Unpopular opinions go here

[aramis erak]

Unpopular opinion- while experts can be wrong, you are not an expert just because you have access to the internet and the ability to google things.

Everyone overestimates their own abilities, so while experts can be wrong, it is almost always the case that you will be wronger.

The studies show that few people are accurate in their estimates, but that a significant chunk of people do underestimate their competence in their key fields. Dunning-Kruger effect.

They did not say "D&D invented levels" -- they said "computer games have levels because of D&D" which is true.

Gygax himself noted that he borrowed the concept from naval wargames. It's indirect.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

8) Apocalypse World is one of the least well-made Powered by the Apocalypse games

Like most first iterations of a thing. Iteration tends to improve, overall. This is part of why traditionalism and mindsets like it are mostly detrimental.


Anyway, D&D Bards are the only D&D class with absolutely no meaningful tie to its inspiration at all, and that’s a problem.

What character Gygax had in mind when he built the first XYZ class is beyond irrelevant to a discussion of how the class should be built now. It’s actively detrimental to the discussion.

Related, Rangers. I don’t care about the relationship to Aragorn outside of Aragorn being perhaps the most iconic Ranger. I don’t care how late in levels the original ranger got spells, or what weapons and armor they used. Rangers should have Jack of all trades, pull spells from all lists, with a heavy lean toward utility, and be designed to make the whole team function better in exploration challenges. Their identity is very clear. They are the people who range over the border between civilization and the wild to keep monsters from encroaching, and to keep civilization from overrunning the wild. If you want a scout, play a rogue. If you want a Druidic warrior, change Eldritch knight to primal. I’d you want a survivalist, fighter and Barbarian are great for that.

Monk: is just a true mystical or esoteric master of arms. The warrior of a tradition that teaches more than fighting, but instead teaches a system of symbols and philosophical concepts that enhance the users understanding of the self, the sword, and how they work together in the world. Whether that is semi-Mythos Japanese Kensei or Spanish diestros in the traditions of hermetic scholars and swordmasters like Agrippa and Thibault.

Related: the monk shouldn’t be forced to be Unarmored, and should have access to martial weapons.

It’s bonkers, foolish, words that would break forum rules, to not allow Paladins to smite at range.

Cleric is an awful class and always has been, but the most recent UA version comes a bit closer to letting the class be a priest, rather than feeling like higher ranked Paladins.

Artificer should be in the PHB.

The best D&D settingns, in order, are Eberron, Dragonlance, and Forgotten Realms.

D&D remains the top rpg because it’s good.

 

[Reynard]

D&D is better when it doesn't try to place itself in any recognizable historical time or place, thematically: it benefits from mixing and matching elements from the ancient world through the near-modern period, from battleaxes to bifocals.

 

[Gradine]

Starship Troopers was an awful novel, and Verhoeven was able to make a good parody out of it.

 

[MGibster]

The metric system has two things going for it.

1. Near universal adoption (including here in the United States)
2. It's easy to convert from one unit to another.

The metric system isn't more accurate nor is a standard meter somehow more objective than a standard yard. And I stand by including the United States as one of the adopters of metric. Go into any hospital or, thanks in part to NATO, check out how many "klicks" a squad of US Army soldiers has to go to reach an objective.

 

[J.Quondam]

D&D is better when it doesn't try to place itself in any recognizable historical time or place, thematically: it benefits from mixing and matching elements from the ancient world through the near-modern period, from battleaxes to bifocals.

Yeah, D&D is really a genre unto itself. It is to RPGs as migas is to breakfast foods.

 

[payn]

 

[CreamCloud0]

Racial ASIs make about as much logical sense as racial languages and racial tool proficencies. Identical twins who are separated at birth and grow up in different circumstances (wealthy/poor, rural/city, coastal/desert, etc.) are going to have completely different physiques and mindsets. Such ASIs and features should be determined by your character's Background, not Ancestry.

species language and tool proficiencies yes, you're right i agree, you shouldn't know how to speak dwarvish and wield an axe through your species alone, i actually wish we had a fourth character creation stage of 'culture' to account for the 'dwarf raised amongst elves' BUT species ASI and traits do make sense.

the problem in your perspective/example is that those twins, removing wealth and upbringing location because those are irellevant to your species, they're both humans raised by humans in human society with only other humans to compare them against, any difference between their abilities is within the bounds of standard human variance, if i took one of those twins and had them raised in a family of gorrilas or orangutangs there would be a noticable margin in which the apes would be stronger and tougher and the human would most likely be smarter than them even accounting for the fact they didn't get any human education, because these are literal species we're talking about, even if they're all humanoids and fully sapient their bodies are built differently from the ground up over thousands of millions of decades, or how their god specifically made them if you're going that route.

a dwarf's +2 CON doesn't mean that they've been raised on a healthy hearty diet their whole life(that's the point of assigning your point buy/array/stat rolls), it means the inherent immune system of your bog-standard dwarf is on average across the board stronger than the immune system of any other given species (that doen't also have a + to CON), the sickliest possible dwarf is still '+2 points' more hardy than the sickliest possible elf.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The impulse to turn 3 classes into 1 class, making the others subclasses, would lead to an awful game if persued.

The worst impulse in gaming and in writing is to make things more neat and tidy and symmetrical. The Great Wheel is a wonderful example. Modrons add nothing to the game. The alignment planes add nothing. The weird mentality of “if there a plane of shadow there must also be a plane of light” is garbage nonsense that actively makes the game worse.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

In a white room, certainly the metric system is superior to the imperial system in pretty much* every way. And yet...

As a product on an American society for nearly four decades, I don't know that I would ever get used to using kilograms over pounds when describing weights, kilometers over miles when describing distances, etc... That has nothing to do with objective superiority/inferiority and everything to do with comfort and familiarity.

And, when discussing measures of temperature, you hit the nail on the head on the one pro* that the imperial system has, generally speaking: granularity.

**Someone else did point out how the whole conversion of teaspoon/tablespoon ratios is stupid and I can't say I disagree with that

People can get used to a lot of things, usually pretty quickly. It's certainly something that could be done within a generation, but likely much faster than that.