D&D General 5e System Redesign through New Classes and Setting. A Thought Experiment.

[Micah Sweet]

And every other company is smaller, which means less employees. Presumably unintentionally you're saying it's okay if WotC would fire a bunch of game designers if that would shrink the company so they can get by making smaller games with smaller audiences. Though I am not sure why it would need to be specificially WotC making a small game called D&D. What would that grant you that a differently-named company and game couldn't?

Well, I don't think the hobby needs an 800lb gorilla influencing the design and business choices of every other company. I'd much rather have several small companies in place of one WotC.

 

[Steampunkette]

Well, I don't think the hobby needs an 800lb gorilla influencing the design and business choices of every other company. I'd much rather have several small companies in place of one WotC.

I'd rather WotC be a privately owned business rather than one arm of a massively publicly traded company.

It'd still be the 800lbs gorilla in the room, but it'd be a hell of a lot friendlier and innovative.

 

[Steampunkette]

So. Species for a setting.

My thoughts on a list are:

1) Humans. Gotta have 'em.

2) Elves. With massive species variety. We're talking "Two elves walk into a bar and now there's a bar elf species"
2a) Eyre Elves. High elves. They live in the mountain ranges and have marvelous fairy tale castles.
2b) Wod Elves. Wood elves. They live in the forests and are hunter-gatherers who live in harmony with the land.
2c) City Elves. At some point, humanity became part of some Elven Lines and now there's a humanelf species.
2d) Dozens of one-off and tiny microcosm offshoots that aren't listed out because they're plentiful and largely irrelevant.

3) Dwarves. Formerly conquered by the Eyre Elves, there've been wars over old Dwarf Holds in Elflands and vice-versa.
3a) Hill Dwarves. Fled from the Elflands to settle in other areas.
3b) Mountain Dwarves. Still trying to reclaim or protect their Dwarfholds from Elves and Underground Monsters.

4) Harpies. A plague upon Eyrelands, they primarily exist in hunting and terrace farming societies. Clumsy Flyers (no hover).

5) Goblins. Minions of Malevar the Eternal, they're largely assumed to be evil because of that connection.

6) Orcs. Minions of Malevar the Eternal, they're largely assumed to be evil because of that connection.

7) Fiends. With the coming of the Starfall, Hell itself wants alien technology. Fiends are full on Outsiders.
7a) Contractors. Fair, fancy, delicate, dealmakers and brokers. There are -so- many Warlocks because of them.
7b) Soldiers. Strong, violent, destructive. They're here to help fight the aliens and steal their tech.

8) Faeries. Straight up tiny folk. Treated as Small for combat purposes, tiny for movement purposes.

9) Giantkin. Bigfolk. That's it. That's the entire thought. This is where your "Powerful Build" characters are.
9a) Cyclopses. One eye, strong heart.
9b) Minotaurs. Grab 'em by the nosering. The horns won't hurt them.
9c) Firbolg. Forest Guardians.

10) Beastfolk. Furries galore! Why spend my time making 12 different variations on Catgirl when I can bundle them all in one?
10a) Sharpclaw. Gets better claw-related stuff and a climb speed.
10b) Longfang. Gets better bite-related stuff and pouncing.
10c) Deepbreath. Swim speed, water breathing, better grapple.
10d) Swiftstride. Run speed, can choose to trade in fangs for a headbutt, acrobatics benefits.

The Blighted Lands were recovered a couple decades ago, so the Goblins and Orcs that are player characters are mostly going to be either descendants of Malevar's servants or people who were liberated from Malevar's control. The "Dozens of Elves" thing is just going to be a straight up sidebar of "Talk to your DM about trading an ability from one of the other elf species and pick something that fits the elf you wanna do" and go from there.

Goblins replace gnomes, faeries replace halflings, giantkin replace goliaths, fiends in for tieflings, harpies for dragonborn, beastfolk for most of the animal-human hybrids like Aarakocra, Leonin, Tabaxi, Tortle, Kenku, Etc etc etc. You wanna play one of those heritages? Fine, but within the setting you're Beastfolk for all intents and purposes.

Thoughts?

