D&D 5E Everyone Should Play Custom Lineage by Default

[doctorbadwolf]

Sorry, but no. I don't like custom lineage as it is and certainly don't want something that uber powerful as the default.

If you like it, good for you, but for me--a hard pass, thank you.

Uber powerful? How?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

One day, I hope, WotC designers would get that fiction-first approach works better in TTRPGs and we would have just aspects, instead of any specific rules on races and all the other naughty word.

I strongly hope that never happens.

 

[Azzy]

Unsure about the intent (someone wants to ask Crawford?) but RAW-wise I think the poster you quoted is correct. A custom race character has no access to feats with race prerequisites, unless the DM house rules it.

Right, it's entirely the DM's pervue. But, then, so is using custom lineages in the first place. Since the choice to use these rule is entirely DM fiat, so too is how they should be implemented. Considering that the rules, as presented, offers very little guidance in their usage, so it's entirely up to the DM to determine there usage.

We do know that they are a custom lineage (not a custom race—though I'm absolutely sure that this will be used for that), it replaces the normal race option ("Instead of choosing one of the game’s races for your character at 1st level, you can use the following traits to represent your character’s lineage, giving you full control over how your character’s origin shaped them"), and can be used to be a variation on a standard race ("You determine your appearance and whether you resemble any of your kin"). That's about the entirety of what the rules have to say on the matter (aside from what game features you can select).

 

[squibbles]

No, not really. See E.E. Cummings for example (or Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, T.S. Elliot, etc.). There's nothing inherently better or more beautiful in using constraints (or vice versa)—it's what you do with it that matters most. Sometimes less is more, sometimes more is more. The art is knowing when.

I think I wasn't as circumspect in my reply to you as I intended. Again, as conceded, there's lots excellent of free verse poetry. As a form, it is neither better nor worse than poetry with rhyme, meter, or other constraints.

But constraints help in aggregate and on average, they work probabilistically like everything in social science. Too much creative freedom, on average, leads to more defaulting to cliches, just like too many options will, on average, lead to more analysis paralysis and suboptimal choices. It's the paradox of choice problem.

The constraints are for helping somebody who is not E.E. Cummings, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, or T.S. Elliot be more creative. Keep in mind that, by virtue of you having heard of them, those poets are outliers far from the average. My "Forcing someone to write a 5/7/5 haiku... is going to help them produce a more beautiful work" comment refers to plebs, such as myself, who are not proficient writers of elegant verse.

...but I think you and I may have digressed too far from the topic of elfgames

 

[Flamestrike]

Because you insist the rule is that you ARE that race just because you describe the situation as being from that race.

Exactly.

That's how race works. In order to (for example) be an Indigenous Australian, you need to be accepted by other Indigenous Australians as one, self identify as one, and have an element of decent (usually biological) from one.

If I'm an Elf, who is born to Elven parents, living in an Elven society, view myself as an Elf, and am accepted as an Elf, who are you to tell me I'm not an Elf?

Or is that I am an Elf, who views himself as an Elf, is accepted as an Elf by everyone else, and lives in Elven society... but somehow also NOT an Elf?

Schroedingers Elf? Both an Elf, and not an Elf simulateously?

How does that work exactly?

 

[Flamestrike]

There, I fixed it for you.

So... people in the game world call me 'custom' halfling'?

Would a 'custom' Dwarf not be able to use the Axe of the Dwarven Lords?

 

[Flamestrike]

I think there is a real world example just not the kind of example I would give. So instead I counter with this. Real world people don't have extradimensional entities dictating every aspect of their being by picking and choosing from a set of extradimensional books for their enjoyment that can determine everything about them in an objective way?

You dont know that. Maybe we do live in such a world.

And what DM is going to sit there and let a player pick and choose freely? Is this some kind of Bizzaro DnD where the DM just sits back and lets players game the system? The purpose of the rule is to provide players with a mechanism to create interesting custom heritages, or to simply create an Elf or Dwarf or Halfling that (instead of the usual bunch of weapon and skill proficiencies and abilities) instead developed or learnt abilities found in a Feat.

 

[PsyzhranV2]

So... people in the game world call me 'custom' halfling'?

Would a 'custom' Dwarf not be able to use the Axe of the Dwarven Lords?

The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords has no race attunement requirement in 5e. An elf, orc, dragonborn, or any other creature who gets their hands on it is perfectly capable of wielding it.

Nitpick aside, I'm not sure why you're so interested in using the custom lineage rules to make "subraces" of existing player lineages? Wouldn't it be easier to take an existing subrace and swap the proficiencies around? Granted, that would amount to a very minor change, but still.

Fluff it however you like, but personally speaking the impression I got from them was that they were for making approximations of things not currently represented, whether a homebrew species or a one-off mutant that didn't fit the Simic Hybrid template.

(Also, the rules aren't even that good from a design perspective... it's pretty much just Variant Human but with a dark vision and starting 18 option).

 

[Azzy]

I think I wasn't as circumspect in my reply to you as I intended. Again, as conceded, there's lots excellent of free verse poetry. As a form, it is neither better nor worse than poetry with rhyme, meter, or other constraints.

But constraints help in aggregate and on average, they work probabilistically like everything in social science. Too much creative freedom, on average, leads to more defaulting to cliches, just like too many options will, on average, lead to more analysis paralysis and suboptimal choices. It's the paradox of choice problem.

The constraints are for helping somebody who is not E.E. Cummings, Sylvia Plath, Walt Whitman, or T.S. Elliot be more creative. Keep in mind that, by virtue of you having heard of them, those poets are outliers far from the average. My "Forcing someone to write a 5/7/5 haiku... is going to help them produce a more beautiful work" comment refers to plebs, such as myself, who are not proficient writers of elegant verse.

...but I think you and I may have digressed too far from the topic of elfgames

Agreed. Ad, true, it's good to know the rules and have worked within them before you can break them effectively.

 

[Flamestrike]

The Axe of the Dwarvish Lords has no race attunement requirement in 5e. An elf, orc, dragonborn, or any other creature who gets their hands on it is perfectly capable of wielding it.

What about the curse that only applies to Non Dwarves that wield it?

What about a Moonblade? Requires attuement by an Elf or Half Elf.

Are you saying that if my custom lineage for my Elf PC was 'Born as an Elf to two Noble Elven parents, and raised in Elven society, my Elf forsake training in bow and blade, and instead devoted himself to helping others, and showing empathy and kindness, and healing those less fortunate (C-lineage [Elf], Darkvision,+2 Cha, Healer feat)'' that I wouldn't be able (In your games) to attune to a Moonblade because 'I'm not an Elf' (despite being an Elf)?