D&D 5E Companion thread to 5E Survivor: Species

[EzekielRaiden]

If the first two rules of Fight Club are "you do not talk about Fight Club,"
the first two rules of D&D are "you can make your own rules."

And yet, as with races and classes (to again more-or-less bring things back to the topic of the thread), all too often it's either "you'll play what was an option in OD&D and you'll like it" or "you can play humans, or maybe elves I guess" (strongly implying "I really wish you wouldn't.") You can do anything you can imagine, as long as what you imagine isn't this weird newfangled tripe that Kids These Days want, because of <insert video game reference here.>

The third two rules are 'I'm the DM and I don't understand why this is fun for you, so no.'.

Exactly.

I'm not sure I follow. Your DM doesn't understand what you enjoy about the game?

Oh yeah. It's a huge problem. Do you remember, back during the Next playtest, how one of the members of the staff openly joked about how liking dragonborn was this weird bizarro thing he couldn't understand, but that he had slowly, slowly come to terms with? It was very clearly intended to come across as good-natured ribbing. Instead, it reminded me of the multiple times I've had to fight tooth and nail just to get something that interested me, particularly before 4e and its initial semi-normalization of dragonborn. (I say "semi" only because 4e did normalize them, but the haters used that as a rallying cry to oppose the Great Enemy Edition; the fact that dragonborn are now extremely popular in 5e shows that any hate for them in the 4e era really didn't have anything to do with their lack of tradition pedigree or the other "objective" reasons most people cited for disliking them.)

If so, that definitely sucks. But it doesn't sound like a "rules" problem, it sounds more like a "fellow human at the table" problem.

And yet every DM I referred to above saw it as a "rules" problem. "You can't be a half-dragon! Not even a lesser one! That <would be too powerful/doesn't make sense/is just being a special snowflake/etc.>" "Lizardfolk wouldn't worship Bahamut, and even if they did, I won't let you play one,they're evil." "Can't you just play a human? Or maybe an elf, if you want the longer lifespan?" Etc.

It doesn't happen every time. But it happens a lot. Especially if you're going looking for a game because you don't know enough people to play games with, and had difficulties finding in-person games even before the pandemic (I'm painfully shy IRL.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

I'm not sure I follow. Your DM doesn't understand what you enjoy about the game?

If so, that definitely sucks. But it doesn't sound like a "rules" problem, it sounds more like a "fellow human at the table" problem.

It's a culture problem.

 

[CleverNickName]

And yet, as with races and classes (to again more-or-less bring things back to the topic of the thread), all too often it's either "you'll play what was an option in OD&D and you'll like it" or "you can play humans, or maybe elves I guess" (strongly implying "I really wish you wouldn't.") You can do anything you can imagine, as long as what you imagine isn't this weird newfangled tripe that Kids These Days want, because of <insert video game reference here.>
...
And yet every DM I referred to above saw it as a "rules" problem. "You can't be a half-dragon! Not even a lesser one! That <would be too powerful/doesn't make sense/is just being a special snowflake/etc.>" "Lizardfolk wouldn't worship Bahamut, and even if they did, I won't let you play one,they're evil." "Can't you just play a human? Or maybe an elf, if you want the longer lifespan?" Etc.

It doesn't happen every time. But it happens a lot. Especially if you're going looking for a game because you don't know enough people to play games with, and had difficulties finding in-person games even before the pandemic (I'm painfully shy IRL.)

It's a culture problem.

I contend it's a people problem. Specifically, the people at your table. Or maybe it's the people at my table? Because we don't seem to have this kind of power struggle.

Here's the deal: you are never going to find a rule that will force the DM into letting you do something. If you need such a rule in order to enjoy D&D, it's not a problem with the rules.

 

[Argyle King]

Okay. In my experience, there's only one edition of D&D that has actually supported these things well--pretty much your whole list, in fact.


The vast majority of the things you've described are either not rules elements (at least in D&D), or left up to DM adjudication, not set in stone--even in 4e, the edition everyone asserts had a rule for everything. What you're talking about are (in most cases) setting elements, which...will appear in whatever system you use to play that setting. Why not have a system which supports doing cool things and supports, or at least doesn't get in the way of enjoying, the setting elements you care about? E.g. your question about changelings is something that, I'm pretty sure, no game system ever has nailed down that hard, because it's a matter of the culture and psychology of changelings, which is part of setting design, not rules design.

I'm of the belief that fluff and crunch should have a coherent relationship.

If lore and setting information says one thing, but the game rules work in a way which produces conflicting results, it's noticeable.

I don't think it would be difficult to change how the changelings (from upthread) played out with either lore or rules.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I contend it's a people problem. Specifically, the people at your table. Or maybe it's the people at my table? Because we don't seem to have this kind of power struggle.

Here's the deal: you are never going to find a rule that will force the DM into letting you do something. If you need such a rule in order to enjoy D&D, it's not a problem with the rules.

You're viewing it the wrong way. You're seeing it as "ah, you want to hold a proverbial gun to the DM's head and make them behave X way. That will never work."

