A "Why Oh Why" RPG Thread [+]

[James Gasik]

Interesting. I can kinda see it. Fair is fair!

Why don't rangers have the same limitation, though?

I think it's fair to say that the Ranger doesn't have the same dedication to the wild as a Druid. They are the vanguard for society, blazing new trails and allowing civilization to spread by destroying deadly monsters. I don't recall the lore for the two classes ever being particularly tied either; Rangers don't belong to Druid Circles, and I can certainly see times when they would be both allies and enemies, depending on the circumstances.

Really, the Ranger class has long had an issue with it's core identity, and what it's supposed to be. A Druidic Knight? A warrior with wilderness skills? A hunter of monsters? We're told their magic is similar to a Druid's, yet they've had their own unique spell list for decades (barring that edition where they lost almost all of their primal powers and became hybrid melee/ranged damage dealers).

 

[The Shadow]

Really, the Ranger class has long had an issue with it's core identity, and what it's supposed to be. A Druidic Knight? A warrior with wilderness skills? A hunter of monsters? We're told their magic is similar to a Druid's, yet they've had their own unique spell list for decades (barring that edition where they lost almost all of their primal powers and became hybrid melee/ranged damage dealers).

And now with OneD&D, their spell list is identical to that of the druid's, apart from evocations. (Why do rangers need spells at all, anyway? None of their usual archetypes cast spells. Is it just to give them a rationale to not just be fighters?)

It's always kind of annoyed me that bards are arcane. Legendarily, they're strongly associated with druids. 1e is the only edition to remember that... But it also required them to have thief levels, which was apparently an ethnic slur against the Welsh.

 

[James Gasik]

And now with OneD&D, their spell list is identical to that of the druid's, apart from evocations. (Why do rangers need spells at all, anyway? None of their usual archetypes cast spells. Is it just to give them a rationale to not just be fighters?)

It's always kind of annoyed me that bards are arcane. Legendarily, they're strongly associated with druids. 1e is the only edition to remember that... But it also required them to have thief levels, which was apparently an ethnic slur against the Welsh.

Yeah, the D&D Bard is also a mish-mash of different archetypes that got drunk in a tavern one night and 9 months later gave birth to the class as we know it.

And yeah, I had forgotten D&D ONE is just giving them primal magic.

So as far as Rangers having magic, I don't know. It's often believed that they were trying to emulate Aragorn, who has some exceptional abilities due to his training and Numenorean heritage, but wasn't a magician by any means. So how the 1e Ranger ended up with Druid and M-U spells is a bit odd.

I think in 2e, they decided the Ranger should be a reflection of the Paladin in some respects, which was brought forward in 3e, abandoned in 4e, then brought back with a vengeance in 5e.

I've never minded their magic use, as without it, they might as well be a Subclass of Fighter. But the class is just one of those strange artifacts of D&D. Most characters in fiction you would think of as Rangers wouldn't be a good fit for the class.

Including, amusingly enough, one of the iconic D&D Rangers, Drizzt Do'Urden, who, according to his backstory was originally trained as a Fighter, doesn't often cast spells beyond his native Drow abilities, and whose "animal companion" is a sentient extradimensional creature that is summoned by a magic item- in other words, he's barely a Ranger at all!

 

[Jacob Lewis]

Why oh why is it so hard to have a good Session Zero?

In my experience, a lot of players (and possibly a few GMs) think of Session 0 as their only time to get their characters ready for the next session. Anyone can make a playable character without much effort, especially with access to so many digital tools. And for many players, that is just the right amount of "work" they are willing to put into a game.

Honestly, I don't believe you can accomplish what you want in one session with your average group of players. Even if you are fortunate enough to find the right group of dedicated individuals who are willing to go that extra mile to make your next campaign extraordinary, that kind of preparation requires more than a single meet-and-greet session. It takes time and effort to collaborate and produce something better than a handful of random characters forced together to make a story. But most importantly, it requires a willingness and commitment by all involved to do so.

So, unless you are blessed with a large pool of talented and dedicated players both willing to do more than just come up with a tank, healer, etc., or are willing to go beyond "Session 0" to cultivate the the right kind of characters for your campaign, you might want to lower your expectations and hope for the best.

