D&D General The Monsters Know What They're Doing ... Are Unsure on 5e24

[GobHag]

SpaceX is going to start billing you for goalpost launches soon. It doesn't matter how many goalpost moving possible options that an arctic campaign would allow. The same poster who introduced it did so alongside the idea of playing a hypothetical character that they themselves put forward as being in conflict with the campaign idea then doubled down when it was suggested they tell that hypothetical gm that the campaign was not for them. You only need to accept that the poster was not trying to be deliberately misleading

It doesn’t matter. I have been told consistently from the folks arguing in this thread that any restriction on the player is bad.

If I do not allow Goliaths and Orcs but I do allow Lizardmen, Minotaurs, Satyrs, and Faeries, then I am still wrong for restricting any options.

It’s exhausting.

I am not interested in being forced to run generic D&D kitchen sink BS.

I'm actually someone that'd more than willing to reshape my character concept for the campaign, but I find that the contemporary play culture where it's in the player's court to decide if they want it to fit or not is just the way I like it. I'm not even against banning classes or races, just not if the reasoning is 'Wehweh I don't wanna see a green dude as a hero in my brain theater wehweh'. The class/race has a broken combo? It's unbalanced? It's features are too stressful for the GM to manage? It could cause Table Troubles because of it's mechanical premise(Friendly Fire as a baseline, trade-off debuff/buff that can be forced, etc, etc)? Sure, understandable. I'd be willing to talk and debate to self-nerf or choose another or something.

Just that I'll never consider 'setting coherence' as that big of a deal to ban something, like restricting the PCs to never have pompadours or being born with green hair. Ridiculous.

But yes, I'm taking a hardline stance against the return of previous era GM supremacy in the culture.

 

[SableWyvern]

And really let's be honest.

In 2024 race/species is a minor aspect of your characters. From the player side and the DM side race and species barely does anything. You don't even get ability to score increases anymore. Everybody gets a level 1 feet.

It's really all humans with rubber hats now.

Culture is not tied to races or species anymore.

So really species and race limitations is really minor and extreme disagreement over that in 2024 is borderline ridiculous outside of the few races and species who have truly unique traits.

It's class restriction.

Class and class features have an extreme impact when a players gameplay and the DMs gameplay.

Simple classes versus complex classes.
Easy classes versus hard classes.
Warrior classes versus skill classes versus spellcasting classes.
Arcane classes versus Divine classes versus Primal classes versus Psionic classes versus something else kind of magic classes.

Everybody's tiptoeing over what really matters.

Because for all of the saminess complaints people had about 4E 5e especially in 2024 has most of the classes that are in the same grouping contained many of the same abilities and features.

All the warriors use the same weapons.
All the spell classes use most of the same spells.
And what individual aspects any class really has compared to another class can be easily tweaked via a wording change or a magic item that you give somebody free.

So really all of this discussion is whether or not if somebody wants to play a specific spellcaster and it's banned, is there another spellcaster of that type available after the banning?

There's literally another thread comparing the wizard and sorcerer and showing that there's barely any difference.

So what it comes down to is if somebody bans the wizard....The question is:

"Should they offered a sorcerer?"

This is a thread in D&D General that is discussing concepts that can be applied broadly across the TTRPG sphere.

What does and does not happen in D&D 5e24 carries no special weight here.

 

[Minigiant]

You keep claiming there is some line everyone should honour, and I disagree. I do assume the line you're advocating for is somewhere you're quite comfortable with it being, though

I'm not saying that there's a line that everyone should honor.
I'm saying it is a line where you are comfort level designates you as extreme.

There's nothing wrong with being an extremist.

But if you only want to play a Dragonborn artificer or if you only want to run a fighter only campaign you're comfortable level is extreme and you will likely be judged.

This isn't Planet Fitness.

 

[Minigiant]

This is a thread in D&D General that is discussing concepts that can be applied broadly across the TTRPG sphere.

What does and does not happen in D&D 5e24 carries no special weight here.

This is a D&D general thread about a blogger lamenting the changes in 5e 2024.

So of all editions 5e 2024 does have special weight here

 

[SableWyvern]

This is a D&D general thread about a blogger lamenting the changes in 5e 2024.

So of all editions 5e 2024 does have special weight here

Yes, actually, I was just coming back to offer a retraction. I'd completely forgotten what the original post was about, since the discussion has drifted so far.

The only reason I joined the conversation was because the scope seems to have shifted far beyond the OP, but that doesn't mean referring back to it is invalid.

