D&D General Two underlying truths: D&D heritage and inclusivity

[Lanefan]

1st level.

Weapon specs fighter gives me 3/2. Two weapon fighting takes me to 5/2. My first level 2e fighter can kill a troll in a single round (not likely, but, possible). And that's before stat bonuses.

Ah.

I see two-weapon fighting used so rarely I never even consider it in my thinking. Also, does the extra attack from spec. kick in that early?

That said, you weren't comparing apples to apples in your original post then, as someone fighting with 2 weapons in Basic would get two attacks a round rather than one, hm? (though there'd be a penalty to the off-hand attack)

 

[Hussar]

You couldn't, by the rules, attack with two weapons in Basic. That wasn't added until AD&D and even then, it was a rule buried pretty deeply in the DMG. It wasn't until 2e that attacking with two weapons became pretty mainstream and, at the cost of a couple of weapon proficiencies, a bargain in the making.

I can't imagine playing 2e without using two weapons. It was just that much better than any other option. Two weapon proficiencies and all penalties go away and all the fighters plus clerics could do it. Hrm, +1 AC for a shield or double my attacks per round. Not really a choice.

But, again, I think that pretty much proves my point. When people talk about how AD&D and Basic/Expert were "compatible", I think it's more the fact that there is so much variance between tables makes the statement problematic.

 

[Hussar]

I see it's problematic, but what you're referring to probably is not obvious to me.

Really? You read that and don't see a single parallel to racist writing? Replace Human with "Whites" and any of the non-humans with, well, any minority, and it reads like it came straight out of a KKK pamphlet.

Here's the original quote again:

It was humanity's unique place, bereft of a creator deity and a single unifying culture, which made them diverse. Humans had no predisposition to good or evil, law or chaos. They had no single culture, no unifying faith, not even a universal tongue (though common gets close to that role) that made them adaptive, flexible, and provided the brightest heroes and darkest villains. Humanity's drive is what allowed them to outcompete with dwarves, elves, orcs, and even dragons to become the dominant force in nearly every campaign setting.​

And here's a quote from Wikipedia on Scientific Racism: Scientific racism - Wikipedia

Christoph Meiners (1747–1810) was a German polygenist and believed that each race had a separate origin. Meiner studied the physical, mental and moral characteristics of each race, and built a race hierarchy based on his findings. Meiners split mankind into two divisions, which he labelled the "beautiful white race" and the "ugly black race". In Meiners's book The Outline of History of Mankind, he said that a main characteristic of race is either beauty or ugliness. He thought only the white race to be beautiful. He considered ugly races to be inferior, immoral and animal-like. He said that the dark, ugly peoples were distinct from the white, beautiful peoples by their "sad" lack of virtue and their "terrible vices".[51] According to Meiners,

The more intelligent and noble people are by nature, the more adaptable, sensitive, delicate, and soft is their body; on the other hand, the less they possess the capacity and disposition towards virtue, the more they lack adaptability; and not only that, but the less sensitive are their bodies, the more can they tolerate extreme pain or the rapid alteration of heat and cold; when they are exposed to illnesses, the more rapid their recovery from wounds that would be fatal for more sensitive peoples, and the more they can partake of the worst and most indigestible foods ... without noticeable ill effects.[citation needed]

Meiners said the Negro felt less pain than any other race and lacked in emotions. Meiners wrote that the Negro had thick nerves and thus was not sensitive like the other races. He went as far as to say that the Negro has "no human, barely any animal, feeling". He described a story where a Negro was condemned to death by being burned alive. Halfway through the burning, the Negro asked to smoke a pipe and smoked it like nothing was happening while he continued to be burned alive. Meiners studied the anatomy of the Negro and came to the conclusion that Negroes have bigger teeth and jaws than any other race, as Negroes are all carnivores. Meiners claimed the skull of the Negro was larger but the brain of the Negro was smaller than any other race. Meiners claimed the Negro was the most unhealthy race on Earth because of its poor diet, mode of living and lack of morals.[52]

So, that should satisfy the crowd that insists on seeing evidence. I mean all it took was a 30 second wikipedia search, but, hey, apparently, folks are incapable of finding the evidence.

