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

[Faolyn]

But, barbarian as a class isn’t a society. There is no society of barbarian same as there is no society of clerics.

I'd say that a monastery would count as a society of society!

But yes, even a "barbarian tribe" in the older D&D sense wasn't assumed to be filled with nothing but people with the barbarian class or who could only take the barbarian class. There were shamans and witch doctors, both of whom, of course, were weaker than their "civilized" cleric and magic-user/wizard equivalents.

Barbarian the class is just a collection of tropes and mechanics lumped together. And there’s very little negative language in that description. After all, barbarians don’t have intelligence restrictions for example. Which half orcs did once have.

Well, to be fair, didn't they always start out illiterate, or have to spend points on literacy, which nobody else did? Not, I'm sure, that most DMs really enforced that.

 

[Faolyn]

There seem to be a lot of foundational aspects of D&D as it was envisioned that, at least according to this and similar threads, a number of folks have a real problem with. I am forced to ask: what exactly do these folks want D&D to be? What's in the books? Specifically, because there's a lot of "I don't want/think this is boring/we could do without" this or that thing. I want to know what the actual game of D&D is supposed to be like, if all the people who have problems with this stuff get their way.

Serious question.

The foundational aspects of D&D were created in the 70s and was influenced heavily by books written in the preceding decades. But it's no longer the 70s. It's not even the same century in which D&D was created.

D&D has gotten rid of clunky old rules before. I doubt most people are mourning weapon speed factors or percentage in lair rolls. Why shouldn't they get rid of clunky old tropes as well? If the only reason is "because I liked it back then," well, too bad. You still have those old books, but its ridiculous to expect that the game needs to be frozen in time or to expect that those old tropes aren't called out for what they are.

 

[Incenjucar]

It's not like the old school barbarian flavor is unavailable, anyways. It's not actually part of the rules, just a stereotype attached to them. There isn't some kind of penalty that occurs if they find doing trigonometry intellectually soothing.

 

[MoonSong]

But, what you actually seem to be saying is that since they aren't on Earth and we've never seen them, they don't matter. And we can blissfully ignore the fact that, if humanity achieves the greatness we want it to achieve, we will inevitably run into the question of this life, and then must act all shocked pikachu face that these intelligent non-humans exist, while scrambling to understand what it means, when back in the Bronze Age, we had stories of non-human people and humans had kind of figured this out.

Ok, I had unplugged from the discussion, but this is a very different matter. We can't rule out other intelligent species out there in the universe, but we can't guarantee they existing, and if they exist, we cannot really ever hope to ever meaningfully interact with them. The universe is truly gigantic with colossal distances between stars. We can only ever know a fraction of space and everything else outside of it is unknowable. Even then, we are limited to only know as much information as can be carried out by light and other electromagnetic waves. To actually land somewhere, we are limited to the places that can be visited in a human lifetime -a generation ship would be a pipe dream too-. Yes, theoretically something like warp is possible, but in practice you need the ability to harness a black hole on command and everything between the starting and ending point is torn to shreds in the process. And no, there isn't many outs that a civilization out there could take short of actual magic.

But even if there is a way to actually travel the cosmos within a human lifetime, there is no guarantee we will find life out there. Life as we know it is fragile, and theoretical more exotic life isn't a given either. Even if we find it, intelligence isn't a given either. Evolution is random and without a theleological purpose. Out of the millions -if not billions or trillions- of species that have inhabited earth, how many times has intelligence evolved? Only a handful, and if we are talking about human-like intelligence, only once in us and our extinct sibling species that we either outcompeted, killed or loved to death.

So TLDR: Intelligent life is extremely unlikely out there. If it is out there, it is too far away to even know about it, let alone have any kind of meaningful interaction with. And let's rule out having actual physical contact of any kind short of actual magic.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The foundational aspects of D&D were created in the 70s and was influenced heavily by books written in the preceding decades. But it's no longer the 70s. It's not even the same century in which D&D was created.

D&D has gotten rid of clunky old rules before. I doubt most people are mourning weapon speed factors or percentage in lair rolls. Why shouldn't they get rid of clunky old tropes as well? If the only reason is "because I liked it back then," well, too bad. You still have those old books, but its ridiculous to expect that the game needs to be frozen in time or to expect that those old tropes aren't called out for what they are.

