D&D General D&D Evolutions You Like and Dislike [+]

[Lanefan]

You cannot have both of these things.

The GM cannot simultaneously be someone with control that, and also a human merely implementing something they had no control over and thus you can't get mad.

It's either-or. Either you have control, or you don't. If you don't, why is your game so far out of your control that you can't even decide whether something gets included or not? Have you lost control of your game? And if you do have control, then why aren't you responsible for taking things away from your players?

You will never get an analogy between something like "we cannot make a game bigger than one megabyte, so figure out how to make that happen" and "I, the GM, freely elected to remove dungeonrisen from this game". Because the latter is not, in any way, forced.....except by the GM. So it is perfectly reasonable to say, "Uhh, GM, why did you ban this unobjectionable thing???"

There's a million possible reasons, all of them valid, eventually ending with "because I felt like it".

I should note that IME decisions like these are made well in advance of any players being invited in, such that on being invited in you can ask "Can I play a dungeonrisen?", I can say, "Sorry, no you can't" and you can add that to whatever other factors you're considering when deciding whether to accept or decline the invitation.

I mean, sounds to me like a lack of imagination on your GM's part. I'm more than willing--eager!--to put in the time to make something like that work for my players. If I have to draft an entire new class just for their use, I'll bloody well do it.

By the time I'm inviting players in, I've already done all the design work: you're being invited in to a fait-accompli rules-set and setting, and you're free to decline said invite if you wish.

Having to incorporate something big and new - e.g. a new class or playable species - at the last minute would delay the campaign's start for weeks while I rewrote my game's rules and lore in order to accommodate it, which ain't exactly fair to the other players who are ready for puck drop right now. (in long-range anticipation of a campaign reboot at some point, last year I rewrote my system to add in a new class; perhaps worth noting this is a class that was suggested by a player. That process took over two months - some of which was, admittedly, me arguing with website coding which I'm not very good at - meaning I'd never want to have to do it on a last-minute basis.)

 

[Lanefan]

So you play a game which chose to include a literal crashed flying saucer?

Sure. That sort of occasional sci-fi crossover is very much part of the game's tradition.

But the only "tradition" of D&D that I've ever seen is that we create what sounds exciting to play. OD&D/1e AD&D had that spirit, creating whole new classes (and thus races, because race-as-class!) left and right, adding bloody flying saucers and rayguns, turning totally random ridiculous plastic toys into new monsters to fight. OD&D knew what it meant to be open to the breadth of fiction and to do what makes sense, not what was set in stone by someone 50+ years ago.

There comes a point, though, where it ceases being truly innovative and starts just being 90% change for the sake of change greed.

Take the iphone. A true innovation when it first came out, but has there really needed to be 17 different iterations of it since? Of course not, but Apple wil be Apple.....

I wish modern D&D had more of that culture, and less of the "ban this, ban that, ban ban ban ban ban" mentality. That was the foreign invasion which polluted the culture of D&D.

You wouldn't see nearly as much "ban this ban that" had there not been such an explosion in the number of species-spells-feats-classes over the years.

As an example: when there's only seven PC-playable species (as was the case in 1979 1e) banning one of them is a pretty big deal and thus not done lightly. But when there's about 50 PC-playables* as is the case today, banning one or two or even five of them almost falls into the "who cares?" category.

* - or whatever the number is these days, it's a long time since I counted 'em.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You wouldn't see nearly as much "ban this ban that" had there not been such an explosion in the number of species-spells-feats-classes over the years.

You are straight-up saying out loud what I already described:

D&D has never been particularly enamored with tradition. It's only the players, deciding that some particular year was the year that Tradition Started, and then making everything be like that.

Is that not what your argument quoted here boils down to? "If they'd only kept it at what it was when Tradition Started in 1979, then nothing would be going wrong now."

As an example: when there's only seven PC-playable species (as was the case in 1979 1e) banning one of them is a pretty big deal and thus not done lightly. But when there's about 50 PC-playables* as is the case today, banning one or two or even five of them almost falls into the "who cares?" category.

Absolutely not, unless you think something being playable makes it interchangeable.

Or do you think grognards would tolerate elves getting banned?

