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Yeah, I think you gotta read "hill giant" more as "baseline giant," i.e., big and smashy, no particular elemental schtick. I share the concern that at least some of these options feel very melee-oriented . . . but I like the idea that in an emergency, you can cast heroism and shillelagh and...

My secret dream is to get a bunch of players together for a AiME one-shot, hand out the setting-appropriate pregen characters, play a little LOTR soundtrack with a Christopher Lee monologue to set the mood, and then five minutes into the adventure . . . modrons, and lots of them.

I'm oversimplifying . . . his point was more that hobbits are a romanticized version of pre-industrialized simple salt of the earth folk, as romanticized by an academic who didn't have much experience with / insight into actual rural folk. All of which I find interesting (like much of what...

Agreed, but initially it was importing these ethnic monsters into a default setting that was still overwhelmingly Northern / Western European. As early as 1st Edition, it progressed to cover fantasy versions of Africa, Asia, etc. . . . Kara-Tur was surely a big step. And then over time, it's...

Not sure I'm tracking with you here. I think elves have always been presented as different from humans, but these new changes make them . . . more differenter. I like the changes because they build upon some existing lore (while contradicting some other stuff, I admit), they seem to reflect a...

Yes --- great story hook. I've also been thinking about how Lawful Good dwarves who just don't get it are an interesting area to explore . . . sort of a Hank Hill thing, where an unquestionably admirable person still has trouble dealing with people and things outside his comfort zone. Come...

Chainmail bikini, but she can't lay with a man until she's beaten him in combat, or she loses her might in battle. The Red Sonja comics have recently done a riff on this with a man --- Osric the Untouched --- but Conan never had that kind of limitation. Not bashing white male lead characters...

I like the idea that the default world for D&D is becoming more inclusive. If someone else wants to go back to Strength limits for female characters and tales of orc rape, go ahead, but I think it's good for game to try to change with the times.

D&D is not "white fiction," is it? It's rooted in a lot of European mythology and history, and in various early fantasy that drew upon that same European mythology and history, sure . . . but the game has continuously moved toward more diversity, more inclusion. Howard had some specific ideas...

I am reminded of Donald Glover's recent take on Lando . . . in a universe with an endless variety of sentient life, some guys are just going to flirt with everything. I dunno . . . I'm glad they are trying to look at some of these classic fantasy races through a different lens (gender fluidity...

I dunno . . . to me, Red Sonja being simulaneously hypersexualized and sexless is pandering. Old-school half-orcs where the default origin story was "rape" is pandering. As much as I love Robert Howard, all of these stories where the purest-blooded white guy crushes the enemy and hears the...

https://www.quora.com/In-Tolkiens-world-how-does-Elvish-reincarnation-work I understand that Tolkien rethought this a number of times and ended up with something quite different . . . elves are eventually "reborn" into recreations of their original bodies, and thereafter live in the undying...

And this stuff, by the way, is why dwarves and elves don't get along. Different on not just a cultural level, but also biological and spiritual --- dwarf souls and elf souls don't operate the same.

Seriously. It's 2018, and I'm ready for elves that aren't just two or three familiar Tolkeinesque subraces or 1990s drow cliches. If you're chaotic good and enjoy several hundred years of youthful vigor, you're gonna want some variety, and if you were a different gender, or a tree, in your...

Interesting! Contradicts the established lore, yes, but in all these years, no one has done anything with the idea that the female gnome deities are "missing," other than (as I recall) noting that gnomes who leave their communities are said to be "searching for the goddesses" (a figure of...

I think that "rock gnomes as scientists" angle has a lot of promise . . . driven by curiosity, relying on innate intelligence and a scientific method (something none of the other races have really picked up on), the rock gnomes seek to understand everything. That's a good hook.

Any interesting stuff about gnomes? I've liked the preview stuff about halflings, talking about how they fit into the universe, and I feel like gnomes need that sort of clarification in 5E. Making them the secretive fey race in 4E was a cool direction, but they seem to have steered away from...

I regret nothing.

WHY ARE GNOMES?

WHY ARE GNOMES?