 

[TheSword]

At a certain point though, the details start mattering more than the high level zoom.

Both Chess, Checkers and Go use two different colored pieces representing each player, and the players play by capturing each others pieces.

Both Draw Poker and Stud poker have mostly similiar rules, but playing one as if it were the other, is going to get you in trouble.


And one of the biggest differences (IMO) between the last three editions of DnD was the skill system. 3.5's skill points where you had to buy ranks in skills, with anything you did not have ranks in being essentially never worth trying gives you a vastly different feel for your character's capabilities compared to 4e's omnicompetence by adding half level to everything and having a few proficient skills.

And that is still different from the current system where proficiency is essentially all you get, but many things that used to require checks don't anymore (climbing and swimming) and if you don't have proficiency you never improve in a skill.


You can say that is a "detail" of the game, because all skill checks were still roll 1d20+ modifiers, but that detail determines whether or not a fighter in mail could run, climb a wall, and swim across a river.

In both editions a fighter in mail, could run, climb a wall and swim across a river. The different editions just tinkered with how successful they were or how easy or difficult they find it.

Any one looking in would think the suggestion that this makes it a significantly different game is barmy.

In other words, the things that unite the various editions of the game, far far far far far far far outweigh the differences.

 

[Aldarc]

I think the OSR movement exists more as a rejection of the state of the game ten years ago, which is about when OSR really started gathering steam.

5e seems to have put the brakes on OSR to some extent, which is good for 5e and not so good for OSR supporters.

Not sure if I agree. The OSR movement gathered enough steam prior to 4e even being published or announced that they had an incredibly defined sense of their movement's distinguishing features. The OSR movement has arguably gathered more steam after 5e has been out for 6 years, because the OSR movement still talks and defines itself against 5e. Why? Because they would say that 5e's adventures are largely antithetical to OSR design, that 5e rewards character skill over player skill, and that combat isn't particularly deadly or challenging. Plus, the indie scene is arguably stronger now than it was 10 years ago, since YouTube, Reddit, Discord have become means for designers to garner their own audiences and fanbases.

 

[Hussar]

In both editions a fighter in mail, could run, climb a wall and swim across a river. The different editions just tinkered with how successful they were or how easy or difficult they find it.

Any one looking in would think the suggestion that this makes it a significantly different game is barmy.

In other words, the things that unite the various editions of the game, far far far far far far far outweigh the differences.

Really? How did your fighter climb a wall in AD&D, OD&D and Basic/Expert D&D? I've had DM's argue that you couldn't swim in armor and others tell me you could.

But, again, like I said, hand your new players a Basic D&D character sheet and ask them to explain it. I mean, if the game hasn't changed that much, it should be easy right?

 

[TheSword]

Really? How did your fighter climb a wall in AD&D, OD&D and Basic/Expert D&D? I've had DM's argue that you couldn't swim in armor and others tell me you could.

But, again, like I said, hand your new players a Basic D&D character sheet and ask them to explain it. I mean, if the game hasn't changed that much, it should be easy right?

Get in the water and start kicking your feet and moving your arms.

You reach up put your hands on the wall and then upwards while maintaining grip. Find secure foot holds then reach for the next grip.

What part of the basic character sheet do you think players of 5e would struggle with? The %saving throws or the Thaco? Everything else looks pretty self explanatory and it doesn’t take a genius to work out what a percentage is or what To Hit AC 0 means.

 

[Remathilis]

If you want to put it that way, sure. If you want to actually argue against it, by all means, do so.

I would personally leave it up to the setting books to give standard examples of monster stats for certain races, while the Monster Manual gives a NPC stats that can be cut and pasted for any race, like we have now.

Ok, I want to home in right here. I'll start with a flat-out statement. I HATE the notion of a flavorless Core Rules. HATE IT! You are not the first person to suggest the Toolbox method to D&D (throw all the toys in a box, let the DM/setting pull out what's needed) and I despise that kind of game design. D&D is not generic, its actually quite poor at being generic. There is a lot of baked in assumptions throughout the game. In classes, magic, races, monsters, etc. There is lore, and that lore is what makes the game interesting. I remember the 2e Monstrous Manual filling me with dozens of great ideas for my own setting, I didn't touch a published setting (beyond Ravenloft modules and Planescape for the planes) until Eberron came out in 3.5. I lived on that lore found in the MM, the PHB, the generic splatbooks, etc. To me, that is D&D; every setting is just flavors of it.