Remember the gnomepocalypse and how people ranted and raved and swore and gnashed their teeth and wore sackcloth over not even a ban on gnomes, just not having rules for player gnomes for six months. That's it; that was all.

No. It's not interchangeable, as I know you already know. It's "Those things weren't around when Tradition Started, so they have no value." And that thought? That is antagonistic to the spirit of D&D.

 

[CreamCloud0]

I almost never see people talk, for even a paragraph, about what is actually added by their restrictions.

what is there to explain? curation is done to try achieve certain flavour, tone and feel, to try create something more than the sum of it's parts, and what's not included can speak just as much if not more than what is included, if i'm trying to make my game feel like an old middle earth world it doesn't help to have tieflings, tortles and goliaths, paladins, artificers or really most if not all the fullcasters. (i'm aware 5e isn't actually at all good for making tolkien vibe but not the point)

I have seen example after example after example of GMs crowing with glee because they locked out something solely on the basis of "it's not my taste, therefore no one can have it"--and such people VERY frequently then take to the bully pulpit to advocate that nobody be allowed to play such things, in any game. I saw it dozens of times during the D&D Next playtest. Didn't you?

this is not curation, or at least nothing done in good faith, this is just GMs using it as a shield to force their own opinions on stuff they think should or shouldn't be included, curation is done with the intent to build, consider for a moment that black and white noir stylistic recreation films are curation, you don't watch one of those and go 'sure it's fine but why didn't they use all the other colours' it was a choice made to achieve a specific mood. that's what it can add.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

what is there to explain?

Everything. Like, literally, everything.

Wishing it way with the word "curation" does not actually answer anything. Anything can be "curated", and "curation" can be absolute dogpoop or it can be sublimity itself.

curation is done to try achieve certain flavour, tone and feel, to try create something more than the sum of it's parts, and what's not included can speak just as much if not more than what is included, if i'm trying to make my game feel like an old middle earth world it doesn't help to have tieflings, tortles and goliaths, paladins, artificers or really most if not all the fullcasters. (i'm aware 5e isn't actually at all good for making tolkien vibe but not the point)

This is literally just defining curation. I'm aware of the definition. My point was that no one actually shows the curation. They just wave the Magic Curation Wand and

this is not curation,

It's what several people in this very thread have defended as such, previously (not here, there hasn't been enough time for them to reiterate the point yet.)

or at least nothing done in good faith,

Every single time, people defend it as such and tell me I'm a raving lunatic for questioning it--that I must be engaging in bad faith for questioning it.

this is just GMs using it as a shield to force their own opinions on stuff they think should or shouldn't be included, curation is done with the intent to build, consider for a moment that black and white noir stylistic recreation films are curation, you don't watch one of those and go 'sure it's fine but why didn't they use all the other colours' it was a choice made to achieve a specific mood. that's what it can add.

Of ENORMOUS importance, and exactly what I asked: Build...WHAT?

Just saying "I'm building!" isn't an answer to the question. It's just pretending that the act (or, far too often IME, the pretense of the act) is enough, without any actual explanation or justification.

You then actually did do a very barebones example, but it got literally only four words: "to achieve a specific mood." Okay, WHAT mood? To be clear, I'm not an idiot, I know what the mood is that is being aimed at by noir filmmaking style. My point is that people just wave around the "I'm curating!" "I'm building!" "I'm theming!" without ever saying anything about WHAT they're doing with that.

It would be like if someone, say, demolished a large section of a public building without notice, and whenever anyone asked, "Why did you demolish that? What are you doing?" they simply answered "WE'RE BUILDING!" and then got angry when people questioned the legitimacy of their demolition.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Of ENORMOUS importance, and exactly what I asked: Build...WHAT?

a world, with a distinct theme, and tone, and vibe.

You then actually did do a very barebones example, but it got literally only four words: "to achieve a specific mood." Okay, WHAT mood?

any mood the GM is aiming for, asking what 'curation' is aiming for is like asking what 'storywriting' or 'decorating' is aiming for, there's as many answers as there are creators.