 

[ART!]

Why oh why...is there a polyhedral dice gap between d12 and d20? I know they exist (how recent a development is this?), but they don't get much if any love or use.

 

[The Shadow]

Why oh why...is there a polyhedral dice gap between d12 and d20? I know they exist (how recent a development is this?), but they don't get much if any love or use.

Platonic solids are cool, and there aren't any between d12 and d20. The d10 snuck in because it's useful.

 

[Jer]

Why oh why...is there a polyhedral dice gap between d12 and d20? I know they exist (how recent a development is this?), but they don't get much if any love or use.

So the original polyhedral dice - d4, d6, d8, d12, and d20 - are all regular polyhedrons and are the platonic solids. They have the nice characteristic that all of their faces are the same size and are all regular polygons and fit together in a regular pattern and so make for good randomizers. I know that d20s and d4s as well as d6s were used in ancient times in dice games (not so sure about the d12 and the d8 off the top of my head). There is no regular polygon between a d12 and a d20.

Now you'll notice that I left off the d10. That's because it's the one of the "core 6" polyhedral dice that is not a platonic solid. Instead it's an irregular polyhedron - it's faces are not regular polygons but instead weird diamonds that fit together in an irregular pattern. The d10 became prominent in the late 1970s - I think I've read it was actually invented in the early 20th century but nobody really used it. Prior to the d10 folks just used a 20 side die numbered 1-10 twice (or just ignored the 10s digit when rolling a d10). But with a d10 you could easily create a d100 and now you had the 1% granularity that so many people wanted.

The rest of the non-platonic dice come into games much later - in the 80s and 90s and even the early 00s. By that point the game had standardized around the dice we know and love (and in fact many folks were arguing that polyhedral dice were overkill and you should be making games with just d6s or d10s). So the embrace of the d14, d16, and d18 has not been terribly widespread.

EDIT - Or what @The Shadow said.

 

[The Shadow]

I've never minded their magic use, as without it, they might as well be a Subclass of Fighter. But the class is just one of those strange artifacts of D&D. Most characters in fiction you would think of as Rangers wouldn't be a good fit for the class.

Even with spell use they could be a fighter subclass.

Some days I think we should go back to the core four classes and make everything else a subclass. Barbarians, paladins and rangers are fighters. Bards are rogues. Druids are clerics or maybe wizards. It's a little harder to shoehorn the sorcerer and the warlock into the wizard, though.

 

[johndesmarais]

(Why do rangers need spells at all, anyway? None of their usual archetypes cast spells. Is it just to give them a rationale to not just be fighters?)

Honestly, this one confuses me as well. I've only ever played xD&D rangers in AD&D - never in any of the "modern" editions of the game - where Rangers don't even get their spells until something like 8th level. Because high-level games were rare for me, I almost never had a Ranger that could cast spells, and still enjoyed playing them as a class distinct from Fighter.

 

[CleverNickName]

So the way this was explained to me is, Druids gain their powers from a pact made with primal spirits of nature. While allowing Druids to use some weapons is "fair", as most Humanoids lack claws or a bite, having access to better "hide" than animals have naturally is not kosher. You want nature powers, you have to abide by nature rules.

But that doesn't really answer the question, though. Plenty of humanoids lack protective shells, scales, etc., too...but oh heavens no, they aren't allowed to cover up with metal for protection. But if they're lacking claws and fangs, metal is acceptable?

It's just so weird and arbitrary; I feel like it should be all-or-nothing. For my part, I'd prefer druids who won't use metal of any kind, not even coins for currency...they fight with spears and bows, their armor is made from chitin and hides, they trade in pearls and pelts, etc. Much more evocative. If you're going to put in a restriction "for flavor," commit to it.

 

[CreamCloud0]

But that doesn't really answer the question, though. Plenty of humanoids lack protective shells, scales, etc., too...but oh heavens no, they aren't allowed to cover up with metal for protection. But if they're lacking claws and fangs, metal is acceptable?

