D&D 5E Do you miss attribute minimums/maximums?

[Lylandra]

Then that's an entirely different argument, don't you think?

You can have your own opinions on whether or not you miss the racial and gender stat maximums, but you can't say that the text of the 5e rulebook supports your conclusions when it does nothing of the sort.

FWIW, this is not horrible game design, unless you are equating "game design" with "rigid simulation." And boy howdy, if it's simulation that you're looking for, are you looking at the wrong game.

Agreed. D&D is, for example, a very horrible simulation when it comes to physical combat. Yet there are not many people who'd want weapon efficiency for specific armor or fighting style tables or attributes for weapon efficiency tables or penalties for attacks with less than average DEX or... simply have the fact addressed that long, two handed weapons are actually better weapons for smaller people with lower strength than "small daggers" or, worse, "elegant rapiers". There's a reason why non-warrior japanese women learned to use the Naginata or similar polearms :X

Plus... the average halfling IS weaker than the average half-orc. Because the half-orc gets a +2 STR and the halfling doesn't. The strength of the strongest halfling in the world (of which much less exist than "strongest half-orcs" or humans) can be as efficient in terms of how he uses his strength as the strongest half-orc. But that does make sense if you consider their energy consumption/day (= physical "power"), which is the same.

For the rest... do whatever you want but please, don't try to say that you're more based on "canon" than the other side. You pick your points to make your arguments and the others pick theirs. I guess we can all agree that D&D is not a good simulation and never wanted to be one (Okay, maybe Gary wanted that to some extend, but we cannot ask him anymore...). The point where you put your RL reality aside and in which aspects this does or doesn't matter to you is up to the individual. I, for one, don't play *fantasy* games to limit my imagination and thoughts by the dull, boring, limited world I live in. And I say this as a person who knows quite a bit about science, both natural and social.

PS: Your Tolkien, Conan, Dragonlance etc. stem from another time, really. As much as I like many of the fantasy classics, I can heartfully say I'm glad to see fiction which has evolved beyond that. Even such a "modern classic" like A song of Ice and Fire is at its core a story about oddball "heroes" and special flakes. All the "classic fantasy" guys have died along the way...

 

[Obryn]

Plus... the average halfling IS weaker than the average half-orc. Because the half-orc gets a +2 STR and the halfling doesn't. The strength of the strongest halfling in the world (of which much less exist than "strongest half-orcs" or humans) can be as efficient in terms of how he uses his strength as the strongest half-orc. But that does make sense if you consider their energy consumption/day (= physical "power"), which is the same.

I'll go further and point out that the character creation rules aren't even describing average halflings. (Those are on p345 of the Monster Manual under "commoner" )

PS: Your Tolkien, Conan, Dragonlance etc. stem from another time, really. As much as I like many of the fantasy classics, I can heartfully say I'm glad to see fiction which has evolved beyond that. Even such a "modern classic" like A song of Ice and Fire is at its core a story about oddball "heroes" and special flakes. All the "classic fantasy" guys have died along the way...

Let's talk about Malazan Book of the Fallen, which has male and female Marines working with each other in the same units, for starters, and where the women are just as badass as the men.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

PS: Your Tolkien, Conan, Dragonlance etc. stem from another time, really. As much as I like many of the fantasy classics, I can heartfully say I'm glad to see fiction which has evolved beyond that. Even such a "modern classic" like A song of Ice and Fire is at its core a story about oddball "heroes" and special flakes. All the "classic fantasy" guys have died along the way...

No genre is ever "beyond" a trope. C.S. Lewis would point out that change is not the same thing as growth. A train, which changes its surroundings by leaving the old behind, does not grow, while a tree, which adds new layers to a core which it retains from its earliest days, does grow.