 

[Pedantic]

I think you're better off writing like 4 charismatic mammal species, and then doing the big book of slightly more specific animal people later, but that's definitely a matter of taste. The person who wants to be an anthro wolverine isn't going to like being identical to an anthro wolf and will pay for the privilege not to be.

 

[Steampunkette]

I think you're better off writing like 4 charismatic mammal species, and then doing the big book of slightly more specific animal people later, but that's definitely a matter of taste. The person who wants to be an anthro wolverine isn't going to like being identical to an anthro wolf and will pay for the privilege not to be.

But I don't wanna do -any- animal people at all.

I'm just acknowledging that furry/scaley is where a lot of folks are headed. So I'm making a space for them and their harengons and tortles and stuff without reprinting 2 dozen different animal heritages as 'core' to the setting.

 

[Corinnguard]

harpies for dragonborn,

Why not dragonborn for dragonborn? Harpies are Birdfolk (See the A5e heritage).

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'd rather WotC be a privately owned business rather than one arm of a massively publicly traded company.

It'd still be the 800lbs gorilla in the room, but it'd be a hell of a lot friendlier and innovative.

This would also be acceptable.

 

[lepharaon33]

I think your point about 4E hit the mark, but I also think it is telling in a way you might not have considered.

This entire idea rests on the premise that players would prefer a game where "I win" was not available. I think that basic premise is false.

As you noted 4E was extremely balanced and it was also for most players, not fun to play. Whether you think 5E needs more balance or not, it certainly is fun to play.

I don't think the "nova problem" is an actual problem at most tables, by saying that I don't mean that most tables don't experience this, rather I think most tables don't have an issue with it and I actually think on the other side of the coin there are tables that actually like this being there.

For those tables that do find it to be a problem, it is fixable with adventure design (which necessarily eliminates certain kinds of stories/play).

So the set of players you are left who need this are players who both find the ability to nova to be a problem and still insist on playing games with stories that are one/few fights a day with easy rests available. I think that is a very small set of players.

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I think you’re right that most players don’t actually want strict balance if it comes at the cost of excitement or flexibility. 4E proved that you can have perfect mechanical balance and still lose a lot of what makes the game feel dynamic.


The “nova” issue really depends on what a group enjoys. Some players love pushing their characters to the limit in one huge encounter, others like the resource-management tension of multiple fights. As you said, that’s more about adventure pacing than a design flaw.


I agree that only a small slice of tables both dislike nova bursts and prefer fewer encounters per day. Most seem happy to let that ebb and flow naturally.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yeah, that’s a fair point. I think you’re right that most players don’t actually want strict balance if it comes at the cost of excitement or flexibility. 4E proved that you can have perfect mechanical balance and still lose a lot of what makes the game feel dynamic.


The “nova” issue really depends on what a group enjoys. Some players love pushing their characters to the limit in one huge encounter, others like the resource-management tension of multiple fights. As you said, that’s more about adventure pacing than a design flaw.


I agree that only a small slice of tables both dislike nova bursts and prefer fewer encounters per day. Most seem happy to let that ebb and flow naturally.

I don't think that's accurate with 5e because warlock /monk players approaching the game from a video game mentality can push hard for a rest every fight or two and most players don't want to walk into fire being the one to push back while one or two players keep pushing hard for repeated lunch breaks while insisting their class is designed to require those rests to keep up (even when nobody else is operating at nova levels of output). There are other classes like moon druid fighter and maybe barbarian that benefit a little while recharging something nova related like action surge & superiority dice or recharging a thing that probably expired during the rest anyways (wild shape rage etc), but by & large a minority of players in the group with short rest classes can pretty much force the group to either go along with their nova or share a table with unhappy frustrated players channeling the energy of someone who feels like their own group is being unreasonable towards them.

 

[Zardnaar]

Wonder if BG3 has had an impact.

There's a swords bard/paladin build thats generally regarded as the most powerful in the fane. They're basically doing 5MWD to use lots of 5th and 6th level smites.

Hardcore players do the game on 1 long rest but its kinda cheap.

We do it in 2 or 3 long rests per act plus fake ones to get cuts scenes. If we pushed it hard enough I think we could do act 1 in 2 long rests, act 2 in 2 and act 3 in 2 without having to exploit the game (eg respec to refresh your spells 1 long rest my ass). Would have to rotate the NPCs and build a short rest party+bards.