 

[Minigiant]

Yes, actually, I was just coming back to offer a retraction. I'd completely forgotten what the original post was about, since the discussion has drifted so far.

The only reason I joined the conversation was because the scope seems to have shifted far beyond the OP, but that doesn't mean referring back to it is invalid.

The scope why didn't but it was still there.

The blogger lamented how the game shifted into high fantasy.

But as I and many other posters have said D&D has always been high magical fantasy. It typically eased its way there. However when it was going through the process of going from mundane to high fantasy it typically ran into major mechanical and gameplay issues.

He complained that Beast Master rangers form bonds with immortal spirits instead of wild animals. But wild animals stunk act combat and adventuring and we knew this for decades.

So as time went on the ranger class became more and more High fantastical.

So if a DM comes to 5th edition and bands everything that is "high fantasy", it would be easy for a player to come to the table with a half dozen ideas of characters that they will be willing to play and not find any at that table at allowed.

Because that's what it's really about

D&D was always Heroic Fantasy on the player side. The players are constantly interacting with high fantasy. You could always make the background stuff low fantasy but once you level up a couple of times that background stuff it stops mattering because the players are high fantasy and the monsters that challenge them are high fantasy.

Because it's one thing to say I'm bending one or two specific races.

But that's not the question that's really being asked nor the discussion that's deep into the mental web of what we're speaking about.

The question is really if I wanted to play a low Fantasy game the rules for D&D I have always been very magical and typically we use the ability to regain that magic limitation of using that magic. With that image was always there.

So how much is a DM allowed to ban before they get to a point where they should not be using D&D as the RPG of their choice in order to get that low fantasy setting?

Goodberry wrecks your exploration survival game today and it did so 10 years ago and it probably did so 20 years ago in certain circumstances.

 

[Belen]

I'm actually someone that'd more than willing to reshape my character concept for the campaign, but I find that the contemporary play culture where it's in the player's court to decide if they want it to fit or not is just the way I like it. I'm not even against banning classes or races, just not if the reasoning is 'Wehweh I don't wanna see a green dude as a hero in my brain theater wehweh'. The class/race has a broken combo? It's unbalanced? It's features are too stressful for the GM to manage? It could cause Table Troubles because of it's mechanical premise(Friendly Fire as a baseline, trade-off debuff/buff that can be forced, etc, etc)? Sure, understandable. I'd be willing to talk and debate to self-nerf or choose another or something.

Just that I'll never consider 'setting coherence' as that big of a deal to ban something, like restricting the PCs to never have pompadours or being born with green hair. Ridiculous.

But yes, I'm taking a hardline stance against the return of previous era GM supremacy in the culture.

I do not believe anyone has said anything about banning classes. It has focused on race/species mainly and that is my main restrictions on a campaign setting because I just cannot see a world with 100 different intelligence species all vying for resources.

I never restrict classes although my games usually have a western feel and that tends to make default monk flavor problematic.

I always make sure that each species has a space, culture, and ecosystem so unless the player wants to write all the material to add their choice, then they should either be fine with the 20 options open or find a game that makes them happy.

I have burned out too many times trying to accommodate the wishes of everyone and losing the thread that made it fun for me to run.

 

[mamba]

They absolutely do not.

Aside from the recent heartbreakers you have: Tunnels & Trolls, DCC, Castles and Crusades, Pathfinder, Dungeon World, Sword World and plenty of others

I know, that was my point

So that genre is pretty wide and many other games also operate in it.

 

[SableWyvern]

So how much is a DM allowed to ban before they get to a point where they should not be using D&D as the RPG of their choice in order to get that low fantasy setting?

Allowed? By who? You're implying some hard, objective line yet again.

A GM can change as much as they want. They can keep using D&D as the RPG of their choice for as long as they want. There is no limit. Individual players can decide for themselves if they want to play this GM's game.

 

[Minigiant]

Allowed? By who? You're implying some hard, objective line yet again.

Allowed? There's no permission here. A DM can do whatever they want.

But if you ban everything but fighters and rogues because everything else is too high magical fantasy, should you still adding a major rules variant or even be running D&D due to D&D having an extremely narrow mechanical concept of those classes?

The blogger laments that the warlock isn't even more magical by having a mechanical pact feature associated with their patron at level 1

BUT

upset that the ranger has a spirit animal spirit fighting a dragon and not a real medium sized dog.

Perhaps what he wants cannot be created well within the designs of D&D. My opinion is it never could. It never "really worked".