D&D General Do people like re-skinning?

[Charlaquin]

A reskin is a tool for expediency, so sure: inherently weaker. But also inherently better than stopping the game to draw up nine levels of NPC plus lair actions.

Oh, absolutely! Like I said, I think reskinning is fine, and a useful tool at times. I just think it’s important to apply it judiciously. A hammer is an extremely versatile and useful tool, but it’s not the right tool for every job.

Your nature-of-reskinning seems to suggest that the DM's job is to convey mechanics to the players in a story-wrapped way. Am I reading that wrong? I would hope that my DM would convey story to me first, then use mechanics to support it.

Oh, no, that was not the impression I meant to give. Obviously the DM should be trying to convey the story and setting through their description. But I think the game is at its best when the story and setting are also conveyed through the mechanical design. A monster is better if you could tell what it was supposed to be even if the DM didn’t describe it at all, but obviously the DM should be describing it anyway.

 

[Eltab]

I am going to reskin an Ebberon warforged as a really tough armored Dark Sun monster (maybe in a gladiator fight, maybe in the wild - so the players can meet more, if they liked the challenge).
I already reskinned an Elf to be a Volodni (race in deep Forgotten Realms lore) to get most of the 3e abilities. Getting the rest goes beyond "reskinning" - and also make the character AL-illegal.
And the Traveller mini-adventure "Exit Visa" can be reskinned for any setting where you have to wrangle something out of a bureaucracy.

 

[Asisreo]

Re-skinning is one of my first tools when exercising Rule of Cool. It lets me create a cool scenario that canonically happens without breaking the game. Ice Exposion, for example, is a fireball that does cold damage. Easy. If re-skinning doesn't work, I take a swig and cry for the night and next morning I face the reality of having to balance a whole new mechanic. That's only if I'm deadset on having this thing happen.

 

[prabe]

I re-skin a lot. I'll tear the fluff off something if I like the mechanics, and write stuff that fits where I think it fits into my world. I'll peel the monster costume off a statblock if it does what I want it to do, and stitch together some other description. The numbers are what makes the game-balance work, the description is what makes the story work; they're related but separable, IME.

 

[Richards]

Warren from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is against reskinning....

https://static.miraheze.org/allthetropeswiki/6/65/Warrenmearsbright2_43712_9869.jpg

I mean, once was enough....

Johnathan

 

[aco175]

Dragons were the original reskin or refluff.

 

[Weiley31]

It's how I'm playing my Half Elf Warblade for 5E(refluffed Battle Master) right now.

If I can convince my gm to let me take Wild Talent and the Metabolic Feat from the psychic UA, then it's not psychic powers but my character using "Clarity" and Martial Focus to reorient himself.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I love it when it doesn’t create mechanical incongruencies.

When it does, I cannot do it. Full stop.

I can’t reskin a rapier as a versatile weapon. There are versatile weapons, and they do things the rapier doesn’t, thus it isn’t versatile.

 

[Fenris-77]

I love it when it doesn’t create mechanical incongruencies.

When it does, I cannot do it. Full stop.

I can’t reskin a rapier as a versatile weapon. There are versatile weapons, and they do things the rapier doesn’t, thus it isn’t versatile.

Yeah, I feel ya. Especially about Rapiers. I suppose that there could be some sort of fantasy weapon that could do a d8 damage and be both versatile and finesse, but even that sounds too much like the best of all worlds for my tastes, I tend to err on the side of underpowered when I'm doing this sort of thing.

 

[Krachek]

reskin Psionic into magic, magic into demonic power,
demonic power into elemental power, elemental power into elven magic,
finally elven magic info Psionic. Circle close.