It's just so weird and arbitrary; I feel like it should be all-or-nothing. For my part, I'd prefer druids who won't use metal of any kind, not even coins for currency...they fight with spears and bows, their armor is made from chitin and hides, they trade in pearls and pelts, etc. Much more evocative. If you're going to put in a restriction "for flavor," commit to it.

it'd be an interesting way to add more nuance to weapons and armour if what they were made of gave them different properties, druids weilding weapons made of wood, stone and monster parts.

 

[James Gasik]

But that doesn't really answer the question, though. Plenty of humanoids lack protective shells, scales, etc., too...but oh heavens no, they aren't allowed to cover up with metal for protection. But if they're lacking claws and fangs, metal is acceptable?

It's just so weird and arbitrary; I feel like it should be all-or-nothing. For my part, I'd prefer druids who won't use metal of any kind, not even coins for currency...they fight with spears and bows, their armor is made from chitin and hides, they trade in pearls and pelts, etc. Much more evocative. If you're going to put in a restriction "for flavor," commit to it.

The real interesting part about this is that it implies that Druids didn't exist until after the end of the stone age, where there was any kind of metal to prohibit. Now this is just my headcanon at this point, I have no information to work with, other than the existence of Druid and Priest-adjacent classes in D&D's past, like Angakok's (wait no, those are Wizards), Shamans, Shamani, Spirit Shamans, Shugenja, Witch Doctors, etc..

If you consider that divine powers come from pacts with deities, not dissimilar to the pacts a Warlock makes (there's a major religion in our world that basically starts with a pact someone made with a deity, so I find this credible, especially since there is a story where a pesky magician subverts that pact to gain the power of foresight), then perhaps these pacts are "renegotiated" over time.

In the early days, primal powers didn't have any metal to worry about, but once the bronze age began, maybe when the proto-Druids asked for powers, the primal entities (whatever they are) were like, "hey, you know, I don't mind so much if you harvest the hides and scales of living creatures for defense, but I'm not so keen on this bronze stuff". Or maybe this occurred when the iron age began in earnest. Maybe there's an expiration date on Druid powers, and every so often, the Hierophant has to hammer out a new pact.

This could neatly explain edition changes to their powers, and how Druids snuck in "agricultural and hunting tools" to their weapon list in the first place.

What we're seeing in 5e could be the result of those negotiations going on as we speak, thus explaining that while there is current no actual ban against wearing metal armor, no Druid is going to risk it for fear of torking off the primal powers- and maybe in a few years, those entities will relent and say "sure, fine, you can wear bronze, or even iron armor, but none of this adamantine stuff!"

 

[The Shadow]

The real interesting part about this is that it implies that Druids didn't exist until after the end of the stone age, where there was any kind of metal to prohibit.

I don't think this follows. Druids might have existed from time out of mind, but when this newfangled metal stuff started getting popular, the primal powers put their paw down and said, "Nope. Not for you."

Or maybe this occurred when the iron age began in earnest.

I'm still liking the idea that it's only iron that's a problem. One detects hints of a bronze-using culture getting pushed back by an iron-using one.

(Incidentally, the most radical thing about the switch to iron wasn't its hardness, but its ubiquity. Once you master the smelting of it, you can find it in lots of places... While bronze was tightly limited by the availability of tin.)

 

[Willie the Duck]

Yeah, the D&D Bard is also a mish-mash of different archetypes that got drunk in a tavern one night and 9 months later gave birth to the class as we know it.

So as far as Rangers having magic, I don't know. It's often believed that they were trying to emulate Aragorn, who has some exceptional abilities due to his training and Numenorean heritage, but wasn't a magician by any means. So how the 1e Ranger ended up with Druid and M-U spells is a bit odd.

My take on it has always been that it also was also a way to emulate Aragorn's various not-coded-as-magic abilities in a system which had not yet decided how it was going to do skills and abilities. Ranger first appeared in The Strategic Review #2, which came out a quarter-year after Supplement I introduced Thieves and their skill system. At that point, 'build this like we did the thief abilities' might not have been intuitive, and instead they did what 5e does and 'when in doubt, make it a spell.'

I've never minded their magic use, as without it, they might as well be a Subclass of Fighter. But the class is just one of those strange artifacts of D&D. Most characters in fiction you would think of as Rangers wouldn't be a good fit for the class.