I'm not asking for that. I'm asking for a game that clearly shoots down all of the supposedly objective things people put up as excuses. "That's overpowered!" No, it isn't, because this game is actually well-made. "That's totally inappropriate for D&D themes!" No, it's not, because it's purposefully been included, it's a part of what D&D is even if you don't like that. "Fnords are all evil!" No, they aren't, unless you've made them that way--in which case, your answer is simply equivalent to "I don't like that, so I forbid it"--you may as well at least be honest about it.

More or less, if someone's going to ban things, I want them to be honest about it. Better to say to my face, "I think the thing you want is dumb, so I won't let you or anyone else have it" than to give this song-and-dance pretense that (generic) you just couldn't do that, as though (generic) you would if only this one serious problem weren't there.

I'm of the belief that fluff and crunch should have a coherent relationship.

Fully agreed. I love Dungeon World because it makes extremely clear what the rules are for and when they should fire. (E.g. for the latter: "you have to do it, to do it" and "when you do it, you do it.") Likewise, I love 4e and 13A because they strive to make the rules BE flavor/fluff in their own right, which you can then modify or replace as needed. Same destination, one sails up from the south, the other down from the north. I find 3e frustrating because it actually does try to have a rule for everything, and yet the rules are so full of holes and faults that they can't comport with several explicit lore elements, even very basic ones like a functioning economy (e.g. two 10' poles are more valuable than a 10' ladder made using 10' poles.)

If lore and setting information says one thing, but the game rules work in a way which produces conflicting results, it's noticeable.

Though there is a reverse side to this: the same rules might work with multiple different lore descriptions, and a single lore description might be compatible with more than one implementation via rules.

I don't think it would be difficult to change how the changelings (from upthread) played out with either lore or rules.

Oh sure, I completely agree. Indeed, I don't even necessarily know either thing needed to change. It mostly just sounds like your DM was kind of a jerk about things. But yes, there are multiple ways to address this issue.

 

[Argyle King]

Fully agreed. I love Dungeon World because it makes extremely clear what the rules are for and when they should fire. (E.g. for the latter: "you have to do it, to do it" and "when you do it, you do it.") Likewise, I love 4e and 13A because they strive to make the rules BE flavor/fluff in their own right, which you can then modify or replace as needed. Same destination, one sails up from the south, the other down from the north. I find 3e frustrating because it actually does try to have a rule for everything, and yet the rules are so full of holes and faults that they can't comport with several explicit lore elements, even very basic ones like a functioning economy (e.g. two 10' poles are more valuable than a 10' ladder made using 10' poles.)


Though there is a reverse side to this: the same rules might work with multiple different lore descriptions, and a single lore description might be compatible with more than one implementation via rules.


Oh sure, I completely agree. Indeed, I don't even necessarily know either thing needed to change. It mostly just sounds like your DM was kind of a jerk about things. But yes, there are multiple ways to address this issue.

I can agree with a lot of what I've quoted here.

I agree that the same rules can work with multiple versions of lore. Some of the other games I play are built around that idea. At the same time, some ways of mechanically doing things better lend themselves to different stories.

I also agree that that particular DM was a jerk. At the same time, later reflections on the situation (especially in 3E) made me realize that there would be very little downside to a changeling behaving that way. It's an at-will ability which easily fools the skills and abilities of the rest of the world. The negative aspects of at-will anonymity in a public space can be seen on social media. There's a reason why places like Enworld have rules and terms of service

In a setting built around a lot of political intrigue among factions, it's a powerful ability to so easily change what a group of people perceive. In thy real world, that's an issue with large companies owning news channels.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Now, the front runner is Kobold (16) with a tie for second between Half-Orc and Forest Gnome. Meanwhile the stragglers are Fire Genasi at 3 and a tie for penultimate (at 7) between Goblin and Githyanki. The dwarf/(half-)elf alliance stands at 52 (small drop) while the non-Shifter "Anthros" stand at 51 (59 with Shifter.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

I contend it's a people problem. Specifically, the people at your table. Or maybe it's the people at my table? Because we don't seem to have this kind of power struggle.

The culture of D&D -- and specifically D&D and it's derivatives -- is to blame for setting up this kind of power struggle. Or rather to try and concentrate all the power in the dynamic into one person who is then encouraged to force their preferences on the rest of the table.

 

[CleverNickName]

The thing is, asking for this:

I'm asking for a game that clearly shoots down all of the supposedly objective things people put up as excuses.

isn't going to look the same for everyone. Unlike the rules for a game, which are words that are printed on a page that will look the same for everyone.

I'm not doing a good job of explaining it. Um, suppose I told you that the 5E rules already does "clearly shoot down all of the supposedly objective things people put up as excuses," because my gaming group doesn't have those difficulties. You would rightly disagree with me because clearly you have experienced them. How can this be a rules problem, if we are both using the same rules?

 

[overgeeked]

The thing is, asking for this:

isn't going to look the same for everyone. Unlike rules, which are words that are printed on a page that will look the same for everyone.

I'm not doing a good job of explaining it. Um, suppose I told you that the 5E rules already does "clearly shoot down all of the supposedly objective things people put up as excuses," because my gaming group doesn't have those difficulties. You would rightly disagree with me because clearly you have experienced them. How can this be a rules problem, if we are both using the same rules?

Because the rules are written in a way that begs for different people to interpret them differently. Clear and precise rules would prevent most honest misinterpretations. You can’t account for people intentionally misinterpreting the rules.