D&D (2024) Half Race Appreciation Society: Half Elf most popular race choice in BG3

[Micah Sweet]

The Raven Queen is the D&D fictional representation of the primordial wellspring from which Lydia Deetz, Morticia and Wednesday Addams, Evanescence, and Balenciaga fashion are borne. What's not to like?

I see the appeal, I just think the popularity got out of hand, and pushed out classic archetypes. It feels faddish to me.

 

[Scribe]

I see the appeal, I just think the popularity got out of hand, and pushed out classic archetypes. It feels faddish to me.

I was looking a few weeks ago at 4e lore, and it seemed like it was pretty much peak edge.

What do you feel was pushed out though?

 

[TwoSix]

I see the appeal, I just think the popularity got out of hand, and pushed out classic archetypes. It feels faddish to me.

I mean, new idea bubbles up into IP and pushes aside older, less popular ideas is just kinda how IPs refresh themselves and stay current.

It would be like saying Harley Quinn got too popular and pushed out Mr. Freeze. Or that Wolverine got too popular and pushed out Iceman.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was looking a few weeks ago at 4e lore, and it seemed like it was pretty much peak edge.

What do you feel was pushed out though?

Any other personification of Death, for starters. The entire Shadowfell (a dimension prominently featured in the two most recent editions of D&D, and thus on the D&D popularity train) was and is built on the "hot goth" trope, to the detriment of any other way of looking at the concept it supposedly represents. Back in 3e when it was just the Shadar-kai that was one thing. Now the philosophical concepts of shadow and death are entirely the shadar-kai from an optics standpoint.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, new idea bubbles up into IP and pushes aside older, less popular ideas is just kinda how IPs refresh themselves and stay current.

It would be like saying Harley Quinn got too popular and pushed out Mr. Freeze. Or that Wolverine got too popular and pushed out Iceman.

Yes, it is like saying that. I have long held the opinion that popularity squelches creativity and variation.

 

[Scribe]

Any other personification of Death, for starters. The entire Shadowfell (a dimension prominently featured in the two most recent editions of D&D, and thus on the D&D popularity train) was and is built on the "hot goth" trope, to the detriment of any other way of looking at the concept it supposedly represents. Back in 3e when it was just the Shadar-kai that was one thing. Now the philosophical concepts of shadow and death are entirely the shadar-kai from an optics standpoint.

5e has really dropped the ball in terms of any and all updates to the Planes/Gods.

Unless one is leveraging that older (4e and earlier) lore, 5e just hasnt delivered it. Maybe (I hope!) Planescape does some of it justice.

Even just looking at the DMG, its only by calling back to the Dawn War, that we even get assigned Gods?

Just one more thing Wizards failed to monetize it seems.

 

[Micah Sweet]

5e has really dropped the ball in terms of any and all updates to the Planes/Gods.

Unless one is leveraging that older (4e and earlier) lore, 5e just hasnt delivered it. Maybe (I hope!) Planescape does some of it justice.

Even just looking at the DMG, its only by calling back to the Dawn War, that we even get assigned Gods?

Just one more thing Wizards failed to monetize it seems.

It doesn't fit with their grand scheme I suppose. I have said that they will do anything that from their perspective makes more money for their shareholders, after all.

 

[Scribe]

It doesn't fit with their grand scheme I suppose. I have said that they will do anything that from their perspective makes more money for their shareholders, after all.

I think the issue goes back to the original view of how the game of 5e was being developed. Costs had to be managed, kept as low as possible, because the expectation quite literally was that this was it, and the game would just stagnate after.

Once it became clear that wasnt the case, its been a matter of 'dont break anything, what can we release without breaking this unintended lightning bottle'.

Those of us who love the concepts of Planes, and Gods, and the structure and relationships between them? A fraction of a fraction.

Its just not been worth the time/money.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think the issue goes back to the original view of how the game of 5e was being developed. Costs had to be managed, kept as low as possible, because the expectation quite literally was that this was it, and the game would just stagnate after.

Once it became clear that wasnt the case, its been a matter of 'dont break anything, what can we release without breaking this unintended lightning bottle'.

Those of us who love the concepts of Planes, and Gods, and the structure and relationships between them? A fraction of a fraction.

Its just not been worth the time/money.

And if those things never mattered to D&D I doubt I'd have a problem. But they have mattered. A lot. For decades.

 

[Scribe]

And if those things never mattered to D&D I doubt I'd have a problem. But they have mattered. A lot. For decades.

Right, I'm just saying that when given the information we have now, that this was a 'wrap it up and dont forget to turn off the lights' edition, it makes sense that this would have been stuffed in the DMG and forgotten, leveraging the most recent information they had.