To address your example concretely: Jon Snow is a white dude with a magic sword and mysterious heritage. I dunno about you, but that seems pretty "classic fantasy guy" to me. To be sure, many of the other protagonists of the series are not classic fantasy guys -- but Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee aren't exactly classic fantasy guys, either. So yes, the fantasy genre is growing, but it's growing like a tree: the classic fantasy guy trope is still alive and well, it's just that more is being added to that core. And was already being added by one J.R.R. Tolkien, so let's not give "modern" fantasy too much credit (or else expand our definition of "modern fantasy" to include the good Professor).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'll go further and point out that the character creation rules aren't even describing average halflings. (Those are on p345 of the Monster Manual under "commoner" )

Only in as much as many halflings are non-adventurers, so they tend to get grouped in with that one NPC stat block because the book can't be bothered to give stats for different types of non-adventuring NPCs. Rest assured that the actual NPC creation rules use the same method as PCs. A halfling blacksmith is much more likely to have Strength 15 than Strength 10.

 

[Coroc]

Agreed. D&D is, for example, a very horrible simulation when it comes to physical combat. Yet there are not many people who'd want weapon efficiency for specific armor or fighting style tables or attributes for weapon efficiency tables or penalties for attacks with less than average DEX or... simply have the fact addressed that long, two handed weapons are actually better weapons for smaller people with lower strength than "small daggers" or, worse, "elegant rapiers". There's a reason why non-warrior japanese women learned to use the Naginata or similar polearms :X

Plus... the average halfling IS weaker than the average half-orc. Because the half-orc gets a +2 STR and the halfling doesn't. The strength of the strongest halfling in the world (of which much less exist than "strongest half-orcs" or humans) can be as efficient in terms of how he uses his strength as the strongest half-orc. But that does make sense if you consider their energy consumption/day (= physical "power"), which is the same.

For the rest... do whatever you want but please, don't try to say that you're more based on "canon" than the other side. You pick your points to make your arguments and the others pick theirs. I guess we can all agree that D&D is not a good simulation and never wanted to be one (Okay, maybe Gary wanted that to some extend, but we cannot ask him anymore...). The point where you put your RL reality aside and in which aspects this does or doesn't matter to you is up to the individual. I, for one, don't play *fantasy* games to limit my imagination and thoughts by the dull, boring, limited world I live in. And I say this as a person who knows quite a bit about science, both natural and social.

PS: Your Tolkien, Conan, Dragonlance etc. stem from another time, really. As much as I like many of the fantasy classics, I can heartfully say I'm glad to see fiction which has evolved beyond that. Even such a "modern classic" like A song of Ice and Fire is at its core a story about oddball "heroes" and special flakes. All the "classic fantasy" guys have died along the way...

Still you play in a game system with vancian casting you know it is called that way because of Jack Vance?

Read some stuff of Cordwainer Smith it is science fiction as much as fantasy but he had beast headed humanoids in the early sixties.

You use alignment? Want to know where some of this philosophy comes from?
Read Michael Morcocks Elric. Oh theres more to that Melnibonese are quite similar to drow in their attitude and as evil as you can imagine. Oh the sword Stormbringer and elemental lords are in there to as are some archdemons and a true neutral place.

You like planescape or teleporters gates and such?
Try the book World of tiers from Phillip Jose Farmer.

All of these are epic classics and you think just because you adopt stupid RL philosophies and offsprings of some MPORPGS into your game you think you are modern and advanced and your way of all things equal is the right way to play superheros in a pseudohistoric RPG.

If you do not like fluff why not leave it out totally:

Player A roll attack for Monster X Your Y-Weapon hits for 5 points of damage plus the unified strength modifier of +2, oh no lets take the average of weapon Y for equality, see what I mean?

You know what the first thing was that I hated about WoW when I tried it out and I admit played it for 3 years 12 years ago? That on level up it would distribute attribute raises automatically. I hated that. Every freakin Tauren warrior without equipment at level 60 would have absolutely the same stats, That's so bland that's like pokemon that's for kids who don't have math at school but not for intellectual people.

We all know D&D is not an acurate simulation, that is not the main point.
But us old schoolers see challenges in differences where as you seem to see the challenge in making everything equal and every obstacle easy to overcome.

