D&D 5E Ability Score Increases (I've changed my mind.)

[Crimson Longinus]

Actually, it is.

D&D tropes are often ethnocentric.

I am Norwegian, not English.

When I play an elf, I want the Norse concept of an elf, not the Tolkien one.

When I play a dwarf, I want the play the Norse concept of a dwarf, not the Tolkien one.

The Norse elf is especially magical, and not especially dextrous. They fight with magic, not with bows.

I am uncomfortable being coerced to play a Tolkien elf.

Sorry to break this to you, but us Nordic people are not oppressed and some American game writer basing their game on Tolkien instead of Eddas is not bigotry. And no one is forcing you to play D&D in the first place.

 

[Yaarel]

Sorry to break this to you, but us Nordic people are not oppressed and some American game writer basing their game on Tolkien instead of Eddas is not bigotry. And no one is forcing you to play D&D in the first place.

If you assume I dont care about how D&D represents Nordic cultures (especially my own Norse culture), youd be mistaken.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Actually, it is.

D&D tropes are often ethnocentric.

I am Norwegian, not English.

When I play an elf, I want the Norse concept of an elf, not the Tolkien one.

When I play a dwarf, I want to play the Norse concept of a dwarf, not the Tolkien one.

The Norse elf is especially magical, and not especially dextrous. They fight with magic, not with bows.

I am uncomfortable being coerced to play a Tolkien elf. Because it misrepresents my ethnic heritage.

I am honestly curious about sonething: you have explained the things you dislike about D&D many times and at great length over the years. Several of those things, by your own admission, are pretty core to the D&D experience and have been for many years. Are you playing 5e now and, if so, what keeps you coming back if you seem to dislike it so much? You have every right to play whatever you like, but I have to believe there's a game out there that fits with your preferences better than D&D.

Again, this isn't an attack. I truly want to understand your desire to engage with a game you have so many fundamental problems with.

 

[Lyxen]

I am uncomfortable being coerced to play a Tolkien elf. Because it misrepresents my ethnic heritage.

No one is coercing you. You can do whatever you like with your own games and your myths.

And I happen to like norse legends, but to also like Lord of the Rings, as it's the first fantasy book that I've ever read, and I've been playing D&D and any roleplaying game ever since, met my wife at a LARP, raised my daughters around this love of fantasy, and yesterday evening I had a skype with my three daughters from around the world and we talked about fantasy and what we think is going to happen in the next Sanderson books.

But now, contrary to you who are not coerced into anything, some people come and tell me that I'm wrong and a bad person, culpable of terrible things for liking Tolkien elves and orcs as they are (yes, I love orcs too, they are part of that myth as every myth needs villains, and the better the villains, the better the myth).

That is being coerced, so that you know the difference. No one is knocking on your door and telling you off for liking YOUR legends.

And when I play, I like my fantasy races to be like they are in my memories, with their special powers but also their ASIs, because this help making sure that these fantasy races resemble those of one of my favourite myth. So will you please stop coercing me ? Thanks in advance.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

If you assume I dont care about how D&D represents Nordic cultures (especially my own Norse culture), youd be mistaken.

Oh, I have no doubt about you caring about it!

But the truth is that us Nordics are among the most privileged people in the world, so acting like you are oppressed because an American game writer writes the elves in a way you don't like comes across as a tad insensitive.

 

[Bill Zebub]

I think this new line of "If you don't like 5e then go play another game" is a fraught road.

I think it's pretty darn likely that the next iteration of D&D will be floating ASIs, and no racial ASIs. (Maybe there will be a suggested default location for ASIs, or "quick builds" that include it, but that will be it.). When that happens I hope all of you will continue to come here and discuss this, because I'd love to hear how it pans out for you in practice. And you may very well say that you hate it even more than you expected.

What I will not do is then say, "Well if you don't like it go find a game that suits your taste."

 

[FrogReaver]

Welcome to the discussion! This has been mentioned many times, but it's a looooong thread (I myself joined halfway through) so no surprise you missed it.

Okay, but was it mentioned in the post I replied to?

The problem seems to be that ASIs are perceived to have too much class-specific impact (whether or not that's true), whereas other racial abilities are both less quantifiable and more useful for all classes.

most abilities are much better for some class than others (although most non-asi racial abilities aren’t as useless for other classes as say +2 str is for a typical).

So, I think your claim here is going in the right direction, just not quite on target.

For example, darkvision is clearly highly useful for rogues, but it's all pretty darned useful for other classes. And you can't really put a number on how useful it is.

most mages can solve the seeing at night problem with a cantrip. It’s nice but not particularly great for them.

So the argument...backed up by people (like me) who say, "I optimize race and class based on ASIs, but probably wouldn't do that based on the non-ASI abilities)"...is that by getting rid of racial ASIs the choice would matter less from an optimization perspective, making it easier to make the choice for roleplaying/storytelling reasons.

I think it’s naive to assume people won’t optimize based on what’s available to optimize with. In many ways certain racial abilities are at least as strong as ASIs when paired with certain classes.

Would some people still try to optimize perfectly? Sure. But you gotta figure there aren't only two kinds of players (optimizers and non-optimizers), rather it's a spectrum, and the more you can balance the races across classes the more people will stop bothering to optimize.

I agree with the premise but not the conclusion. I think each player has their own threshold for what is balanced. I don’t even see why races need balanced across classes.

not every option is going to be equally playable to all people. And that’s okay because there’s no other way for it to be.

(sorry that was totally incoherent after the first pass; edited for clarity.)

 

[Bill Zebub]

Oh, I have no doubt about you caring about it!

But the truth is that us Nordics are among the most privileged people in the world, so acting like you are oppressed because an American game writer writes the elves in a way you don't like comes across as a tad insensitive.

I didn't pick up any sense of persecution or oppression in what they were saying. Just that they would rather play elves and dwarves that fit their cultural heritage, instead of an English author's take on it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

Okay, but was it mentioned in the post I replied to?


most abilities are much better for some class than others (although most non-asi racial abilities aren’t as useless for other classes as say +2 str is for a typical).

So, I think your claim here is going in the right direction, just not quite on target.


most mages can solve the seeing at night problem with a cantrip. It’s nice but not particularly great for them.


I think it’s naive to assume people won’t optimize based on what’s available to optimize with. In many ways certain racial abilities are at least as strong as ASIs when paired with certain classes.


I agree with the premise but not the conclusion. I think each player has their own threshold for what is balanced. I don’t even see why races need balanced across classes.

not every option is going to be equally playable to all people.

Well, there's a lot of conjecture here as to how other people will behave. All I can say for certain is what I would personally do, which is that while I currently always pick a race (or vhuman) that lets me get a 16 in my primary attribute, with floating ASIs I would pick races for flavor reasons. I can't, of course, extrapolate that to draw any certain conclusions about other people, so if you have a pretty firm idea of what you think they would do, I probably can't change that.

Happy gaming!

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this new line of "If you don't like 5e then go play another game" is a fraught road.

I think it's pretty darn likely that the next iteration of D&D will be floating ASIs, and no racial ASIs. (Maybe there will be a suggested default location for ASIs, or "quick builds" that include it, but that will be it.). When that happens I hope all of you will continue to come here and discuss this, because I'd love to hear how it pans out for you in practice. And you may very well say that you hate it even more than you expected.

What I will not do is then say, "Well if you don't like it go find a game that suits your taste."

I hope you're not referring to my post. I have no problem with anyone wanting to play 5e. I just dont understand why someone with the history of issues with D&D that @Yaarel seems to have would want to do so. I'm sure they have reasons.