D&D General Drow & Orcs Removed from the Monster Manual

[Remathilis]

View attachment 396395
Look at the Gnome. Then look at the (Half-)Orc. Then look again at the Gnome.
Explain how this can be "abstract"?!?

Are we assuming all those characters have the same ability scores, racial mods aside? That the halfling and gnome have an 8, the human, dwarf, elf and half-elf have a 10, and the half-orc a 12? That the difference between the gnome and half-orc is 4 points? Is that the scale we're using?

Because based on that picture, I would say no two of them have the same strength score before racial mods, so it's impossible to look at that pic and determine what the difference actually is. If that picture was the the basis for those mods, that half-orc should have a +8 ASI to strength!

 

[pemerton]

But you have zero evidence of this being true whereas I can point to fifteen different ways that it has increased people’s enjoyment of the hobby. That’s the difference here. You keep making this assertion based solely on you completely unfounded “belief”.

Right.

@Bedrockgames makes unwarranted empirical assertions about "limits to creativity" and "enjoyment of the game". Then moves to normative claims. Then, when I point out that he posts as if he is owed something, he denies the normativity and goes back to these unwarranted empirical assertions.

In my view, it's obvious why WotC is changing the way it approaches a whole host of game elements. As you say, this corresponds with a significant increase in sales, to a demographically and culturally more varied audience. Why would they want to bring back all the old pulp tropes?

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton I have no idea what your ethnic background or skin color is (I have a vague memory you might be Australian). But online we are all just nicknames. So my imagination has not made an assumption in this case.

In case you're wondering why I think that your default conception of a RPGer is of a white person:

I think exotic is a perfectly acceptable word to describe a culture the audience isn't as familiar with.

Here I was saying people in general would view their own history as not exotic. I mentioned the US because I thought you might make the point that to people in the US, King Arthur would be exotic. But again, when OA was written, I think it was largely with an American and UK audience in mind. Plenty of other people read it, but I don't think it is crazy that he was imagining most of his audience was in places like the US and Canada

I think they were assuming for most of their audience, a setting like China would be perceived as Exotic

 

[Bedrockgames]

@Bedrockgames makes unwarranted empirical assertions about "limits to creativity" and "enjoyment of the game". Then moves to normative claims. Then, when I point out that he posts as if he is owed something, he denies the normativity and goes back to these unwarranted empirical assertions.

I don't think you are going to get empirical data on this issue though. This is just a conversation. There isn't a study of how much fun people are having. What you are going to get is people giving their impression of the state of the hobby based on what they are seeing, based on their own experience, and based on their sense of what other people are saying. You can disagree with with me and take another position (I am not going to demand empirical evidence from you for your views and I can see how it is entirely possible I am wrong and you are right----I don't think it is the case, but it is always a possibility in these conversations). I do believe in ten or twenty years people will look back at this ten year period or so and see it as a time of huge overcorrection (but we will have to wait and see). And I do believe a lot of people are enjoying the game less, or at least no enjoying the game as it is written. I know for instance i was excited about Van Richten's Guide, but very disappointed with the actual content. If you are happy with the material, fair enough. I am telling others they can't like it.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In case you're wondering why I think that your default conception of a RPGer is of a white person:

That doesn't have to do with race. Those examples all have to do with assumed nationality of the audience, not whether they are white, asian, black etc. I am not making any assumptions about the default race of the D&D audience. But I do think the books have generally been written with American and English speaking audiences in mind. And it is an American company, so you would expect to see that reflected in what areas of the world it regards as exotic

 

[LazarusKane]

Are we assuming all those characters have the same ability scores, racial mods? That the halfling and gnome have an 8, the human, dwarf, elf and half-elf have a 10, and the half-orc a 12? That the difference between the gnome and half-orc is 4 points? Is that the scale we're using?

Because based on that picture, I would say no two of them have the same strength score before racial mods, so it's impossible to look at that pic and determine what the difference actually is. If that picture was the the basis for those mods, that half-orc should have a +8 ASI to strength!

Yes, sir - that's a average half-orc
And if it's not, it's simply one picture -the argument doesn't depend on this picture. (And it didn't depend on me chosing "goliath" instead of orc or minotaur in another post). Someone could post 100 pictures of orcs from D&D books and 100 pictures of gnomes - the "average orc" will be way beefier and of course bigger than the gnomes.