 

[Lanefan]

Yep. It totally depends on the players, the GM and their imagination. I actually loved seeing a well-thought and valorous elven Paladin in one of our 3.5 campaigns.

Elf - Paladin - OK, that's still just combining two core basic things: a race and a class which have always existed in the game. Half-dragon Warlock/Bard? Not happening, and not wanted.

Too many people equate "being able to combine what you want" with "all my PCs will be min/maxed hybrids with no real backstory for the lulz".

Unfortunately, IME one does rather directly lead to the other, particularly if anyone in the room leans toward powergaming.

Combining stuff sensibly allows for so much of a broader spectrum of playstyles. For example, theme campaigns. Like playing an order of Paladins. Or a dwarven clan.

Theme campaigns are a different animal: one would think you'd want the players to play to the theme, which would mean for example in the all-Paladin campaign banning lots of classes that don't get along with Pallies and probably limiting the race choices as well.

Or stretching your imagination to find a good backstory and personality for your half-orc wizard or elven barbarian or dragonborn hermit.

Well, first the DM has to stretch her imagination to figure out how or even if such things would exist in the gameworld...

Also, playing mundane is fine. But this doesn't automatically equate to better character roleplay.

Not automatically, no; but I think the odds are better.

Just because you were Pip the squire of Sir Covington from Memuria and then became knighted as Sir Piperandus at the age of 21, fell in love with a lady above your station and started adventuring to increase your social standing, this doesn't mean that this story is in any way superior to, say, a dragonborn favored soul who was reincarnated by a messenger of Bahamut because said person failed to protect a holy shrine of the god in his previous life as a human and is now on a quest to help all dragonkind in need.

An example from a 3e game I was in: I had a human Ranger/Cleric who I played as always looking to do the good and right and noble thing. Another player then brings in a rather nasty half-dragon Fighter-Ranger. My first (unspoken) in-character reaction went something like "I've spent most of my adult life learning how to kill these things and now I'm expected to run with one and trust it? Are you kidding me?"

My point (probably not well made by that example) is that the more bizarre your race-class gets the less likely it is that the party will willingly or easily accept you. Every party accepts humans, nearly all accept elves, part-elves, dwarves and hobbitlings, and many (but not all) are OK with gnomes and part-orcs. Anything further out than that and you're just asking for some in-character PvP throwdown. (just imagine a character whose personal favoured enemy - be it by background, class, or whatever - is demons getting stuck in a party with a tiefling...yeah, that's going to end so well...)

Lan-"an occasional oddball race by random luck is fine, but don't make them core"-efan

 

[Lanefan]

You're making an argument that "the game text doesn't back up halflings being as strong as half-orcs." Unless you can point at a rule or guideline that supports your claim, the actual text of the game book says you're wrong.

I think the argument being made is that the actual text of the game book is itself wrong, and needs to be changed.

 

[Lylandra]

Let's talk about Malazan Book of the Fallen, which has male and female Marines working with each other in the same units, for starters, and where the women are just as badass as the men.

Or such a "gritty" and "low powered" Sci-Fi show like the new Battlestar Galactica

 

[billd91]

We all know D&D is not an acurate simulation, that is not the main point.
But us old schoolers see challenges in differences where as you seem to see the challenge in making everything equal and every obstacle easy to overcome.

Sure there are old schoolers who see challenges in differences but there are also plenty of them (or us, as the case may be) who still won't make stupid assumptions about other people's playing styles and making "every obstacle easy to overcome", or worse, put them out on a public messageboard.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

An example from a 3e game I was in: I had a human Ranger/Cleric who I played as always looking to do the good and right and noble thing. Another player then brings in a rather nasty half-dragon Fighter-Ranger. My first (unspoken) in-character reaction went something like "I've spent most of my adult life learning how to kill these things and now I'm expected to run with one and trust it? Are you kidding me?"

Your character was supposedly always looking to do the good and right and noble thing, and your first reaction was mistrust to the point of contemplating murder?