played D&D and who self-selected themselves for participation. That's not terribly conducive to figuring out what most people think of when they think of fantasy.

Why has 5E been well received over the last edition and a lack of a widespread edition war? The races and classes are right there in the PHB and are optional and they are all available in organized play. All it does is enable a group that wants to play a traditional fantasy game to do so. If you want to play an anything goes game you can do that as well. All it does is stop you playing whatever you like at tables where that type of stuff is frowned on. Just like if you do not like the exotic races do not play in AL.

Sandbox play FR/PLanescape. Less sandboxy play Greyhawk, if Darksun is being used do not expect to be a Drow, Half Orc, or Gnome.

We've been through this before, but nothing, absolutely nothing stopped you from saying no to whatever options you wanted to deny in 4e. Pretending otherwise does yourself a disservice because it discredits your own statements.

Also, you were one of the posters on the WotC forums who wanted all the non-standard races entirely banned from all three of the core books and shoved in a splatbook ghetto because you thought that inclusion in the core books meant that they would be "shoehorned into everything." In that discussion I reiterated several times that the 5e PHB should include a passage stating that all of the races, classes, spells, feats, etc. in the book are options, and that players should check with their DMs to see what is and is not allowed, and that wasn't good enough for you. It was splatbook ghetto or not at all. If the book telling you that you need to check with your DM to see what is allowed is not an explicit nod to DM authority and the notion that you can't just expect to use whatever you like, then nothing is. That fear was nonsensical, and your statements in that discussion clearly illustrated the lengths that you wanted WotC to go to in order to appease your bias against those races.

Why is Star Wars The Force Awakens trending upwards of 2 billion dollars when the prequels are largely seen as rubbish and Revenge of the Sith made around 1/3rd of that amount?

You really want to base the judgement of what's "good" based on how much it earns? The Transformers franchise has been one high-grossing piece of utter crap plopping into the bowl after another.

Re: Star Wars
TFA succeeded by being a virtual clone of eps 4-6, trading on nostalgia and the dislike of the prequels by mimicking the original trilogy so hard that it's practically a remake. Everything from the vital info hidden in a droid that escaped capture and then falls into the possession of the main character who's stuck on a desert planet while pining for something more, down to the attack run on the death star. . . oops. . . star killer. Because doubling down on the death star was a great idea that hadn't already been recycled in the original trilogy.

 

[I'm A Banana]

The meat of your objection seems to be the uncommon races box, most notably that "uncommon" races don't exist in every D&D world, but, by implication, the "common" races do.

My impression of this box is that it is one of those attempts (like with the multiverse model) to establish the boundaries of what the designers intend to do - they might publish a world without Dragonborn. They probably won't publish a world without Dwarves.

Likely, this is based on their research on what races people actually play (years of data, and likely better customer research than any other RPG company out there), and an effort to direct design effort to support those races first and foremost that most people play. It's also probably based on D&D history - you might expect that Dark Sun not have Gnomes because that's one of the things about Dark Sun. Likewise, you wouldn't expect, I dunno, a Birthright reboot to suddenly make tieflings a prominent race. But even Ravenloft would still have halflings.

An alternative might be a 4e-style "everything is core" model, where every new setting and new book features all the races in the PHB.

I think 4e's own struggles there would show the flaws in that model.

Another alternative might be a "nothing is core" model, but, likely based on that market research, WotC knows that people like making elves and halflings and dwarves, and expect to when they play D&D (though they might not expect to be able to make a tiefling or a half-orc), so they're interested in making products with those races in 'em to cement the brand identity and give people race options. Dragonborn and half-elves just don't have that pull.

In a practical sense, that paragraph is irrelevant. In actual play so far, you're either in FR and doing the presumed default thing, where there are dragonborn and tieflings and gnomes, or you're doing a homebrew, which is explicitly doing its own thing anyway.

So if you're disappointed that WotC won't likely spend a lot of development money on making sure that gnomes have a special and unique place in The New D&D Setting That Is Maybe Coming, and maybe won't even exist, I can understand your disappointment, but I can also understand why they might want to spend that money on developing a unique sub-race of the Core Four, for instance, which is more likely to see play. That they don't lavish attention on Your Favorite Race should be understandable, at least, if Your Favorite Race isn't most peoples' favorite race.

If you're worried about What's Officially Supported, there's not much need to worry - as long as FR is the presumption, all the PHB races get included.

