D&D 5E Jeremy Crawford Discusses Details on Custom Origins

[jmartkdr2]

It's not just that change is hard (and the game has evolved with every edition) it's that change can also have unexpected consequences and this feels like a fairly fundamental change. I haven't decided if it's going to affect my home game or not, but when we can play in person again I had planned on getting involved in AL again where this rule will be in place.

It just means that if I want to play against type (I've played dwarven wizards, half-orc monk and so on) I can't do that any more. Every race "fits" every class and archetype now. Every race becomes ever more generic, ever more just a funny accent with a different mask. I'd actually prefer penalties for every race, so that I could have the ugliest dwarf in the land* who was convinced he had a future in showbiz because he rolled a 20 on a performance check while the bard rolled a 1 in a contest.

I get that certain sacred cows should be taken out back and put out of their misery. I'm just not sure this is one of them.

*in Living Greyhawk I had a dwarf with a 5 charisma because of a curse

You can still play a dwarven wizard with a 14 Intelligence. You just don't have to.

 

[Sir Brennen]

Lived through 92% or so of the 70s, but the first few years I wasn't reading much Anyway, Tolkien was huge, but it feels like a lot of the books in the late 60s to early 80s left out elves, dwarves, and others.

Were the later written Elric Novels using elves and dwarves? Alexander's Black Cauldron series didn't did it? The last few Fafhrd and Gray Mouser, Earthsea and Glen Cook's Dread Empire weren't. Adams' Horseclans were Sci-fi I guess, but sure had a feeling of Conanesque fantasy.

The Eternal Champion novels (of which Elric was progenerator of) overall often depicted its central conflict as between humans and faerie-like creatures. I believe there was one novel, forget which one, in which they were literally called Elves.

Melnibonians, like Elric, pretty much served as an elven culture stand in, flipped to be an ancient civilization fallen into decadence, instead of the wise and stoic elves of Tolkien. But then, the Elric series were an inversion of a lot of fantasy tropes, including Conan.

As for the other series, no one's saying there wasn't any other fantasy being written in that time period. But there's no denying Tolkien's influence, even if it was in helping increase the popularity of fantasy in general.

 

[Oofta]

You can still play a dwarven wizard with a 14 Intelligence. You just don't have to.

Well I've played a rogue with a 12 dex, but that's not the point. Using Tasha's, a PC dwarven wizard will never be unusual or unexpected. I assume it's actually going to be pretty common (in AL). Instead of "never seen that before" it will be "gee, yet another one ".

I don't get why people don't grasp the concept, even if they don't agree. No race/class concept will be unexpected or unusual, therefore you can no longer play an unexpected/unusual race/class combination. That may not matter to you, and it's certainly not the end of the world for me it's just an aspect of D&D that I will miss.

 

[Helldritch]

Then you need to either be more hard-nosed with your group to get the play experience you want (difficult) or adjust your preferences to fit the changing cultural mores around fantasy tropes. (Also difficult)

Nothing is easy, but, to paraphrase Buckley, trying to stand athwart history and yell "Stop!" rarely works.

What you fail to understand is that I do not think of only myself. I will have no trouble at all to say no. But I do think about young or inexperienced DMs that will have troubles with saying no or to justify themselves. Will I be annoyed in having to justify myself? Not the first few times. But after a while, it will get on my nerves. If an old stubborn grognard like me expect troubles, you can bet that not a few DMs will have these problems and will have troubles to justify themselves.

Banning a book is never an easy thing to do. In my area, about 40% welcome the change, 40% don't want to hear about it and 10% don't care at all. It was made at the local store and it was about 300 people that took time to answer. Nothing scientific in that survey but it does show that this book (or some of the rule changes) are far from being unanimously acclaimed. Enough for the store owner to order about half the normal amount of books he normally orders. The debate at the store is as hot as it is on this and other forums.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What you forget is that in making this drastic hange in an official rule book, it will change how my table will have to play in AL context. The PHB+1 will soon become PHB+2 and quite a few players will balk at a notion that I might not allow "x" because it is in Tasha... Even personal games will be affected one way or an other as arguments will spring up when a new, or an old player will want to play an odd class/race combination with no drawback because Tasha allows it. I can see young DMs having to argue with said player just like I did when a player wanted to play a ninja in my campaign ecause it was an "official" class with OA. Same in 2nd edition with the complete book of "x" with kits, or 3.xed with the class books. Or 4ed with PHB2+. A DM do have the right not to play with some books when they are not core. But when they are core books as Tasha will be considered, it is hard to justify. The younger the DM (experience wise) the harder it will be.

1) It is not up to WotC to get DMs to stand up to their players. As a DM if you want your campaign a certain way you set up character creation guidelines for your players follow. But if you fold like a book when you get challenged on them, it doesn't fall to WotC to change their publishing decisions because you can't stand firm. You either make choices you want to see followed, or you allow everything and get over it that you might not like some combinations

2) It is not up to you or me or any of us to condescendingly try to "protect" new or inexperienced DMs from learning how to run their own game by saying to WotC "Look, let's help out these poor noobs! They don't know any better! They don't realize letting any player play dwarves with any stat boosts is horrible! Don't do this! Think of the noobs!" It is ridiculous to use new players as the excuse as to why your own picadillos should be responded to by WotC and not theirs.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I don't get why people don't grasp the concept, even if they don't agree. No race/class concept will be unexpected or unusual, therefore you can no longer play an unexpected/unusual race/class combination. That may not matter to you, and it's certainly not the end of the world for me it's just an aspect of D&D that I will miss.