I don't want the PHB to lose that flavor and be a bunch of bland statblocks. The 4e Monster Manual was nearly this, and it's the worst D&D book I own.

I haven't heard anyone calling for classes to be changed. Can you give any specifics?

Sure. There has always been a drumbeat as to whether the monk, barbarian, and paladin are generic enough to be in the default game. The recent discussions about OA and cultural appropriation has added to the idea that D&D classes should be generic and not try to emulate specific archetypes, esp ones that could be viewed as insensitive. So far, the three mentioned and druid are getting a bit of the rough housing for being too culturally specific (one Eastern, two Western, one just "outsider") and like many of these discussions, it mixes with people who want those classes removed for other reasons. However, I fear adding "X class is problematic" to the chorus will lead to those classes being cut in the next iteration.

So, you weren't comparing us to devils, but instead to the Satanic Panic, like so many people in this thread before have done? Okay. I refer you to read the earlier parts of the thread to understand why these changes are not the same, won't bring about the end of D&D, and won't cause another 4e if done correctly.

D&D has newfound popularity (much like it had in the early 80's when cartoons and toys brought it fame) and with newfound fame brings newfound scrutiny. TSR went with kneejerk reactions to this scrutiny and set up 2e to alienate its base. I pray WotC has more foresight in handling this than TSR did.

And I would have thought a devil reference wouldn't offend someone who has the literal Mark of the Beast in thier user-handle. ;-)

 

[Chaosmancer]

Correct. I am using the lore as it stood until just recently. It appears WotC will be abandoning that lore, slowly to start. Where it ends up will be an interesting sight to see.

If by just recently you mean 3.X, then sure.

But those are not the standards from 4e or 5e. Humanity does not have a unique snowflake place in being where good and evil intermingle. Elves and dwarves can be just as evil as humans, they may "tend" towards an alignment, but practically this does not change the fact that they have no alignmnent restrictions and can be anything.

Which again, is the point. You are throwing your hands up to a degree and asking if evil elves will live with the good elves.... well why wouldn't they? Evil humans live among human societies. Evil Elves don't wear signs that say "I'm evil, exile me". If they get found out as being a necromancer who is torturing the souls of the living? Yeah, they get kicked out. Just like the human necromancer who does the same thing.

This idea that opening alignment is some sort of radical shift in the civilizations of the Mutliverse is one I just don't get.

Do people really not see what's problematic in the above paragraph? Seriously? Am I the only one that sees it?

I've been saying it since 5e started. For a game with so many races, DnD is so blatantly human-centric it is almost amusing.

In both editions a fighter in mail, could run, climb a wall and swim across a river. The different editions just tinkered with how successful they were or how easy or difficult they find it.

Any one looking in would think the suggestion that this makes it a significantly different game is barmy.

In other words, the things that unite the various editions of the game, far far far far far far far outweigh the differences.

Not if they now anything at all about how games work.

But, sure, you can find more similarities than differences. Trivially. You can also find a lot of similarties between DnD and Fantasy craft, Savage Worlds, and I'm sure hundreds of other games. But that doesn't mean that they aren't also very different games.

Get in the water and start kicking your feet and moving your arms.

You reach up put your hands on the wall and then upwards while maintaining grip. Find secure foot holds then reach for the next grip.

Amusing.

Reminds me of how Altair in Assassin's creed could climb and jump with ease, but died if he landed in water. I kept telling him to kick his feet, but the game just gave me a reload screen.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

Just to make sure I understand what you're suggesting here, the PHB (and Monster Manual and DMG) should contain no suggestions about how humans, dwarves, orcs, lizardfolk, etc. behave? What should be contained in the core rules about races/people/folk, then?

Yes, you're understanding me correctly. IMHO, the general physical appearance of the races will be contained therein, as well as a small description of how they can act from setting to setting. The individual setting books would describe how those races are in that setting, contain any subraces specific to that world, and give any physical changes listed from the base races.