D&D General No More "Humans in Funny Hats": Racial Mechanics Should Determine Racial Cultures

[Lyxen]

My point is that "it's been profitable" doesn't disprove "it could be more profitable".

Maybe it could, maybe it couldn't, again most people agree that they did a fantastic job, which is why I am annoyed at people saying "but it could have been better" as if they could themselves have done better.

Not choosing to design a new setting until year 8 of the edition is walling it off.

Not necessarily, again not finding the opportunity and focussing elsewhere is a perfectly legitimate business decision which does not wall anything off.

A pizzeria that takes pasta off the menu can't make pasta sales.

And a very successful pizzeria famous for its pizzas should be careful about adding pasta to its menu, because it might make their menus too complicated, or the quality of the pasta might not be equal to the pizza, which might diminish their image in the public eye.

No it goes to show that they are realizing the wall was a bad idea and is in the process of its destruction.

OK, this discussion is over. The company is not doing what YOU want, so it has to be doing a bad job, and you have to use a negative term like "wall". Please come back when you have a better idea how a company should be run and you have at least a modicum of success.

Quite frankly I think half these questions, problems, and discussions on race and class could have been avoided if 5th edition got a new setting that matched the game early instead of trying to mold old settings like putty to fit it.

This is your opinion, but I totally disagree. First, no-one could have foreseen the social upheaval that happened, or at least its strength, and second, as you put it below, many people really like the previous settings, or at least some of them.

I get many people like there old settings and pine for the update of their old favorites but I have not seen one reasonable explanation for WOTC not having a new setting design for 5th edition right now.

I have given you plenty, it's very complex to do (4e did it the right way, bottom up from a local and simple idea of "points of light" and it pleased a number of people, but it was never really developed, for example, and Eberron is good to my eyes but quite divisive in the community), requires lots of resources, it needs to be original, which in turn means that a lot of the previously published material will not be usable with it, in turn meaning that you need to publish things specifically for it, again dividing the community.

It's much better to publish in the hodge-podge of the FR where nothing is strongly defined and people can reuse a campaign easily in whatever setting they are running, including homebrew. Look for example how very few modules Eberron has had, no campaign ever, and how hard it is to adapt other setting adventures to it.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I get many people like there old settings and pine for the update of their old favorites but I have not seen one reasonable explanation for WOTC not having a new setting design for 5th edition right now.

Too much work requiring too much time, energy, and money to produce for too little benefit to the company.

I mean why do we think we're getting all these M:tG setting books? Because all of them were already halfway done. Most of the lore, character design, art, and story was already created in the setting bibles for the card game. So taking that which was already done and then just expanding it to create it as a D&D setting was a lot less labor intensive than trying to do the 'Setting Design Contest' to find the next Eberron route.

Especially considering most of the player base won't be playing in any of these settings to begin with, and thus the sales of any new setting book would have an uphill climb to profitability and game growth.

 

[Minigiant]

This is your opinion, but I totally disagree. First, no-one could have foreseen the social upheaval that happened, or at least its strength, and second, as you put it below, many people really like the previous settings, or at least some of them.

Actually I did.

I've been criticizing WOTC for not making a new entwined setting since late 4e. I saw it coming and put it in my SSN playtest surveys.

It's much better to publish in the hodge-podge of the FR where nothing is strongly defined and people can reuse a campaign easily in whatever setting they are running, including homebrew. Look for example how very few modules Eberron has had, no campaign ever, and how hard it is to adapt other setting adventures to it

I disagree. Trying to dress an old lady in a teen's dress is why we are having the silly Halfling and Goliath strength discussions and 3 types of Drow.

 

[Lyxen]

Actually I did.

You did what ? Foresee the social upheaval and its strength ? Because this is what you were replying to...

I've been criticizing WOTC for not making a new entwined setting since late 4e. I saw it coming and put it in my SSN playtest surveys.

Good for you, but you see, they decided otherwise and still created the most successful TTRPG ever. Would they be there if they had decided on a brand new setting ? I seriously doubt it, personally, getting real success in today's world requires many stars to align...

I disagree. Trying to dress an old lady in a teen's dress is why we are having the silly Halfling and Goliath strength discussions and 3 types of Drow.

Which only concern 0.0..1 % of the player population over very minute optional changes anyway. And honestly, people not thinking that the minor optional changes that WotC is putting out is anything else than a smokescreen to get a number of people off their back is deluding themselves. Just as you are deluding yourself in thinking that a new setting would have prevented that. If anything, any new setting coming at the start of 5e would probably have had the same problems as the rest, considering the state of mind of 5e when it came out, with sentences like:

• "Most orcs share the violent, savage nature of the orc gods, and are thus inclined toward evil. Even if an orc chooses a good alignment, it struggles against its innate tendencies for its entire life. (Even half-orcs feel the lingering pull of the orc god’s influence.)" Alignment "chaotic evil"
• "Here, in the lightless caverns and endless warrens of twisting passages, the dark elves — the drow — found refuge. [...] The wickedest of elves, drow are seldom seen by the surface world." Alignment "Neutral Evil"

Also consider that 5e, more than previous editions, was also put out as a "back to the roots of the game" edition...

 

[Minigiant]

Too much work requiring too much time, energy, and money to produce for too little benefit to the company.

I mean why do we think we're getting all these M:tG setting books? Because all of them were already halfway done. Most of the lore, character design, art, and story was already created in the setting bibles for the card game. So taking that which was already done and then just expanding it to create it as a D&D setting was a lot less labor intensive than trying to do the 'Setting Design Contest' to find the next Eberron route.

Especially considering most of the player base won't be playing in any of these settings to begin with, and thus the sales of any new setting book would have an uphill climb to profitability and game growth.

Except now they are Creating new setting because... surprise surprise... none of the old settings nor MTG. settings match 5e assumptions.

 

[Lyxen]

Except now they are Creating new setting because... surprise surprise... none of the old settings nor MTG. settings match 5e assumptions.

None of them match the current 5e assumptions, in particular thanks to a social upheaval that noone could have foreseen when 5e came out.

The solution might be the right one now, which does not mean that there was a wall before, just that it was not the right one back then.

 

[Minigiant]

None of them match the current 5e assumptions, in particular thanks to a social upheaval that noone could have foreseen when 5e came out.

The solution might be the right one now, which does not mean that there was a wall before, just that it was not the right one back then.

Hate to break this too you but many of the current assumptions that 5e adopted were discussed often back in the day.

These ideas and concepts weren't new and the criticism of the perception of races and classes in old setting didn't come out of nowhere.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Except now they are Creating new setting because... surprise surprise... none of the old settings nor MTG. settings match 5e assumptions.

What new settings are they creating? Up to this point they have all been old settings which they already have most of the documentation for, Magic settings which they already have most of the documentation for, or third-party settings that WotC decided to publish for the people that did most of the work for them (A.I. and Exandria.)

I do not know of any completely new settings that they are releasing.

 

[Lyxen]

Hate to break this too you but many of the current assumptions that 5e adopted were discussed often back in the day.

You mean Lineage and floating ASIs ? Proof ?

These ideas and concepts weren't new and the criticism of the perception of races and classes in old setting didn't come out of nowhere.

There have always been discussions around this, ever since the game existed, what does it prove exactly ?

 

[Minigiant]

You mean Lineage and floating ASIs ? Proof ?

Races being restrictive in class, culture, depiction, and ability score stats was a discussion back when I started with 3rd edition.