There have been literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of D&D games across the globe over these 40 years. The "dwarven wizard" concept is not "novel" in any way, shape, or form. It's probably being played at hundreds of tables right now as we speak. So to think that for you a dwarven wizard is unusual is because at your table, it IS unusual. No one plays it except apparently for you. Which means the only table you need to worry about dwarven wizards becoming commonplace is also your table. That's it. What other people do at their individual tables means absolutely nothing to you. But if you are making it mean something to you... that's YOUR issue and not WotC's. They cannot dictate their publishing decisions because you are unable to accept that other tables had, have and will play dwarven wizards regardless of what the dwarf's stats bonuses are.

If you want your character to be novel, and unusual... then roleplay them that way! Use your abilities as a roleplayer to make the character distinct and unique. Because if you are relying on stat bonuses to do the work for you... your characters will never be unique. Because there are thousands of other dwarf wizards out there right now being played with the exact same crap stats.

And you know what? I suspect that if your dwarven wizard you played was an awesome and unique character in that game... it WAS because you roleplayed him in such a way to make him memorable and unique. And what his stats were had nothing to do with it. You may think "Oh well, it's because his Strength was X and his INT was Y and his Charisma was Z and he had A, B, and C skills that made the character unique"... no... in truth that had little to nothing to do with it. It was how you roleplayed him that did it. And thus if you keep doing that, what WotC decides to put in a book at some point will not change that.

 

[Helldritch]

So... if that book changes nothing as you seem to imply, why print it in the first place?

 

[jmartkdr2]

Well I've played a rogue with a 12 dex, but that's not the point. Using Tasha's, a PC dwarven wizard will never be unusual or unexpected. I assume it's actually going to be pretty common (in AL). Instead of "never seen that before" it will be "gee, yet another one ".

I don't get why people don't grasp the concept, even if they don't agree. No race/class concept will be unexpected or unusual, therefore you can no longer play an unexpected/unusual race/class combination. That may not matter to you, and it's certainly not the end of the world for me it's just an aspect of D&D that I will miss.

Ah, okay. I can see how that would be a change.

Not something that bothers me personally but I can understand how it would bother you. Thanks for that.

 

[Oofta]

There have been literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of D&D games across the globe over these 40 years. The "dwarven wizard" concept is not "novel" in any way, shape, or form. It's probably being played at hundreds of tables right now as we speak. So to think that for you a dwarven wizard is unusual is because at your table, it IS unusual. No one plays it except apparently for you. Which means the only table you need to worry about dwarven wizards becoming commonplace is also your table. That's it. What other people do at their individual tables means absolutely nothing to you. But if you are making it mean something to you... that's YOUR issue and not WotC's. They cannot dictate their publishing decisions because you are unable to accept that other tables had, have and will play dwarven wizards regardless of what the dwarf's stats bonuses are.

If you want your character to be novel, and unusual... then roleplay them that way! Use your abilities as a roleplayer to make the character distinct and unique. Because if you are relying on stat bonuses to do the work for you... your characters will never be unique. Because there are thousands of other dwarf wizards out there right now being played with the exact same crap stats.

And you know what? I suspect that if your dwarven wizard you played was an awesome and unique character in that game... it WAS because you roleplayed him in such a way to make him memorable and unique. And what his stats were had nothing to do with it. You may think "Oh well, it's because his Strength was X and his INT was Y and his Charisma was Z and he had A, B, and C skills that made the character unique"... no... in truth that had little to nothing to do with it. It was how you roleplayed him that did it. And thus if you keep doing that, what WotC decides to put in a book at some point will not change that.

Well, I haven't played in those hundreds of thousands of games. While I'm not currently playing in AL I don't remember ever coming across another dwarven wizard or half-orc monk. Since I ran/helped run a couple of game days in a major metro area I played with dozens if not hundreds of players over the years.

I never said my PCs were unique, just that they were unusual. As far as why I enjoy PCs or not, I think I'm probably a better judge than you are. You don't have a problem with the change? Have a gold star. Personally I think it takes away more from the game than it adds. To paraphrase The Dude, it's just like an opinion man.

 

[Warpiglet-7]

Well I've played a rogue with a 12 dex, but that's not the point. Using Tasha's, a PC dwarven wizard will never be unusual or unexpected. I assume it's actually going to be pretty common (in AL). Instead of "never seen that before" it will be "gee, yet another one ".

I don't get why people don't grasp the concept, even if they don't agree. No race/class concept will be unexpected or unusual, therefore you can no longer play an unexpected/unusual race/class combination. That may not matter to you, and it's certainly not the end of the world for me it's just an aspect of D&D that I will miss.

This is the clearest statement of the concern in question yet.