It would be like if someone, say, demolished a large section of a public building without notice, and whenever anyone asked, "Why did you demolish that? What are you doing?" they simply answered "WE'RE BUILDING!" and then got angry when people questioned the legitimacy of their demolition.

you see curation as a building being demolished, we see it as a block of raw material being carved away to create a statue.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

a world, with a distinct theme, and tone, and vibe.

Okay. What theme? What tone? What vibe?

I understand that each individual example is going to be different. That's exactly why it's a non-answer for someone articulating their laundry list of bans to not talk about this.

any mood the GM is aiming for, asking what 'curation' is aiming for is like asking what 'storywriting' or 'decorating' is aiming for, there's as many answers as there are creators.

Yes. I'm asking for the people who advocate these things to prove that they're actually worth imposing. That doesn't seem like a weird request. It seems like...precisely the thing one should ask when someone tells you, "So, you know that cool game? I'm removing half of the stuff in it."

you see curation as a building being demolished, we see it as a block of raw material being carved away to create a statue.

But it is something being demolished. The game already exists. The PHB already contains the thing it contains. You are, by definition, removing things. That's why it's a limitation or restriction. Even you are using that word. The addition of restrictions is not art by itself. Otherwise, legislators would surely be the most celebrated artists of all time, given how many restrictions and limitations they create!

It is only restrictions for a constructive purpose that can foster art. I'm asking people to actually SHOW that their restrictions are that, rather than just telling me like it or lump it. Because, being perfectly honest, that's a rude AF way of talking to people.

 

[mamba]

I'm asking for the people who advocate these things to prove that they're actually worth imposing.

I don’t know, as long as your argument for including tortles doesn’t go beyond ‘I’d like to play one’ or ‘Silvery Barbs is really powerful and I want it’, I don’t see why the DM has to do a lot of heavy lifting to justify their exclusion

 

[CreamCloud0]

But it is something being demolished. The game already exists. The PHB already contains the thing it contains. You are, by definition, removing things. That's why it's a limitation or restriction. Even you are using that word. The addition of restrictions is not art by itself. Otherwise, legislators would surely be the most celebrated artists of all time, given how many restrictions and limitations they create!

It is only restrictions for a constructive purpose that can foster art. I'm asking people to actually SHOW that their restrictions are that, rather than just telling me like it or lump it. Because, being perfectly honest, that's a rude AF way of talking to people.

the game does exist, that's true, but ask yourself, with everything in it, is it coherent? is it consistent? are there themes? or is it simply a big pile of mashed together concepts and aesthetics that Wizards thought would entice people to buy another sourcebook? taken as a whole of what it provides the thematic identity of DnD's content is a hell of a mess. when you've got a warforged totem barbarian standing next to a slimic hybrid drunken fist monk, a gnome chronurgy wizard and a tortle artilerist artificer.

and so that's the constructive purpose of curation, taking, or excluding, with intention, pieces to create a setting that evokes a coherent mood, tone, aesthetic, to enhance the play experience by the intentionality of what we create.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don’t know, as long as your argument for including tortles doesn’t go beyond ‘I’d like to play one’ or ‘Silvery Barbs is really powerful and I want it’, I don’t see why the DM has to do a lot of heavy lifting to justify their exclusion

Okay.

How about dragonborn?

They're in the PHB. In 5.0, they were literally one of the weakest races in the game (hence why they got two revisions before 5.5e). They're a darling for getting banned banned banned banned.

What's wrong with them? They're a core race, low power, extremely popular (at worst #5 after human, elf, half-elf, and tiefling; the last data actually released by DDB indicated they'd risen to #4, overtaking tiefling.) They've been around in some form for two decades (literally, two decades! January 2006!), and things like them have been around since at least 1e (1981, the Argas, from Dragon Magazine, lawful good draconic race-as-class that consumes metals and magic items to gain XP.)

Also, do you not see how this is saying other people--ones making no imposition whatsoever except "I'd like to play the game I was shown"--must jump through hoops, must prove how their participation deserves inclusion, but the GM claiming power and authority and very much imposing a laundry list of impositions has no responsibility whatsoever? They can just do whatever they want and shout "I'm curating!" and all is forgiven.