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

[HarbingerX]

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.

Let’s not forget the ‘there can only be one’ rules to achieve highest level as a Druid. Didn’t assassins also have to kill a guild master to get to the highest level?

While wonky, they did have a lot of flavour due to them emerging out of play in a campaign, rather that a design reason.

 

[3catcircus]

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)

In my GH campaign, you don't even get valley, sylvan or grugach unless it's a campaign specifically focused on elves or unless you are a half-elf. Other than high or grey elves, they are too xenophobic and isolated.

 

[Lanefan]

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

Over time I've done away with limits; though there's still some races can't be some classes at all (e.g. no Dwarven arcane casters), if you can be a class you can advance as far in it as your luck will take you.

Assassins (15th), Monks (17th), and Bards (23rd; starting at 1st like any other class) still have class caps that none can surpass.

 

[GreyLord]

Let’s not forget the ‘there can only be one’ rules to achieve highest level as a Druid. Didn’t assassins also have to kill a guild master to get to the highest level?

While wonky, they did have a lot of flavour due to them emerging out of play in a campaign, rather that a design reason.

Don't forget the Monks. They were probably the most limited in levels due to having to fight there way up starting at 8th level.

 

[Umbran]

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.

Um...

If you are looking at what is most effective (for whatever definition of "effective" you are using) then you are explicitly not using "the original did it this way" as your argument. You are using "this is more effective" as your argument.

And thus, my point still stands. Being in the original does not, in and of itself, carry weight.

 

[Acolyte of Zothique]

I completely understand his viewpoint. Adventure modules with some flavor of older settings feels like a tease - it doesn't feel like WotC taking seriously requests for 5e treatments of older campaign settings. When I question why Wildemount instead of an update of GH or DS or FR, I get various ad hominems in response ranging from "be patient" to "people really want CR stuff" to "why are you saying CR is a flash in the pan, it's been around at least 5 years" to "ok boomer."

Be patient? It's been 5 years and they're publishing a new setting in lieu of updating older settings after they've published stuff set in those older settings.

People want CR stuff? Ok, what about the rest of us who want 5e treatments of existing settings? How long should we continue to be disappointed while waiting for what we are asking for, while watching newer campaign settings be published - it's like a dog waiting after being abandoned on the side of the road?

I would say that WotC is paying lip service to older players. They made FR the default setting for 5e - where's the campaign guide? It's been 5 years and the paper-thin SCAG is a joke. It took 5 years to get Wayfarers Guide to Eberron. They're sitting on IP that they could have published 5e treatments for in the 5 years since 5e had been out. I get they want to not publish to much, but publishing actual 5e versions of full campaign settings for existing settings isn't the same thing as vomiting a bunch of books containing player or DM rules options.

If they don't want to support older campaign settings by publishing complete setting books and have no intention to do so, they should license the IP.

I'm an old time player, I started at the tail end of 1e. When it comes to updating old campaign settings, I say stuff those old settings. Give me something that chimes with what fantasy is about now. Change and evolution is inevitable.

WotC don't have to publish any damn setting if they don't want to. They don't have to licence the IP. They don't have to listen to grumbling old grognards like us - a tiny niche audience who still use old fashioned forums - and it's a good thing they don't because we are not representative of the majority of current D&D players.

Some people spend so much time wishing the past would return that they don't use their time constructively in the present. What a waste.

 

[Ampolitor]

The lesson they learned from TSR was not to release tons of settings with 20 supplements each. The tie-in starter sets are a very different kind of product from that.

I wouldn't call the connection between Birthright and Game of Thrones a "no-brainer". That's the kind of fad chasing that has a high chance to burn them, I think. Banking on tangential connections.

Have you ever played Birthright? I guess not, there is so much in common with GOT's that some people even say a lot of elements were stolen from Birthright.

 

[Zardnaar]

Have you ever played Birthright? I guess not, there is so much in common with GOT's that some people even say a lot of elements were stolen from Birthright.

One of the best D&D novels is Birthright and it's called The Iron Throne.

 

[Maxperson]

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.

And yet Pikel Bouldershoulder was fun to read in the books.

 

[pemerton]

I struck out the ones I knew were not official playable races

Duergar, svirfneblin and drow are all player-facing options in Unearthed Arcana, and Gygax also talked about playing them as PCs in a Dragon article in issue 95, which prefigured the UA revisions to demihuman level limits. Here is the relevant passage from p 8 of that volume:

Players and DMs alike should take note of an important new rule change which is alluded to herein: player characters can be members of certain demi-human sub-races that are not permitted
to PCs by the rules in the Players Handbook - namely, the valley elf, grugach, drow, duergar, and svirfneblin. More will be said about this new development in subsequent articles.​

Also, you haven't struck out acquatic elves, but to the best of my knowledge there was no 1st ed AD&D rule about playing them.

But in any event, whether or not a race is "officially playable", that doesn't change the fact that it is present in the setting. And it is the setting that I am talking about, not rules for PC building.

Drow are an optional race, ask your DM.

That's basically what were asking for. Don't really want the ifdbal stuff baked in on certain world's.

To me, this seems to run together two distinct things - setting design, and rules for setting up a campaign. I'm talking about the former. I don't really care about the latter, in the sense that - being an experienced GM playing with experienced players - I can work with my group to start a campaign pretty comfortably.

For written advice and guidance on how to do this, the best I know of is Burning Wheel, which talks about how you might approach its various cultures (humans, dwarves, elves, orcs - the latter three all very Tolkienesque) in establishing a campaign.

Greyhawk has a wide variety of species bumping about - just not all in the same place. . . . The distribution of ethnic groups and tribes in the real world as well as the fantasy races in Greyhawk is regional.

I'm sure not going to see Kuo-toa in a random tavern in freaking Verbobonc. I'll probably see mostly humans, some gnomes, and halflings - maybe a dwarf every once in a while and a half-elf or half-orc or two because that's what the surrounding community is like. There aren't big tasloi communities because there aren't any jungles around Verbobonc, so they'll be a fairly rare sight in the Verbobonc taverns. And if a group of them do show up (maybe it's Tasloi night where tropical tree dwellers drink for half price), it's going to cause a bit of a stir.

I think in most settings cultures are regional in their distribution - upthread I suggested the Yatil Mountains as a possible home for the dragonborn. This is relevant to the design of encounter tables.

In GH, if not all other settings, class also has a regional aspect to it. An open hand monk is probably from the Scarlet Brotherhood. A bear barbarian is probably from the Thilronian Peninsula. If a druid is from Velnua or the main parts of Furyondy s/he probably keeps a low profile. Paladins are probably thicker on the ground in Furyondy than southern Keoland. Etc.

Again, this would be relevant to the design of encounter tables and the placement of NPCs. But I'm not sure how it relates to PC build rules. Nor to whether or not dragonborn or tiefling exist in the setting. I don't see why starting a party of tasloi in Verbobonc would be any weirder than starting a party of open hand monks in Verbobonc. Both groups clearly are from out of town. But that doesn't mean that the GH book should have a line in it saying no monks in Greyhawk.