If you're worried about individual tables not allowing Dragonborn or something, that has been as it always was - up to the individual DM. An individual DM could ban or accept whatever they want, it doesn't matter what some sidebar in the PHB says. If "I Forbid Race X" is a dealbreaker for you, well, that seems a bit sensitive to me, but whatever, find a DM who isn't persnickety about races.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

[MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]

All of that bothers me less than new writers to the 3rd party content market. When they see 'Exotic races' they might blow it off and include Gnomes and Half-Orcs in their purchasable campaign worlds.

Or they might take it as gospel that only Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Halfings exist 'for real' and everything else can be cut with no problems.

 

[MechaPilot]

. . .

Another alternative might be a "nothing is core" model, but, likely based on that market research, WotC knows that people like making elves and halflings and dwarves, and expect to when they play D&D (though they might not expect to be able to make a tiefling or a half-orc), so they're interested in making products with those races in 'em to cement the brand identity and give people race options. Dragonborn and half-elves just don't have that pull.

In a practical sense, that paragraph is irrelevant. In actual play so far, you're either in FR and doing the presumed default thing, where there are dragonborn and tieflings and gnomes, or you're doing a homebrew, which is explicitly doing its own thing anyway.

. . .

I think a "nothing is core" model, while it wouldn't have improved support for the non-standard races, would have been better. I feel like it would have encouraged more DMs (in particular, I'm thinking about new DMs) to make creative choices about the worlds they run. It also would have ingrained in people (in particular, I'm thinking of new players) the supposition that they should check with the DM to see what's allowed instead of just assuming that everything is valid in every game. In a hobby where Homebrew is a big portion of the settings played, I think that encouraging communication between players and DMs would have been a plus.

 

[Zardnaar]

WotC conducted surveys where most of the participants were people who already played D&D and who self-selected themselves for participation. That's not terribly conducive to figuring out what most people think of when they think of fantasy.




We've been through this before, but nothing, absolutely nothing stopped you from saying no to whatever options you wanted to deny in 4e. Pretending otherwise does yourself a disservice because it discredits your own statements.

Also, you were one of the posters on the WotC forums who wanted all the non-standard races entirely banned from all three of the core books and shoved in a splatbook ghetto because you thought that inclusion in the core books meant that they would be "shoehorned into everything." In that discussion I reiterated several times that the 5e PHB should include a passage stating that all of the races, classes, spells, feats, etc. in the book are options, and that players should check with their DMs to see what is and is not allowed, and that wasn't good enough for you. It was splatbook ghetto or not at all. If the book telling you that you need to check with your DM to see what is allowed is not an explicit nod to DM authority and the notion that you can't just expect to use whatever you like, then nothing is. That fear was nonsensical, and your statements in that discussion clearly illustrated the lengths that you wanted WotC to go to in order to appease your bias against those races.




You really want to base the judgement of what's "good" based on how much it earns? The Transformers franchise has been one high-grossing piece of utter crap plopping into the bowl after another.

Re: Star Wars
TFA succeeded by being a virtual clone of eps 4-6, trading on nostalgia and the dislike of the prequels by mimicking the original trilogy so hard that it's practically a remake. Everything from the vital info hidden in a droid that escaped capture and then falls into the possession of the main character who's stuck on a desert planet while pining for something more, down to the attack run on the death star. . . oops. . . star killer. Because doubling down on the death star was a great idea that hadn't already been recycled in the original trilogy.

Everything was core in 4E and in OP everything was allowed. As I understand it on AL they do not allow everything every season so no Genasi in the new season AFAIK.

Also they came up with a better solution with their exotic races being optional thing. I am used to it as the Druid and Mystic(Monk basically) were optional in the BECMI rules cyclopedia.

The Force Awakens doesn't win any awards for originality but it felt like a Star Wars movie and it would be the 2nd or 3rd best movie out of the 7 SW films IMHO. 5E is the 2nd or 3 best D&D and the best D&D WotC has managed to produce IMHO maybe beaten by 2E and BECMI?

 

[Nellisir]

[MENTION=2067]I'm A Banana[/MENTION]

All of that bothers me less than new writers to the 3rd party content market. When they see 'Exotic races' they might blow it off and include Gnomes and Half-Orcs in their purchasable campaign worlds.
Or they might take it as gospel that only Humans, Dwarves, Elves and Halfings exist 'for real' and everything else can be cut with no problems.

I'm not sure which of these you see as the problem. Personally, I'd be reluctant to buy from any writer that's that dependent on some kind of assumed "approval" from WotC. That's a serious lack of creativity and initiative going on.