D&D 5E Am I no longer WoTC's target audience?

[Umbran]

Seriously, the game is what you make it. I've gone back and played OD&D and there's nothing wrong with it. The thing I like with it is that player's character sheets largely don't matter. It's what you do 'in world' that matters.

Right. So, you have a game system that... doesn't actually use itself. That's like saying you have a car, and the great thing about it is that you get to walk everywhere!

 

[Lanefan]

I struck out the ones I knew were not official playable races. Yes I know occasionally a fiction book, or Gary would make an exception.

• Humans
• Elves (high, grey/faerie, valley, grugach, sylvan, acquatic, dark/drow)
• Dwarves (hill, mountain)
• Halflings (harfoot, stout, tallfellow)
• Gnomes (surface, deep/svirfneblin)
• Orcs
• Goblins
• Hobgoblins
• Bugbears
• Xvarts
• Koboblds
• Gnolls
• Ogres (including merrow)
• Ogrillon
• Orogs
• Tasloi
• Lizardfolk
• Sahuagin
• Locathah
• Bullywugs
• Grippli
• Kua-toa (sp?)
• Giants (various sorts)
• Trolls (including scrags)

Good list, missing only Part-Elves and Part-Orcs as playable and Part-Ogres as not playable.

 

[jasper]

70s Sabbath/Zeppelin/Purple is still heavier than all of the modern crap on the radio these days combined.
Old doesn't necessarily mean bad!

Radio you mean you got your music for FREE and didn't have to pay a streaming service? EVIL GRIN.

 

[Lanefan]

Which only matters if you grew up in a time when "heavy" was a selling point. If it were still a selling point, the "modern crap" would be heavy. But it ain't, by your own admission. The world has moved on.

The world has moved on, but in this instance not to its benefit.

Heavy will always be a selling point. (though I'll take '80s Dio over '70s Sabbath/Zeppelin pretty much every time)

When talking about technology or designed systems, I'm sorry, but usually old means, "based on a less complete understanding of what can and should be done."

This raises a rather massive issue that goes far beyond the tiny borders of game design: the difference between what can be done and what should be done.

While there are good bits still to be found in the past, "the original did it this way," is not itself an argument that we should do a thing this way now.

It certainly can be, if one steps back from the aethos that says newer is always better and objectively looks at which is most effective.

Sometimes the newest is the best; sometimes the very first attempt got it bang on and everything that came later made it worse, and most of the time the 'best' (thus far) actually arose somewhere in between the first attempt and now.

 

[Lanefan]

Dwarves could be clerics in 1st edition.

That, and even if they by rule couldn't it's a rule that doesn't stand up to the reality of pretty much any setting: any race that has its own pantheon (as Dwarves do) is by extension almost certainly going to have Clerics of some sort.

Dwarf Druids, on the other hand, make no sense at all.

 

[HarbingerX]

Right. So, you have a game system that... doesn't actually use itself. That's like saying you have a car, and the great thing about it is that you get to walk everywhere!

I don't think the analogy works - it's nothing like that. Your stats determine how you roleplay your character. They don't have strong mechanical ties, as that's not what's important in an OD&D game. You're saying 'old D&D is bad because it doesn't do new D&D well.' Which is not the point. If you want to play 5e, play 5e. Earlier editions were different games with different design goals. This is no way means that they are demonstrably bad games now.

 

[HarbingerX]

Dwarves could be clerics in 1st edition.

Only NPCs, limited to 8th level. And no magic users at all.

Dwarf PCs could be Fighters, Thieves and Assassins. As fighters they were limited to 7th level unless they had exceptional strength to get to 9th.

All these restrictions of course were Gygax's desires for his setting.

 

[Maxperson]

And then we realize that "originally" is now just about "half a century ago", and that leaning on that may not be the strongest position to take. 50 year old things tend to be... arthritic

My back and knees agree with you.

 

[hawkeyefan]

The level limits by class and race were the first thing we ditched back in the day. They just seemed so arbitrary and pointless.

 

[Fenris-77]

The level limits by class and race were the first thing we ditched back in the day. They just seemed so arbitrary and pointless.

Like Gnome Paladin pointless? Or one human in a party of demihumans pointless?

I do not miss the goofy level limits and random muticlass options, nor the agony and ecstasy of percentile strength. The level limits were the first thing we did away with as well, if memory serves.