Fine, but that in no way answers my question. I already know what you don't want. I am asking what you  do want. How do  you think D&D should be expressed, and what will actually be in the books that expresses whatever you want? You can't just say, "I don't like all of this stuff, please get rid of it". When you do that, you're left with something. What are you left with, or what would you add? What do you want D&D to be about?

 

[Guest 85555]

'Dumb Conan' came, as far as I can tell, from the Schwarzenegger movie where he doesn't talk much, on account of Arnie's thick acccent.

The movie was also trying to do something with the medium, which was be very operatic and allow the music to tell much of the story. I think if you pay attention to Conan's actions int he film and his behavior, and are not fixated on his accent, you see he isn't a moron, and is in fact very intelligent (just look at the tactics he uses at the end of the movie). Too often I think people mistake an accent and someone not using perfect English syntax as somehow indicating something about their intellect, but that just isn't the case, and it couldn't be more so with someone like Arnold Schwarzenegger. The character in the movie did have very primal qualities to him, and was fairly straight forward in a lot of ways, but so is book Conan. It has been about six years since I read Conan stories but I go back to them fairly regularly and I often feel this difference between the movie is a little over stated and overlooks some of the very intelligent things the character does in the film (as well as the fact that its a movie driven by music. I think one of the big differences with it, aside from lore changes that I think capture the spirit but veer away from the specifics, is its John Milius' vision of Conan (and to be fair Kull the Conqueror as I seem to recall some of the material was taken from that too). So it is Conan from a particular angle (and some of that angle is John Milieus putting his own persona into the character). Still one of the best movies ever made in my opinion. There haven't been many films that matched the blending of score and visuals the way Conan does, and it still holds up tremendously to this day (plus I personally think James Earl Jones as Thusla Doom is a much more compelling villain than someone like Vader---though that is also a franchise that blends music and visuals perfectly).

The irony is Schwarzenegger actually was a skillful businessman and campaigner (I'll leave the judgment of his tenure as governor aside), he just couldn't sound smart in a movie. So a smart guy sounding dumb while playing a smart character produced a dumb archetype. The arts are funny sometimes.

Something I would say he is an argument for as it relates to this thread, is the role that fun and not taking everything super seriously can have in action entertainment. But I think that he was able to become the star he did, very much speaks to his charisma and how well the movies leaned into his personality.

 

[Faolyn]

One could argue that you don't see it as limiting because you are getting exactly what you want, and other playstyles aren't important to you personally, so it's fine that only your desired playstyle is focused upon.

And that makes sense if true, but it is a perspective.

OK, so how does an officially inclusive playstyle limit your game?

 

[Faolyn]

Fine, but that in no way answers my question. I already know what you don't want. I am asking what you  do want. How do  you think D&D should be expressed, and what will actually be in the books that expresses whatever you want? You can't just say, "I don't like all of this stuff, please get rid of it". When you do that, you're left with something. What are you left with, or what would you add? What do you want D&D to be about?

...

OK, take a look at Level Up. Inclusive. It doesn't suggest anyone is lesser. Orcs are treated with respect in the AG; they aren't monsters, they aren't commonly discriminated against. Look at the Stoneworthy culture. It's a neolithic-type culture, but it's called worthy and it's shown to be as civilized and decent a culture as any other; members of that culture aren't treated as stupid barbarians. In fact, Level Up doesn't have barbarians. They changed the name--and the name of the monks as well--in order to be more welcoming to the players. Remember the discussion about the warlords, and how that name evoked some very troubling and harmful aspects (specifically, modern-day usage of the term)? The name warlord was dumped for Marshal instead.

You like Level Up. Why do you want D&D to be not as inclusive as it?

 

[Micah Sweet]

OK, so how does an officially inclusive playstyle limit your game?

It doesn't, but whatever you present in the official material is what a lot of folks, including nearly all new players, are going to assume is the way the game is played, and that limits the worlds they may create, and the adventures they engage in, to a circle far smaller than other forms of media allow.

 

[Incenjucar]

It doesn't, but whatever you present in the official material is what a lot of folks, including nearly all new players, are going to assume is the way the game is played, and that limits the worlds they may create, and the adventures they engage in, to a circle far smaller than other forms of media allow.

Game of Thrones already exists for players who really need to have horrible people all over the place in their fantasy content.