 

[Faolyn]

This argument killed the species modifiers

Which I consider to be a very good thing because...

Then why should the other 99% of women who has no giant in your bloodline or wasn't blessed by a fairy should have the same ability? What about the man who was blessed by a giant?

Or why could every gnome be as strong as a goliath?
(Sorry, I'm on your side - but I'm still hurting about the normalized species...)

...those 99% of women are NPCs and their stats are completely up to the GM, so they can be as "racially typical" as the GM wants them to be. This one human or gnome player character is exceptional, at the very least because they're choosing to be an adventurer instead of staying at home doing whatever it is humans and gnomes do. Every orc in your world can have muscles the size of a small country, and that fact won't change if a PC decides their one, single orc isn't strong enough to fight their way out of a paper bag, and that's why they became a wizard or bard or whatever.

It happens. There are real, live humans who are, by dint of genetics or random circumstances, are physically and mentally unlike other humans. I used to work for some (I was a supervisor in a sheltered day program for adults with developmental disabilities, and fun fact: since the brain controls the body, people with intellectual disabilities very often had physical disabilities as well, and even in those who didn't, they were often physically weaker and a lot shorter than people with "typical" intelligence levels. Unless the low intelligence was comorbid with things like severe autism or brain damage cause during or after birth. Remember this if you want to play a person with an exceptionally low Intelligence score).

But anyway, this one PC is "differently abled" than all those "typical" PCs of the same species. It's no biggie at all and is, in fact, completely realistic.

And GMs should be able to read flavor text and look at art and say to themselves, "Gosh, it looks like halflings are small and on the flabby side. Maybe typical NPC halflings NPCs should have a Strength of 8 or 9" without the book spelling it out for them.

Also, to answer your third question, men don't need to be blessed to be as strong as men are--don't forget, I was discussing why female PCs could be able to lift as much as male PCs can in a system that specifically penalizes women's Strength score. Now, you can have a man who was blessed with exceptional strength as a rationale for taking a particular feat that grants them exceptional strength, if there is one, or as a rationale for rolling really well on their stats. But men didn't have caps to their Strength in 1e, while women did.

No.
D&D isn't realistic - and never was - and giving different genders different modifiers (again?) is not worth it - alone: How do we define "gender"? I think there are things we have to accept for playability - or change only for your group if it bothers you.

Exactly my point.

Although I will hasten to wager that those people who are particular about one sex having a bonus or penalty probably don't care all that much about the difference between gender and biological sex, or even believe that there is a difference.

 

[Maxperson]

I can't really tell if this is serious or not, but anyway . . .

Most robbery - muggings, house-breaking, etc - is not a political attack upon the being of the victim. This is also true of much interpersonal violence.

Neither are phylacteries and orcs. Those things are not attacks at all. Political or otherwise.

There is one category of interpersonal violence that has been widely explained and understood, over the past 60 or so years, as being a type of political attack upon the being of the victim: rape of women by men. I don't think it's coincidence that contemporary mainstream FRPG publications feature much less of this - and certainly much less of it used to titillate - than FRPG publications of the 1970s did.

Where does politics play into that? That's not political, either. Violent, yes. Political? I suppose in some cases it might be.

 

[pemerton]

Where does politics play into that? That's not political, either. Violent, yes. Political? I suppose in some cases it might be.

The book I'm thinking of is 50 years old this year. But it didn't emerge out of a vacuum.

Against Our Will - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Maxperson]

Love it! If we cap Str for women, we also have to cap Wis, Con, and Dex for men.

The stereotypical differences between men and women are just that, largely stereotypical. The differences that do exist are mostly cultural, rather than biological.

On average, men do tend to be stronger than women, but not by much. Representing this with a Strength cap in D&D is really stupid. As we have PLENTY of examples in the real world of men who aren't that strong and women who are. Anyone who regularly watches women's athletics and feels putting an arbitrary cap on their abilities in an abstract game . . .

I'll start by saying I don't believe in gender caps in RPGs at all, but that statement is off

The world record deadlift for men is 1,104.5 pounds. The world record deadlift for women is 716 pounds. That significantly more for men at the cap.