The (okay, 'a') general problem with rangers is the one thing everyone agrees rangers do is survive well in the wilds, and most-likely make good trackers (and usually are good at sneaking). That core identity bleeds out of the class system the instant you have a skill system. 2e is a good example: non-weapon proficiencies became a standard* part of the core, and any fighter could be a passible ranger, so rangers got some extra bells and whistles like can dual-wield in light armor easily to keep their identities distinct.
*Well, 'optional' with a lot of further content, such as kits, not making sense if you didn't use it.

 

[Staffan]

(Incidentally, the most radical thing about the switch to iron wasn't its hardness, but its ubiquity. Once you master the smelting of it, you can find it in lots of places... While bronze was tightly limited by the availability of tin.)

Not just the availability of tin, but the availability of tin and copper in the same place. That usually necessitated trade, so you kind of don't want to mess too much with your potential trading partners. But iron just needs iron, so once you have that you're good (and if you don't, you're effed).

 

[Thomas Shey]

Honestly, this one confuses me as well. I've only ever played xD&D rangers in AD&D - never in any of the "modern" editions of the game - where Rangers don't even get their spells until something like 8th level. Because high-level games were rare for me, I almost never had a Ranger that could cast spells, and still enjoyed playing them as a class distinct from Fighter.

Its a historical artifact.
When the original ranger appeared in The Strategic Review back in the day, the author gave them some spell capability to emulate some of Aragorn's quasi-supernatural abilities, and the element just propagated down over time.

 

[Fenris-77]

I think that at this point, in terms of 5E, the Ranger pretty much has to be a half caster in order to justify it being a separate class. Just my two cents.

 

[Nijay]

Why oh why don't player characters (and any NPCs close to them) discuss/analyze their special status as individuals who rapidly gain in supranormal abilities and fortitude coinciding with the start and end of a series of incidental activities (ie., adventures)?

Socially, adventurers tend to group up with other adventurers, and in that way they are recognizing their special status. Everyone has a role to play in society and are expected to contribute what they can, typically by doing what they are good at. Strong people do strong people stuff. Adventurers adventure. I think adventurers see themselves as just the same as everyone else, having great power means they should do great deeds. They're just in a different guild.

Why oh why aren't retirement goals part of character creation? We are encouraged to write up a backstory and come up with our character's motivation to adventure. But narratively we are never asked to come up with what would make our character stop adventuring. That's left to be handled organically. And after you get your revenge, or rescue your family member, or save your village/the world once or twice, it can be a bit awkward to RP why your character continues. Like, ah, these friends I made along the way are so great, or the world will always need saving, that's motivation enough to risk my life despite having enough of a fortune to do anything I want for the rest of my life. In part, it's the answer I gave above. But is every character de facto motivated to endlessly quest to lvl 20 and beyond, now and forever? It can be hard to retire a character depending on the table. You'd think after running into so many NPC's that were retired adventurers, the idea of retirement would be easier to digest.

 

[Jer]

Its a historical artifact.
When the original ranger appeared in The Strategic Review back in the day, the author gave them some spell capability to emulate some of Aragorn's quasi-supernatural abilities, and the element just propagated down over time.

Yup. The original Ranger got a single Cleric spell at 8th level and the ability to use healing magic items. Then the ability to cast a MU spell at 9th level instead of a cleric spell and the ability to use scrying items. It's pretty clear that the influence on the author was Aragorn, and the lack of a skill system in original D&D meant that to have those kinds of abilities they should be spells I guess. The shift to AD&D moved it from Cleric and MU to Druid spells because I guess Gygax thought "woodsman would have woodsy spells" (and maybe to make him a little less Aragorn-y for legal reasons, who knows?)

The shift to the half-caster in 3e came about for the same reason the Paladin (who also didn't get spells until I think 9th level) became a half-caster - to move the fun abilities that characters got into the levels that people were actually playing the game at and open up some design space for those classes to make them distinct from the fighter.

 

[The Shadow]

Why oh why aren't retirement goals part of character creation?

Interesting! I suspect it's mostly because if you're having fun, you don't want to think about ending it.

Plus, well... Once the player is past a certain age... It's a little too depressing.