D&D (2024) How did I miss this about the Half races/ancestries

[Guest 85555]

I don't know if D&D is that kind of game. I've always considered it a rather simplistic game revolving around good guys clobbering bad guys. It's one of the things I think makes the game so successful.

This is my take. I do think individual settings for D&D have been able to explore this stuff though. Personally I tend to prefer the sort of thing Minigiang is looking for, so oddly we probably agree more than it seems, but in terms of what D&D is and what makes it work, I think it thrives on a much more simplistic base

 

[Incenjucar]

I don't know if D&D is that kind of game. I've always considered it a rather simplistic game revolving around good guys clobbering bad guys. It's one of the things I think makes the game so successful.

Eh. The game started off as murder hobos seeking treasure in places where the dead seek rest as much as the occasional heroics.

Plus Planescape and Dark Sun are both explicitly complicated settings.

 

[MGibster]

Plus Planescape and Dark Sun are both explicitly complicated settings.

While I love both of those settings, I'm frequently told they were failures that helped lead to the demise of TSR.

 

[Incenjucar]

While I love both of those settings, I'm frequently told they were failures that helped lead to the demise of TSR.

And? The internet is full of opinions. WotC is leaning pretty hard on Planescape for OD&D. Dark Sun is certainly a more complicated story.

 

[Hussar]

Eh. The game started off as murder hobos seeking treasure in places where the dead seek rest as much as the occasional heroics.

Plus Planescape and Dark Sun are both explicitly complicated settings.

Heck nearly all the settings are complicated. Ten thousand pages of Forgotten Realms material leads to all sorts of complexity.

Saying Greyhawk is a simplistic setting is fighting words in some circles.

Never minding Ravenloft.

The idea that any setting is so simple that you can just be murder hoboes is pretty absurd. The whole point of setting and world building- very important elements in the hobby I’m repeatedly told- is to add complexity.

I guess all those world builders out there are just playing the game wrong.

 

[MGibster]

Heck nearly all the settings are complicated. Ten thousand pages of Forgotten Realms material leads to all sorts of complexity.

Saying Greyhawk is a simplistic setting is fighting words in some circles.

Never minding Ravenloft.

The idea that any setting is so simple that you can just be murder hoboes is pretty absurd. The whole point of setting and world building- very important elements in the hobby I’m repeatedly told- is to add complexity.

I guess all those world builders out there are just playing the game wrong.

I remember I referred to the Dresden Files books as "light reading" and a friend of mine got a little offended by that. What can I say? Maybe some of you play D&D where PCs have nuanced moral choices to make, but for the most part, I've always found D&D to be a rather simplistic adolescent male power fantasy revolving around kicking down the doors to evil and beating them up. I think that's one of the reasons why D&D has remained the top dog in RPGs.

 

[Horwath]

Eh. The game started off as murder hobos seeking treasure in places where the dead seek rest as much as the occasional heroics.

And now it's different?

 

[Incenjucar]

And now it's different?

It depends on who is at the table. I explore things like found family, tragedy, disasters, racism, classicism, etc. in games I run.

 

[Hussar]

I remember I referred to the Dresden Files books as "light reading" and a friend of mine got a little offended by that. What can I say? Maybe some of you play D&D where PCs have nuanced moral choices to make, but for the most part, I've always found D&D to be a rather simplistic adolescent male power fantasy revolving around kicking down the doors to evil and beating them up. I think that's one of the reasons why D&D has remained the top dog in RPGs.

I would agree that the Dresden Files books are pretty light reading. Not quite sure what that has to do with D&D.

And, again, the topic seems to drift rather badly as soon as anyone points anything out. The point was being made that D&D is simplistic.

How the game could possibly be considered simplistic when you have thousands and thousands of pages of world building but, apparently it's done for no reason because we're just doing adoescent male power fantasy. If that were true, why would any of these topics actually even register? No one would care about how orcs are described or if that description was changed since the description of orcs is irrelavent. Or, heck, why the massive freakout when the Spellplague was introduced to Forgotten Realms? After all, none of that world building relates to adolescent male power fantasy.

If the game is so simplistic, then all these changes to the world building shouldn't even register as a minor detail. Why would someone whose only interest is adolescent male power fantasy care if the art features more diverse faces? Why would someone whose only interest is adolescent male power fantasy care how half elves are described? None of it should matter in the slightest.

 

[Minigiant]

I don't know if D&D is that kind of game. I've always considered it a rather simplistic game revolving around good guys clobbering bad guys. It's one of the things I think makes the game so successful.

The game can be simple and the enemies make sense in universe.

Strong idiot orcs who are all raiders and never farm but never starve.
Underground elves who are dark instead or pale who run a backstabbing based society with a slavery base despite being rail thin.
Ultamilitaristic hobgoblins who are tactical powerhouses who didn't have forges and Intelligence bonus for a long time.

D&D wants to have humaniod warrior enemies but forces them to be stupid and have no culture or nonsensical ones. So once your PCs rest in the inn or tavern, the world around them makes no sense.