D&D (2024) No Dwarf, Halfling, and Orc suborgins, lineages, and legacies

[Yaarel]

Money.

If there are not enough paying customers for it, they lose money.

THAT is why they use Kickstarter. To get the money upfront.

Of course money. But in the list of sales, where D&D 5e takes the lions share of the percentage. Those 1% and less are still making money to sustain livelihood.

A niche within D&D − if one can appeal to them as a group − is a profitable audience.

 

[Minigiant]

Of course money. But in the list of sales, where D&D 5e takes the lions share of the percentage. Those 1% and less are still making money to sustain livelihood.

A niche within D&D − if one can appeal to them as a group − is a profitable audience.

Still costs money.

Especially with a community who wants real artists, real writers, human editors, and decent playtesting.

 

[Hussar]

Of course money. But in the list of sales, where D&D 5e takes the lions share of the percentage. Those 1% and less are still making money to sustain livelihood.

A niche within D&D − if one can appeal to them as a group − is a profitable audience.

But that 1% has far, far less wiggle room. Their products have to appeal to as broad an audience as possible because they are chasing a market that is so much smaller.

So the 3pp settings are not going to cut away a group of potential customers by banning classes.

 

[Yaarel]

But that 1% has far, far less wiggle room. Their products have to appeal to as broad an audience as possible because they are chasing a market that is so much smaller.

So the 3pp settings are not going to cut away a group of potential customers by banning classes.

Yes, what you are saying is true.

But.

Any setting can say. These are species and class options that are canon for this setting. "Optionally", you can also add other species and classes from the Players Handbook or elsewhere.

The setting default is a decisive influence. It sets the theme, tropes, and tone. Nevertheless, for a setting to ignore the species and classes elsewhere is nonidentical to a "ban".

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think DS wasn't attempted due to a mixture of its un-PC lore and its unfriendly mechanics. The amount of work needed to even get 4e DS up to 2024 standards probably isn't worth it.

I wouldn't say, "up" to 2024 standards necessarily, but yeah, more effort than WotC wants to put in.

 

[LuisCarlos17f]

DS is not only the crunch and the lore but here the artistic section is very important, and this means a field where they aren't too used.

What if a player wanted to be a shadowcaster (3.5 Tome of Magic) telling the shadow magic is primal instead arcana? Could lurk, divine mind or ardent, psionic classes from Complete Psionic possible in DS? Could alchemy to create products with arcana-magic effects, but without defiling?

"The clothes have been wet and shrunk"

I say it again: my suggestion is selling the "classic" Athasian Tablelands (Pentand Prism, Tribe of one) within a bigger pack. Maybe there are a demiplane working as a punishment place but not created by the Dark Powers but other faction. The goal is like a cosmic penicentary colony, where the prisons are too busy fighting for the survival or against each other for the power they can't the reincarnations of fallen deities or other powers. Also because the land is so devastated than if some place has to be used as battleflied then the Athasian tablelands is the easiest option to be sacrificed as "firewalls" againt the unholy invaders.

Maybe there is an alternate Athas where the green age ended in a different way. The cleasing war had started but this stopped because the arrival of a worse menace, the taint by Tharizdum, the elder elemental eye. Raajat was a monster, but at least he wouldn't allow Athas be destroyed. Here several groups could survive the genocide, but most of them used the spelljammers to evacuate to other planets within Athaspace, o even toward the closest wildspaces (the island of Jackandor is in one these).

 

[Mind of tempest]

My point is that when players will barely pay attention to the elevator pitch of a campaign, trying to give them more information isn’t going to make any difference.

Playing a Candlekeep Mysteries campaign where it’s a deep dive into Forgotten Realms lore and investigation? Let’s make Feywild native characters who have zero knowledge of the Sword Coast. That way we don’t have to have any actual connection to anything in the campaign.

Again it’s the endless stream of Man with no Name characters. Because why bother reading a setting document? That’s a whole four or five pages long. Ain’t got time for that.

Heh. But I’m not bitter at all.

I would hasten to add that this is hardly an edition thing. This has been my experience with DnD since day 1. Years of this across far too many players.

yeah that sounds like a player problem have you tried asking them

Heh. If this actually happened, I think I'd fall out of my chair.

I do honestly wonder if it's an artifact of online play to be honest. Where I don't play face to face, and haven't in a bajillion years, I think that perhaps people approach the game differently. In a face to face game, at least, as my fuzzy memory of those days remember it, it was easier to ... display? the campaign to the players. You could lay out the map, the setting stuff, maybe some goodies that you made that they could see and you could see them seeing. Made the communication easier.

When everything is done through forum posts and email, I find that players simply ignore it much more. I have gotten better though. My campaign guide writeups are MUCH more draconian than they used to be. I just flat out list stuff that I will not compromise on, list a bunch of "if you sell me the idea" things and then a (hopefully) long list of stuff that's groovy without talking to me first.

Then again, the past three campaigns I insisted that we make characters as a group and not once have the players actually come to the table without characters already made.

yeah you might need to put your foot down on the last bit.

 

[Hussar]

yeah that sounds like a player problem have you tried asking them

yeah you might need to put your foot down on the last bit.

This has been my experience for several editions, across multiple groups, both as a player and a DM. IME, most players could not give a rat's petoot about the setting so long as they get to play whatever concept they've come up with. Like I said, even getting groups to create characters as a group is nearly impossible.

Again, this isn't recent. Just to be very clear here. This has been going on for decades. As in, this is the norm in any group I've ever played in or DM'd for. It's far less common to see players actually build a character with the campaign in mind as opposed to having a character concept already in hand before they even begin to think about the campaign.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

This has been my experience for several editions, across multiple groups, both as a player and a DM. IME, most players could not give a rat's petoot about the setting so long as they get to play whatever concept they've come up with. Like I said, even getting groups to create characters as a group is nearly impossible.

Again, this isn't recent. Just to be very clear here. This has been going on for decades. As in, this is the norm in any group I've ever played in or DM'd for. It's far less common to see players actually build a character with the campaign in mind as opposed to having a character concept already in hand before they even begin to think about the campaign.

My decade long experience is opposite. Plyers listen the campaign pitch and make setting appropriate characters.

 

[TwoSix]

My decade long experience is opposite. Plyers listen the campaign pitch and make setting appropriate characters.

The same for me. I have a lot of floating character ideas, but I would never start fleshing one out before I knew the parameters of the campaign. That's just straight-up rude.

It definitely makes me wonder if the online focus plays a role. I only play online with people I know IRL, and most of my game time is at a physical table. I wonder if primarily online games breed a certain amount of selfish toxicity into the community, like it seems to do with most other online game communities.